Creative day!

So, I spent way too much time on the computer this weekend. But it felt good to have the creative juices flowing again! These first two are going to be magnets for a magnet swap, and then the other two use kits that will be available at DSP in November.
Magnets removed due to Quirky friends sneaking a peek before I get these in the mail! I'll put them back up in a couple of days, when people start receiving them! (Bad Graybonnie!)

Details, details!

See this lovely lady? She's my grandma. See her shirt? Yup, it says, "I make stuff up". There could not be words more true. She doesn't lie, nor deliberately mislead. She just, ahhhhh, adds details to stories. Or if you ask her a question and she doesn't actually know the answer, she'll give you her opinion. But she just might forget to tell you that it's her opinion instead of factual information. And the cutest part? She giggles like a school girl if you accuse her of adding to her stories.

I asked my blog pals to talk about inherited traits. My grandma's habit seems to be making it's way down the line. I've noticed my mom's stories are becoming a bit more detailed than they used to be. And me, well, I'm aware of the urge to elaborate. I'm hoping that's all it is at this point!

I bring this up in response to the many emails, comments, and messages I've received recently about George. First of all, thank you! We all appreciate your words of support and encouragement. Second of all, I don't know much more than what I wrote in the post on Oct. 3rd. It is so tempting to answer the many questions I've received with my thoughts and hopes, instead of the specifics of the doctor's words. George has gone through several more tests with the school district and we will have our evaluation meeting next week. It is my assumption that he will be put into a small special ed class for three year olds at that time. I say this based on the testing he did today and the fact that I was taken to view the class and meet the teacher. We won't actually know until next week, however.

So, in the interest of not adding details to this story-in-progress, I will stop here and add updates as they come in!

Vacation fun

Hi all! We're still here, I promise! We've had family visiting for the last week, so we've been very busy having fun! Having Gramma & Papa here for that long made it so Jason and I could go away for a whole weekend!! GASP!! We realized we have never done that! Not even before we were married with children. We've gone lots of places, but never done the whole tourist thing. So we headed up north for a marathon of Washington D.C. touring.

We walked the Capital Mall:








Spent hours in several Smithsonian museums:
















And, oh yeah, met an astronaut (Buzz Aldrin):








I will try to write more later today and catch up with my DSP blog pals, but I have a house to clean and frankly, I'm exhausted from my vacation! No one told me that I ought to train for six months to ready myself for two days of sightseeing!

Yummy, yummy!

Guess what! I spent $2,239.00 today!! Wahoo!!!!!!!!

You know what makes that great? I spent it on airplane tickets!! I'm headed home, baby! Oh yeah, my family is coming too, we'll be spending the holidays with family and enrolling Emma in Kindergarten in Oregon for the spring term. Jason will have to return here for a couple of months, but then he'll join us and in May will start a new job somewhere in Oregon or Washington.

I was higher than a kite earlier, once I had the tickets in hand. Then I started feeling depressed. It's hard to wait, I want to be there NOW! We want to go to the ocean, drive through a coffee kiosk, wear jeans and flannel shirts everyday, and so much more. It will be hard on Jason, leaving us there to finish up his job here and put the house on the market. But I know the time will fly!

The best part of going home? Well, other than being surrounded by family, of course. The food!! Let's see, what am I going to (politely) ask Mom to make? Apple pies (her specialty), enchiladas, canned spaghetti with fresh cabbage (Yuk, you say? Sorry, it's a family tradition from her childhood. Just the thought of it makes my mouth water!), homemade chicken soup, and Jello with fruit inside. Most everything else, I make myself, but those are a few that I always ask of her.

Hungry? Here's a recipe for some mashed potatoes I made last week. YUM!!

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes - serves 6

3 lb. red potatoes
1 whole head garlic
1 Tbs. chicken broth
1/2 tsp. olive oil
1/2 C. milk, warmed
1 Tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 deg.
2. Place potatoes in large saucepan & cover w/ water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover & cook 25 minutes (or until tender). Drain & let cool. Remove & discard skins, if desired. Transfer to large bowl.
3. Cut 1/4" from top of garlic head to expose cloves. Place head, root end down, in a small baking dish. Add broth & drizzle w/ oil. Cover w/ foil & bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil & back 5 - 10 minutes, until cloves are very soft. Remove from oven. Using a wooden pick, remove cloves from their skins & add to the potatoes.
4. Add the milk, butter, salt & pepper. With an electric mixer on medium speed or w/ a potato masher, mash the mixture until smooth.

Serve immediately, or brown in oven for 5 minutes just before serving.

YUM!! Hungry now, must go forage for food!

Full Beauty

I just had to share this one. Something about this photo really struck me and I can't stop looking at it!

Quote to share

I asked my blog pals to share a favorite, or timely, quote today. This one seemed appropriate for me.

If my scrapbooking friends would like to use this, here's a link to the PNG file: http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1300/someonetodayor7.png

The A Word

I mentioned in a previous post that George was going to be having some medical testing this week. We went up to the University hospital yesterday to meet with a specialist. It was a long afternoon, but George did great. The nurses and doctor were great with him, and most of the visit was spent just talking about his behavior, so George was able to just relax and play.

Final result, George is on the Autism spectrum. Not Aspergers, like we had thought might be a possibility, the fact that he still really doesn't talk disqualifies him. Asperger's kids are late talkers, but not to the extent he is. He has normal or even above age appropriate motor skills, but his verbal skill and direction following abilities are about the level of a 12 -18 month old. That large gap is what determines Autism. The third area they need to study is his social skills, but that can't be quantified until he's in a school setting, so we need to get him into Head Start as soon as possible.

With help in his verbal and social areas, he should be able to progress with his age group in school, which was our biggest worry. He's considered very low level, high functioning Autistic. Assuming he gets the help he needs, the doctor feels his Autism will be unrecognizable by the time he's done with schooling.

None of this was really surprising to us, but it's all a lot to process. We're all completely drained. But I'm SO glad we pushed to see the specialist, now we know to get him some help beyond just the speech therapy. George is such a happy kid and I'm grateful to know that we have a path to follow and resources to help us.

We love you, buddy!

Seven Years Ago....

Geeks R Us

In every neighborhood we've lived in, we've been known as "that family that walks". We try to go for a walk every night after dinner to walk off that extra piece of bread we didn't need, enjoy the evening air, and keep the kids moving until bath time. Our neighbors watch for us and wave, asking us how far we walk (usually a mile) and where we've been if we miss a day (or a week) or two.

Usually, George rides in the stroller and Emma runs ahead of us, looking for leaves and rocks and acorns and bugs and....well, you get the idea. But for the last couple of nights, we've had George walk. He makes it most of the way, spending the last block or so up on Daddy's shoulders. Having him walk has greatly lengthened our walking time, but it's good for him and since those walks are when we have most of our family conversations, we enjoy it.

Last night we became not only "that family that walks", but also "that geeky family that walks". We spent much of the walk doing math. I kid you not. Emma was showing us the five weeds and five leaves she had gathered, and commenting on how fun that was because she's five years old. So Jason asked her, "What's five plus five plus five?" She continued walking quietly and I bet Jason a million dollars that she would get it right. Guess who's now a million dollars richer?

She thought that was so much fun, that we continued doing simple addition and subtraction the whole way home. So, if you're out in your yard some night and you hear the sound of scuffing feet and shrieks of, "92 plus 8 is 100!", you'll know that geeky family that walks is nearby.