Change in plans!!!

Friday I had the day all planned, but things did not go my way. I was going to Starbucks, then to the hairdresser for color and highlights, then grocery store and sometime late, late, late in the afternoon I would return home to well behaved clean kids and a clean house, then I would blog a bit and then pack to go to Chatt. I know such a dream!!!!! My darling husband had other plans. Now, I don't think they were the plans he had planned either, but let's just say that Friday did not go as planned. Here is a photo of some of our weekend fun:

Did you catch what changed our plans? Here let's go in for a close up: Yep, that blue thing is the culprit!!!! Doug hurt his hand on Wednesday(I will let him explain how, just ask him!!!!), on Thursday it was about 3 times the size it should be so Friday morning he went to the doctor, had an x-ray, then to an orthopedic to have a cast applied. This took ALL day. We were all tired by the time we got home and as we got the kids to bed, it stormed and the electricity went off. So, we just went to bed too. The kids both ended up in our bed, so it was not really restful, but par for our Friday!!! I am glad Friday is over!!!

VBS Fun

Several weeks ago we went to VBS. The kids had a blast. This was the first year that Elijah got to go to the actual VBS and not the preschool area for worker's kids. He really loved all of the activities. I think he learned a lot. I was one of the teachers in his class. That was good and bad. I really liked getting to see him with his friends, but if he did not like something he would whine to me. Over all it was great. Sarah was in the preschool area. She was in the 3 yr old class due to the 2 year old class being a little large and several really active kids that we thought would over-stimulate her. She did great in the 3 year old class, but I did notice her getting carried and held a lot. It took a few days to reverse that!!! I did not realize until now that I do not have any pictures of Sarah at VBS. They are all Elijah and our class. I will have to do better next year!!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Enjoying Smores!!!!

Hey girlie, that is mommy's smore!!!!!

Have a great day!!!

Catching up

Well, this is going to be one of those all over the place post. Sorry. I am so far behind on posting on our happenings that I am going to try to catch-up and keep up this week(I know wishful thinking!!!).

Potty training, well what can I say. Prissy will only pee on the potty only if and when she decides. The rest of the times she pees right in front of me and giggles. So frustrating. I know she can do it, she knows she can do it, but she can control the situation and she is stubborn that way, so guess it will be what it will be for now. I have decided to put her on the potty at the same time each day. If she pees, she pees, if not she will at her choosing. I am putting her in pull-up not training panties, since I am tired of cleaning up the pee. Just a little frustrating on my part. I know for most kids they will do it when they do, but with Down syndrome they can be stubborn sometimes and well, you have to work around that. So, to avoid the frustration to me and her we are stepping back and doing the timed training for now. The stress will be off both of us. She will do it, I am sure of it.

I got to meet the speech therapist that Sarah will have at preschool in the fall. She was VERY nice. I am so glad. I am really getting nervous about both kiddos starting school in the fall. Sarah will continue private therapy, but she will also get two 30 min sessions of speech, occupational, and physical therapy a week at preschool. So her therapies will be doubled in the fall. I can not wait to see her fly!!!! I am so greatful to God blessing us with a surprise insurance addition that will pay for more therapies than what we thought she would be able to get after she aged out of the early intervention program at age 3.

Sarah had her service plan updated last week and she has made more strides in her achievement. She is cognitively and socially on a 3 year old level, so age appropriate!!!!! She is fine and gross motor and self help on a 2-2.5 yr old level, so not far behind. On speech she is at 18-24 months, so still not bad. She has been more vocal lately, but only if she wants too. There are still days she does not say anything but momma. She is really into action songs, dancing, and pretend playing. Dora and Elmo are her favorite cartoons. Hmm, maybe she is talking in spanish and I just don't know it?!?!

Elijah is having a great summer and is really enjoying the new house. He completed one session of swimming lessons and will start another today. I will do a whole post on this later!!!

VBS went great. The kids loved it and the first day was the only day that Sarah got over stimulated and had a rough last hour or so, the rest of the week was great. I will also do a post on this later.

We have really enjoyed having friends over and I will post pictures of the fun(well at least of the get-togethers that I have thought to take pictures!) in a later post.

Hmmm, lots of later post!!! Guess you will have to keep checking back!! We are still waiting in our adoption progress. It is about time to do an update. I have been a bit more anxious the last few weeks, but ultimately I am at peace where I am in our family size. I love my kids and know that they are perfect. If we never have another child I am fine with that. I helped out in nursery one day at church---a big mistake!!!! I just love that baby stage, even the nighttime feedings!!!

My stomach is about the same. Still waiting on the results of the biopsy and then I will go for an ultrasound. I have a doctor's appointment the first of July, so we will know more then.

Thanks if you have made it this far. For that you deserve a few pictures!!!! So here are a few pictures of the kids at the playground at the Down syndrome association picnic.

Potty training day 2

Okay, today has to go better. I don't think it could get worse than yesterday. At least I pray that it does not get worse. It was not pretty around here. Sarah would sit on the potty and play, read books, watch TV, but she refused to pee. She would get up and go a foot and squat and pee. She would just look at me and giggle. The little stinker!!! I even tried chocolate, no use. Then we had a horrible storm and we were in the laundry room with no electricity and the wind was blowing hard and she asked to pee, go figure. I could not get the potty seat in time and I did not want to take her out of the safe area, so I cleaned up the puddle and put her in a pull up. Daddy brought her some Dora panties home and things did get a little better. She did pee-pee 2 times last night on the potty and just one accident. This morning she has pee-pee'd twice on the potty and no accidents. So praying the Dora panties and chocolate make a difference today!!! She stayed dry all week last week at VBS, so I know she can do it, it just has to be what Sarah wants. I had her timed potty trained in the winter, but then she got sick and that went out the door, so praying this time that it holds!! It would be great not to have to buy pull-up or use cloth diapers!!!!!!! I could splurge on more hairbows for her!! I found a great consignment shop here that has hand-made bows for sale. They are cute! I am sure she will love that(hmmm, maybe she refuses to potty in fear that I will make her wear more bows.........hmmm, I could splurge on me!!!! The kids have tons of clothes!!).

Elijah's Room

Today we will tour Elijah's room. He wanted a space room. It was a little hard to find affordable accessories, but gradually we found them. He wanted an all blue room with black/dark blue ceiling for the sky. The bottom half was already painted red, and I really did not want to try to cover red paint. I found the material for his bedspread and convinced him that the red on bottom, grey on top and a darker gray for the ceiling would be space colors. So I only had to paint the top half and ceiling, much better!! Although the ceiling was not easy, man we have some tall ceilings!!! He is really loving the space stuff. The stars and planets glow in the dark. His room is much cooler at night. FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!

Potty training boot camp has started. Sarah stayed dry all last week for the VBS workers. They thought she was potty trained. The little stinker is not being as good for me. We are only at 8:30 and she has peed once on the potty and twice in her pants. So, we are not doing so well!!! She will get it. I think she is getting up too fast after using the potty and is not emptying, so she pees again a few minutes later in her pants. We will figure it out!!!!

Hall Bathroom

Here is the hall bathroom. It was neon yellow. I painted it the same blue as the other house, since my mom had bought me stuff to redo my bathroom as part of my Christmas present!! I love the blue and the chocolate brown combination. I really liked the glass tiled candles in front of the mirror in the other bathroom. Hmmm, guess I could get a mirror tile to go on the shelf behind them in this bath. Wow, what a great idea. I knew blogging was good for me!!!

I have been having severe abdominal pain over the last several months. Really it has been going on for about 5 years and was just occasionally, but is now a daily thing. I went in today for a scope of my stomach to rule out ulcers and the "C" word. Praise the Lord, both were ruled out. I do have gastritis, but the doctor does not think it is bad enough for my pain. I am on a new med and if it does not work I will have more test. I took it earlier today and now my stomach is killing me! Wonder how long to decide this is not working! I did get tons of sleep today!!!! Hope I feel well rested tomorrow!

Sarah's Room

Okay, VBS is over so I will get back to the house tour!!! The bonus room is on the same side of the house as the master room, but it is never clean, so I will post on it later! Going right at the front door you come to Sarah's room next. We painted it and decorated her room as close to her other room as possible so she would not have a hard transition. It really did not seem to bother her that we moved. She really seems to love our new home. We have modified the room already. She was given a Dora kitchen set by my cousin that her daughter had outgrown. We put it in Sarah's room since she LOVES Dora. My cousin also gave us a Dora play house with all of the accessories. I am planning on giving that to her for her birthday. We are going to have a Dora party. She is going to be so excited!!!! Sarah is getting so independent these days!! She now climbs out of the toddler bed, so I have started taking the additional side rail off at naps. She does not climb out during the night so I put it back on at night so she will not roll out of the bed. She has decided to talk this week and is saying a lot on days she decides to talk! She is growing up too fast!!!!

"aira u"

These were words that made me grin from ear to ear with pure joy tonight!!!!! Sarah for the first time in about a year said her name "aira". She said it numerous times as we were playing. I then asked her how old she was and after trying to get her fingers to work and not succeeding, she screamed "U". I was jumping up and down praising her!!! She was right she is 2!!!!!! She has never said how old she was or even acted like she understood what we were talking about. I never said to her that she was 2 tonight, she knew!!! We worked on her getting her fingers up right and she just kept saying "aira u" over and over!!!!! She even put the "s" on her name occasionally and said two several times also. I was just talking to her speech therapist today about increasing her speech time because I felt she was falling further behind in speech. Sarah never ceases to amaze me with what she has accomplished in just her 2 years of life. What a miracle child God created in our Sarah. God is such an awesome God!!!!

I will get back to the house tour later this week. We have a crazy busy week this week. We have VBS in the morning, Elijah started swimming lessons tonight, Sarah has 3 therapy sessions, Pop-pop and Karen are coming this weekend, and I still have not unpacked from Nana's!!! I will post as I can this week!!!

Master Bedroom

Off of the kitchen is four options. One is into our bedroom, the next door is the laundry room, then the stairs to go to the bonus room, and lastly the door into the garage. It is a bit strange to be right off the kitchen, but oh well, it works. Our room is large and gets lots of light. Compared to all of our other bathrooms this one is huge. I LOVE the extra large jetted tub. If I go missing for days, try the tub first. It is so relaxing!!!! We also have a shower and a huge walk-in closet with a dressing table for me and tons of room for clothes(sorry you will have to image the closet, it is not neat at the present time!!! My cousin sent Sarah tons of clothes and they are in our closet for now!!!) The only thing that I do not like about our room is the lack of doors on the bathroom and closet. Of course they are also arched so they require a custom door or the arch to be filled in. I can not figure out the reasoning on no doors. I hung a curtain from the bedroom into the bath so when Doug gets up at 5am he does not awaken me. I need all of the beauty rest I can get!!! I also hung a curtain from the bath into the closet. I did not want company to be using the bathroom and stare at my messy closet!!! I know I am vain. I am really loving our new home. The tour is almost complete, just 4 more rooms to show. Two of which will require some cleaning prior to picture taking, so guess I better go get to cleaning!!

Commercial Break

Just a quick break from the house tour to show off my beautiful children!!! Here they are playing dress-up. Ignore the paci, Mrs. Irene. Sarah had strep and I was trying to keep her throat moist so she would drink!!! We threw the paci away already!!!!

Kitchen

Here is my kitchen. I love it. I really like the solid surface countertops and my hardwood floors. I am so glad that I also have wood cabinets that have never been painted. All of the houses I have owned have had painted cabinets, I hate painted cabinets. My kitchen is nice and roomy. We have a eat in area and an area to sit at the counter. I have not gotten the high chairs to sit at the counter yet, but soon.

Dining Room

Turning left at the front door you enter the formal dining room. This room opens up into the kitchen(hmmm, dirty kitchen. I will need to clean the kitchen before I take those photos!!!). We have used our formal dining room a few times since we moved in. I hope to use it more in the future. I enjoy having friends over and using my formal dishes and serving pieces.