Recent things

We went to Calicinto Ranch with our little preschool. It was such a fun day. I will miss that place--I've been there four years in a row now!
Here's the whole group. (Some are younger siblings.)

Riding the horse--wow doesn't he look excited. I've noticed sometimes he hides his excitement on purpose--he really was excited about it.

Julianna was in a school play with her mainstream 1st grade class. They did 3 plays, hers was "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." She was a sheep. She didn't have any lines, but she was supposed to read together with some other kids in the class. I'm so proud of her for walking up there by herself and being with the group. By the way, her teacher said she can read 45 words a minute now. She's made so much progress this year!

There she is again, a little nervous, but she did it!

Blake with his coach tonight at the awards ceremony/pizza party. We really liked his coach and hope to have him again next year. He has a real trophy now! The ball spins around--Blake actually wanted to sleep with it tonight, he liked it so much.

Blake at his last game while he was sitting out. When I told him to smile, he said, "SOCCER!"

With his team getting their snack at the last game. Blake ALMOST scored a goal in this game. Actually, he thought he did. He kicked the ball toward the net (miraculously) and watched as it slowly went toward the goalie. The goalie picked it up and then the ref blew the whistle. Blake looked at me and said, "I got a goal!" I smiled and said, "Almost!" He then gave a confused look. So I had to tell him that he needs to get the ball into the net, not just to the other goalie. It was really cute. But for being his first time, he did a great job--the coach had him play a lot and would pull him aside to talk to him about how to play and improve. It was a fun soccer season!

Here's a little video of him playing, a few weeks ago.

The end!

Easter fun

At Nana Foote's house for her 86th birthday celebration.
Our Easter picture using the timer.

The mess after they opened their baskets. While I was getting ready for church, the kids decided to put EVERY Easter sticker they got on the coffee table. I heard them whispering, "Mommy's coming, say surprise," so I came in, and they said, "Surprise, Mommy! We made the table pretty!" They were pretty proud of themselves.

Excited to get their fun Easter baskets from Grandma Shaw, plus their little Easter egg hunt in our house.

Our Easter was good--we went to the temple the day before and a had a good experience. Then Easter Sunday we had our own family dinner after church and just relaxed.

Thanks for all your comments about my previous post--they were so nice to read!

Best news in a long time

On April 21st, we had the biggest blessing come to our family in a very long time. Julianna was evaluated by the Inland Regional Center and finally qualified for services. We have been fighting them since she was 3, but year after year they did not qualify her for this reason or that. Two years ago after her evaulation and denial, we thought we were done trying with them and decided to move on. But 6 months ago, I felt strongly that I needed to try one more time. My persistence paid off, not to mention the MANY prayers being said for her to get this help. So now that she's a client, she will get services IN THE HOME--something we have needed for a long time. It's great that she can go to school and get help there, but she comes home and we struggle with how to help her in daily living skills, behaviors, the list goes on and on. Very soon there will be trained people coming here to help Julianna in the home, plus we might get respite care as well. The best part is the regional center will be there for her when she is an adult, so we don't need to worry about that anymore.

Since getting this long-awaited yes (almost a week ago) it is amazing how much my spirits have been lifted. I feel like a brand new mom, like I can do anything now. Just knowing that I have more support coming has seriously brightened my whole attitude toward life! A huge burden has been lifted for sure, and now I don't have that little nagging feeling inside saying, "She needs more help," because she has it now.

The big shocker from this evaluation--the psychologist feels strongly that Julianna does NOT have autism, but global delays, anxiety and sensory issues, and perhaps motor tics--they said she is a "unique girl." We are getting closer to figuring her out. Regardless, she is still our Julianna, and we love her just the way she is! We are so lucky to have such a smart, funny, beautiful little girl.

Thanks to all of you who were praying and thinking of us!

Autism video

My mom shared this video, and I wanted to post it here, in honor of autism awareness month. Julianna isn't nearly this severe, and she talks a LOT, but she has her own issues, many related to sensory and anxiety/OCD. I hope you can learn from this video to see what it's like for kids with autism.

Spring Break happenings

I celebrated my 29th birthday. Last year in my 20's! Blake always has to do something silly in pictures now.

Some good friends "egged" our door as a birthday surprise for me. We didn't see it until Joel left for Priesthood session--we were inside watching conference, or in the backyard working. It was pretty sneaky, and it totally made my day!

My birthday present was a raised bed garden--I really want to learn how to garden this year. Here I am with Blake during our "groundbreaking" ceremony. We also went to a movie as a family and a few days earlier, Joel and I went to the temple and had lunch together. It was a great birthday.

When the yard was being done, we moved our trampoline to the concrete, and the kids thought it was extra fun to jump on it this way.

A "before" shot of our yard, just one side of it. The weeds were out of control!

And the "after" shot. We had the ground cleared, and sprinklers and grass installed. The other side of the yard is dirt for now until we get a swingset, and the trampoline is moved over there again, and there's room to expand my garden. We love having grass, finally! We will plant in the edges as we go--we just wanted the grass in for now. We also finally caught the gopher that's been living in our yard for YEARS.

We've also had lots of soccer during the break--2 games and a few practices. Here's Blake ready to go to his first soccer game.

Here's his coach talking to him before the game--the pictures are blurry because I was sitting far away.

Standing in his position. Whenever the whistle blew, he was VERY good at going back to his position. In fact, he might have been the only kid who did this. He seemed a little shy when the ball actually came within kicking range, but he was very good at chasing that ball everywhere. He played the ENTIRE 30-minutes (I think his coach forgot to switch him out). At the end of the game, he said, "I kicked the ball THREE times!" We asked him how many times he will kick it in the next game, and he said, "Um, like 20 times!" He is liking soccer and whenever we are getting his "uniform" on he says, "I'm a soccer player now."

Spring break is almost over now...it's been fun!

Soccer

We signed Blake up for indoor soccer. He's on a team with two boys from church. On the way to his first practice, he cried and CRIED and said he didn't want to play. When we got there, his friends were kicking the ball around, and he loved it within two minutes. He is so competitive and loves to play hard. When the practice was over, he said, "I won, Mom. I got a goal." He's never played any sport, so for being his first time ever kicking a ball or playing, I thought he did really well. Now we have a ball for him to practice at home. I'm excited to see how he does in his first sport. I can already tell he's going to be athletic. More pictures to come from Blake's first soccer team.

Catch-up post

The kids playing their "drums" after church today. Blake uses his spoons to hit the metal spoon/spatula as his "cymbals."

This is what's been keeping me busy lately--preparing our RS Birthday Celebration. I loved how it turned out--so beautiful decorated with everyone's antiques, and a wonderful program. It was a lot of fun to plan out, but now I feel like I can take a deep breath.

After I went to a "rockstar" baby shower, I came home with these cool glasses. Blake loved them, put them on, and went to get his guitar to really be a rockstar.

The "snow" that we got on the daythere was supposedly snow on the forecast out here (which is not common!) It was more like lots of hail that mostly collected on the trampoline and Blake and Joel made snowballs out of it.

Another picture from the snowy day--there was snow on the mountains right behind our house--I've never seen this before. This picture was taken from my car window while Joel was selling his civic, in the picture, to our mechanic. He got a new car, Chevrolet Cobalt, so the civic is gone! Now I'm the one with the old car.

We took a trip to Garden Grove to visit my sister Cindel while my mom was there. Here are the cousins together--the best picture we could get! We went to IKEA and had fun. Blake and Julianna loved Olive's toys.

The puppy that showed up on our back door right before Valentine's day. This dog immediately warmed up to our family. It was late when found the dog, and church was the next morning, so it stayed with us until after church and slept at the bottom of our stairs. I am not a dog person, but I really loved this dog. After church we put up signs, and it turns out it's our next-door neighbor's dog! We were sad to see it go, but since then it has escaped a few more times, eager to come visit us again. I love this dog! And that is a big deal. Maybe we can get a dog like this--someday?

In other news, I've had to stop running for about a week or so because I injured my foot! I was reaching to get something out of a cupboard while standing on a chair, and a very heavy, old aluminum thermos fell directly on the top of my foot. I thought I broke my foot, the pain was so bad. But after icing it for a few hours, I was able to at least limp around. Of course the next daywas when we were going to buy the car, so I had no choice but to walk on it, and the day after that I had to teach in Relief Society, so I knew I'd be standing on my foot the whole time! But amazingly it has gotten better each day, but not enough to where I feel comfortable to run. I am only 4 weeks away from the half marathon, so I don't know what I'm going to do.

Well, I feel better being caught up now!