My Week

Apparently I've used up my free amount of picture storage for my blog.  Not sure what to do next.  Fellow bloggers, what do you do?

Little Miss and Pumpkin each came home with colds from school last week.  Hubby & I both came down with it soon after and as much as we tried to avoid it, so did Champ.  Needless to say, this week has been pretty rough.  Poor baby still is in the getting worse stage.  Right now I'm monitoring him to make sure it doesn't go into his lungs. :(

We're almost ready for Christmas.  We have to finalize our menu for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas brunch and pick up one last gift tomorrow [at the mall! three days before Christmas! EEK!]  How are your holiday preparations?

Hubby's family is getting together for their usual New Year's celebration.  With some unexpected help from others [another post] we were able to put together Christmas, pay bills, and save some gas money to make the drive.  Now we just need baby boy to get over his cold, otherwise Hubby and the older kiddos will travel without us.

How's your week?

Thanksgiving Plans

We're having a simple meal here at our house.  We'll also be feeding the elders (church missionaries).  We are expecting to feed seven people, with maybe a few surpise guests.

If the baby wasn't so close to coming we would have traveled to WY, where Hubby's brother lives.  We went there two years ago.  This would have included 15+ people.

Last year we went AZ, where Hubby's sisters and mom live, and had almost 30 people together.

Thanksgiving is Hubby's favorite holiday because he gets to cook a huge meal for those he cares about.

What are your plans?

Kids Update

After Pumpkin showed delays at his two year appointment, he was referred and tested for speech, developmental delays, and autism traits.  He was delayed in several areas, and for the time being, the doctors felt that PDD-NOS best described Pumpkin.  He began ABA therapy after the children's winter break.

With this new information I pursued testing for Little Miss.  She had always had spectrum traits, but we were told her issues revolved around her ADHD.  With Munchkin and Pumpkin now on the spectrum, I wanted to rule out or confirm where Little Miss sat.  We confirmed the ADHD, and that she too had PDD-NOS.  The doctors felt her symptoms were not severe enough socially to say Asperger's.  After months of waiting for paperwork we are now in the process of trying to get ABA services for Little Miss.  Hopefully, by July she'll be able to start.

Once we passed the hurdle of beginning services for Pumpkin, we had the right information to begin Munchkin.  He started about a week after his little brother.  Needless to say, our schedules have gone from busy to packed.  Having the early intervention for Pumpkin has helped so much.  Oh how I wish we had been able to start Munchkin sooner, or that we were taken seriously when he was Pumpkin's age and could have have early intervention then.  Progress with Munchkin is slow and steady, but I am grateful.  Pumpkin has come leaps and bounds.

ABA is applied behavioral analysis.  Behavior interventionists work one on one with the children for two hours a day, five days a week.  Pumpkin's is entirely in home.  Munchkin spends two days a week at the main location and has the opportunity to build his social skills with other spectrum children receiving ABA services.

It is my hope that Little Miss will also see some improvement and benefit by receiving ABA therapy.  Having three out of three kids with autism spectrum traits can be overwhelming, and keeps you busy, but they are all unique and have wonderful things about who they are and the things they enjoy and the love they sometimes share.

More info found here:

What is PDD-NOS?


What is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)?
here's a blog about ABA
Prior posts on this blog:

Our Exceptional Children, Part I
Our Exceptional Children, Part II
Our Exceptional Children, Part III

Our Christmas Meal

I can't really call it our Christmas Breakfast this year (2011), as we didn't eat until 4PM.  You can see that our traditional family meal for Christmas is breakfast related, it was merely delayed due to attending church services in the morning.

As mentioned in previous Christmas posts [here, here, and here], we have a large breakfast/brunch on Christmas morning.  This year was only different in the time on the clock.  We asked for everyone's participation an input and we had a feast.  Those that needed to had a small breakfast before church and snack after; everyone else took the time to fast.

Our Christmas Meal:
Waffles
Eggs
Hash browns
Sausage links
French Toast [non-dairy]
Biscuits and Gravy [non-dairy]
Cream of Wheat [non-dairy]
Orange Juice
2% Milk
Almond Milk
Condiments of ketchup, fake and real maple syrup

Ready for Church on Christmas

I really enjoy having church on Christmas.

Growing up my family went to either the 7pm family service or the 1145pm late night Christmas Eve service, and again for the 10am Christmas Day service.  Well, at least one of those but the intention was to go to both Christmas Eve and Day service.


On Christmas morning we all got up and showered and went to church, actually Sacrament Meeting. 

After church and before everyone dispersed into the house I asked if we could take a picture on our back steps.

 

Christmas Eve 2011

This year we invited our missionaries over for Christmas Eve dinner, a newer tradition our family started after moving to San Diego.  Before bed we kept with our tradition of reading from the scriptures about Christ's birth.

 The only pictures of Hubby on Christmas Eve were this one, one you could see up his nose, and a third with is leg and foot.  As you can see we are all gathered around for scripture reading.

Grandma's Goats

Munchkin and Little Miss with Grandma's goats.

Pumpkin kept chasing the goats, so we didn't get a picture.  Here is is investigating my sister-in-law's exercise equipment.

Thanksgiving 2011

We drove to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with Hubby's family.  All together there were ten adults and eighteen children celebrating the holiday.  Eight of them were family friends of Hubby's sister.  The rest are all related, and that's still missing the two adults and seven children who couldn't make the trip. 

We forgot to take a picture of the main meal, but here's a sampling of our desserts.

This picture was taken after the meal and before we started in on the desserts.  Most of the kids are playing downstairs or outside.

How was your Thanksgiving?

Halloween 2011

Due to the time crunch [eight days] I was only able to complete a vest for each of the boys and Little Miss' dress in time for the school's Monster Bash.

 

Here are a couple pictures from trick or treating.   Once Pumpkin figured out what we were doing, he was rather excited to participate.

Here's a family picture taken once we got home for the night.

Costumes 2011

After little input and some debate, we decided to be a pioneer family for Halloween.

I used McCall's M4547 pattern.

I finished her bonnet the next day and the chemise and pantaloons just prior to trick or treating.

Little Miss wore the apron from her maroon dress to complete the look [the McCall's pattern had one, but I ran out of time to sew it]. 

The boys [and Hubby] wore white shirts, khakis, and cowboy hats to finish their ensembles. I used Burda 9812 for Munchkin's vest; Burda 9732 for Pumpkin's vest; and Simplicity 2895 for Hubby's.

I had a dress that I made in high school [early 1997] for my costume.  The dress was the first big project I've ever sewn; it was for my high school's produced movie Calliope.  I think it was either a McCall's or Simplicity.

Christmas Ideas 2 - Sewing

After starting on the dresses and skirts for the girls [my daughter, step-daughter, and nieces] I thought perhaps another church or special occasion item would be good for the boys [my sons and nephews].  After much thought and conversation between friends and families the majority opinion was vests.

You can see a sneak peak of the fabric for the vests here. The patterns I will use are all by Burda -- 9812; 9781; 9990; and 9732.  The twelve boys range in age from two to twelve and size from 2/3 to 14, hence the four different patterns.

I hope to find good cloth, for a decent price if possible, to make these vests.  I spotted nice lining material the other day while at JoAnn's.  I want these to look dressier, whereas the Halloween vests will be more rustic.

Sewing - Christmas Dresses 2

Three of these dresses were made from the Burda 9775 pattern, dress A.  This is the same pattern I used for Little Miss's maroon and cream dress.   The baby dress is made using Simplicity 5115, romper dress A.

Here is the final purple project. [five years old]

Now, we get to the blue dresses:

[seven years old]

 

 [newborn, as of 11 Oct]

Finally, a pink dress. [six years old]

 

I've completed nine of my ten original projects, with the tenth cut and ready to be sewn.

Sewing - Christmas Dresses

Here is the Burda 9801 dress.  I will add a similar butterfly applique from the skirts to the lower left corner in place of the flower on the original pattern.  [17 months old at Christmas]

The bow at the collar is for looks only.  The sleeves and collar have encased elastic.

Sewing - Christmas Skirts 3

Here is the Butterick B4233 skirt with Leopard Jungle and black charmeuse.

This is for my 16 year old niece who loves cheetahs.

Now to start on the dresses...

Sewing - Christmas Skirts 2

Here is another Simplicity 4669 skirt.  This one uses pink as a main color. [nine years old]

Three down, seven more to go...

Sewing - Christmas Skirts

As mentioned earlier, I am making skirts and dresses for my daughter, step-daughter, and nieces for Christmas.

Several of the girls love purple.  Using the modified Simplicity 4669 I made these skirts.
[both eleven years old]

 Here is the applique detail on the skirts.

Christmas Ideas - Sewing

While I was finishing Little Miss's dress I decided that I wanted to make more.  I wanted to make something for my nieces.  With Christmas coming in a few months, I figured it would be a good project.

With the blended families on Hubby's side, there are ten girls ranging in age from 16 to not yet born (due late October).  I thought dresses for the younger girls and skirts for the older girls would work well.  I gathered the patterns I already owned and searched out age appropriate patterns for those I did not.  Then I asked about favorite colors and sizes/measurements for each of the girls.

I will be using Butterick B4233 pattern B, Simplicity 4669 pattern D [modified to mid-calf instead of above/at knee], Burda 9775 patterns A and C, Burda 9801 pattern A, and Simplicity 5115 pattern A.

Here are the fabrics we picked out.

This is how I modified the Simplicity 4669 skirt.  The original pattern is the transparent white, I didn't have more of the pattern tracing material with me when I modified it, so I used what was on hand - yellow paper.

Blackout

Around 340pm local time [September 8th] the power went out.  About six million people were without power for the night. Articles can be found here, here, here, and here.

The washer had thankfully finished spinning while the dryer still had damp clothes in it.  We do not have large water storage containers yet.  I immediately filled the bathtubs and our water pitchers and shut of the water.  We blocked the fridge from being opened.  Then we found rope and hung it between the fences to put our wet clothes on.

We used a lighter to ignite the gas stove to cook dinner. We found all the flashlights and candles in the house and places them in strategic locations.  We contacted family out of state to notify them of the blackout and that we were safe.  While we still had some power to our batteries of the cell phones we checked the internet for updates on the power outage.

After eating dinner and making sure things were ready for the next day, the kids went to bed.  I brought in the dry clothes and got things ready for work.  Then I went to bed.  Hubby stayed up a while longer reading by flashlight, then he too went to bed.

Just before 2am the power came back on.  We turned back on the breakers and off any missed light switches.  We turned the water back on and emptied the bathtubs. We went back to bed.

I had to be at work by 530am.  School had been canceled.  Hubby emptied out the fridge of all dairy products and anything else that had turned.  We were able to save a large majority of our food.

Ten hours without power was a small test in our preparedness and resourcefulness.  We loaned our propane tank to a neighbor for them to finish cooking their meat.  We saw and hear how others fared during the experience.  We're definitely purchasing water drums soon.  I am grateful there wasn't a natural disaster associated with the black out, as that would have made things last longer and other utilities like natural gas probably be interrupted as well.

Are you prepared for blackouts and natural disasters?

Pets

I grew up with a calico short-hair feline, Dutchess.  She found our family when I was in 1st grade and she lived with the family until after I graduated high school.  My "foster" family had two cats and two dogs.

Over the years, Hubby's family had several fish, 2 cats, 3 turtles, 2 dogs, and 3 hamsters.  His favorite was his red eared slider, Rascal.

During our married life we've had two cats - Shadow and Mungo, whom we gave to my parents when we moved to Arizona; a red eared slider - Scamp, who we had to give away before moving into military housing, Scamp went to a turtle lover who built his own backyard pond and had others turtles to interact with; a beta that died after a year, and a plecostomus that died after a year and a half.

We are considering adopting a bird in the future.  Possibly a Conure [such as this one].  Our housing district does not allow cats, dogs, reptiles, rodents, or other furry critters.  We are permitted to have birds, fish, hamsters, and guinea pigs.

What kind of pets did/do you have?  What was/is your favorite?

Chastity

Our lesson in Relief Society and Priesthood [Hubby taught the lesson for Elder's Quorum] this week was about Chastity. I think this topic needs more than 45 minutes. Our teacher made several good points. We followed the manual.  Our teacher also gave us a resource list for further reading.