Monday, July 25, 2011

The end of an era ...

When my husband was a young teenager he started growing his hair. He has had waist length hair for about 15 years - longer then we've been together. He has gorgeous hair. Women stop him all the time and drool over it. It's thick and straight with beautiful blonde streaks. I mean, look at that hair!



Last night we cut it all off! He's been talking about possibly doing it for a few months, but we wanted to be sure before I cut it off. I mean, he's had that hair for a long time! I cut my hair and the kids hair, so I knew I would do his as well. I asked him if he wanted to go to a hairdresser at least for the first time, but he said he trusted me. ;) Here it is all braided for Locks of Love and ready to cut!

The ponytail is gone! I think he's kind of rocking a sexy Johnny Depp look here. I wouldn't have minded him keeping it like this! He said later that he might grow it to this length later. :)


Yep. That's 21 inches of BRAID!

And the big reveal ....

my gorgeous husband ...



I did marry a handsome man!! I think I did a pretty good job. He really likes it! And of course, that's what matters!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Good Deals

I'm very pleased with myself. Daddy, the kids and I went to Asheville today just to get out of town. We didn't have much money to spend, but there is nothing available in our little town and sometimes you just need to get out. Claire is shooting up like a little weed, so I kept my eye out for some new clothes for her in the Back to School sales that are going on. I ended up getting her an entire outfit for $22!

The shoes were from Payless for $9. The pink shirt was $4 at Old Navy and the hoodie and pants were $4.24 each at The Children's Place. She's very excited. What girl doesn't love new clothes? ;)

Thursday, July 21, 2011

My son rocks!

One year ago (July 15, 2010 to be exact), Chandler was evaluated because of delays and lack of weight gain. He was diagnosed with a speech delay (he was 17 months old and speaking at a 10 month old level), and sensory issues which made it difficult for him to eat. He wouldn't pick up food and would freak out if anything got on his hands. He was under the 3rd percentile on the growth charts, only 19 lbs at 17 months old! We started off with occupational therapy once a month, a psychologist every other week, the nutritionist once a month and a speech therapist every week. That's a lot of appointments!

By November Chandler had improved well enough the the OT felt comfortable discharging him, with the psychologist and nutritionist still monitoring him while I still did some at home therapies. In May 2011 the psychologist said he would always have his little quirks (not a surprise, he is my child!), but she was done with his therapy. By now the nutritionist was only coming once every other month. Chandler was slowly scooting up in weight and was starting to consistently reaching her goals for him each visit. His weight-for-length wasn't really increasing, but that's because he was shooting up in height at the same time! But we adored his nutritionist and loved for her to come. He was continuing with speech therapy once a week and we were really seeing improvement there too.

On July 12, 2011 Chandler's speech therapist cam and did a new evaluation since we had seen so much improvement. A normal score is anywhere from 85-115. When we started he was scoring 75. He scored 106 and 111 on the two different sections! What an improvement! He is DONE with Speech Therapy!

On July 14, 2011 his nutritionist came and his coordinator joined her for our yearly review. He was 50% for height and nearly 10% for weight! We signed the paperwork for him to be discharged from the program and he is finished with all therapies! I am so proud of him! Almost exactly one year and he went from serious delays and 4 therapists coming to work with him, to being completely finished and excelling! No one can tell me that Early Intervention doesn't work! I am so thankful for everyone who worked with us and I am so proud of my son!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Hurray!

I have my computer back! I still have to organize it, but I'm so happy to have a real computer back! There will be one change you will see here. I'm going to go ahead and use my kids names instead of pseudonyms. I realized there's not too much of a point. Their pictures are out there and it's pretty hard to track someone down with just the child's first name!

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Life is complicated. Claire (formerly known as The Girl) got pink eye last week and Chandler (formerly known as Little Man) has had random fevers the last two days. Claire and I have been doing more schoolwork, we started our Math curriculum! So far we really like RightStart Mathematics. We are doing a slow entry into regular sit down schooling, we have started doing Phonics, Writing, Bible, Thinking and Math regularly. I still haven't added Geography or Science and we are only doing school 2-3 day a week for the summer. Our local school starts back on August 4th - isn't that incredibly early? I think my goal will be regularly doing a little of everything by September. I will do a rundown of our coming school year soon!

My daughter for you

Me: "Claire, we have to clean your room today!"
Claire: "Why?"
Me: "Look at it! Where is your floor?"
Claire: "Under those dolls."

Well, that's true ...

Monday, July 18, 2011

:( I'll be back soon ...

I dropped the laptop and we had to perform last rites. :( We traded my mom for a desktop tower she wasn't using. Thanks Mom! But now my uncle (Thank you!) is trying to recover the things that were on the laptop and put it on the new desktop for us. My mom loaned us her old, cranky laptop in the interim and I am so grateful to be able to get online, but it is not the easiest! I will be back ... I had just taken pictures for a new post when it happened too. Hopefully we will get the computer back in the next week! See you soon!