Where do I begin?!?

Things have been pretty hectic and I swear I just don't know where the time goes! I guess I'll start with Halloween..Alex was in a take it or leave it mood. Although she enjoys being outside and seeing everyone, she's been working on getting sick and really wasn't in to it this year. Zach started out strong enjoying himself, but by the last few houses I think he was probably the only kid to ever say "can we be done please? I really want to go home!" Here's my pirate and cheerleader:

My Pirate

Rah! Rah!

I love the way she looks at her Daddy

The next morning we had our neighborhood Fall Festival. I'm on our neighborhood board so I left the house around 1:00 to start setting up. The festival itself ran from about 2:30 until 7 or so...all of the neighborhood kids had a great time - we had a moon bounce, cotton candy machine, popcorn machine, pumpkin decorating, a pumpkin pinata, games, food and on an on...Alex held her own for the first hour or so and then she was done. Lucky for us, my parents had taken a scenic drive to see the leaves and stopped by on their way back to see the kids, so they took Alex home and got her comfortable while we stayed at the party ~ which was a nice treat.

On Sunday we had our family day. Went to church and then back to my parents house for brunch. We took a really nice walk down by the lake where they live...the trees were absolutely beautiful - I have no idea why they didn't just sit on the dock there the day before rather than wasting gas to go up to the mountains ;0)

I love how she's been sitting lately with her legs crossed!


Alex wanted no part of this picture - but we did try!

Papa's girl...her most favorite person


MeMe and Papa

Yesterday was a pretty draining day. Both kids were sick and that's just how the day started. Alex was crying and crying all day - and that is just so not her and her personality. After a trip to the doctors office I had to take Zachary to a prior scheduled appointment to go see a specialist because his feet are pronating (rotating in) and affecting his knees. After that we ran home because it was time for Audretta to leave. Aaron flew in at 3:10 and I flew out because I had a parent/teacher meeting with Alex's teacher at 3:15 which turned out to be the best part of my day. She said Alex is just so much brighter this year, she's getting things so much quicker, she's more alert and interactive. We are really starting to stress communication skills with her and right now are working with pictures and voice activated switches. After I got home from that we had errands to run. After dinner was done Zach and Aaron sat to watch the football game and I went off to the computer to work on some communication boards for Alex. It's my first time using this particular software so at 11:15 I finally finished making a "body parts" board for her. I really want to work hard with her on identifying the parts of her body. The most frustrating thing for me as her mother is to see her cry and be in obvious pain and have no way to tell me what's hurting. They use a similar type of board in her classroom for her to tell everyone how she is feeling - happy, sad, silly, tired, sick, etc...Almost every day Alex picks that she's in a silly mood (very true!) occasionally she picks tired, or frustrated, and it's usually right on with her mood. This year her teacher moved where the silly picture was on the board, and Alex still picks silly...so we know it's not just where it's placed on the board. Tonight I played some computer games with her that they use at school using her switches and she did so well! After that we worked with a lot of yes/no questions. Her homework assignment for tomorrow is if she could dress up and be anything she wanted what would it be...so I printed a bunch of different pictures - a nurse, a teacher, a doctor, etc...I also printed a picture of a ballerina and she picked that every time - I got her yes/no switch and asked her - are you sure you want to be a ballerina?!? And she squealed and hit yes...I changed the position of where yes and no were on the switch and asked her - are you really really sure?!? And she hit yes again! I'm so excited about the millions of things I can do with this program!

Today we had PT and her thera togs arrived so she will start wearing them again every day - basically it's a compression suit that makes Alex aware of her body. Tomorrow is a big day - we go see the dr. again about her scoliosis. It's been about six months and we know the curve has gotten worse. So I'm anxious to see how much worse and what the next steps are. It's actually starting to impact her in a pretty big way. Alex has always shown a right hand preference - but that's the same side her curve is on and now she's starting to do almost everything with her left hand. I think it's too much work for her to lean away from the curve to try and use her right.

Ok, this is a way longer post than I had anticipated! I'm off to New York on Thursday for what I must admit is a much needed Mommy alone time trip.

Oh, two more pics :0)

Zach at the neighborhood party on his FOURTH cotton candy!

Me and my sweet girl