I don't want to forget....

AK turned 8 on August 20th...it's hard to believe! Here's a snapshot of what he's like right now. What is your favorite color? green What is your favorite food? chicken spiedies What is your favorite treat? sour patch kids What is your favorite subject in school? math What is your favorite sport? football What is your favorite hobby? play with legos What is your favorite movie? Night at the Museum What is your favorite tv show? Looney Toons What is your favorite book? Magic Tree House books What is your favorite animal? rhino What is your favorite song? Ten Thousands Reasons What is your favorite restaurant? Rosa's  What is your favorite vegetable? carrots What is your favorite fruit? peaches What is your favorite place to visit? Mimi and Pop's house to swim Where do you WANT to visit some day? Washington DC Who is your best friend? Levi and Jack Who is your favorite cousin? Colson What’s your favorite thing to do with Eliza? watch movies What’...

I cannot believe summer is almost over. I have been organizing and purchasing curriculum over the past couple weeks. We start a new school year on Wednesday. EK will be a 7th grader. AC will be a 6th grader. AK will be a 2nd grader. EJ will begin her last year of preschool at church in a couple weeks. (She's ready to start right now and upset that she isn't starting before EK.) While we didn't go on a vacation this summer, here are few things we did: VBS: What a great week we had at the beginning of June. trips to the park with friends swimming at Mimi's with cousins weekly trips to the library 4th of July at farm with some of our family  Hawaiian Falls art camp for AC music camp for AK ballet camp for EJ EK had ESY (extended school year) 4 mornings a week for 4 weeks  cousin sleepovers with Mimi and Pops and Keith and I got away for 3 days to San Francisco the end of June. This summer has been great! EK is calming down the older she gets. I used t...

It's hard to believe this is our 10th Autism Awareness Day. Ironically, I also sat in EK's annual ARD this morning. To be honest, life is so busy right now that I haven't had time to think much about this day approaching. Maybe that's good. When I have too much time to think about how autism has changed our family's life, I sometimes get discouraged. When EK was first diagnosed in February 2009, we thought that if we got her in the right therapies, she'd start Kindergarten in a mainstream classroom. That was our goal and early on, it seemed doable. We changed her diet (which by the way, I don't regret at all. I truly believe it's helped her to be the happy child she is.), we did occupational therapy, speech therapy, ABA therapy, vitamins/supplements, school preschool program for kids with autism and many other things. Fast forward a few years  and we saw no real improvements. In fact, she stopped talking a few months before her 4th birthday. Those begin...

Keith wrote this article for our church's quarterly newsletter. EK's autism diagnosis was just over 10 years ago and Keith shares a bit of our journey. It looks much prettier on the church website, if you want to view it there. Lifeline Spring 2019 Jesus is described in the Gospel of John as, “the Light of men.” The primary function of light is to expose what is hidden. A night-light, for example, helps us to avoid tripping hazards in our bedroom. Through His omniscience, Jesus exposed the wickedness of the people with whom He interacted. The problem was, most of those people did not appreciate having their sin exposed. In fact, the scripture says that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Whereas darkness in the Bible almost always symbolizes evil and ignorance, light almost always symbolizes goodness and knowledge. Sometimes, however, God exposes the truth by means that we don’t immediately understand or comprehend as good. Ten years ago, my wife...

We just got back from Florida! Keith had a pastors meeting and I got to tag along to meet some pastors wives. I love meeting other pastors wives. There is an immediate bond, similar to the bond I have with other special needs parents. We get each other. We know how hard things can be and also what a high calling the ministry is. It was great! I met several sweet ladies and had encouraging conversations, including one who has a son with special needs. Double encouragement! We had my parents come with us to keep the kids on Monday and Tuesday.  Then, we headed to Disney Wednesday through Friday. It was a little overwhelming at times because there's so much to see and do and so little time. But overall we had a blast!I think my biggest source of stress was how EK would do. Would she cry? Be anxious because of the crowds? Get upset over loud music during shows? EK LOVED it! She was so happy. It's something we couldn't have done with her a couple years ago. We thank the Lord ...

Labor Day we had a little surprise swim party at Mimi and Pop's for AC and AK. AC turned 11 and AK turned 7. They were both pleasantly surprised. Can't believe my kids are growing up! What a beautiful young lady she is becoming with such a servant's heart. She wakes up early Sunday mornings to go with Keith to the 8am service, goes to her Sunday School class at 9:30 and then volunteers in a preschool room at 11am. She loves it! May she always love serving the Lord by serving others!  These cousins have a lot of fun together!

Oh my goodness! This was such a bittersweet day. I love that she is growing up and turning into a little young lady, but this isn't how I pictured our teen years would be. She is non-verbal, not potty trained, needs help with a lot of things. She can feed herself if it's finger food and can pick up her cup to take a drink from a sippy cup. She doesn't understand danger (hot stove tops, running into the street, walking off, etc. She's basically a toddler in a 11 year old body...I say that since she's so petite. AC passed her over a year ago height-wise. As hard as things are at times, she is such a beautiful girl. Her smile lights up a room and her giggles are priceless. She is content most of the time, unlike her preschool years where she cried A LOT. She loves being around her siblings and remembers people who's been kind to her. She loves riding her pony at therapy. She likes school too. Her teachers are very kind to her and that's very important to us, s...