Please Mom, Can I have some Fruitcake?

Matthew has been asking me for fruitcake for years. I've been hesitant to buy him some because truthfully, it sucks. So I broke down and bought him 1 last night. 

So he tried a couple bites and said he wanted to save the rest. I knew right then and there he didn't like it. He tried to be a good sport but I told him just be honest, it wouldn't hurt my feelings either way if he didn't like it. 

He didn't like it. 

:)

It's the MOST wonderful time of the Year!

Christmas! And Christmas cards!!! I'm one of the few that still do Christmas cards, I've been doing them for 10 years now (since Matthew was a little baby), so today I thought I'd post those 10 Christmas cards. I took pictures of them with my phone and they didn't turn out the best, but you'll get the gist of them. And I will continue to do Christmas cards for many years to come. :) Besides, I have quite the session planned for my 2015 cards!

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

A few days ago, we had our first official snow of the year. 6 1/2 inches, I believe. That really put me in the Christmas mood. So yes I know, Thanksgiving is still about a week away, but I sent out my Christmas cards and Matthew wanted to put the tree up.

Love this picture of him, he was trying to see what was on the TV while I was trying to take the picture.

Home Improvements

So this year I've decided to start with some Home Improvements to make this house, Our  Home. :)

Last year we painted Matthew's bedroom that cool yellow, gray, white and black number because his favorite color is yellow. You can find that on one of my older blog posts.

First on the list: we updated windows on the main level (9 double hung windows + 1 big picture window)

We also put in a new front storm door, added a cute Hello. decal to it,  put new porch lights and an old cream can with our house number on it. :) LOVE the look of the new windows!

We put backsplash in our kitchen at the end of last year.

Faucet for the main bathroom, the old one was awful, leaked and squeaked.  This one is a Moen Danika (brushed nickel). It's higher set to, so it is much easier to use. 

I just LOVE this faucet, actually, bought this one online, a brushed brass Pfister I believe. This is in our basement bathroom and it matches our new vanity cabinet knobs and linen closet knobs perfectly. 

Another look at our kitchen backsplash. 

Well this one isn't really a home improvement per say, but it definitely makes us happy, we finally have a king size bed after all these years and Matthew now has our queen. What were we thinking all of those years?! Oh, and I will be repainting the bedroom, even though maroon is my favorite color, we our going to paint it a Baked Bean color after our new puppy's name. It's a fairly similar color. :)

I repainted the kitchen a creamy blue color (hard to see in this photo), and then we painted a chalkboard on the wall and hung this barnwood frame over it. I have also totally scraped the popcorn down to the sheetrock in the kitchen, and still need to figure out a better texture for ceiling and repaint that again. But for now it's a heck of an improvement. Oh, and we also purchased a different kitchen light that is semi-flush so it is a lot brighter, plus it looks like an upside down mushroom!

I painted the living room a beautiful gray called "Whiskers" (just like our cat's name), and got rid of the original dark brown. I absolutely LOVE the living room now. We also updated all of the heating/cooling vents. 

The main bathroom got a fresh new fabric shower curtain from Anthropologie and some new floor rugs. The bathroom will be repainted eventually, but... I scraped the popcorn down a bit on the ceiling. :)



So this pretty much wraps up our home improvements so far. I even chalkboard painted on our pantry doors, but don't have a picture of that right now.

There will definitely be more to come.

I'm Thankful I'm Not!

Author Unknown:

I am thankful I'm not a turkey,
When it talks it says
nothing but "gobble."
When it walks it does
nothing but wobble.
It lives on a farm with
hundreds of friends.
But on Thanksgiving a
turkey's life ends.
I'm thankful I'm not a turkey.


At school this week, Matthew had to write his own poem about what he's thankful he is not based on the poem written above. It's pretty cute so here it is: (*note* he's in 3rd grade, so spelling might not be spot on)

By Matthew L.
I'm thankful for turkey
and not for jerkey.
I'm thankful for meat and
not for a neat beat.
I'm thankful for fun,
not for none.
I'm thankful for gobbles
not wobbles.
I'm thankful for a fish,
not a dish.
I'm thankful for legos,
not begles. (bagels)



The last 2 lines just cracked me up. :) Love that kid!

A NEW Addition to our Little Family

So last week, I decided to pop onto a website looking for a puppy. 

Luck had it, I found 2 Boston Terrier female puppies. I've admired Bostons for a long, long time.

Our Chihuahua, Burrito, looks just like a Boston, only she's a Chihuahua.

I showed Matthew a picture of the puppy that I thought was the cutest and he fell in love.

A day goes by and usually puppies sell quick and they were both still available.

So last Thursday, morning I decide to call and see if they were available because sometimes websites aren't updated as fast as puppies sell. Sure enough, both puppies were actually available. 

But before I called, Matthew brought up the puppy at breakfast and I told him I didn't know if we could get her because puppies are a lot of money.

I didn't realize he had told his Dad, "can you please get me that puppy?" before I took him to school.

That right then and there melted my heart so I made the call.

Sean and I decided to run into town to go check out the puppy.

We instantly fell in love. We also looked over her sister just to be sure she was the right one for us. Our pup was much more docile and the other little female was a terror, chewing on everything and very playful. We decided on my "original" pick because I really liked how she was marked. Plus, she was a little smaller than her sister.

This was quite a wild and crazy decision but we decided we needed a puppy in our lives. When we got Burrito, she was already 10 months old so we missed out on the cute puppy stage.

So on a whim, we bought a little Boston Terrier. :) 

When I picked up Matthew that day, and we were walking home, he asked about the puppy again. I didn't want to give it away that we bought her so, I said something like "yeah, she's a lot of money, etc." I decided to videotape his reaction when he walked in the house realizing we actually did buy the puppy. It was priceless.

He wanted to name her Taco (but Sean didn't like that, plus she's not a Chihuahua). The next day Sean wanted to name her Lucky. 

I had brought her along to my mom's for the day to help my mom do some painting. We ran out of paint, and went to Menards to get more. While there, we were in the candy aisle and I saw "Boston Baked Beans." I knew "Beans" would be the perfect name for her.

If you know anything about Bostons, they fart. Perfect name for her. :)

It is my pleasure for you to meet our new addition: Beans!

Beans when we got her  wearing a cute bandana.

Matthew first meeting his new puppy.

Late night chatter

Most days, Matthew doesn't have a lot to say. It's hard to engage him in a back and forth conversation. I find it particularly interesting about how chatty he gets at night. Not every night. More of a once and awhile type of thing but our late night conversations are interesting.
Maybe he takes after his Dad, he's the night owl, I'm the morning person, so Matthew probably follows in his daddy's footsteps.
Last night Matthew was in an unusually chatty mood. Which brings me to something I've wanted to write about but have not found the right way to say it. Throughout the entire experience of school, I really felt it wasn't for me. It was a battle to make it through to the end, to make it day by day, to keep going semester after semester. I tried to give it my all but at the end of the day, I just don't know if it's for me. Sometimes you have to take a step back and realize what's important in life. And my number one priority is Matthew.
I really, really missed out on a lot with him from Birth-3. I was working full-time and I had no choice NOT to work. I needed to pay for him to go to daycare those first 3 years. I can't change the past so there's no point in delving into those memories. Everything that happened, happened. I went to work. Matthew went to daycare. Sean and I were off and on and that's how it was.
When I made the decision to go back to school, I was really, really sick of my job. Sean and I were back on again when I made that decision. I had felt it was God's plan for me to go to nursing school. So I did. I jumped in without looking back. What a rollercoaster of stress and anguish it was but I finished, graduated, got my degree and license.
By now I should be well over 6 months in to this dream career. But I'm not. That 4th semester was a killer on me. Emotionally, I can't do it. I can't fake it. I did the best that I could but I care too much. That's the problem in nursing, as much as I care, there isn't the time for that one-on-one with your patients. I've really drug my feet and really hope to find the perfect job for me. The one that I won't have to work overnights because Sean and my mom already do that. Like I said, I'm not a night person. Now that Sean and I are married and living together, things have changed, which allows ME to be there for MATTHEW. I've never had that opportunity before. After daycare, my Dad watched Matthew while I worked. He was the one to put him on the van for 3 years of Early Childhood and feed him and put him down for naps and do all that while I was working. Now I am able to do all of that. I can take Matthew to school and pick him up from school. I can spend the entire summer with him. I can work on his homework with him without having to work on my own homework as well. I can be less stressed because my FOCUS is now on him. And you know what? It's an inner struggle because I feel like I should be working more and doing what I went to school for and worrying about what others think, but after praying to God for guidance in what I should be doing, I believe Matthew's nighttime chatter is it. He needs me and I need to be there for him. It's my life. It's no one else's business. Plus I've still held down my job throughout this whole entire process even though it's part-time, but I've maintained it for over 10+ years.
Matthew absolutely doesn't want me to be a nurse. Honestly, I know I couldn't do bedside, I'd probably have my own heart attack or stroke. I applied for school nurse too but another more qualified candidate got it. Probably for the best. I wouldn't be opposed to non-patient "something," but it all depends on the timing.
It took me so long to get Matthew to where he is now and the fact he ranked a little higher on the ADOS scale, really seals the deal for me. He's what matters most to me (along with my husband). I just can't imagine 2 full-time working parents juggling a child that really needs the one on one attention that any kid deserves.
He told me how much he would miss me if I wasn't there to take him to school or pick him up. It was hard for him and Sean to deal with the preceptorship. Even though I was on days, but for me to be gone 13+ hours, it wasn't something they were used to. Sean already works a full-time position and for him to try and fill in the mom-role wasn't easy.
So all in all. This is best. I need the night time chatter. I need to fulfill my purpose in life in raising Matthew. To help him gain more and more independence and one on one attention for me. Help him through school so we can escape the mask of Autism and he can go on to live a fulfilling and somewhat normal life.

Thank God for Lifeguards!

So I decided to take the boys to the pool again this morning for a birthday swim. We were the only ones at the pool today. The lifeguard on duty happened to be the same guy that was the instructor for Matthew earlier this summer when he took swimming lessons.

At the beginning of the summer, Matthew wouldn't even dunk his head under the water. After lessons were over, he was able to do that and was getting a little better each time we went to the pool.

Yesterday, Phoenix mastered going down a slide into 5 and 1/2 foot deep water. Pretty impressive since the boys have been coming to the pool for a couple summers now and only one set of lessons this summer.

Well today, Matthew wanted to try the slide and I really didn't think he was ready for it. But I asked the lifeguard and he said to let him try. At first Matthew was very hesitant. It took some coaxing but we got him to go down the slide! Well he managed to do it 3 times!

But the 3rd time was a doozy. The boys have been addicted to wearing their snorkels and goggles in the water, the 3rd time he went down he started coughing because water was in the tube and just like that, Taylor, the lifeguard jumped in and pulled him out. Whew...

Thank GOD for lifeguards. This will definitely be quite a memorable birthday for Matthew.

Going down the slide the 3rd time, only seconds before he had to be pulled out.

Matthew and Taylor. 

Happy 9th Birthday Matthew Zane!

No Driver's License

When I walked down to school to pick Matthew up today, he says, will you always pick me up? I said sure I would. Then he says he even wants me to pick him up from college because he doesn't ever want to drive. That kid is something else. lol

Green Light Go, Red Light Stop

Another Matthew conversation:
Matthew: let's play green light go, red light stop. You have to start in there (in the kitchen). He says green light go, so I go. Then he says red light stop, so I stop. Then he says I might confuse you. Then he says, green light go-(I start to go), gopher, so I had to stop again. Silly kid. Says he seen it in a video.

April 2nd: Worldwide Autism Awareness Day

In case you didn't know. :) 

So Light it Up Blue tonight with your support!

Snake Corndog

Because sometimes, you just need one.

Officially Official.

Well I can officially say that I am a college graduate. I graduated from USD this past December. Never ever thought that would happen.

Accepting my Diploma!

Phoenix, Me, Matthew and Sean

Also, on my birthday (March 4th), I became an official Registered Nurse. I took my boards on March 3rd because I knew either way pass or fail, I was going to celebrate on my birthday! Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

More Criteria than Before?!

I've been meaning to update on Matthew's most recent school IEP meeting. It wasn't supposed to be due until March but they noticed some age speech delays and suggested I have him tested early. So in December, they administered the ADOS again.

The first time the school administered their test for Autism, Matthew met a 5/12 criteria. In our state, you need a 6/12 to be considered having Autism.

I was frustrated. But I did get my 6/12 diagnosis through the children's specialty needs hospital.

Well my 3 years were up so the school decided to do the ADOS again. Hmm. I was a little surprised at the results. I filled out all the paperwork on my end as usual. I still feel he has a lot of things to work on.

Of course the one part the teachers thought I was way off base but obviously he is a different kid at school. Then on the last 2 parts, I pretty much was in sync with what his teacher sees at school.

The end result: 7/12. Not sure how I feel about that. I mean he's made some remarkable gains, but now at 8 years old his is 1 more in criteria than he was at 4 years old.

So he'll be re-evaluated in another 3 years I'm sure and we'll continue with our annual IEP's. It's just hard because there's a few things I really hope he masters this summer. I know we will get there. It takes time. Such is life.

St Patrick's Day 2014

Well we have been an officially married couple for 2 years this past Monday. Pretty exciting stuff right there!!!!

Sean and I spent the morning relaxing at a sauna called SuiteSweat. Then we headed out for lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. Sean got a free drink on the house since we told them it was our anniversary! Then we headed to McNally's for a beer, before we headed home we picked up these beauties. (pictured). What a romantic bouquet of flowers courtesy of Meredith and Bridget's. Finally we picked the boys up from school and took them to the Old 77 Bar and Grille (where we had our wedding reception). All and all a very good anniversary, looking forward to many more to come!

Bella Bonita Burrito

Over Christmas break, we added an addition to our family, meet "Bella," our 10 month old black and white female Chihuahua.



She fits in perfectly with our family and Matthew has been extra sweet on her.
The best thing about this lil dog is that she was born on my Mom and my BIRTHDAY!!! How cool is that?