Photoshop Lovin'

One of my favorite things to do is to just play in photoshop. I'm a true digital art lover- especially of the photo/quote persuasion. So instead of melting my brain with random t.v. this evening I sat down and reacquainted myself with photoshop for the first time in much too long.

*sorry about the lame attempt at the watermark on the photo. I really don't know how to one correctly. But I don't really want random people stealing my photography. However, if you like this, I love sharing my photography :) Send me an email or leave your email address in the comments and I'll email you a hi-res copy (minus the lame watermark of course)! 

Recapping last week

A friend of mine needed a babysitter for her little man last week so I agreed to watch him.

It was much harder than I anticipated for many reasons.

First, it's hard to throw an 8 month old in the mix! Life is pretty scheduled around here and an 8 month old is a lot to just add out of nowhere. Second, I couldn't help but think about what life would be like if Zoe were going to be here soon. The boys both loved the little guy. And his toys. And playing with him. And pretty much everything. It was tough. Third, I was completely and totally unprepared for babysitting a little dude. We've gotten rid of pretty much anything even remotely close to baby related over the years. So finding things to occupy his time was quite challenging.

But we survived! And I think I learned a lot from the experience.

Although last week was painful in many way it was also a week of a lot of personal growth. I think I can for the first time confidently say that maybe it's ok that we will only have our two boys. Life is certainly easier with one kid per adult. And my boys are growing up so quickly. It's hard to snap back into "baby mode." I certainly would and could do it if we were given the opportunity to have another baby. But I think I have a new found appreciation for life as we know it. 

I've also been meeting with our Priest weekly. It's been really great. Jacob and I are going to start alternating weeks so from here on out it will be every other week but I'm really looking forward to it. He rarely tells me what to do, what not to do, what to or not to think, it's much more a guided exploration of my faith. He gives me all sorts of new prospective on life and God and I always leave with so much to think about. It's truly been a blessing!

Friday night I attended a barbeque at Jacob's boss's house. I was absolutely dreading going. I find stuff like that just plain painful. And quite frankly, I was exhausted! I could think of a million things to do instead, highest on the list being getting some dang sleep! But it turned out to be wonderful!! His boss's parents were visiting and his dad is involved in special education helping to make adaptive software for kids with special needs. We had some great conversations about Autism and he had some great suggestions. He also gave us his business card and offered to talk to some people back home (in Michigan) and see if anyone had any good suggestions of avenues to get some additional help out here. You can never have too many connections! Overall it was a fun evening even if I did stay out WAY too late.

Jacob and I have been talking about homeschooling our kids for quite awhile now. We're considering it for many reasons. We've finally progressed from talking about it to actually digging down and doing some serious research. We picked up a wonderful book Saturday evening filled with wonderful insights and suggestions plus some great tables and charts to fill out to figure out your "plan." We're still a long ways from making a final decision but I honestly can say that I'm starting to lean towards actually doing this! It's all very exciting. Both of my kids are so smart and I want nothing more than to raise them into the amazing men I know they can be. So many things are part of doing that- much of which won't be instilled in school. So why not just teach them myself? We've essentially been doing that with Jack for almost 2 years now with his tutoring programs which I think gives us a huge leg up in this all. It's not going to be easy by any means but I'm confident we can do this. We haven't decided 100% to do this yet and Jack continues to be in school full time and will continue for the foreseeable future. We're gearing up for his annual IEP review and we're going to continue to create the best education environment for him there while we sort through our options. We're praying for guidance in this new endeavor, it's a huge step that will change our lives. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated too! 

So that's pretty much last week. Today's a little off still, Jack's tutor is sick and Jacob's going to be gone at work for most of the day/night. But still closer to normalcy than last week was and I'll take it!

A Project in Photos

The Toy Closet:

Honestly, this is embarrassing. The photo doesn't really do it justice, under those boxes lies a minefield of toys. Liam has been begging me to 'help him' clean the closet out... Only because he could no longer access his toys. There have been plenty of times I've spent hours diligently cleaning and organizing this closet only for it to be destroyed again in a week- TOPS! So this time we went at it with a different attack... Get rid of as much stuff as possible! After all they don't play with half this junk anyway!

So this is where we're at now:

These kids basically have a library in their closet. One full shelf and two half full shelves of just books! Here's hoping they continue to love books as much as their mom and dad!

It's really sad to me quite frankly. Much of this is educational toys that we had for Jack's home therapy programs. But what I failed to see as I spent 100s of dollars was that he would very quickly out skill and out grow these things. I'm hoping to re-coup some of my losses here... But I know it will be a mere fraction of the money I spent. Anything we don't actually sell I plan on donating to the organization that Jack started his tutoring with! 

And now the kids can't possibly make as big of mess as they did before because they only have 1/5 of the toys to do it with! Happy kids and happy mommy = a successful morning! 

Now onto the other closets...

Friday 5

* I met with our Priest today. It was the first time I've ever actually had a meeting with him by myself. Typically the hubby's with me. And quite frankly I don't talk much. Jacob's very well spoken and much more 'scholarly' than I am so there really isn't a need for me to chime in much. It was really nice to talk to someone about Orthodoxy. And about where I am in life.

* While meeting with my Priest I realized something. I have an extremely hard time talking about Zoe out loud. I know, you're probably saying "duh" because I'm obviously still very much struggling with my miscarriage. I write about it on here. I think about it constantly. But very rarely do I speak about it. I guess it's just something I carry on the inside? I honestly had never realized until the very moment he brought it up and I was instantly overcome with sadness and pain. I choked back tears, trying to formulate sentences in response to his questions. Quite frankly, it's not ok. I obviously need to talk about Zoe. Not talking about her doesn't make it any less of a reality (maybe that's what this weird 'hold it all inside' attitude is subconsciously?!). So that is going to be a goal of mine. I want to talk about Zoe. I want to remember that I have a child in Heaven. Not just in my head, but in real life. This is kind of a big undertaking considering the vast majority of my conversations are held with toddlers but I think I can find a way to do this. And I want to try.

* We started a 'feeding protocol' with Jack and his tutor to get him to start trying new foods. To say that it is going well is really the understatement of the century. He literally HASN'T protested. He's been totally cool with it. So far it's just been single foods (I do think it will be harder with foods that are several ingredients) but even today his tutor commented that she could tell he didn't like the pineapple but continued to comply anyway. How unbelievably awesome is that?! And to top it off, this kid is eating like never before. And not grilled cheese 3 meals a day! Just today he ate eggs, sausage, a whole can of V8 blend (technically he drank that but it was a new item), goldfish, watermelon, pineapple, chips and salsa, a 'hot dog sandwich' (hot dog with cheese wrapped in bread), and various other snacks through out the day. What an amazing blessing. Seriously. I have spent many hours concerned about how we would get Jack to eat and starting to put on weight. But it's like he's a totally changed kid the last few days. He even insisted on eating broccoli and watermelon for supper Thursday night- and he ate almost the entire head of broccoli! This is absolutely an answered prayer. And I'm so thankful!!

* Aside from the eating, Jack is really doing all around incredibly well the past few days. When I got home this evening we had about 2 hours before bedtime. Liam, Jack, and I played board games for over an hour with no fighting or screaming- which has NEVER happened before. He was completely calm, cool, and collected. There were several times where I got lost just staring at him. As if someone had swapped out my child for another. I don't really know what to make of it to be honest. He's talking better than ever. Conversing more frequently than ever. It's amazing! We were sitting next to each other watching Jacob play some video games this evening and Jack actually reached over and rubbed my back with his hand. Something I do to the boys all the time. Just that nice, I love you, I'm here, quick brush along your back. He's never done that before. I looked at him and he looked right into my eyes and smiled at me. There are no words to describe it. It was something I will never forget. We sat next to each other for quite awhile longer and looked back over at him to see that he was totally mimicking me! I had been leaning forward with my head resting on my hand and he was doing the same thing. Something is changing in Jack. He's growing and maturing. It's so incredibly beautiful. I am so in love with and so proud of my son.

* Tonight I feel the most sincerely happy I've felt in a long time. Not that surface happy, nothing's going catastrophically bad right now, but a sincere, deep in my soul happiness. Something that I've been longing for for such a long time. I am incredibly blessed. And I am incredibly thankful.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

As you've probably noticed, I've been trying to customize the blog to my liking. It's been a process. I actually had it to a point I really liked it once and went to try to change some things and ended up completely screwing it up and not being able to revert it. But I think I've come to a stopping place. The photo in the background is actually one of my favorite photos I've ever taken- it's nice to be able to use it for something where people will actually get to see it :)

It is the gift of God

So I sold the stroller... I'm a little sad but I'm also relieved... we were pretty broke and so being able to sell the stroller has lifted a huge weight off our shoulders. And so I'm thankful too.

I put little man down for a nap and sat down in front of the computer. Ever had that feeling that you want to do something but you don't know what? That was exactly what I felt! I decided to pull out a canvas from under our bed (I stocked up at the last 40% off sale! I refuse to pay astronomical prices for blank canvases) and sat down with my bucket-o-paint. I came across a bible verse that I thought would go great in our kitchen...

It's not finished yet but I got the verse on there! You can't tell all that well but I painted the background to look almost old and distressed looking and then made a dark red color for the text. Our kitchen is pretty bare with only a few pictures of chickens (it started as a joke but I've fallen in love with our eclectic chicken kitchen) so the colors on this match wonderfully and will be a great addition! Now to let it dry and figure out what else I want to put on there to fill up the empty space... 

Moving on

I am a bit of a pack-rat. I like to keep things. Arguably too many things.
We have piles and piles of 'junk' in our garage that still needs to be sorted/trashed/donated. It's overwhelming and that is exactly why nothing has been done with them.
But we're trying to cut down on stuff in our house. Try to live with less. Especially the things that we don't need anymore.
So yesterday I decided to put our super expensive, wonderful, deluxe jogging stroller on Craig's List. We purchased it after we moved here in 2009. It was probably the most expensive thing we've ever bought other than our car and one of our t.v.s. Yes, it was that expensive. It took a lot of convincing to get Jacob to go along with it but I successfully made my case and we were the proud new owners of a BOB duallie stroller.
We used it a lot at first. The boys loved it because it was super comfy. The seats lay down, it has shock absorbers, a pivoting front wheel... It is quite a stroller. Part of my argument for purchasing it was that the weight limit is so high, the boys could ride in it forever! Well, it's true the weight limit allows that but the boys no longer enjoy being cooped up in anything. They are independent little men and want to walk everywhere. So we just don't use it anymore. Ever. It's actually been a couple months since I pulled it out of the garage and even then it was quite a battle to get them in it.
So we're getting rid of it. I have a lady coming in a couple hours to look and several people waiting anxiously to get a chance at it if she doesn't take it. I'm happy that it's going to be so easy to get rid of it and that we're going to get at least a portion of the enormous amount of money we paid for it. But I'm still really, really, really sad.
You see, this is kind of an end of an era for me. We will no longer own a stroller. The boys are too old now. They're certainly not babies anymore... Zoe isn't coming... And quite frankly it's not looking very likely we will ever have another baby. It breaks my heart.
Life is moving. It never stops. I'm not sure I'm ready for this. Why do kids have to grow up so fast?