Day 15 - Photo Montage Video

Please enjoy this video montage I created. Caution! Amateur montage maker and photographer created this, so please lower your standards before entering!! :-)

Simply click the picture below and you can hit the play arrow. Remember to turn your sound up a little to hear the music!


What a wonderful world....

Day 13 - Bento anyone?

Have you joined the Bento craze? Obento is what the Japanese call a packed meal, usually lunch. Bento boxes have internal cubbies, containers and dividers, so that different kinds of foods can sit in their own little pretty spaces. There are neat lunchboxes to use (or you can improvise). Black seaweed sheets are used to decorate with faces using punches or premade cutouts. There are special cookie cutters, shapers, presses, picks and other accessories that contribute to this madness. In other words, cute lunches! It makes sense really, those smart Japanese folks who have done this for years, to present your food in an appealing way for the senses. We are visual people, and something seems to happen to a child (and grown ups too!) when their lunch is all cute and neat and sectioned.

My friend Haley mentioned this latest fad that was sweeping through her school. My first thought was that there was no way I was going to spend time pressing sandwiches into teddy bear face molds, or making hotdogs look like octopus characters. It would take forever to make cute little vegetable flower discs right? Or create a picture on his plate with the foods I’m serving right? Then I researched (because I have my fancy degree from The School of Google) this whole maddening craze. Guess what, I began to change my thought process a bit. And it really doesn’t take long to prepare your items – and some can be done in advance to use for the next few days. So now I have a few friends that have jumped into this Bento Box thingamabob with such gusto and have found the changes in their kids’ eating habits to be revolutionary! Kids. Are. Eating.

I personally, have only done a Bento style meal for Carter a handful of times. I want to embrace this, and am trying to do it, but my kid is making this difficult on me! Funny thing about children with Autism (and probably some without), is they like things “just so”. And “just so” to Carter means to have his lunch consist of the same things, every single day. Not only the content, but the shape and size. He prefers the 4-way triangular cut method on a peanut-butter only, white bread (but I can sneak in the whole grain white) sandwich. He wants 6 pretzels and 6 grapes – because he’s 6 years old. His juice box has to be in his lunchbox on the left. Bah! I have to resort to hiding such foods and pretending we’re out of them, so that I can send along something different in place of pretzels and grapes. Sometimes the sandwich can be substituted with peanut-butter crackers (thanks, Nana) because eating peanut butter crackers is in the genes.

Recently, he marched off the bus, into the house – and before I could ask him “how was your day?”, he began his diatribe (hands on hips and crunched up angry face in full swing staring me down) about how he never, ever, ever, NEVER wants to have Snowman shaped peanut-butter sandwiches again! After I regained my composure of shock, then laughter, I attempted to convince him that it was hip and cool, and fun that he got a surprise in his lunchbox! He demanded to know what happened to the plastic Ziploc baggies I used to use to put his goldfish and grapes into. He wanted to know why they were in “gray cups” (I used cute tinfoil muffin wrappers) and why I wrote on his napkin! Oh my….. I was in trouble. It’s going to be a little difficult to try the Bento shtick on Carter it’s looking like. I thought it might help him to discover how to be a little less rigid about things in life. I will keep trying, but in the meantime I will have to live vicariously through my friends who are having more success. There are thousands of pictures of Bento ideas on the ‘net, but I’m going to include just a few pictures of very basic and simple Bento Lunch ideas I’ve found.

Maybe you might want to try this out yourselves – either for your kiddos, or for your own dining pleasure!

You can click on each picture for a larger, more detailed look!

Day 12 - Family gathering, game chat, photos!

A few minor blatherings before I get down to it...

Did you see the Colts vs. Chargers football game last night? We thought at one point we may run out of players. My mother-in-law suggested maybe the cheerleaders could go in and help out! That.Is.How.Bad.It.Was. We're still in the cheering section, but boy oh boy, that was rough. Only thing worse would have been if it were us in a game in New England, 20 degrees and snowing! Oh yeah, that's happened already before. I'll have to come up with another scenario.

It never rains in San Diego! Why was there a typhoon there last night? Well, I'm not going to make up excuses as to why we lost the game, there's proof enough. 2 missed field goal attempts (Vinatieri WHO?), six interceptions (Laser Rocket Arm WHAT?), 99 yard return for a touchdown (Special Teams? Nothin' special about those knuckleheads). Ok I'm stopping now, there are more reasons we lost (9 injured players) but I'm just getting annoyed from rehashing the longest 3 hours ever. We'll have to see how they look next week... *sigh*

DirecTV update: Tom purchased the receiver he needed online at Circut City. Went to pick it up and they did not have what he ordered. One is supposed to be delivered to the store this week. He received a $24 gift card for his troubles. Bah! Need I elaborate more?

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Weekend Happenings!

My family (Tom's sister & Co.) came home for a long-weekend visit from Colorado. On Sunday we had a delicious lunch (pulled pork w/choice of sauce, baked beans, cheesy potatoes, green salad, fruit salad and birthday cake for dessert) at their home. I'm certain that my father-in-law must have started cooking all of this at 4:00 in the morning when he usually wakes for the day, because I don't know how Judy & Melissa found the time to whip this all up by noon, and have the house ready for the gang's arrival. Most of the gang was present, except for Mark's sisters Lynn & Tina from Chicago. In total, there were 22 of us. You can click on the hotlinks to see photos of everyone:

My nieces and nephew Grace, Grant and Jillian

Grandma Fran & Grandma Judy and here is Grandpa Larry & Grandpa Ed

Mary Jane and John our cousins, and their sons David and Mark (with John)

Brothers Neal & Mark

My neice Jillian and my nephew-in-law (is nephew-in-law a word?) Lauer here coloring some cool pictures.

My niece Grace cuddling with my daughter Olivia.

Here's the Three Amigas - Melissa (sister), Traci (Lauer's Mom/Neal's Wife), Mary Jane (cousin). Got all that? Branches are long, what can I say!

The Newlyweds Kyle & Jill (Kyle = Mary Jane's brother). Kyle was in town from New Jersey to celebrate his 30th birthday (for the 20th time). It was a nice treat to have them there.

And of course Mark & Melissa who are probably getting ready to catch their flight back to Colorado as I type this.

We had such a nice afternoon together, overeating around the table, catching up on the family happenings from here and there, laughing 'til it hurt and wishing it wouldn't end. I'm in awe at how much the kids have grown up - must be that Mile High city air. It was much too short of a visit though.

Hurry up and move back!! Picture's just AREN'T enough!

Day 11 - Happy Bday & Veterans Day & Pictures

11/11/07 - Here's two important reasons to celebrate today!

Happy Birthday Uncle Brian! I hope today is a day as special as YOU are! You deserve all the goodness this year can bring you. Those of us lucky enough to have you in our lives are thankful for the laughter you bring, the advice you always have readily available, the inside jokes, and the kindness in your heart. We love you! Click here to see just how sad we are that we can't celebrate with you today!


And secondly, Happy Veterans Day!

A huge THANK YOU to honor those today that have served our country & those who have died for our country! I'm thankful that you volunteered and gave of yourselves to protect the USA. I'm proud to be an American - and so are they!




Here are some pictures that my Dad took while serving with the United States Air Force during '03 Operation Enduring Freedom. Please click on each picture to see it larger.








Support our troops! Continued prayers that you all come home safely to your families!

Day 7 - Conversations with Carter & some pictures

On Monday, Carter came home from school and was enjoying his usual after-school snack, when he started asking some peculiar questions. He asked first, "is the smoke alarm in my room going to go off when I'm asleep tonight?" I told him I didn't think so, but I inquired why he was asking that. I don't know was his first answer. Then he paused to take another bite and told me, "if your door is hot, you never open it!" A-ha - we're on to something. Time to reel this conversation in. Fire. They must have discussed fire at school. Sure enough, after asking him the question in several different ways, he told me that a Firefighter visited his class today and taught them what to do in case of a fire at his house.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately anyway, because one project in his Tiger Cub handbook that we need to work on is coming up with a fire plan for our family. I worry about this plan we come up with, because Carter is so literal. Whatever we tell him the first time, will be what he stands by. He doesn't stray far from what he's been taught, as far as trying to problem solve. So my gut is to tell him to stay in his room and go to his window if he smells smoke or sees fire and scream FIRE! Never try and come find Mommy & Daddy. What if for some crazy reason, the fire started in his room? I'm terrified that he would stay there if he had the chance to get out. Anyway, I think I need to contact the fire dept or something to help me gather a plan for our family. I mean, yes I could say meet us at the mailbox outside which is logical, but there's NO WAY I would ever leave my kids to fend for themselves if there was a fire in our home. Not an option. We would run through flames to keep them safe! Needless to say, we do need a plan to talk about - it's important. And I think we all do better in a situation if we've practiced the 'what ifs' and came up with some options together. Do you have an emergency plan?

He's so cute. During this conversation, he was a little apprehensive about if there was a fire at night, would we be standing outside at the mailbox in our pajamas? And how would the fireman know to come to our house - will he smell the smoke? He also told me that pets sometimes hide. And so I told him that he's right, but we don't have to worry about that because we don't have any pets. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Mommy! Yes we do! We have fish!" So after I got my composure back from giggling, I explained that fire doesn't hurt water and so they would be pretty safe in their own home and we would not need to rescue them. He told me again that pets sometimes hide, and that "Oreo" and "Danny" (his fish's names) would probably hide near the filter or behind their rock.... Isn't that the cutest? Gosh, I want to bottle up these conversations sometimes because they are so precious! Anyway, he seemed satisfied with what we had talked about, and so the subject changed to if he could have some more graham crackers now.....

Which brings me to this picture below. I think he's officially sick of his Halloween candy! Yay! Now, what to do with it all. Time to send some in with Tom to work. Like I've mentioned before, I just let him eat it when he wants and pretty much how much he wants until he's tired of it. With the exception of after his teeth have been brushed of course. I haven't had the begging, whining, fussing and sneaking that a lot of parents go through when they ration out the candy. And it works. It's been a week and the tide has turned!

Here's a couple more cute shots I thought I'd share with you too. I think we have a Jr. Picasso on our hands. His latest art picture he brought home yesterday....

And here's my girl when I went to get her from her crib this morning. She was doing peek-a-boo with me through the slats.

Day 2 - sickbay, pictures, pumpkin carving & Halloween costumes

Day 2 - I'll start with an update from Sick Bay #1....

Here's an update on Carter from the couch. I decided to keep him home again today because last night before bed he said his ear really hurt. He came out of his bathroom saying he thinks his medicine is dripping from his ear (from this afternoon I thought?)... I look at him and it's blood! Running out of his ear! Ack! So I try to get the panic off my face, catch it with a tissue and tell him to finish getting his pajamas on and meet me downstairs. This gave me enough time to contact his Dr. and ask if this is normal to have blood coming out of his ear after an ear infection diagnosis. Thankfully, it is sometimes, but not without consequences. He has a ruptured eardrum. The pressure from the infection caused that, but the relief came pretty quickly for him. We need to keep water out of it and not put any numbing drops in. Supposedly, it's supposed to heal on it's own. One side effect is that he is temporarily hard of hearing in that ear. So I have to endure the constant "huh?", "what Mommy?", "huh?". I won't visit the worst-case scenario sites on the internet just yet though. Ok, who are we kidding - of course I already visited those worst-case scenario websites of a ruptured eardrum! I should have my medical degree from the school of Google. We'll all just have to be patient. He woke up this morning with some blood on his pillow and it started to drain "stuff" again a little while ago. He says it hurts when he presses on it. I told him how to make the pain stop - don't press on it! Grrrrrr, kids. But, he's doing well despite his pain. He washed down his breakfast cocktail of Amoxicillin and Motrin like a trooper. Amazing what a couple of hours of pain reliever will do to a child. I've had to tell him, oh about 100 times already to quit jumping around and stop coughing on his sister. I may need to strap him to the couch until it wears off. But it's an 8 hour dose so it will be a while. You can tell he's better by the grin on his face when I took his picture this morning. Take notice he's got on his lucky Colts pajamas. 54 hours and counting until kickoff.

**For those unfamiliar with 'how stuff works' on a blog, you can click on the pictures to view them larger, and you can also click on the bold underlined words for more info. Remember to hit your "back" button to return to the original blog page**.

So here's what else I woke up to this morning. This child is ALWAYS smiling. How could you resist that cute little face and those bright eyes saying, "Good morning world! Come to me!". I've decided I'm going to try and take a couple pictures to post each day with my daily log here. This one was obviously too cute to pass up. I usually hear her on the monitior 'talking' to her stuffed animals. I start walking down the hallway saying "Ooooliviaaaa wheeeeere aaaaare youuu?" and then she immediately pulls herself to a stand to greet me and I tell her, "Good morning, sunshine!" I open her blinds and off we head downstairs to start the day. Most days I'm able to get up with Carter and get him on the bus before she even wakes up. It's nice to get a little 1-on-1 time with him before school. But today he got to greet her with me - he's so cute the way he talks to her too. He calls her "my baby" and "sweet girl". I love it.

Ok, so now I'll let you into our world of Halloween preparations!

My parents and I started an annual tradition when they moved out here 7 yrs ago, of carving pumpkins on the 30th for display on Halloween night. I have them over for dinner, usually chilli but this year I made tacos. Then after dinner, we set up the kitchen to prepare for our carving adventures. Mom supplies all the different pattern books and carving tools, and I get the pumpkins for us. We all dislike the scraping out of the 'guts' inside so it's pretty funny to see how quickly we all want that part over and get washed up. This year, my brother PJ joined us and carved one too. It was his first time and he did a really cool skeleton design. It was pretty advanced for a first timer with all it's intricate cut-out spots. It was a fun evening and one that we all look forward to every fall. I can't believe I didn't get more shots of the family carving! This one will have tell the story!

Here's the final result! From top L-R the carvers were Carter and I did the scary face, Tom did the witch profile holding the pumpkin, Mom did the witch on a broom, PJ did the skull and Dad did the goofy face. It's always cool to see how the patterns transform into these sculptures. They look their best once darkness falls and the candle inside makes them glow. We all went outside to admire our hard work when the last pumpkin was finished.

We scattered them around the front landscape to display on Halloween night. They were a hit!

On Halloween, Grandma and Grandpa stopped by to see the kids in their costumes before the festivities began. They came bearing favorite treats - a cute halloween cellophane bag full of candy corn & plain mini-chocolate bars for Carter, and a cellophane bag full of Gerber Star puffs (apple cinnamon flavor!) for Olivia. They both loved it!

Trick or treating was from 6-9 in our town and the doorbell began to ring right on the 6 o'clock dot! This has been my costume for the past 2 years. I used to be a the wicked witch mask from OZ, but decided to change to something else for a while. This year, instead of answering the door in this costume, I stood still on my front porch near the door. The kids couldn't tell if I was real or a statue. It was so much fun scaring them when they got closer - that's how I like Halloween! Tom took Carter around the 'hood and returned back in just an hour. Carter had filled up his pumpkin and declared he was ready to go home and sort. And eat. So they did their ritual of dumping out the candy and choosing which piece of sugar was going to be the first to touch his just-had-his-teeth-cleaned-the-day-before-halloween mouth. I'm sure it was something ooey and gooey and sticky.

Here's Olivia the Ladybug just looking cute. We did not take her around because the neighbors all trick or treated at our house and got to see her anyway. And she has a pretty good cold right now, so keeping her in was the better decision. Isn't she too cute though?

And of course, a picture with his loot! I've adopted my sister-in-law's way of how to handle the candy eating. Eat 'til you puke, kids! This eliminates the begging, hounding, whining and sneaking of said candy. I pretty much allow him to eat as much candy, and whenever so that A) it is gone much faster, and B) he gets sick of it in a hurry. Not feeling 100% the past couple of days has slowed down this process. But it's starting to kick into gear now. He's already had 3 pkgs of snack sized M&Ms, 5 rolls of Smarties, a Tootsie Pop and some candy corn. It's 10:30 in the morning. I thought it was the Motrin kicking in - on second thought, I might be on to something. But don't worry, he had breakfast...remember?