My son wants a new name....

Yesterday as we were just playing at home with new Christmas toys, Keith came up to me and said "Mommy, I think I should change my name". I said well, Keith what would you like to change your name to? He responds, "Well, I think my name should be Furry". Trying to hold back my laughter I ask, well Keith why do you want to change your name to Furry? He says, "I think it will make my friends laugh"! By now, I couldn't help but laugh too.......my son, Furry!

Pacer Game

Juan and I took Keith to the Pacer game this past Sunday night. It was the first time that Juan had even been to Conseco Fieldhouse. Keith really had a great time getting all of mommy and daddy's undivided attention without having to compete with the two younger siblings. It was nice to be able to have the time to just focus on him and watching him have a great time! It was lots of good fun!

New color....

Okay, thought I would change the color of this blog. Since I have all boys that I am talking about guess it should look a little bit more boyish. I do love pink...but talking about boys, maybe it should look more like boys stuff..... :-)

Christmas with my three boys....

This year Christmas was so good and the boys enjoyed it so much! It was wonderful getting to watch them all excited this year opening their presents. Connor was much more into it this year and really has the opening of presents down. Keith of course by now is a pro...and Alex, well he needed Mommy's help. Keith and Connor were also willing to help him open his presents too, just as all good big brothers would do. The biggest hit was a play kitchen that we got for all of them to play with. Connor by far loves it the most and once he saw it he did not want to go and open the other presents...he just wanted to play with the kitchen. So the past couple of days this is all that he has played with. It is so good to see him play with this and pretending and really enjoying this kitchen. I that this is going to help his development and he is loving it. Oh....did I also mention the that he loves this Go Diego Go helmet that his Mamaw and Grandad bought for him? He loves to wear it around the house while playing in his kitchen! Too funny!

He was pretending!!!!

Today was a wonderful day. Small thing here to some are huge accomplishments to our family. Connor for the first time ever was pretending to feed himself and then pretending to feed myself and his brothers. It was great! Connor has problems doing age appropriate play. By this age he should be doing pretend playing, and I was so happy to see him do this! He was taking pretend food out of his car that has a little compartment and feeding it to him and says "yum, yum, gd". He is meaning to say good I am sure, but still really can't say that yet but he is trying which is great too! It was a good day to see him doing this and he was laughing every time I encouraged him to come over and feed me. It made me smile so much today. Small steps will get us there!

My little boy...

Yesterday we had our first appointment with a developmental pediatrician at Riley for Connor. It went well and I really liked the doctor. She really took her time and listened to me explain the challenges that Connor is having and all that we have been working on in First Steps. Connor has lots of feeding issues because he has sensory issues. He cannot stand the taste or touch of certain things. He is very active as she observed since he would not sit still for the entire time that she was in the room. He really struggles with this speech and only has about a handful of words that he can really say. This is really behind where he should be at.

She did say those words that all parents dread hearing.... "autism spectrum". She was concerned about his delayed development in several areas and about some of his repetitive behaviors. He is still young as he is just now turning two so it is still early. However she did want to run several test on him, so he had to get 8 vials of blood drown. He was such a big boy and did not even cry, and I was so very proud of him. She also wanted to have him evaluated by a Psychologist that they have on staff there as they would be the one to give a diagnosis of 'autism'. One of the good things that she observed she said that he does seem to be social as in he will hug and kiss, and will get excited when he sees us. That is a good thing. His speech was a big concern and he is very delayed in speech. We already got approved thru First Steps to get speech therapy, so she was happy to hear that was going to be starting on Monday.

So going forward we will continue with First Steps and the four different therapies he receives each week thru them. She would like to see us back in 6 months to see where we are at and how he is doing. If he has not made great improvement in his speech, she says at that time we should request that he receive therapy more than once a week from First Steps and we would also maybe need to start getting outside speech therapy to help him get where he needs to be. So we will be busy continuing to work with Connor and praying that he really starts improving even more. We are happy that he is so physically healthy and a very loving happy child.

New Vacation Spot....

My dear son came to me today with an idea for a place that he would like to go to on vacation. I was thinking he was going to say someplace like Disney World, the beach, camping, fishing, something along those lines. But much to my surprise what does he say? "Mommy, can we go to Bethlehem? I think there would be a lot of nice people there that I would like to meet." It made me smile! Here at home we really haven't been talking about Bethlehem, even though it is Christmas time. We have been busy, Juan and I are both taking classes and we just had a birthday party this last weekend for Connor. So we have been focused on other things right now. Now once classes are done with (can't wait for the 20th to get here), I am sure we will do some more Christmas centered activities where we will talk more about the birth of Christ. Where is he learning about Bethlehem at then? Well, at his school! Keith is going to a small private Christian School and I am so happy that he is going there. He really enjoys it so much and he is really learning so much! I know that many people do not want their children learning about religion in school, but I am so happy that my child is!! He is learning the true meaning of Christmas!

2nd Birthday Party for Connor

My son Connor celebrated his 2nd birthday this past Sunday. We had a great party with our family and friends at our church. Connor had such a good time! We had a Go Diego Go theme party and I made him a Diego cake and he LOVED it! Well, maybe he didn't really care what it looked like but he loved to eat it! Just like his Daddy!

Trip to see Santa....

Yesterday my mom and I took the boys to see Santa at my mom' s work. They opened up her place of employment for the employees to bring their children/grandchildren in to see Santa for free. We have been several times in the past and it is always a good time. They also set up craft room, where the children can create crafts, a coloring room, where they can draw and the best part a cookie room. This is where the children can decorate a cookie and eat it! (This of course is the favorite room!) New this year they also had two little elves there that were all dressed up and making Christmas balloon figures, wreaths, crazy Christmas hats. The boys really enjoyed watching them make the balloon figures. Well, we get up to see Santa, and I have been talking about going to see Santa all week, so Keith would be prepared for it at least. Last year he was so happy to see Santa and talked the poor guys ear off. Well, it didn't happen that way this year. This time Keith wanted nothing to do with having to go see Santa and having his picture taken. Once I put the younger boys on Santa's lap, they were fine for like 2 seconds until they saw Keith pouting and starting to cry and then they all broke loose crying! I had hoped this would be a great smiley picture of all the boys because I was going to use it for our Christmas cards this year that we send out. My husband thinks I should use it anyway....and just put a cute caption on it saying something like... "Why fake it, this is reality!" So I am thinking about it! It would probably be a Christmas card that most would not be use to seeing!

Things you learn from a Big Brother...

Tonight we have been busy putting out all the Christmas decorations for the house. Okay my dear sweet husband carried all the boxes in and put up the tree and the rest of it was left to me. That is okay with me, that way I can put things where I want them to go. Well, as we are busy putting more lights on the tree I look over only to find Keith trying to teach Connor the one thing that I didn't want him to learn. How to climb over the couch!

Now to many of you this may not seem like a big deal but for a child like Connor this may be a huge problem. Connor is in CONSTANT motion. He never sits still and for him to learn to climb over the couch this could cause problems. Right now we have a good set up for playtime in the living room. He has his 'safe' area for him to play in and I can be in the kitchen cooking or putting laundry away in the bedroom and not worry too much about him getting into things that he shouldn't. However, if he can climb over the couch this may all change. We will have to see how it works out and if he keeps climbing over....you all will be hearing about it as I am sure it will make for some interesting stories.

They did look cute tonight up on the couch together, and they do play nice together so I can't complain there either. They are all around good boys. Our tree turned out nicely and we even squeezed in some movie time tonight as well. It was Connor's first time getting to eat popcorn so it was a pretty big night!

Pumpkin Goo....

I would really love to know where my son Keith comes up with the things that he says. Tonight after bath time, as I was drying him off and helping him with his pajamas, he said something that had me laughing. He says "mommy your hands are so warm", I tell him yes, they are because I just gave him a bath in the warm water and that makes my hands warm. Then he says "mommy, they feel like pumpkin goo!" Now it is December we haven't carved pumpkins in over 6 weeks, and when we did back in October he would not even touch the stuff. My husband had to take it all out of the pumpkin for him because at that time he said it was yucky. So, now why all the sudden does he think that my hands feel like "pumpkin goo"? Should I take that as a compliment?

Why I am doing this.....

I have decided to join the ranks of those of you that Blog. Not sure why. Maybe because I want to be as cool as you, maybe because I just caved under the peer pressure. Or maybe the real reason is that I want to remember all those special moments in my life with my boys, that I know I can't remember all the time because I have 'mommy brain' and sometimes my brain turns to mush. (I know you moms know what I am talking about!!) My boys are growing more and more each day and we are so busy, I am hoping that this will be a little something that I have done that I can go back and look at from time to time to remember all the time that has passed. You never know, maybe along the way.....someone might find it interesting reading the happenings of a house with 3 BOYS! We will see!