Updates on the Twins

I realize it has been a very long time since I have updated everyone on the status of my twins. They just turned 4 in September which is incredibly unbelievable! The munchkin stopped drinking his super high calorie formula from a bottle in July and his growth has been amazing. He had been throwing up a lot because the formula would fill his tummy too much. Then he wouldn’t eat real food. The GI doctor is the one who wanted him on it for so long but I am glad we finally stopped giving it to him. He now weighs 22 pounds! he has gained 2 pounds since stopping the formula. It is so very exciting to see him sitting at the table devouring a grilled cheese sandwich. Some days he is our best eater!

The bulldozer has some news of his own. We have been really noticing since about a year ago that he has some serious behavior issues that he wasn’t growing out of like we had hoped. He would almost go in waves behaviorally. He will be great, kind and helpful and then for the next week terrible spurts of screaming and being unable to make his bed or put on his clothes. I am sad to say that for a while we would get angry with him. Thinking he was just being stubborn or lazy, after all he could do these things yesterday. We took him to Mental Health Services and after much evaluation they diagnosed him with PDD-NOS which is on the autism spectrum. We don’t know a whole lot right now but we are learning. Especially we are learning to approach him differently. He has some fears and terrible nail biting to where he hardly has any fingernails at all. I called Loma Linda University today to see if we can get an appointment with them.

All in all both boys are doing well. We got new glasses for the munchkin and they are already scratched. If anyone knows us we always have trouble with glasses for that boy! I will have to drive out to riverside and order new lenses to fit his glasses. There is some news about our oldest the prince but I will update everyone on that in another post.  Thanks for joining me in my journey to being a better blogger!

Sick, Sick, Sick!

Someone has been sick in our house since November 29th. First the prince, on his birthday he had pneumonia. Then 2 weeks later the prince again and then me and now daddy. Daddy and I had Bronchitis which is so fun. Also there is some coughing going on with the smaller children but I am praying that I can boost up their immunity and they can fight it.

I feel like I don’t ever blog because there is too much to blog about so I don’t even try. My goal for 2011 is to fight the urge to feel overwhelmed by my life and by extension my blog and just choose something to blog about. I will try, cheer me on, pray for whatever you think will work. Actually don’t waste your prayers on that I am sure I will need prayer for something more serious later

Continued Vacation Pictures: Proving Ground And Lighthouse in Maryland

Sunday we went to church and then ventured over to the Proving ground where my aunt works. I had been there many years ago with my dad to look at all the tanks and wanted to take the Prince. It was fun but super hot so we didn’t last very long. Then we went over to the lighthouse in Havre De Grace. The last time Dad had taken me there it had a rickety, unattached dock that would move like crazy when the boats would go by. Apparently a hurricane, Katrina I think someone said, destroyed the dock. The lighthouse was awesome. The last time I went there I was unable to go inside and this time it was open! It was so hot that the kids were just whining and crying and melting. We also got to go inside the light keepers house. Concord Point Lighthouse is really pretty and it is the only lighthouse I have ever been inside. I love lighthouses!!!

Cooking Like Crazy!

To get ready for the school year with one child in fourth grade (public school) and three children homeschooling, one in kindergarten and two in preschool, I cooked like crazy. I wanted to have meals ready for convenience that were healthy. I followed recipes from Heavenly Homemakers because she grinds her own wheat like I do and her recipes are simple and cheap and nutritious. She follows the nourishing traditions style of cooking. The first thing I made was graham crackers. While they were in the oven I looked over at the bag of Sucanat (natural sugar) and realized I didn’t add any in, Oops! The kids still like them though, thank goodness. Next on the list Honey whole wheat bagels. I made a dozen to freeze for lunches or breakfast because it is the favorite food of the Prince. Next was Breakfast burritos for the freezer for a nutritious, quick breakfast. First though I had to make the whole wheat tortillas 24 to be exact. Then came the eggs and sausage and some cheese had to be grated. Then 20 burritos were assembled and frozen. Brad did the math and figured that the burritos cost about 45 cents each. Pretty good! I began soaking beans yesterday and will finish those today and also for today the granola just finished baking. The granola is very hearty and we can put it in milk like cereal, it is much cheaper and the kids love it!! I have been ignoring the laundry so that is also on today’s list. That is definitely the dreaded part of the day!

Memorial Service and The Old Mill

The Memorial service was beautiful. My sister and cousin played “Let it be” on the guitar, and a family friend sang. Aunt Kim did a reading and my youngest brother Alex did a reading. Then Brad did the eulogy and it was amazing. He portrayed dad so well and he brought up some things about dad that a lot of people did not know about him. Adrienne and I went up at the end to read some letters we found that Dad had written to her and the boys. They were so funny! After the church service we went to the grave site where the urn will be buried and did a small service there. Everyone went back to Grammy and Pop Pop’s for food. The kids were picking berries in the backyard. It was so fun!

After everyone left we went to the old mill that is in my grandparents little town. It was so beautiful! It was built in the late 1700’s. It was interesting for me and the kids to see a grain mill this size. The grain mill I have fits on my fridge and it was pretty impressive to walk inside and see the inner working of one. They still do grain grinding demonstrations however, we did not get to see one. Right behind the mill is the Susquehanna river. We stayed around there for a while before going back to Aunt Kim’s. It was a very nice and calm day despite the sadness we felt.

My Problem is Solved!!

My dear wonderful friend Kelly told me about Windows live writer. You download the program for free and then write your entire post in “writer”  drag and drop your pictures right onto your post from the file on your computer and viola! You publish the post and never have to deal with blogger’s photo uploader shenanigans again! I think I may be in heaven! I was seriously going to stop adding photos to my posts and let all my many, many readers just use their imaginations :) Now, I am off to start writing some posts and schedule them for the next few days. Happy photo uploading to all of us, Thanks to Kelly!

Having some serious trouble

During our vacation we took 1,400 pictures. That is a lot of stinkin' pictures. It was two weeks of travel and we apparantly didn't want to miss anything! The trouble comes in because blogger is making it very difficult for me to upload, organize and find the pictures for each post. I am not sure how I am going to fix this problem or if I will just have to skip over all vacation pics and continue with posts about regular life. I really want my vacation pics on here so if anyone has suggestions it would be greatly appreciated!

Baltimore

After Fort Mchenry we went to Edgar Allen Poe's house and then to the cemetary where he is buried. It was a very interesting cemetary because a church was built on top of it. It was strange. We walked around there for a bit and then went into the Inner Harbor which was really important to me and my sister. Dad used to take us there and he loved the Inner Harbor. We then drove by dad's old house. It is the house I live in in my dreams. It used to be so beautiful-and still is, not much had changed. When dad was still alive and in hospice we brought up the "woodside house" and he said " I refinished 13 doors in that house!!" Everything else we talked about that day he was kind of soft-spoken about but not when it came to all the work he put into that house!! Anyway, that was our sightseeing for that day. I had a terrible time uploading these photos. I cannot get them to arrange in order. I am very frustrated and have given up on that task for now so they are unorganized and wacky-sorry. I feel it is better to have my computer in tact and wacky pictures than a computer that has been thrown across the room because I continued trying to fix the pictures. Also, I am getting frustrated because blogger has some sort of delay when I am trying to go back and delete words and letters. Ahhh I am done for the evening, hopefully I can find a way around these problems tomorrow.