Hello Milo

This is our new puppy Milo. It was very sad the way Soby died. Jake took it very well and surprisingly Aiden had a harder time with it. Every day Aiden would say "Soby died". Jake would just say "soby bad dog". Soby was a VERY hard dog and I don't know how much longer we could have kept him anyway.

Milo is a pure bread golden retriever. Isn't he just the sweetest thing? I am not really a dog person but I can't help but fall for him.

I Love You Too

Jake has really come along way with his speech. A year ago I looked forward to just the simple things in life .... like him telling me about his bad dream he had or asking for a cup of milk or (SNIFF) telling me he loved me. Well a year later he can do all these things. He actually tells me and Matt "I love you too" at least 10 times a day. It is so sweet and we simply cant get him to leave out the "too" part. I guess he is making it up for when he couldn't tell me he loved me:)

For the life of us we can't get him to say open this he says "op this."
His speech is rubbing off on Aiden (not a good thing).
He absolutely loves school and riding on the bus.
Aiden recently smashed Jakes middle finger in the door causing it to turn black and he proudly flips off everyone who asks him about it.

It was that time of year to get Aidens hearing tested again. Turns out that his right ear isn't working at all but his other ear is working perfectly. He might have a hard time telling where sounds are coming from and his ear may get fatigued when he goes to school. A hearing aid won't help him and a cochlear implant is not an option.

Aiden speech development has been slower than I hoped it would be at this point. I know he didn't have apraxia which is what Jake has but I wanted to get him tested. Turns out just he is behind. His problem isn't like Jake which was absence of speech. Aiden talks a ton but he is incredibly hard to understand. He talks in complete sentences and sometimes I can't even pick out one word that he said. But if I ask him to say a word he can almost say it, which Jake could never do. I have also noticed that he is picking up on the things that Jake is saying. So Aiden has been enrolled in a program once a week that I take him to help him with his sounds. He seems to like it and makes his teachers laugh almost the entire time.

Jake's Muscles

Tonight Jake came and sat down on my lap and I cradled him like a baby and said "I love my little baby Jake" and he said "no I'm not a baby, I'm big, I'm strong." I asked him where his muscles were and he points to his elbow. I told him that his muscles were in his bicept and showed him and he points to his elbow and said "no, I'm strong here" and without any warning he elbows me in the gut. Then he says
"see I strong."

I guess he was right! Jake does have muscles in his elbow.

"No" means "NO"

Tonight Aiden insisted that Elmo walked around in princess shoes. There is an episode on "The Simpsons" where Elmo is being tickled and he says in an angry voice "no means no"! Thanks so much Aiden. I really needed a good laugh especially after everything that happened last week.

I want to thank everyone for your prayers, love and support. There are so many kind people that have helped us during this difficult time. I know that my heavenly father loves me and I am so thankful that my family can be together forever someday. I love my dear husband (I don't know if he still reads my blog) but he has been SO supportive, and loving, and I am just so lucky that I have such a great guy. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Happy Halloween

This year we were invited to a costume party. I got this from the DI for $2.00 added a whole lot of red paint and....



For Matt's costume I got a women's suit top for $4.00 with some $8.00 men's pants and 2 rolls of white duck tape and wa la Beetle juice. We splurged a little on the wigs but I do have to say they complete the costume. I went a little art crazy on Mat ts demon tomb stone. But I like making that kind of stuff so it was fun. Matt tried to hand out bugs and snakes to kids and had the perfect Beetlejuice voice. It was hilarious to watch him interact with the kids.

Beetle Juice and Lydia Bride












Jake was Batman( picture coming soon)
Aiden was Robin for 5 minutes. He HATED it. And I knew how he felt about wearing costumes so I made a point to make something very simple and not complicated. Just a shirt and pants with the letter R. Cant get simpler than that right. Last year I made him wear his monster costume and he cried half the time. So this year I decided Trick or treat was supposed to be fun and what is fun about screaming about a costume that you don't want to wear. So Aiden went in a Gap hoody. Because of the weather (rain) we didn't get very many people question about his costume. And he had a lot of fun which meant Mom had fun.

New Beginnings

I think everyone has been effected by the economy in some way or another. Matt has been fortunate to keep his job despite almost half of his employees (and bosses) being laid off. During the last year work has been incredible slow. Stantec isn't winning bid and so they have had to downsize. There was a time where when Matt would come home I would ask him "do you still have a job?". Then Matt's hours were cut in half even though he was technically at work the entire day. So we learned not to STRESS about it because it is out of our control. I guess I stressed about it because we were relying on my daycare and etsy income to pay the mortgage. And I just lost 3 of my full time kids.

Over the past 2 years Matt has submitted lots of job applications knowing the changes of even getting an interview would be slim. We really really didn't want to move out of state because we love where we live and it would be so hard to leave friends and family. When he got an interview for the Church we were trilled but doubtful because we know that lots of people would be interview for it, but thought it would be a good practice interview. Then he got a second interview and a THIRD. On the third interview Matt knew who his competition. He was actually a college friends of Matts (with more work experience than Matt). During the interview Matt was told "its hard to come this far and then be picked second".

The next day at work Matt was told that there was more layoffs coming and those who kept their jobs would get a pay cut. So not only is Matt working part time his pay would also be cut. Well that sucks!

The next week we waited and waited... for the rejection email. It was so hard thinking that he came that far and was choices second. It would have been better if he hadn't had the third interview at all because our hopes got so high. We figured his friend got an offer because he had more work experience and they were waiting for him to tell them if he wanted it. And then Matt came home with tears in his eyes and said "I no longer work for Stantec anymore". I instantly thought he got laid off. And I guess the devastation look that I gave him was too much because then he add "because I got the job".

When Matt told his boss about leaving he was told that he most likely wouldn't have a job after Christmas so even though he was sad to see him go this is really best.

This has been such a huge blessing in our lives. We have been praying for a long time about what Matt should do regarding his work and finally things have fallen into place. I know that Heavenly Father answers our prays and cares about us. We are very blessed.

Happy Birthday Aiden

Aiden you turned 3.... almost three weeks ago. I haven't been the best blogger at keeping up with things. Better late than never right?

For Aidens birthday I made chocolate cake with a dump truck/construction truck theme. I don't give my kids birthday parties with other kids until they are 4 so we just celebrated with our family. Aiden loved his Thomas the trains that I got him. He got this cool little car that came with a drill and you disassemble the tires, engine, and muffler. It is really fun. Here are some fun things about him right now.

*He loves his red blanket "baby" and pillow and it goes everywhere with him.
*He loves it hen I hold him and pretend that he is my baby. I ask him if he is my baby and he says "yes". Melts my heart.
*He loves his big wheel bike but refuses to use the peddles. He has a special pair of shoes that are for his bike only because he keeps putting holes in his shoes from riding his bike. He refuses to ride anything else. However this will change because Matt accidentally road it over with the lawn mower (how does that happen?) and chewed up one of the wheels which makes his bike even louder when he rides. When it first snows it might accidentally disappear:(
*He isn't the best eater. He has turned away cookies, ice-cream, pizza and won't even try it. Doesn't know what he is missing.
*Hates hair cuts. I have done them when he is sleeping before because of the struggle he gives me.
*Loves baths (he use to hate them)
*HATES WATER, especially pools, boats, water slides, beaches, lakes. Doesn't even like to get his feet wet. However he likes baths.
*Loves curious George
*He loves playing with Jake. They play really really good and are the best of friends. Its funny to listen to them have a conversation together with the limited amount of words that they know.
*He is getting easier to understand. He kind of skipped saying single words and went to full sentences. However we have a hard time understanding what he was saying. Sometimes he talks like a gremlins. I usually can memorize what certain words mean, especially after raising Jake, but with Aiden I can't memorize full sentences. We are having him tested this week to see how his hearing is and doing a speech test while we are at it.
*He still wakes up at least once during the night because his blanket falls on the floor. Grrrr
*Growls/ hisses at little kids/babies
*has the best evil eye
*he is a sweat heart but has a nasty temper
*he is very particular about being clean (potty trained himself in 1 day) hates to have his hands dirty or colored on.


Its hard to believe its been 3 years already. I just love it when he sees me and yells "momma" and gives me a big hug. He has just learned to give actual kisses with his lips gives a big load smack. We love our little Aiden.