Miss Me? I'm Back!

I've been absent for a few days....recuperating from our trip and getting back into the groove at home (and then blogger didn't want to let me load pictures yesterday!)....and boy do I have a lot to catch you up on! To make it easy, there's going to be LOTS of pictures, and a little bit of text...enjoy!

Dear Trader Joe's,

Where have you been all my life?

I love you.

Sincerely, Amy

My Aunt (in picture below) took me to Trader Joe's last weekend. OMIGOSH! I am in love.

I love saving money.  I love trying new things.  I love delicious food.  My hubby is very health conscious, and he's vegetarian with food allergies and UC.  Trader Joe's has many of his staple food items at about 1/2 the price we pay at Fred Meyer!  If you look closely you will see on the counter below I am stocking up on his salad dressings! $1.99 a bottle. I was in heaven! They are at least $3.79 when on sale here!

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I haven't traveled with Eli since last Spring.  At which point I realized it would be his last time sleeping in his play yard!  I was a bit apprehensive about how we'd stay at my Aunt's...then I remembered she has a trundle bed in one of her spare rooms!  It worked out perfectly!  See?  We just stuck a piece of heavy duty cardboard between the frame and mattress...and he was safely tucked away in a big boy bed!

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And how did Eli do on the drive?  AWESOME!

It was a long first two years of his life with him hating the carseat....but now...it's a joy to travel with him.

We only stopped five times each way - to wipe up slobbers and change to a dry bib.  (It's a 2 1/2 hr drive normally - it took us about 3 hrs together.  Not bad!)

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My Aunt and my cousin live next door to each other.  Their yards are full of beautiful nature!

I had a blast photographing it all...

Dinner Plate Dahlia

Periwinkle Hydrangea

Butterfly Bushes

Mmm....Hydrangeas galore....

My Aunt feeds hummingbirds...and other birds....

and she puts nuts on the ground for the squirrels....

AND she wishes she knew what to feed Raccoons!  LOL.

She has a cat that she feeds on her back deck, and the raccoons come up and try to steal the cat food...and of course they use the water dish to clean off the food before they eat it.  What a hoot!

Seattle does get lots of rain, but it reaps the benefit of lots of green trees, beautiful plants and foliage!

I miss it sometimes....but then I remember the traffic....and it makes me thankful to be in Central Washington!!

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And finally I leave you with some yummy pictures of Eli and Peanut:

Does it get much cuter than this?

Rapid Fire

My darling hubby bought me a new camera for our anniversary!

I'm still trying to figure it out.  It's fancier than my little point and shoot I've been using for the last three years....and I get more fuzzy pictures than I'd like.

BUT.

Every once in a while - I get a SWEET shot like this:

My stargazer lily's finally started blooming on Monday.

They are my favorite flower!

Isn't that color just grand?

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My new camera has a feature where you can hold the button down and it takes pictures like "rapid fire" ammunition!  I decided to do a photoshoot with Eli today:

I only took 337 pictures!

Be glad you only have to look at these few!

LOL!

He was a good sport about it!

Listening to Baby Tad is what was making him laugh.

It's been the toy he's liked the longest.

We own 3! 

They no longer make them, so every once in a while I check ebay and add another to our collection. 

I keep one in the car, too.

It's been soooo HOT here the last several days.   It's consistently 100 degrees, and the house doesn't cool off at night with the windows open.  Ugh.  The A/C is running almost non-stop and I dread the electric bill!

Today was a good day.  I've been going out very early in the morning to water my flowers and plants.  Then barely go outside the rest of the day! 

I did lots of laundry today.

Took a nap with the kid and hubby.  Bliss!

As I was driving home from church on Sunday, on the side of the road there was a sign:  FREE APRICOTS.  So I stopped an took one of the boxes they had sitting there.

Today I put three full trays in the dehydrator.  Yummmm....

And finally, I ate some yummy hummus that I made.

It was a good day!

Uninspired

I've been feeling very uninspired to write on my blog this last week. I don't know why. Sometimes I feel like "do people really care about what I have to say?" or "do people really want to see more pics of my flowers?" Then I remember. "Oh, yeah. This is my blog. It's my journal for me to remember things that happen along our journey." I sometimes struggle with how I want to come across on here. Am I writing TO my readers or FOR my readers? I've decided I like to write for them. If you like it you'll come back, right? If not, you won't. But, I'll still have information about our daily life recorded for my future reference. What a great medium for memories!

I have to say how happy I am that I have so many new blog readers lately!! Many new families with special needs kiddo's have found me, and I'm building new relationships. It's the best part of the blog world! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STOPPING BY. I couldn't do what I do without the support I've found online. To know I am not alone in this adventure. As new families find me, I try to add them to my sidebar.
Eventually I'm going to reorganize my sidebar blogs into categories, so all the families with special needs kids are in one section and we can all find each other easier!

So, as a quick catch up for the last week:

My sister Shiela and her husband Joe came to visit Sunday til Tuesday. We took a drive up to Wenas Lake, I got some really great pictures of them on her camera, and then we went to this Aspen Tree Forest that I just LOVE and hadn't had the opportunity to photograph yet.

I just love how tall they are, with just canopies at the top!

My sister got even better pictures with her camera, which is much better than mine. I really love the panoramic she got. You can see it on her blog, here.

Their dog, Tucker, enjoyed the drive, too!

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I decided to take them by our Mom's old place. My family will appreciate how nicely the new owners have fixed the place up! They painted the exterior and trim, added new flower beds, a new row of arborvitaes on the other side, put in new vinyl windows, and continued trimming the arborvitaes so you can actually get out of your car in the driveway! Doesn't it look so much nicer?

Here is Eli with his Auntie Shiela:

No - he's not asleep - just cuddling :)

Life In General

It's been a tough week around here. Both Lonnie and I have been sorting through our emotions regarding his job loss. And to top it off, Lonnie's cat Zeke is not doing well. He's had him for about 12 years...and he has kidney failure. Zeke will get his own special post later this week :)
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Lately, Eli has reverted back to his winter sleep habit of waking up in the 4 o'clock hour! Really. It's not my favorite thing. Like clockwork, he starts stirring every morning at about 4:10. It's obviously his sleep rhythym cycle is ending. Sometimes I turn his pump off, to try and get another half hour of sleep out of him, but today, I decided to just turn his pump down to a slower rate, and he ended up sleeping until 6:15 am! More food and more sleep. Bonus!! Of course, I woke up at 5:52 with a start! Thinking, "what time is it? why is Eli still asleep? Shoot, he needs his Ativan!"

So, I got up and this is what I found:

Now to the untrained eye, this is just a picture of a kid sleeping in a bed. To us, this is the sign of a kid learning to move his own body into comfy sleeping positions! These pictures have more to them than meets the eye!

• He started out with his head about a foot higher than it is here.
• His pajamas pants are now shorts, because of the skooching down!
• He LOVES to kick his covers off so his little feet are out!
• Just a few months ago, he learned to get his arms down by his side! So cool!
• This isn't new, but for some reason he likes to sleep with his head almost face down. I turn it whenever I check on him, but he always goes back to the "suffocation pose". Not my personal favorite!

(FYI: He sleeps on lots of layers, including a hospital pad, just in case there is a problem with is feeding line....if it ends up leaking, we don't have to change all his bedding. Just the top layers! Shoot - I could do a whole post about those mishaps. Ugh. Not fun to wake up in the middle of the night and your poor baby is drenched in formula. Worst part is, it was usually MY fault because I was so stink'n tired I left a port open or something! Bad memories!)

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Next is our Peanut boy. So cute tucked in the [spider infested, no doubt] bushes on the side of the house. Lon found him and took this picture:

Today, I was trying to get a good closeup of my sweet cat Piper, but ended up getting a great one of Peanut!

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NOW THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL A "HEAD" OF LETTUCE!

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The huge dandelion finally bloomed in our yard, and I was able to get some of these cool shots. I've seen other photographers take them and just loved 'em - so was anxious to get some of my own - now that I know how to use the macro feature on my camera!

Last week, Lon and I were able to go on a date using some movie money I got for Christmas. We went to see My Sister's Keeper. I liked it. It's a total chick flick! If you are in need of a good sinus clean-out go see it. The critics dogged it. It's totally heart-wrenching and very dramatic. Lon thought it was way over the top. To a man it probably was.

But, as the mom of a special needs kid, I saw things in it that the average movie-goer probably doesn't catch in the same way. I don't want to tell you stuff, in case you want to see it. But, I do have to give kuddo's to Cameron Diaz. She's never been my favorite actress or anything, but she did an awesome job in this show as the mom. I can't get the final scene out of my head. Totally worth the $6 matinee price!

On Blueberry Hill

Last night after Eli fell asleep, like this, (while I was dressing him after his bath)

My niece Amelia, who is here visiting me this week, and I went here:

BLUEBERRY HILL

The guy said, "Pick anywhere you want, and eat as much as you can while you're picking."

The sun was going down, there was a slight breeze, and it was just beautiful weather for harvest!

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Of course we had to take the infamous self-portrait.

Amelia - picking away...

Did you know this is how Blueberries grew?

I didn't.

They were VERY easy to pick! No thorns! :)

and here is our bounty:

12 lbs of Blueberries = $20.50

Picking with my niece, making this memory = Priceless!

Helicopter, Helicopter, Over My Head....

As you've seen in a previous post, we have a HUGE Maple tree in our backyard.  In the early Spring helicopters grow on it....and then start falling off in late Spring, as the leaves come on.

Remember playing with them when you were a kid?  Heck, they're fun as adults!!  We've been having a blast with them!  You can take a handful and throw them in the air....and it puts on quite a show!

But, we've learned two things:

A)  They self propagate!

Little seedlings start wherever they land in dirt and can get a little water!  We've had them in all our flower barrels.  I finally decided to start saving some, and see how big I can get them.  I gotta be able to find somebody I know who wants a Maple tree start for free, right? :)

I've even thought of becoming a Maple Tree Grower.

LOL!

AND....

B)  They are a bit of a nuisance!

One day Lonnie decided to see if the gutters needed cleaning out....and look what he found!

HELLO HELICOPTERS!

So, with our handy dandy leaf blower, in reverse mode, he vacuumed them out of the gutters! :)

Every season brings something to clean up with all these trees we have.  Good thing we love nature!

...and playing with helicopters...

Our Day In Pictures...

THIRD TIME'S A CHARM!

I'm so excited to report that Eli can FINALLY sit in his Racing Stroller that we bought when I was pregnant!

It was never a successful venture in the past...but thanks to his Ativan....his calmer body was able to enjoy a stroll around the pasture!  And a jog around the parking area we have! :)

Here he is at 3 months old:

He did OK here.  I think he started crying and I was still new to the whole CP world....so we didn't try it again.....Until....

 February 2008 (age 2 1/2). 

I had all kinds of blankets rolled and tucked everywhere.  It was a nightmare!  This was the heyday of him hating to sit.  Without the proper support and restraints like in his carseat it was a total bust!  I wanted to sell the stroller after this!

We actually had someone want to buy it a few months ago....and Lon just didn't want to give up trying him in it someday.  I'm so glad we kept it!  It's a much smoother ride than his adaptive stroller!  He can enjoy outside with me now while I water plants and stuff! :)

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Went to our fence line and visited Mr. Llama today.

He was in the mood for some posing!  What a character!

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Tonight Eli fell asleep at 5 pm.

Ugh.

I tried to wake him by rolling him onto his back.

Do you think it worked?

He finally woke up at 5:55 (when I was quietly talking to the video camera while taping him!)  Then, he didn't go back to sleep until 7:00 pm.  So, that's a good thing.  I didn't want to wake up at 4 in the morning tomorrow.  He's already back to waking around 5:00 am.  I don't want a repeat of last Fall/Winter's 4 am wakings.  His early Spring sleeping schedule of sleeping in until 5:45 or 6:00 was bliss!

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Now, here is a sight not usually seen in our house:

When I rolled Eli over and could tell he was really asleep and like a wet noodle I positioned his legs this way to trigger some stretches in his hip joints thanks to gravity!

This is as far as his legs will open this way!  His hips don't have great range of motion unfortunately.

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WHO LOVES TOMATOES?

I do!  I do!

Just look what I found on my plant today:

I love seeing God's creation grow.  I love sharing in His miracles!

Can you believe this little plant that I planted in May

Now looks like this!!

We swear it's a magic barrel!

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And finally - here are the Wave Petunias I planted in May:

And what they look like today:

FABULOUS, Don't ya think??