Sleeping and Snowmen

This weekend, Chad's parents and brother were in town and were able to come and visit us for a little while. We had a fun night eating out and playing games. We ended up putting Noah in with the girls, which probably wasn't the best idea. They stayed up goofing around until 10pm, when Chad finally kicked Myra out of Noah's bed and shut the door. Noah cried for another 1/2 hour before finally falling asleep. The next morning, all 3 kids were up by 7. It was Sunday, which meant no nap for Noah. He was pretty happy all day, although you could tell he was tired. And after scarfing down his dinner, he promptly fell asleep in his high chair. I know I always see pictures like this, but this is an absolute first for our family! My kids only like to sleep in their rooms or in the car, never at the dinner table! Poor guy, he was so tired!
The next significant thing about the weekend was that we got over 6 inches of snow! In April! Yuck! Uncle Blake went outside with the kids and helped them create this massive snowman! Pretty cool for April!

Autism Understanding and Acceptance: Open Letter to the World

Today is National Autism Awareness day and the entire month of April is Autism Awareness Month.
Last year, our 3-year-old nephew and cousin, James was diagnosed with Autism. This has certainly affected his parents the most, but all of us in his family have felt the impact as well. Natalie posted this on her blog and I asked her if I could share it as well.


Awareness is not enough.

We (The Autism Community) need for you to know what Autism is.
We can only achieve that through Autism Understanding and Acceptance.

Awareness of autism has risen dramatically in the past few years, and awareness is certainly a good place to start. Increased awareness has helped parents get earlier diagnoses for their children, and it has helped secure funding for research. However, it hasn’t done much to change public perception of what autism really is.

This is a call out to the world to understand the people and the disorder.
This is a call out to the world to accept the people and the disorder.

You can not understand or accept the people until you understand and accept the Autism they have.

Autism is a part of who they are.

The media has focused almost entirely on children with autism – but children grow up. In a society where one in 110 children is diagnosed with autism (the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control), no one can afford to ignore the significance of this disability. People with autism are children, teenagers, adults, men, women, scientists, programmers, engineers, unemployed, in care homes … too many of them continue to be bullied, to be judged, or to just be ignored.

Each person is unique. Each person has their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses just like you or I.

The charities, the organizations, the groups, the parents, the people with Autism themselves... we ask you... no, we need you to know what Autism really is.

Today, we ask for your Autism Understanding and Acceptance.

This is what Autism is to us...


Autism means we never know what is going to happen when we leave the house. A trip to Dairy Queen is usually a huge treat, but if James is having a day where his senses are more out of sync it could be very painful and result in having to leave with no treat at all.

It means meeting "friends" at the park and watching James choose to play alone because he either doesn't want to interact or doesn't know how to interact depending on the day. It also means listening to other children ask their parents for friends to come play, but never James.

It means trying to deal with meltdowns in public places and seeing the looks on other parents faces that indicate their opinion of your parenting. And me thinking "if you only knew what I was dealing with, you wouldn't judge me".

Autism is wanting so badly for your child to express some likes or dislikes. Wanting him to tell you what he wants for his birthday, or Christmas, or even dinner. But having to be content with guessing. When he is feeling sick all he can tell me is "hurts", not where or how, and it becomes a big guessing game of what is wrong, until he throws up.

Sometimes he is so absorbed in his own world it is more work then it is worth to get him dressed. Things I know he can do for himself become major tasks because you just can't get him to focus long enough to do it. I often feel like a broken record asking things over and over again with no sign of comprehension until 30 minutes later when he miraculously goes and puts his shoes on to go to school.


And while they are much harder to see, there are so many good things about Autism. To me being "Autistic" explains so much about James' personality, his likes and dislikes, and how he thinks and learns.


It means so much more work at teaching him things that come naturally to other children, but at the same time there is so much more cause to celebrate. We get to celebrate each and every bit of progress he makes, no matter how small it is.

It means having to look so much harder for his strengths. But once we find them he can progress so much more quickly. He is such a smart and talented boy.

It means that he may not answer our questions very often, but when he does we know he is being truthful. James has never told a lie.

I am so much more appreciative of each and every smile or brief bit of eye contact.

While his social skills are lacking, I see the way he interacts with his brother and it gives me hope. He is truly concerned for him at times and worries about what he is doing and if he is safe.

Autism is a huge part of who James is. When we first found out about it the doctor told us to make sure to remember that he "has Autism" he is not "Autistic". But through this past year I have come to realize more and more that while he is "James" first, he is still "Autistic" and I don't think I would change that for the world.

Lexi's 4th Birthday!

I can't believe my baby girl is 4! How did the time go by so fast? Lexi has been such a joy these past few years, although I feel like she's just barely entering her "terrible two's". She idolizes her big sister and tolerates Noah. She loves playing with her stuffed animals, she loves wearing skirts and playing outside. She's enjoying preschool and playing with her friends.
For Lexi's birthday we had a friend party at the Soft Play. The kids all seemed like they had a fun time although it was so crowded! I've never been there when there has been so many people. Oh well, they still had fun and we didn't lose anyone!
Then that night we the Day's over for dinner and cake. I made Lexi a "Thomas the Train's girlfriend" cake. The story behind this is that last year after Myra's b-day, the girls watched a Thomas the train movie and Myra decided that's what she wanted for her cake for her next b-day. Of course, Lexi wanted the same thing, although it had to be a girl and pink. So, that's what I came up with. It wasn't really that hard to make, just time consuming. I guess it was good practice for the Thomas the Train cake I have to make for Myra's b-day in a few weeks, unless I can talk her out of it! =)
Anyway, happy birthday Lexi! We Love you!

Lexi - 1 day old
Lexi - 1 year old
Lexi - 2 years old
Lexi - 3 years old

Lexi - 4 years old

Family Update

I have been so horrible at blogging the past few months. Nothing too exciting has happened recently, but I really should post a little more often. So, I thought I would just do a little update blog today.

Chad is still working at USU. He has been applying for jobs all over, but nothing has come up yet. We are hopeful though. There have been a couple jobs that have come up recently that he would be really well suited for. Keeping our fingers crossed! He also just finished up ward basketball season. They never had a great turnout, so Chad got to play hard every time! We went to one game and it was fun to see him play and win! Myra and Lexi kept yelling, "Go Dad! Go Dad" the whole time. It was kind of cute, but mostly embarrassing. =) Chad also getting excited about the nice weather so he can start riding his bike to work. It's only 10 miles.

I have been so busy the past few months. Ever since starting up my Ziggles Shop, I feel like I just run, run, run!!! Business has been going really well though. We have been so grateful that I've found something that I can do at home to help support our family. I also have a couple of boutique's coming up, so hopefully those go well. I've also had the opportunity to volunteer in Myra's classroom. It's so fun to spend that time with her and to get to know the other kids in her class that she's always talking about. I've continued exercising and have lost over 25 pounds since I started last year. I'm very excited for warm weather, so we can get outdoors. And of course, I am loving being at home with our children. They are so wonderful!


Myra is still enjoying Kindergarten, although I still wish we could have left her at her old school. This school is very structured, allowing for very little play time or creative activities. She NEVER comes home with any sort of art project. However, she is reading REALLY well now. I have been very impressed with her progress in that area. At home, Myra is constantly drawing and coloring. Chad will bring home a huge stack of used paper and the girls will go through it a week! I've had to really restrict on how many papers Myra gets a day. She's gotten so creative! It's a little obsessive though. If she is ever around a writing utensil, she'll pick it up and commence drawing on whatever is around. Newspaper, receipts, bills, letters, my work stuff! We love her so much! She just loves life!
I wrote about Lexi recently, starting preschool. We just started her 3rd week. She's have a great time going to the other kids houses. I'm not sure if she's learning much, she never seems to remember what letter they talked about that day, but it'll come. I'm just glad she's having this experience and getting to make friends. I can't believe she's almost 4! My little Lexi! She's been going through a bit of a rough stage lately. She's very emotional and it's very easy to trigger her little tantrums. I find myself struggling to have patience with her. But, whenever I've about had it with her, she will crawl into my lap, give me a kiss and whisper in my ear, "Mama, I love you SO much!"

Noah just turned 18 months! Wow, where did the time go? I just LOVE this stage, where he is learning and growing so much. He is so much fun to play with. He loves playing with his sisters and completely looks up to them. He got to go into Nursery about a month early, thank goodness! He has been great there. He is always excited to see his teachers and will go to them without a backward glance. And when I pick him up, he always screams with excitement. I love it! He still isn't talking at all and so we've begun looking into an Early intervention program at the University. Hopefully that will help him to find his words. He can get quite frustrated when he thinks we doesn't understand him and this has even resulted in him throwing himself on the ground and banging his head on the floor! It's pretty funny, but not. Usually he's a very loving, cuddly little guy. He loves giving hugs. We just had his 18 month doctor appointment and he weighed 22lbs (6%) and was 31" tall (30%). I don't think the nurse measured him very well, so I'm pretty sure he's taller than that. His head was in the 15th percentile. So, he's still a little guy.

Well, that about sums us up. We are hoping the next few months will bring about some great things.

Lexi Starts Preschool.....Again!

When we moved to Hyrum, we had to stop doing preschool with Lexi's friend Maddie. We were all sad about this! I started trying to do preschool with just Lexi and I, but she just kept asking when the other kids were going to come, and it just wasn't working out great. Finally, I found some other women in our new ward with kids the same age that wanted to start up a preschool, perfect! We just started this week and it was so much fun! This time around there are 3 boys and Lexi is the only girl. Very different than all the other times I've done preschool, where the girls have definitely dominated. They are such nice, sweet boys though and although we've only had school twice, both times went great! The kids all got along and seemed to have a fun time. We are only teaching a week at a time, so next week they'll head off to a different house. I'm sure they'll continue to have just as much fun! I'm just really excited for Lexi to have this experience. It'll be good for her to make some new friends as well!

Bugs....

How is it possible that my kids are scared of bugs? Selectively... I mean, that's what their dad does for work, he works with bugs. My kids have spent lots of time at his lab, studying the crickets in their cages, they chase around flying bugs in the yard with nets and Myra, upon finding a box elder bug in the house, made a little house for it on the end of her bed, complete with bread and water and a plethora of stuffed animals. Unfortunately it died. Myra then insisted on keeping it to give to her dad to study. And the craziest of all was when we had a worm compost and Myra had no problem holding tons of icky worms in her hands.
BUT.... If they see a teeny, tiny bug on their wall before bed time, it is the end of the world! Actually, it's debatable whether there really was a bug there at all, but bedtime last night was quite traumatic. Lots of crying and screaming. They finally fell asleep snuggled up to each other in Lexi's bed. I was sure one or both of them would be up during the night, but their terror must have exhausted them.

This morning, Myra informed us that the bug was actually a fairy, coming to see if their were any teeth under her pillow. =)

Myra's Routine

Every day Myra has a routine when we take her to school. She gets out of her seat and walks around the car giving a hug and a kiss to first Lexi, Noah and then me. Then she puts her backpack on and as she's getting out of the car, she says to Lexi, "Lexi, you be good today and listen to Mom." Then she jumps out of the car and heads into school. About halfway between the car and the school, she always turns around, waves and us and blows us a kiss or two. And then, she always touches her cheek. Yesterday, after she completed this routine, she unexpectedly ran back to the car. I rolled down the window to see what she needed and she said, "Mom, do you know why I always touch my cheek? Well, I always touch my cheek after you blow me a kiss because that's where I keep my special kisses, from you and Lexi. Then I can remember about them later." Then, with another I love you, she skipped off to school.

How did I end up with such a sweet child?

Ziggles Pendant Blog

I've just started a Blog for my Ziggles Pendants. You can view it here:
thezigglesshop.blogspot.com

I'm doing a giveaway, so head on over and check it out.

Also, I've decided to start doing Home Shows. You can also find out more about that by clicking on the tab at the top of the Ziggles Blog. Or just leave me a message.

New Years Celebrations

On New Years, Grammy, Grandad, Blake and Jordyn came to stay with us. We ate a lot of snack food and played some games leading up to midnight. Noah stayed up until about 11 and was so mad we put him to bed. I'm sure he would have made it to midnight. The girls made it to midnight, plus some. I think we were all pretty tired once we made it to bed that night. On Saturday, it was my birthday. Chad made breakfast that morning for all of us. We all went ice skating that afternoon. I was somewhat reluctant to go, since I always have seemed to spend a lot of time falling when I go ice skating, but it ended up being so much fun. We got little walkers for the girls and I pushed Noah around in his stroller most of the time. That made me much more comfortable and I think I was much braver skating than normal. The girls had a great time too. Myra was as brave and crazy as ever. After being there a while, she informed us that she didn't need the walker anymore. Then, proceeded to try to skate by herself. She needed someone to hold on to most of the time, but was very brave about it. Now, she keeps saying, "I can't believe it. My first time skating and I already learned how to skate." She's so funny. Lexi was a bit more reluctant on the skates, but enjoyed sitting on the walker and being pushed around. Noah was good about being in the stroller, but once we got him out he didn't want to go back in.
He was loving it when Chad helped him to walk around on the ice. After skating we went out to eat at the Olive Garden. Yum! That night we played the new game that Chad's family had given me, Dominion. It was lots of fun.

Christmas 2010

We had a really fun Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve, our friends, The Day's came over and we had homemade pizza. The kids all played downstairs while we played some card games and chatted, then we did a little Christmas program with the kids dressing up and singing songs. It was a lot of fun. Later that night, we were getting everyone ready for bed and the kids were very wound up and excited! We did our traditional Yarn Balls, which everyone really got into, we opened up new pj's, read The Night before Christmas, left out cookies and chocolate milk for Santa and had a new game dropped off by Santa that we played before the kids went to bed. It was a pretty late night for all of us and I was happy that everyone slept in until after 8 the next morning. Myra and Lexi were ecstatic. Noah just wanted breakfast. We opened presents. The kids were so excited about everything. The rest of the day was comprised of playing with our new toys, eating, sleeping and eating some more. It was a very fun and relaxing Christmas day.
The next day we went down to visit my parents and have "Christmas" with them. We opened gifts there, ate and visited. Of course, the kids were super excited to have another Christmas. That evening we went out to visit my Grandma Austin. It is so hard for me to see her living in the rest home that she's at now. She has to share a tiny, cramped room with another woman. The place is completely drab and about as unhomelike as you can get. It was a little depressing for me. We had a great visit though. The kids loved riding around in her lap and checking out all the things a nursing home has to offer. =)
On Monday, we did a marathon visit of the rest of our Grandparents. We started out with my Grandma Newman. We were lucky that my parents went with us to this visit so that we were able to spend a little more time with them too. The kids loved my Grandma's toy closet and were able to entertain themselves the entire time we were there. After that we went to see Grandma and Grandpa Keyser. Of course, they had to feed us our fill of Ice Cream and candy. We had a nice time visiting them. We then rushed back to my parents house and packed up the car, then were able to go with my parents and meet up with my sister and her family for dinner. It's always interesting going out to eat with all the kids, but we had a good time. Then we headed up to visit Grandmother and Grandad Rowland. The big box of blocks was pulled out and the kids (and dad) had a fun time playing with them.
I'm so glad that we were able to visit all of our Grandparents and take pictures with them and the kids. I'm sure they will be memories that we certainly cherish down the road.