Christmas

Well, like so many others this year I am late with wishing everyone a merry Christmas! I hope that our families know how much we love and appreciate them especially with all the support and love that they send our way.

Our Christmas was really nice. We had a quiet day on Christmas Eve and spent the most part of that day making and taking treats to our neighbors. That night we ventured out of Shelley and went to GrandmaGrandpaBean's house, as Mike calls it... Josh just calls it "Bean home"... and went to go look at lights. It was really fun. I don't know whether Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed it, but the rest of us did. It's so nice to see what creative things people have done for the enjoyment of others. There was one house in our little town that put their lights to music. They even did live dj-ing every night. The night we stopped and watched a little boy came on the radio and told everyone to not make-out in front of his house! It gave us a laugh! :)

We had an adventure on the way home that night from the storm that was blowing through, but it was worth it to get the time with our family. The boys, mostly Mike, really understood the whole Santa thing this year. for the last 3 or 4 days up to Christmas he would wake up and ask if Santa came. It was really fun to see how excited they were about all of it this year. Josh was mostly excited about the snow and he loved going sledding on Christmas Eve.

Christmas day was fine and brought some much fun, but SPD did start to get the best of the boys towards the late afternoon and we had to jet out of grandma and grandpa's house. The boys love the quilts they got and especially the dinos that Santa brought. I will be glad when the batteries wear out.

Some of the best things that happened in the week up to Christmas were:
1. Josh and Mike went around wherever we were and wished everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS at the top of their lungs.
2. They also kept singing happy birthday to Jesus. I had explained that it was His birthday and that Santa was bringing us a present to remind us it was Jesus' birthday. I should have that it through and came up with a better relationship between the two, but maybe next time.
3. Jingle bells in our house was changed to "jiggy bells" courtesy of Josh
4. And last, but not least one of the best things that happened was the peace and light that we felt in our home.

We hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas!

Mom Days

to be honest today was one of those days! I didn't want to have the name "Mom". I know that everyone has one of these days and maybe more than one a week, but oh! today was my day.

We had a lot to do, including a Christmas party @ preschool and therapy. So when they got up this morning and were dragging their feet I cringed. We got to the Christmas party that is 3 blocks away just fine, except that we were 10 minutes late... we just couldn't get moving. After that we came home and they had some chill out time before we had to go to Blackfoot for therapy.

Everything went fine until 1/2hr before we needed to leave. Every time I walked out of the room they started fighting! So we were 10 minutes late for that one too! Therapy went really well until the last 10 minutes... what is it with the 10s? Michael and Josh both had a melt down and it was in a hallway that echoes horribly. They started to settle a little before we left, but then it started up again once I told them we had to take the elevator instead of our norm... the stairs. They were just too slippery.

Anyway, it took me almost 10 minutes, there it is again, to get them from the basement(where therapy is), to the elevator (hissy fit at the door to the stairs), then we went up and down twice before I could get them to get out of the elevator which entailed me carrying them both out football style and two nurses holding open the doors.

to end on a positive note, I really do feel like my children are a blessing and I really enjoy being a mom! Life is really a wonderful adventure and I am so thankful that I have my family to experience it with; I could just go without the "mom days"

IT'S HAPPENED!

I'm not sure if I am excited, sad, or just plain relieved. This morning in church I was was released from the primary presidency. I definitely will miss being in primary, being around the kids, and serving with the women that are in primary, but it also has lifted some stress off my shoulders.
I guess the weird thing is that I thought I would be more sad about being released and in a strange way I feel a little guilty that I'm not more upset about it. It's nice to feel peace with these things and really if it wasn't suppose to be things would have worked out better.

I learned a lot of things while serving in primary for the last 5 years in different wards. I've learned:
1. no matter how young or old or what kind of circumstances they come from, you can see the light of Christ in their eyes.
2. as adults we learn more from the primary kids than they probably learn from us.
3. The small and simple answers that come up each week in primary can solve any problem if we adults are willing to let them.
4. If you need a boost, primary songs are always easy to sing, even off tune, and invite a wonderful Spirit into the home, car, etc.

There are a lot more, but those are the ones that I seemed to notice the most.
I just have to say that primary is wonderful... Relief Society will be interesting. Since Steve and I have been married, I have only been in there a total of 3 months total time! I'm sure it will be great, but no singing off key in there :(

To Be Thankful...

It is that time again. The leaves are all gone, but a few and the garden is moslty cleaned up. It signals to me that it is time to give and say THANKS! One of my favorite quotes is, "Happiness doesn't mean that everything is perfect." That definetly describes our year thus far and just life in general. We are happy and things are not perfect; and we are thankful for so many things! We have been blessed by the many people who love and help our children, especially Josh with his delays. We have been blessed so much by our family and friends who love us and are concerned with our welfare. We are so thankful for the opportunity that we have had to serve in callings in the church. We are thankful that the Lord has been mindful of our needs. I have wonderful VTs who know me and love me, what a wonderful blessing! We are so thankful for the opportunities that have come our way and we are especially grateful for our Savior who has done so much for us. We hope that our families know how special they are to us and how much we love them!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween, Halloween!

Halloween is now over and it was somewhat eventful. The boys' got to go to an extra day of preschool for a party. They really enjoyed it. Josh went as an indian and Mike went as a cowboy since he didn't like the dracula costume I found for him. I drew a mustache on with my eyeliner, which he hated, but dealt with. Josh didn't know what to think of him at first. While Mike was putting on his boots, Josh got down on his hands and knees and studied Mike as if he wasn't sure who was really in the costume.

The next day was Halloween. We spent the whole day together as a family and really enjoyed it. We went and visted grandmas and granpas, had some pizza and Steve walked them around our little neighborhood wear his stilts. I'm just glad he didn't fall over... I don't know what the boys would have done... run or just cry? The stilts made Steve about 9ft... Oh I wish i would have gotten a picture!

Anyway, everything went fine until we got home...da da DAAAAA! Mike decided to launch all over his bed. The yucky part... he didn't come and get us, so we found it at 11pm right before bed. We've been doing the battle ever since and hopefully it is done and hopefully it will pass Steve and I... Josh is having his turn.




Josh wasn't about to let me take a picture... so with his mouth in ABC song position... this is as good as it got on Halloween.
His feathers on his headband were really cute... kind of "Dennis the Menace" looking.

I can kind of understand why Josh wasn't sure if it was Mike.

It's that time again! Halloween is here

Well, life is as always been an adventure. I seem to say that a lot, but that's what is continues to be. We've had our first snow, not that it stuck, and the boys are in the groove of school now that harvest break is over. I feel a little bad though, I thought the break was three weeks not two and so the boys missed an extra week. I kept wondering why the buses were still running. Oh well!



We also have harvested our pumpkin... I have to say that we did pretty well! Our pumpkin is 50 1/2 inches around and weighs somewhere between 35-40lbs. it is a beast. I want to use it for something other than just a jack-o-lantern, but I've yet to be enlightened to what or how.





Right before harvest break the boys went to a potato farm to pick potatoes. Josh was so proud of the bag he brought home. He picked about 12, and for his attention span that is fantastic. Michael also was so excited to show me what he got, but when he dumped out his bag he had 1 rock and 3 dirt clumps. I thought it was so funny so did Mrs. Hayes.



Now that Halloween is almost here we had to pick out costumes. yay! I found a great deal at joanns fabric store... 65% off so I came home with an indian costume that josh is so excited about and a vampire, which both Mike and Josh pushed away... I think Mike even went and tried to put it in the Halloween bin, so he didn't have to look at it. needless to say it's not going to be used. instead, Aunt Becky is lending us some cowboy gear for Mike and my boss Diane had just brought the boys some cowboy hats leftover from girls camp. Hopefully that will keep him happy. We will see, right?!

A realization

we have been abundantly blessed lately and I guess with all the hussle and bussle around here lately Steve and I hadn't taken notice. This last week I have had my eyes opened. Last month my boss asked me to add more hours and become a supervisor... I thought great more income...... ahhhhh more time away from my boys, all 3. This last week has shown me the Lord's hand in it though. Mike and Josh love that they get to have two-on-one time with dad and Steve is really enjoying it. He even ventured to take them to a football game... yes I went too. Grandpa Larry was there and the boys loved looking through his binoculars or as mike calls them "a cheese". He thinks it's like a camera. :) I usually have a break in between helping people with their buildings so i get to help put the boys to bed and read stories or play quarterback with them.
We've also been blessed with a really good support system for the boys. They have the most amazing preschool teacher who loves them and has so much patience for them, Nursery leaders who sometimes can't get enough of them, OTs Sean and Race who help them with their confidence to do things and help them keep on track, Speech therapist who give Josh so much praise for trying so hard and who love Mike's own pronunciations, and grandparents who love them and want to help them with their challenges. It's been an interesting year and looking back on the last 9 months we've made wonderful progress. Mike's tantrums are basically gone, Josh's speech is really starting to pick up and he wants to communicate, we're working on the SPD stuff and finding new ways to make things work for what they each individually can do.
It's amazing how one day it can seem like a challenge and a burden and then down the road you understand what an opportunity and blessing they have become.

School is Here... Hooray!

Well.... it's official school has started and we have made it through 2 weeks! hooray for that!!! The first 2 days I couldn't get Mike and Josh to eat breakfast because they were so excited for the bus, so they went hungry. Now don't take me wrong, I tried. I even took their little table to the door so they could eat and watch for the bus, but that didn't work. By the third day... Josh was finally hungry enough in the morning that he ate and ate... I think it spurred Mike to eat too. They love riding the bus... in fact they don't even say goodbye to Mom anymore unless I make them do it before the bus gets on our street!

The funny things in life

I just thought this was funny the other day. Mike and Josh oblvously got bored and moved everything around in their room. Josh also had a bloody nose and smeared it across his face and arms. What fun huh? We love them all so much!

"Ketchup"

The red death as we call it and Steve's favorite seasoning.
well not so much has happened as of late, but like everyone else you get behind on things and feel the need to catch up.
Steve just came back from a week at scout camp! yes, he was out of here the whole week... it was crazy! two of the 6 days I took on a neighbors 4 kids!!! i think I am okay with just two for now... being a mom of 6 is not what i want right now. We did have some fun and we actually survived going to the zoo... thank you Steph for helping me out!!!
Steve had a wonderful time and came home with such a wonderful spirit about him and of course enough stories about scout camp to last at the very least for two weeks. The best news is that 5 out of the 8 scouts that went up with our troop this year were asked to go up for the next two weeks to be on the camp staff!!! All of the scouts had a really great time and did over 90 hours of service while there including building a new bridge!!! They also had a great experience being involved in a flag retirement ceremony for the whole camp that retired I think 8 flags... everyone who was up there on Friday night just raves about it! This year all the boys decided to be friends even on Monday morning at 5:30 am before they left they all had committed to being good people... so much better and different than last year!!! Even I'm excited about it. Myself and two other wives of leaders who were up there last week were given a special award from our Bishop on Sunday to say thank you for staying home while our husbands played like boys again for a week.

We also finally defeated the enemy "tactile sense" in the NOODLE WARS and got Mike and Josh to eat spaghetti again!!! yea for progress. Steve and I were/are so excited! Life on the whole is great lately! We've had a great month... the 4th of July was wonderful and the boys are making quite a bit of progress in therapy. Josh is really working hard with his speech and is starting to put together some sentences. Mike is making more progress with his congnitive understanding and life is getting a little easier. I feel like I'm in immersion camp for understanding spd and autism. I'm not getting as mixed up with all the terms and I understand now how to intergrate a lot of activities to help the boys with moving forward.

This is Josh and his OT Sean in therapy socks to help with the proprioceptive input... Josh seemed to love it and I didn't mind it either when I had a turn. :)

Keep on Moving

WOW! I can't believe how time goes by and how quickly things go. Life is fantastic! Mike and Josh are making some really good improvements with therapy and their speech. Josh especially is making some leaps with dealing with tactile sensations and we are focusing on finishing and tolerating "unfavorable" tasks... ya know anything a strong willed three year doesn't want to do.... anything! HAhaha. learning about spd has been really envigorating and exciting. It's really neat to see how everything... noise level and tone, visual stimili, textures of fabric, food, surfaces... effects all of our responses to things. I love all of this... granted I'm getting things mixed up, but it's been wonderful! We had a wonderful 4th of July with our families and especially the cousins!!! We'll have to put the pictures on here another time.

They boys love chocolate milk... I can't seem to have my breakfast shakes to myself any more!!!

And the Hansen saga continues...

Life is such an adventure, isn't is? I know I use that a lot, but I can't think of any other way to describe it. Summer is here and hopefully good weather will stay, but with the ups and downs I'm not sure what joke is being played on us. today it's 80 outside, but by wednesday it's only going to be in the low 60s! I'm really getting anxious to get my garden in and see all the seeds sprout. I'm being a dutiful Idahoan and growing potatoes this year... we'll see what happens. i'm not so sure they will work.

Mother's day around here was pretty quiet... just what we needed. We went to church and then stayed home! it was wonderful. We missed being out at Becky's, but we needed time together as a whole family. It was really nice to have that. We all took a nap that afternoon and then Steve had the boys come wake me up. it was a really nice thing to wake up to three boys bouncing on the bed. The boys gave me their handprints and a poem and Steve gave me plant beds around my house and when we have time to go get it a lilac tree for the back yard.

Lately things have been so crazy trying to get applicaitons for therapy done.... which if anyone ever needs help with that I might be able to help with the whole 60+ page per child applications bleh!.. and haven't had much time for anything else. We are having a lot of fun though!

Steve's still enjoying work and has loved some of the challenges he's been given. Being a mom is great too... a little hectic, but who would trade the experience for something else? Mike and Josh are doing wonderful, they are moving a long really well with learning how to deal with their SPD and their speech is coming faster now. it seems really strange to think of what other 3yr olds do when mine are different. mike and josh have wonderful nursery leaders at church who also get to work with them sometimes at school. It's really nice to have a support system like that... not to mention most of the women i work with in primary are teachers. I've been doing a lot of learning lately about SPD and communications disorders and a little bit about autism. Sometimes I wonder why these little children have to go through these things, and not just my own kids. With the boys' therapy we meet a lot of families who have similiar situations or ones where they've had to come to terms that their child will not likely progress past a certian point. Steve and I feel so blessed to have been given Mike and Josh. Sometimes it's hard... when Mike decides to go mute for no reason or when Josh can't tolerate textures, but we wouldn't have asked for any other way. They are such a blessing and joy to our life and family. What an adventure it continues to be!!!

In the last month or so we've been having some fun with a baby and a dog. One of our neighbors had to go to some training in Boise for her job, so we got to have a baby in the house for a few hours a day for a week. it was so fun to watch how careful the boys were with him. I even caught mike trying to give a baby doll some of his juice because he saw how I was feeding Gavin. Josh really liked to be right next to him, I had gone outside to turn off the water and when I came back inside Josh had snuck into my room and was pretending to be asleep by Gavin. It was a lot of fun.

We also babysat a puppy for one of Steve's friends for a week. The boys loved him and he was beautiful! I don't think I want a dog now as much as I did before, but mike still looks for him in mornings. And Josh likes to pretend he's a dog and tries to drink out of a bucket now when he's outside!!!

and once again it won't appear on our post right!!!

So I was wrong...

Mike with too much cake....................Super Josh

The boys @ 6 months

It seems that I may have now be illiterate when it comes to using the internet, or maybe just technology in general. I guess just too much time singing along with Elmo, playing with paint, glitter and glue. I really do love doing it all though. Life is definetly proving to be a little different than I could have ever expected, but I guess that's why the new plan in our household has become, "plan to be surprised."

So since I have yet be able to attach our slide show or get the link to appear with our post here is the address where you can view it:

http://widget-25.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="l" wmode="transparent" flashvars="cy=un&il=1&channel=1945555039030575141&site=widget-25.slide.com" style="width:426px;height:320px" name="flashticker" align="middle">

I hope it works! ;)

Family update

We don't get to do this as often as we would like and by the time we get to it so much has happened it's hard to catch up. So we have left a slide show of a few pictures from the past months.
The boys' birthday has passed now and we had a great time just kind of having a quiet day. Since they are 3 (wow! that went fast) they now are in preschool two days a week to help them with their speech and spd (sensory processing disorder). We also go down to Blackfoot for other therapy once a week... so we keep very busy! Life has been really good to us this year so far and we've enjoyed the adventures we've taken so far. The most recent for our house was redoing the main bathroom. It was suppose to be a new kitched floor, but we found mold in the bathroom and there was a lot more than we thought!!!! But Steve did a great job and we have some great neighbors, family, and friends who helped us out with demo and putting it all back together. The boys enjoyed it a lot because we had boxes of all sized and we had to go to Grandma's house to shower and take a bath each day. We hope that the rest of the year continues to go well! Just click on the link we're still trying to figure out why it won't let us put the slide show on.

Christmas here and gone

Well it's already 2008 and more than month since we have updated. Like everyone else life gets away from you and you get busy.
Our Christmas was wonderful! We weren't able to do all the fun things the seasons brings, but we were able to enjoy time together, on occassion. The boys let us sleep in!(sort of) Santa came a little early and we got to see what he left for us before Steve and I went to bed. On Christmas Eve we spent time with our families and took time to just relax... not something we get to do very often. That night we decided to give the boys an adventure (sort of) and took a sleigh ride to Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's house. The boys loved riding in the sled, but I think more... they loved being big boys and helping dad shovel the snow before we left.
We had Grandma and Grandpa Hansen and Aunt Mel and her roommate, Mickey, over for breakfast which was hectic as always, but fun! One thing we've learned is that we need to take pictures! All of our Christmas morning with Larry, Susan, Mel and Mickey are on their cameras!!!, so those aren't posted. We all had a good time and then we went to Grandma and Grandpa Woolstenhulme's house. The boys' got to see all their cousins and play with uncle Aaron and Aunt Megan... that doesn't get to happen a lot so it was really neat. We all got a good laugh at Becky for trying on Cordell's moon boots and almost biffing it into Steve!
What a laugh! We had a great Christmas and wish that the day could have been longer! We missed being able to see any of the 7 grandparents that day, but hoped that they knew we were thinking of them and love them very much!
We have had a very blessed year and hope this coming one will be just as good!