g5 Weekend Report

Ok, I missed last weekend. I was being a lazy blogger ;) We did have fun at Natalie's 33rd Bday Clambake.

Let's see...Friday, I had coffee with the girls in the morning. It was nice to hang out and chat. We'll have to do that more often!
Friday night we took it easy. I made smoked sausage and yellow rice for dinner. Always a fav in this house. We relaxed and watched movies as usual. I read more of my book, that I finished this morning called Soul Mates. It was an interesting book. It was all about past life regression/hypnotherapy and the existence of soul mates and what the author's definition of a soul mate was. It was very enlightening. A different book from what I would normally read, but gave me some things to ponder. I love a book like that.

Saturday, we went to one of my BF's surprise birthday party. You would think that this party was more for kids! They had a blow up slide that they turned into a water slide courtesy of Grandma squirting everyone with the hose ;) It was 84 degrees in Temecula where they live, about 45 minutes northeast of us. They have a great house for entertaining and they always put on great parties. I got to visit with a lot of old friends, in between chasing Kaylee all over the place. We had a lot of fun. "Uncle Brian" carpooled with us and we are usually his adopted family at these functions, as he is unmarried and with out children. The only one of our friends. Mark took the day off, as usual when it comes to these functions but, he deserved a day off after three weeks straight working ;) Uncle Brian had fun with the kids. For a single guy, he is really good with them. He carted Kaylee around the yard, took Ethan swimming in the pool and even took him to go potty. Pretty impressive for a single guy! Single ladies, any takers??

Here are some of the pics from the party...

The Birthday Girl, Brook

Javi helped her with the candles.  Stand by with a fire extinguisher!!  Man, mine will have that many candles this year.  Ugh!

Hey, Can I squirt you with a water gun Uncle Brian (light blue hat)? 

Ethan frolicking around the yard.

Javi yelling at the girls to go down the slide, meanwhile not having the guts to go down himself and get sprayed by grandma with the hose.

Sunday, I ran some errands, took Ethan to Target and went to Trader Joe's solo. He needed some alone time with mama. He's been in a funk lately, wanting more alone time from the other kids. I can't say I blame him. We mostly just hung around and played with the kids. Mark colored with them. I made tacos, beans, rice and salsa. Ok, so the meat was a little over seasoned. Mark called it "meat tenderizer". I told him if he didn't watch it, he would be cooking his own meals all week!

Laying like a big girl and kicking her feet.  She looked like a teenager.  All that OT is paying off.  She holds a crayon better than most 10 year olds at 20 months.

Here daddy, let me autograph that for you.

It was a nice weekend. Relaxing. Next weekend Mark said he would let me try to hypnotize him with the script from my book. That should be interesting!! LOL  Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Ms. Independence

She seems like she's grown up over night. All the anticipation of when she was going to start walking and talking and now that part is over. Before you know it, she'll be wanting us to drop her off a block away from school so we won't embarrass her in front of her friends. She's a little lady now and quickly acclimating to big girl life. She got her first Starbucks last week. Wish I would have pulled the camera out for that! She had a kids vanilla milk with our neighbor, Audrey, her mom and I. I know she felt pretty cool to be having Starbucks with the big people ;)

The time just seems to fly by! We are considering converting her crib in to a big girl bed. She keeps getting her leg caught in between the slats. She keeps protesting her naps and hasn't really taken a nap all week. I am not ready for my little darling to grow up. I guess that's just how it is with the baby of the family.

The Newest Cullen

Haha, before we get Javi's hair cut, I wanted to try an experiment. I wanted to see if I could get his hair to look like Rob Pattinson's from Twilight. I just love that messy hair look! I don't have photoshop installed on my laptop right now, but when I do, I'll give it that proper blue gray tone. Just for laughs! Javi is a handsome little devil. He makes a good model too. He follows instruction well when it comes to making faces.

Ok, so I've been a little obsessed with Twilight since I finished the saga last week, but this was fun and Javi had a lot of fun with it too ;)

Blue Sky Reserve Field Trip

We had such a great time on our field trip yesterday. This was Javi's first field trip with his new class. We went on a hike at the Blue Sky Nature Preserve. I was still battling my cold, but I didn't want to miss Javi's field trip. I got to meet a lot of the parents of the kids in the class. I also got to know Javi's new classmates a little better. They are all great kids. They are all so loving and accepting. It really makes me wonder why we try to shoe horn kids with ASD to be more "typical". It seems we have a great deal to learn from these kids. I held hands with most of the kids yesterday, many of them hugged me. They are so accepting, even of us new folk. No suspicion, no malice, just wonder and kindness.

I am truly happy that we found such a great placement for Javi. He has made some great friends his first week. He told me that one of the girls in his class, Sydney, is his girlfriend. I asked if she knew that ;) They are really cute together. They shared a bag of apples. Very cute! We love the new teacher Ms. Meghan and her assistants. They are so great with the kids.

Here are the pics of the trip...

Javi's New School

We are very pleased to announced that Javi will be starting school at Garden Road Elementary this Monday! Hooray! I went to check out the placement yesterday. It was so awesome to watch the teacher work with the students, I nearly cried. I just knew that this placement would be great for Javi and that he would be well matched to make friends easily. I knew right away that he would pair particularly well with a couple of the boys and one of the girls. Yep, two girls are in the class!! That is the most Javi has ever had. He will be one of the two third graders in the 2/3 class, but that's fine with Javi. He doesn't care much about the kids ages.

The teacher had already prepared a letter and a social story for Javi, even before we decided. She also had told the students about Javi and they were sooooo excited to have a new friend joining the class.

We are so happy that he will fit in nicely with the kids and that they will mainstream and accommodate Javi's needs.

Poor Javi

Still going through the motions of finding Javi a new placement. I have a meeting with the principal of the prospective new school where I will also get to take a look at how the class is run and meet the teacher. I am hoping that this will be a good placement for Javi, otherwise, I think we may have to go to homeschooling.

Javi has been pretty sick for the last couple days. Today, he had a fever of 103. He has barely gotten out of bed or eaten much for the last two days. As if all the school trauma and turning his whole little world upside down wasn't enough.

I know I was pretty vague at best about what was going on, but Javi has basically been on a behavioral downward spiral at school over the last, well, since the beginning of the year actually. The "experts" kept trying to tell us that he just needed more time to adjust, which clearly wasn't the case. The last straw was the two referrals and an in school suspension with in two weeks time. At that point, we decided enough was enough. I pulled him out of school until we could make other arrangements. It was against their suggestion, but at that point, I was not going to continue to further subject Javi to an environment that clearly isn't right for him. They were just not equipped to handle Javi's needs and they lacked the understanding of ASD to be able to work with him.

We have also taken Javi off the GF part of his diet, for now (maybe we'll try again someday?). It was just making him to angry. He didn't like being different at school or different at home or different from his friends. The anger Javi has been suffering with has just been so overwhelming, that we didn't want to further traumatize him by keeping him on it. He has made it no secret that he doesn't really like being on a diet, but who does? It did help him, but the benefits were outweighed by the anger issues.

We are planning to take Javi to an ASD psychologist to help him work some of the issues he has been having lately. We have seen a glimmer of the old Javi here and there since he started staying home with me last week.

I just wish there was more I could do for him. I wish I had a crystal ball that could tell me exactly what to do to make his life easier or more comfortable.

Well, until tomorrow. Thinking positive and hoping that the class I visit tomorrow will be the right place for him.

g5 Weekend Report

So as you may have noticed, I have been taking a little break from blogging lately.  Guess I thought I could pretend with the whole, no news is good news, right?  Wrong!  LOL I promise to give and update about the "Javi Situation" as soon as it all plays out. I just had his IEP today, I'll be checking out a new placement for him this week, hopefully. Your continued thoughts and prayers for a quick resolution to this situation would be very appreciated ;)

Ok, so the weekend was actually pretty good.  Friday was pretty relaxing.  Mark and I pretty much just hung out with the kiddies.  Nothing too exciting, but nice and relaxing.  We played some Wii and watched movies, played beauty shop with Kay.  I finished up the last book in the Twilight Series, Breaking Dawn.  OMG, great books!!  Totally addicting!  Saturday we did more of the same.  I made breakfast, hung out and played with the kiddos.  Javi's dad came for him in the afternoon, since he was visiting for the weekend from the academy.

Saturday I had a girls night dinner with my friend Natalie.  I took her out for a little early b-day celebration, since I will miss the actual day next weekend.  We had a good time.  We went to a nice dinner at Jack's, La Jolla.  It was nice to get gussied up and go in a dress.  We were home early and Mark and I spent some quality time watching a movie.  



Mark beat the American Idol 2 Wii game while we were at dinner, so that was pretty amusing ;)  


Kaylee gave her impression of daddy singing for me the next morning. The little stinker has also taken to walking more than crawling these days. She looks pretty funny when she walks. Kinda like and orangutan ;) Here's a clip of her American Idol debut.

Sunday, I made a big breakfast, which is always enjoyable.  Biscuits & Gravy with Rosemary Breakfast Potatoes, yum!  I pretty much cooked ALL day on Sunday.  I did make some time to play with the kiddos in between meals.  We played hide and go seek and read some books before daddy woke up.  Natalie and her niece, Cora, came over for dinner and a movie.  The kids had a great time running around and playing.  I made homemade egg rolls, orange chicken and vegetable fried rice.  Also made some almond cookies for dessert that were a big hit! All in all, a pretty typical weekend.

More trouble

Javi is totally miserable and having a lot of trouble in school, once
again. We have decided to pull him out of school until we receive
another placement. I will keep you all updated when I can, but this
week's schedule is particularly full (Javi being out, Kay's speech
video session & Javi's EEG at Childrens). I'll hopefully have a better
idea about what's going on by the end of the week.

Wish us luck! Javi will need to be sleep deprived for the EEG, so I'll
probably be a basket case by Friday ;)

Shanna Grimes
(Sent from my iPhone)

G5 Weekend Report

Hope everyone had a great weekend. We had a nice relaxing weekend.  Friday I cooked an enormous dinner, which I enjoyed making, thoroughly.  Everything from scratch, just as I like to do.  I suppose I was inspired by watching the movie Tortilla Soup on Thursday while I was folding what seemed like a mountain of laundry.  I spent most of the afternoon cooking.  I made corn tortillas, roasted salsa, tortilla soup, enchiladas beans and rice.  I was a little disappointed that the tortillas had kind of a funny aftertaste.  I am guessing because the masa may have gone stale.  It had been in the cabinet for quite a while.  I didn't know that it could, but I guess it's just as perishable as anything else.  I made a mole enchilada sauce and a Mexican beef roast as filling.  The roast practically fell apart when I was preparing the meat to go in the chili mole sauce for the enchiladas, which is just the way I like it.  Ethan liked the "chippy soup" (tortilla soup) as we called it, which was very surprising.  It's garnished with creama (kinda of sour cream) and cilantro.

Saturday we went to Kaylee's first real playdate (meaning a play date that was actually scheduled for her).  We went to a meet up with the families from my speech class.  It was the first time we had actually seen all the kids in person.  We get to watch videos of each other utilizing the techniques we learn in class.  The kids were so cute!!  Kaylee had a really good time.  So did Ethan!  He didn't want to leave.  They had other children that Ethan played with that were more his age.  Kaylee really like playing with our host's eldest daughter.  It was nice to see her get some time in with a "big sister" type.  The girl also seemed thrilled since she has all younger brothers.  She was fascinated to get to play with a little girl.  We headed out to the outlet mall after that to pick up some much needed clothes for Mark and Kay.  

We relaxed the rest of the day.  We watched AFV for the first time with Ethan.  Man, was it a crack up to see him laughing at all the video clips.  I think it was funnier to watch him react then it was to watch the videos themselves!

Sunday, we made some time to teach Ethan how to ride a bike with training wheels.  Javi never rides his bike.  He just never really took to it.  He's always been more interested in his scooter or skate boards.  Although the bike is too big for him, he did a really good job pedaling.  We decided it was time to get Ethan a bike of his own, so I think I will take a look at the second hand sports shop to get him a little 12" bike.  He won't need it for more than a year or two at best, so we thought it better not to spend too much. 

Here's a clip of him riding with Mark teaching him.

Twilight, what's your opinion?

Ok, so I know I'm a little old, but I have become a Twilight junkie.  I am dying to see the new movie and read all the books.  I went to a Twilight party in January and I was ashamed to say that at the time, I had not read the books or seen the movie.

I think what I find most amusing is what we (meaning most people) find to be romantic about the story.  To any of those that have seen the movie or read the book, the main characters Edward & Bella, share what we in reality would consider "obsessive behaviors", not love.  Yet, I am strangely moved by it and find it romantic.  I guess it's the reason that it's so entertaining.  It couldn't be farther from reality ;)  If Bella were my friend in real life, I would say WTH?  Call the cops on that psycho and get a restraining order, but as fantasy it works.  Kind of funny that way?  My only question is does it teach it's impressionable young viewers/readers that that type of behavior in a relationship is normal?  Or is it total fantasy because he is a vampire? Now that I have a daughter, I find myself analyzing stuff like that a little more.  What's your opinion?  

Kay's MRI Results/Javi's EEG schedule

I am happy to report that the results were NORMAL!  Yay!  

Next stop, Javi's EEG on March 12th.  He will have to be sleep deprived.  I think Mark and I will have to take shifts.  His schedule is go to bed at midnight and wake up at 4AM.  He has to stay awake from 4AM to noon when his EEG is scheduled.  Thank goodness he doesn't have to be food deprived.  That would be a really big problem.  Think we will go have breakfast at IHOP or some thing to keep us busy that early in the AM.

More school issues for Javi

So, if you were wondering where I have been for the last few days, I've been on the phone.  First with the stupid bank people that I had my school loan with, that is a long story, but sufficed to say my school loan is paid off, yay!!  I no longer have to deal with those accounting morons!

The rest of the time, having many, many discussions on what to do about Javi's school issues. Got a surprise call from the principal on Monday regarding Javi's behavior.  He has basically turned in to the "problem child" in class.  He's been disruptive, mean to other students, and generally misbehaving since his teacher has been out on medical leave.  He received a referral on Friday for a physical altercation with another student, then Monday he was disturbing another student and it was keeping both of them from working. Apparently, the ladder has become an every day occurrence, since the sub has been teaching the class.   Javi is in danger of being removed from class if he doesn't improve. They are willing to cut him some slack, since he has a sub right now and that's a big adjustment, but I think we are done with all of it.  I just basically told the principal at long last, that this year has been a total disaster and we would like to get together to discuss our options for other placements.

Well, if it's not one thing, it's another.  Either Javi comes home miserable and hating school when his teacher is there, but somewhat productive or he's driving everyone else nuts, but comes home happy.

We had hoped that Javi would eventually settle in to his class, but I think it's been long enough and he hasn't adjusted.  In fact, things are worse now than before.  We have tossed and turned over how the transition will affect him, but we are ready to just bite the bullet.  Anything would be better than his current state.  We are getting ready for yet another IEP.  I have spoken with the program specialist, emailed his teacher from last year and now we are just trying to schedule an IEP.  Keep you fingers crossed for us that we will come to a quick resolution!

PS, still no news yet about MRI results, but any day now.  Please remember Kay in your prayers that she still has a clean MRI.

Delayed G5 Weekend Report

We had a pretty full weekend.  Friday was a long day with Kay's MRI.  I took Ethan and Kaylee out to grab some lunch when we got home from the hospital and we did some grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (health food store).  That evening we just watched movies and hung out, nothing too exciting since we were wiped from the early morning at the hospital.

Saturday we took the kiddos to the train park and to lunch at the Hamburger Factory.  We always love going there.  It was such a beautiful day too!

It was such a nice day, Mark decided to take the boys to the pool so I could get some cleaning done while Kaylee took a nap.  It was nice to be able to clean one room with out worrying that another one was getting blown up at the same time :)

I also started purging closets, spring cleaning!  The kids have pretty much out grown their entire closets.  Ethan has especially been stretching lately.  Good thing I have plenty of "Javi-downs" to give to Ethan.  It does help with clothing costs and I only save the ones that are in good shape.  We donate the rest.

The kids all helped daddy put together Javi's k'nex roller coaster.  They worked on it for three days straight, but after all that, it's missing two pieces!!  Oh well, they had fun building it.  Especially Kaylee!!

Sunday was a relaxation day for the kiddos.  For mommy it was a Costco day.  It seemed like we were out of all of our paper products, paper plates, paper towels, napkins, tissue, etc.  So $265 we headed home with a trunk full of bulk.  Thank goodness that is only a once every few month purchase. Our typical Costco bill for the month is about $150, since I usually only go once.  I know the days of my shopping at a regular grocery store are numbered, with the way our kids are starting to eat.  Javi can mow through food like nobody's biz, since he eats about every 2 hours.  This kid is like a bottomless pit!  So that means more bulk, and less variety, but easier on the pocket book.

Sunday afternoon, I went to the Indian market.  Oh my, the aroma of the east was intoxicating.  I picked up some spices, naan and almond ice cream for that evening's specialty dinner.  My friend, Natalie was coming over for dinner and a movie (postponed to Sunday, since Ethan was sick on Thursday).  I made Butter Chicken, a popular Indian entrée served over basmati rice.  It's very rich and very flavorful.  Mark said it tasted like it was from an Indian restaurant, which is always one of my fav compliments.  I also made some masala raita for dipping the naan.

Nice weekend with the fam.  Hope yours was great too, now that we are half way to the next weekend!!

Can my seat be used as a floatation device?

This is one of those times when it's really difficult to have more
than one special needs kid. Most of the time, I get by just managing
to keep my head above water, but this week is one of those drowning
weeks ;)

Anyone have some floaties I can borrow?? LOL

Hoping I can swim to blogland soon to give you all a real update and
catch up with all y'all really soon. Until then, my friends ;)

Shanna Grimes
(Sent from my iPhone)