G5 Family

Brick or Treat Party at Legoland

2009-10-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

We took the little ones to Legoland for their Brick or Treat party. The kids loved it! Kay had never been there before, so it was cute to see her react to all the different things there. Unfortunately, she was a little too small to ride most of the rides there. She has about an inch to go until she can ride most of the rides, but it was still a fun day.

Daddy's Birthday & 3 Day Cupcakes

2009-10-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

We all enjoyed Daddy's 36th bday! Wooo the big 3-6. Getting up there my love!! The kids and I tried to make Daddy's bday special by making little handmade or hand written items from the kids. We made the card and I made the decorations. the decorations.

Kay even managed to learn how to sing "Happy Birthday to You"

.

This week I did an event for my friend Amber's 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk Fundraiser. I made about seven dozen cupcakes for her fundraiser bake sale. It was fun to make kinds all at once. It got me thinking, I could do this every day ;) Mark was my inspiration for one of the flavors I titled Chocolate Banana Malt Shop, since we used to share chocolate banana malts at Ruby's on Oceanside Pier.

Long Beach Aquarium

2009-09-22T21:14:00.001-07:00

Had a great time at the Long Beach Aquarium this weekend!

Saw many interesting plants and sea creatures.

Ethan made friends with a seal. He kept swimming up for air and coming back to play with him.

The boys got to see that even seals play and wrestle just like they do!

Javi touched a ray.

Ethan touched a shark.

Kay was more interested in coloring the fish than touching them. Although she did want to play in the water :)

It was a fun day with Grandma and the kids!

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits in California

2009-09-20T11:05:00.001-07:00

I have been on a quest for some time to find the perfect biscuit recipe using local, not southern flour. I have read many, many recipies for buttermilk biscuits and tried making nearly all if them. The result, chewy, cracker-like or dry biscuits that were nearly inedible. Having read about the different amounts of protein in flour in my pastry arts book the blog article I found here: http://pinchmysalt.com/2007/09/18/how-to-make-the-best-buttermilk-biscuits-from-scratch/ made perfect sense. For a more in depth description of different types of flour's protein content, please refer to article.

After watching a program on Food Network: Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, there was a restaurant in Portland, OR with three southern men as the proprietors, I believe the restaurant was called Pine State Biscuits. Knowing that this restaurant probably did not have southern flour flown in to Portland, I thought we may have stumbled on to something :)

Using the tips found in my America's Test Kitchen, Kitchen Tips book & also used at Pine State Biscuits, I began to work on my recipe for the perfect southern buttermilk biscuit.

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits in CA

1 1/2 c cake flour
3/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp frozen butter
1 egg, room temp
1/4 c plain yogurt
1/2 c well shaken buttermilk

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Add first five ingredients to a bowl and mix with a fork or pastry blender. Grate frozen butter on a cheese grater directly in the flour and mix with a fork or partry blender until it resembles coarse meal.

In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, yogurt & buttermilk until combined.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix dough with a pastry blender or fork just until all the flour appears to have been incorporated with the wet ingredients. Do not over work dough. You must work quickly so the butter will not melt into the flour.

Turn dough on to a well floured surface and push dough together into a ball with your hands. Roll out dough into 1/2 in thick rectangle, fold in half, repeat 2 more times, the last time, roll out to 3/4 in thick (this builds flakey layers). Cut with a floured pastry blade or floured biscuit cutter and place on an ungreased cookie sheet tightly grouped.

Brush melted butter on tops of biscuits & bake for 8-10 minutes in the oven.

Enjoy with butter, jelly, or gravy :)

-- Post From My iPhone

Imagine the posibilities

2009-09-15T12:29:00.001-07:00

Today I was in the waiting room at Kay's therapy place talking to a mom that also has a son on the spectrum and second child with speech delays. We had spoken a couple times before about different things. Today's subject happened to be alternative therapies for kids with Autism.

I could tell from the start that we shared similar opinions on many things and had read and researched similar things, but we were very different on our lines of treatment. We were also at very different stages of development with our kids, her son, 3 and my son, 9. I began telling her the therapies we had tried and she told me some therapies that they had tried, some we hadn't even heard about. When the subject of whether or not we had had our son tested for this allergy or that allergy or metal level or oxidative stress levels, I said no. I told her we didn't have a DAN doctor either. She looked at me in horror. I told her we couldn't afford one. I said we could certainly afford the consultation, but when it comes to paying for all the alternative therapies, tests and what have you, we had to be realistic. I also tried to impart that we have three children that all have special needs. We could maybe afford to pay for therapy for one, but we certainly could not afford to do experimental treatments and tests for all of them. She shook her head in agreement and even teared up a bit as she listened to my story. I told her that I would love to send my kids to the best therapy money could buy (who wouldn't?), but that just isn't reality. I told her I just do the best I can with what I have to work with and that I try not to blame myself or worry about what I could have done, should have done, or couldn't afford. I told her I haven't given up on the hope that my son will, at some point lead an independent life, but I have to also have the hope mixed in with the reality. There is a good possibility that my son will never live completely independent, but that's ok, none of us truly live independent from one another (just trying to spin the positives, hehe). She said she admired my positive attitude as I admired her tenacity for trying to do everything possible for her son.

The more I talked to this woman I could see the walls and her judgement of what she perceived of me when I first began to talk to her were beginning to break down. Just as my initial opinion of her as being a little bit of an extremist (just being honest) began to breakdown. She began to understand and appreciate our situation as different from her situation. We even exchanged a recipe and I gave her the name of a cookbook to check out (typical me). All in all, it ended up on the positive. I learned from her about oxidative stress levels and some enzyme therapy to check out.

I guess my point of this story is have empathy and appreciate others and their unique situation, even amongst people who are in a similar situation. We are all different and lead different, busy lives. We all have our own ideas on things. If we would stop to really listen to each other every once in a while, we would stand to learn so much more. We are all guilty (me included of course) of wanting to tell our story and judge other people when they tell theirs. It's just human nature, but if we could commit ourselves to being more open even half the time, imagine the possibilities...

-- Post From My iPhone

Sunny California Weekend

2009-09-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we headed down to La Jolla Shores with our friends and neighbors, the Campbell's. Had a great time! We boogie boarded, had a Bon fire, had a Wieny roast & made s'mores. The kids loved it. I hadn't done that since HS. One of those fun simple things you can enjoy together and spend a beautiful afternoon and evening on the beach.

Javi is really getting in to boogie boarding. Perhaps one day a pro surf champ???? ;)

Here are some pics.

Daddy & I had a date on Saturday night. We went to Cafe Luna, a northern Itallian restaurant not to far from our house. D'lish! My sweetie pie was looking pretty fine, which made the experince that much better. Thanks for watching the kids, Grandma!!

Great weekend! Hope yours was too!!

Chicken & Dumplings

2009-09-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

With fall on the way, it's nice to have a bowl of steaming love to comfort you on a cold day. I happened to make this recipe today, not because it was cold, lord, it's definitely not cold here!! But, because my little guy Ethan is home sick today.

I made some chicken stock last night since we had bone in chicken parmesan breasts. Since we didn't finish the breast meat, I shredded it and put it in the fridge. Chicken & Dumplings taste heavenly with homemade stock, as well as anything else made with homemade stock! It's much easier to prepare than you think!

The day before you make your chicken & dumplings....

Using your left over chicken & chicken carcass from roasted chicken, fried chicken, or any old bone in chicken you have prepared that yields at least 2 cups of leftover shredded chicken. Shred chicken and refrigerate. I say use left over chicken because I think it tastes better leftover and it really stretches your food $$$ ;)

STOCK
Chicken Carcass
1-2 carrots, roughly chopped
1-2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
1/2 to 1 onion (depending on the size), peeled and quartered
2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
1 sprig of rosemary, (optional to use dried, on average it's usually 1/4 tsp to one sprig)
2 dried bay leaves,
2 sprigs of thyme, (optional to use dried, on average it's usually 1/4 tsp to one sprig)
1 Tbsp Whole Pepper Corns
Salt & Pepper to Taste

Put in your chicken carcass after you have taken all the spare meat off the bones in to a large stock pot. Fill a stock pot with 2.5-5 quarts of cold water. It should cover the carcass, but not over flow the pot when you add your veg. Add each of the ingredients to the pot as they are chopped & measured. Bring water to a boil for approx 15 min, then simmer on low for about 30-60 min. The stock should have a golden to light brown color when finished. Strain stock with a fine wire mesh strainer in to a large bowl and cool. When liquid cools, store in an air tight container and refrigerate for up to 10 days or freeze in a freezer safe container for up to 4 months.

**Rinse & Reserve your veggies and store in the fridge (gets all the woody bits off the veg).

There is no exact science to stock making and don't be afraid to experiment. Don't be afraid to use other spices or veggies. Each will add it's own unique flavor. Of course, aromatics work best, leeks, scallions, pearl onions, shallots, etc. AND savory, oregano, marjoram, sage etc. spices are nice too. Use whatever is on hand.

CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS
Chicken
2 cups shredded chicken
4 cups of stock (you can optionally use store bought broth or stock, but the veggies will have to be sautéed to soften them up before adding them to the stock)
Reserved Veggies

Dumplings
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup coarsely ground cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 3/4 cups heavy cream

In a stock pot, heat stock & shredded chicken and reserved veggies on medium while you prepare your dumplings.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine first five ingredients, mix with a fork. Slowly add heavy cream and just mix until well combined (using you hand it best). Dough will look a little rough. Using a sm cookie scoop, scoop the dough into the pot, making sure not to overcrowd the dumplings, as they will spread a bit as they cook. Just enough to sparsely fill the pot. Turn heat to simmer (med-low). Cook uncovered for 10 minutes, then cover for 10 minutes. I like to sprinkle some dried thyme on top of each before covering.

Serve piping hot with love to anyone you want to comfort on a cold day :)

Lake Poway Picnic

2009-08-16T14:41:00.001-07:00

So, it's been a Looooooooonnnnnggg while since I have posted a blog, but things have been crazy and I have found it easier and less time consuming to do facebook and Twitter. It's more of an instant gratification way to stay on touch :) Thought I'd share try posting a blog again, maybe see if I can make a commitment to updating it only when we really have something fun to share.

We took the kids to picnic at Lake Poway today. It's a park/fishing and paddleboat lake about 15 min from our house. The kids had only been there once before and daddy had never been there. We packed a little lunch, played on the swings and fed the duckies in the lake. It was a beautiful day out, not too hot, so the weather was perfect.

Here are a few pics:

All in all, a nice day with the fam doing one of our fav activities, picnicing :)

-- Post From My iPhone

A Day at the Beach

2009-06-25T19:14:00.001-07:00

We spent the day at the beach with our helper, Ms Jamie. It would be hard to manage all of them solo, since they all run in different directions now. Everyone went in the water today. Though it was gloomy, it did warm up enough to get some time in the waves. I love to see how much the kids enjoy the waves crashing over them, finding seashells and building sandcastles ;)

Gloomy, but warm enough for some fun at the beach

The boys ready for some fun in the sand.

Little feet, notice my perma-sandal tan lines? Mark of a true southern Californian ;)

Look at those waves!

Ms. Jamie & Kay building a sandcastle

Me & Ethan, the plaid hat twins

Wrote an "E" for Ethan in the sand!

Javi loves going out in the waves

What a fun day!!

Post From My iPhone

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T23:24:00.000-07:00

Yay for dads!!

Ok, so I know it's been a while and I'm getting some complaints ;) It's been pretty busy lately and since I don't get a lot of time on my laptop anymore ( thanks to Ms. Kaylee), phone is my only option for blogging. It's been super busy around here too!

We had a nice Father's day weekend. We hit the mall this weekend to get Mark's daddy's day gift, a new iPhone 3gs iPhone! Which means, I get his old one! Yay!!

While we were there, we also swung by Macy's sale to check out an ice cream maker for my bday present. As luck would have it, it was on sale, so I picked up one and a few other cool kitchen things.

Today we made breakfast for daddy, which was more like lunch. Buttermilk Biscuits, Rosemary potatoes and bacon.

After that, spent most of the day cleaning, playing with the kiddos and then baking cupcakes & making homemade ice cream for daddy.

I grilled up some burgers on the planchar and oven fries. Nothing too complicated, since we wanted to save room for dessert/daddy's gift.

They are chocolate cupcakes with milk chocolate ganache. The iPhone icons are fondant and edible. We had also had banana carmel chocolate ice cream, homespun in the new ice cream maker.

Kaylee certainly enjoyed it!

After the celebration, the kiddos "camped out" in the den.

Great weekend!!

Post From My iPhone

Cakes & Cupcakes this Weekend

2009-06-01T00:57:00.000-07:00

-- Post From My iPhone

Country Fair

2009-05-29T19:17:00.001-07:00

We had a good time at the Country Fair at Javi's school. We even ran in to Javi's teacher from a different school there! It was really a cute little fundraiser. They had games, slides, a rock wall, prizes and all the usual carnival fare.

We also donated a cake and some cupcakes for the "cake walk". I will post those pics in a different post.

-- Post From My iPhone

Potty Princess

2009-05-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Need some TP

Anything come out yet?

Let me check again...

Ta-da! Patience paid off (it was only a tiny bit, but still counts!!)

Time to flush. I can do this all by myself!

Bye bye pee pee!

Let's wash up. I put the soap on with just a little help from Mommy.

All dry!

She even remembered to turn off the light on the way out!

Can't believe she is so grown up! I normally would not potty train this early, but she is really interested. We have been going through the motions of sitting on the potty seat before bath time. She does it automatically. She undresses herself and sits down. She has been taking off her diaper constantly lately and we figured she was tired of it. She always comes in the bathroom with me and wants to do everything I do, so I thought, why not?? I got her first pairs of big girl cloth training pants today at Target (I swear by them). She has stayed dry for nearly two hours in her training undies. Yay for Kaylee!! You are on your way!!! Maybe we'll have her trained by her birthday?? I'm not expecting it, but it would be pretty cool!

-- Post From My iPhone

My little tortilla makers

2009-05-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

I had some assistance in the kitchen today while I prepared flour tortillas. My two little assistants learned the basics of preparing and cooking them. Ethan got to roll out his first tortilla and then Javi cooked it (with assistance of course, I didn't just turn him loose).

The grill is called a comal, however, I am just using my griddle pan. My grandma has a real comal.

Here is the recipe if you want to try it for yourself.

Flour Tortilla Recipe

4 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 heaping tbsp of vegetable shortening
1 tbsp veg oil
1 1/4-1 1/2 c of warm water

1 c of all purpose flour in reserve for dusting

Sift first three ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add oil & shortening and mix with your hand or kneading attatchment on a stand up mixer. Slowly add warm water. Dough should not be dry, but not sticky. Knead for 5-7 minutes. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest for 30 min. Then start squeezing off 2 in diameter balls. Cover dough balls with plastic wrap so they don't dry out. Spread some flour on the rolling surface and the pin. Then pat rolled balls into a biscuit shape and roll them out in to 9" rounds. Cook on medium high for about 30 secs on each side. You should flip it when the dough gets bubbly. It should make about 2 dozen tortillas. Keep for up to two weeks in a ziploc in the fridge & up to 4 mo in the freezer.

-- Post From My iPhone

Back from my blogcation :)

2009-05-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know I haven't been a good blogger lately, but it's been tough to find the time to do it. With my little princess around, I am no longer permitted to use my laptop during the hours she is awake, which is most of the time I am awake! If I do try to look up a recipe or check email she is on my back, LITERALLY...climbing all over me, trying to climb on the desk, pressing buttons, trying to call China or removing everything from my desk drawers.

I have began 4 different posts, and not been able to finish a single one! She is a cute Lil' booger, but man does she drive me nuts. She is more mobile now than any 20 month old should be. I left her gated in to the den/breakfast nook area to use the restroom and when I returned 2 minutes later she had managed to climb the table and made her way on top of our bar height countertop. Scary!

I have spent a good majority of my free time baking, studying, practicing and I have opened up my test kitchen for new recipes. I am still planning to attend pastry school, I hope, so I am trying to get a jump start.

All the kids are doing fantastic! Summer is almost here and we are hoping to find a house this summer of our very own!!

We will have a visit from grandma tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get some nice pics!

Hope you all are doing well! Rest assured I am still reading blogs, but for reasons I have explained to most of you, I'm not able to comment often. I catch up with most of you on Twitter and Facebook, that are much easier to do from my phone. Take care! see you again soon, I promise!

-- Post From My iPhone

Field Trips with the Boys

2009-04-27T18:30:00.001-07:00

Javi's field trip to the Recycling Center. This was an interesting trip. We learned all about what to recycle and how it's processed. We also learned that California's #1 export is recycled material. Mostly goes overseas to make packaging for the products we buy, so it ends up coming back to us. I have definitely instilled in my kids the importance of recycling and living as green as possible.

Today, Ethan had a trip to Sea World. It was so much fun. We walked around with our friends Grayson and Allison and their mommies of course. We got to see the seal and sea otter show, the sharks, manatee, penguins and spent quite a while at Seasame Street's Bay of Play.

G5 Weekend Report

2009-04-27T17:32:00.001-07:00

It was a busy weekend, but fun. Friday was a cake night. I was up until the wee hours finishing up the cake for Cora's birthday.

Saturday, we went to her party. It was so much fun. They had carnival games, a castle jump and of course yummy food.

Sunday was kind of a lazy day. I cleaned a bit, we took the kids to lunch at Island's Hamburger and then I went veggie shopping at Henry's and I cooked up a storm. It's nice to get some of those week night meals out of the way and in the fridge or freezer.

Cora's Kite Cake

2009-04-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

This was made for my friend, Steve's daughter for her 9th bday.

Kite shaped cookies on a stick

Kid approved flavor. Except Javi who doesn't care for frosting.

Could knock it outta the park with my giant fondant roller. Anyone up for a game of dough ball?

Can't wait for the party!

-- Post From My iPhone

G5 weekend report & weather report

2009-04-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

It has been unseasonably warm over the last few days. It feels more like the end of August. Yesterday, it was 100! We took the opportunity to visit the fam, hit the beach and go to the pool a couple times.

These were all taken at an Earth Day fest at the Cabrillo Beach Marine Museum. I love that place! I used to go there as a kid too. We had a good time. The kids love the beach. Ethan & Javi have asked me everyday if we can go to the beach. I think we have budding surfers. Which BTW...I signed Javi up for Surfers Who Heal, it's a day camp for kids with disabilities. They take them out to tandem surf & hopefully we'll confirm our date for this summer.

Kaylee the life guard. This was our evening swim. It was still in the upper 80's around 7pm.

That's all for now. Hope you all had a great weekend!

-- Post From My iPhone

Emmie & Papa's Magical Backyard

2009-04-17T21:00:00.001-07:00

We are visiting my family in LA this weekend. It's been a while since we have been for a visit.

As a little girl, I used to play in my grandparent's backyard. Today my children, the third generation play there. They pretend it's a jungle, forrest, farm and all kinds of magical places, just as I did as a kid.

It's a neat thing to witness when you can see life go full circle.

-- Post From My iPhone

Viola! Crepes for my Cherie

2009-04-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

Today I made crepes for the first time. I was flipping through my anniversary present from Mark, my Professional Chef textbook and I decided, why not try to make crepes? I wanted to practice so I could make a special dessert for Mark.

Kaylee was my test subject. OMG, I have never seen her hog down something so quickly!! I sprinkled a little brown sugar on them and served her a side of whip cream for dip (my fav way to eat them).

After she was done with the first one. She was begging me for another. She was signing "more" and pointing to the kitchen.

I made her another one and again she quicky inhaled that one too. I think we found Kaylee's new favorite breakfast. Wait until she tried a stuffed crepe!

Ethan and Javi, my little mop tops, finally got their hair cut today. Unfortunately, I forgot my phone at home, so I couldn't snap any shots after. Javi kept telling me that he was in an old fashioned hair cut place, since it was a real barber shop and not a hair cut place. It was too cute. We grabbed doughnuts for them after, since Winnchel's was right next door to the barber. Both boys look devilishly handsome, of course!

Daddy got Ethan a new game for the iPhone to play. It's a motor cycle supercross game, which is right up his alley! Here Ethan is playing the game in his FOX supercross jammies. He is really getting good at spelling his name all by himself when he gets a high score ;) He's so proud! What a big boy! Someone please stop my children from growing up so fast!

-- Post From My iPhone

Bad Blogger/Good Blogger

2009-04-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, besides the fact that the entire house has been sick at one time or another for the last month, I have been a bad blogger lately. There hasn't been a whole lot of exciting stuff going on, since we have barely left the house.

The other reason I have been bad is my newly discovered iPhone application, Kindle for iPhone!

I kind of vowed during lent that I would make more of an effort to read in my downtime, instead of watch TV. I now have cheap access to 1000's of books that can be delivered to my phone wirelessly in seconds. Muahahaha! The power!

I have pretty much stopped watching TV all together. In the last month, I have read about 12 books, including my ever faithful audiobooks I love so much while I do my chores.

Some people have been curious about the size of the screen. How can I read on such a small screen? It's actually easier than a book and I have it with me where ever I go, so I don't have to cart a book around.

What a typical page looks like. Text size is adjustable. I can make it larger or smaller, but the default is perfect. Yes, this is one of my kooky new age books. I've been facinated by that subject lately.

The controls appear with one tap of the screen and you turn the page by sliding your finger across the screen.

Now, reasons for me to be a good blogger...

Found this great application in the iPhone Application Store called BlogPress. Now I can manage and post easily from my phone. I can include multiple pics, tag and edit previous posts and save a new post as an offline draft. Best $2.99 I ever spent! Cheaper than a Starbucks and works much better and faster then using Blogger's slow web application I love so much! NOT!! I flat out have refused to post pics that are not embedded objects or processed thru email. It takes too long and stuff fails half the time.

Here's a screen shot

Seriously, is there anything these phones can't do? My laptop is starting to get dusty. If I can't do it from my phone these days, I basically can't do it. Kaylee is not big on me having laptop time.

-- Post From My iPhone

Ethan's First Girlfriend

2009-04-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

My little boy is growing up so fast! It appears he already has his first girlfriend! LOL, so funny! His little friend Leah and he are completely smitten with each other! Ethan told me on the way home from school that he 'no longer loved me, that he loved Leah now'. She happened to be waiting for us at out house while I went to go pick Ethan up from school. She is the daughter of our helper and friend, Jamie. I guess I knew the day would come, when my young men would hold the affections of another woman in higher regard, but I guess I wasn't quite expecting it at the ripe old age of 4!!

They were holding hands, hugging and Leah even kissed him on the cheek. Ethan was quite embarassed by all the attention, plus the fact that Jamie and I were cracking up didn't help, I'm sure!

The Ladies Man, himself!

The pair dying eggs last week.

-- Post From My iPhone

Easter 2009 & g5 Weekend Update

2009-04-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

We had a nice Easter weekend. We did the usual. Hid Easter eggs, colored Easter eggs, had a huge caloric meal and went to church.

Friday, since our helper Jamie was here with her kiddos, we decided to dye eggs and do a preliminary egg hunt. We gave Jamie's kids some goodies. It was a fun day, but we all missed Javi. Javi was visiting with his dad who was in town from the CHP academy.

My mom came in to town on Saturday and since we were sharing Javi this holiday weekend, we decided to do our Easter on Saturday. We did the big meal, ham au gratin potatoes and stuffing! Then I made a dutch apple pie for dessert, yum! We did the egg hunt and the Easter bunny came with the baskets. Loads of sugar for my little bunnies ;0)

Sunday, we met our friends the Pomiak family at church. Kaylee didn't quite make it through the mass, but did surprisingly well considering that we were there about 30 minutes before mass started and then made it through 45 minutes of the service. T hen we came home and had leftovers and watched a movie together. I had a mountain of dishes from the day before to catch up on and I tried to clean up a bit, since I have been down for the count with pneumonia most of the week. I crashed out around 7pm. I was feeling pretty run down from the busy weekend. I don't think my body was quite ready to get back to a regular routine, because I woke up this morning feeling sick all over again.

So, back to the doc for me, I think. I am guessing that it's viral pneumonia and that's why the antibiotics didn't work too well.

Here's all the pics from the weekend....

Hope you had a fab Easter weekend!!

Gone Purple for Maddie

2009-04-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard through the grapevine of the internet about a very sad story about a little girl, Madeline Alice Spohr, just 17 months old passed away on April 7th. Maddie was born premature and had many complications with her health as many babies born premature do. This story really hit home for me. Also having a daughter about Maddie's age with many health complications, therapies, hospital stays. Like me and so many of us, Maddie's mom, Heather, is an avid blogger and twitterer.

I did not personally know Heather, but I cannot even begin to imagine the emptiness they must feel loosing their beautiful daughter. No one should have to suffer the loss of a child.

In honor of Madeline and a fellow mom blogger/twitterer, I ask you to donate what you can to the March of Dimes. Please use the following link.

Four Out of Five g5's (update)

2009-04-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry, nothing really too interesting to report over the weekend, except being sick. Kaylee has an ear infection, Ethan, just a cold/cough and I may have pneumonia, but I won't know with out a chest film. I have an order for one, but I'm on antibiotics and I promised the doc if I didn't feel better in a couple days that I would go get it done.

Some spring break, eh? Well, at least Javi has had fun and done stuff over the last few days. He has been with his step mom, Brianne and his Nana over the last few days while we recoop. I am so grateful for that. The kids are out all week so I guess that's a good thing. No running around, just lots of movies and laying around. The weather has been so beautiful it would be nice to take a nap at the beach or something. I just hope my little bunnies are well when the Easter bunny comes!

Four out of Five g5's...

2009-04-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

Shanna, Mark, Ethan and Kaylee are all sick. Javi had it first and
passed it to me, then I passed it to everyone else. Then somehow, mine
mutated and became bronchitis, I think. Hoping to make it through the
weekend without an inhaler or antibiotics. So far, I seem to have it
the worst. I'm hoping that the rest of the fam fairs better than I.

Shanna Grimes
(Sent from my iPhone)

World Autism Day, April 2nd!

2009-04-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is World Autism Day. Click the logo for more info.

g5 Weekend Report

2009-03-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-27T18:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-26T09:20:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-03-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-03-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

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)

MRI on Friday

2009-02-26T22:45:00.000-08:00

We are bound for Children's Hospital early tomorrow morning for Kay's MRI. We hope everything goes off with out a hitch. It's always a little nerve racking to have a little one under anesthesia. We are hoping to be in and out in a few hours. Of course, we won't know the results right away, but we aren't anticipating anything. It's really just to follow up with the TSC, check for tubers and also to see how the seizures affected her brain. We know she had some slowing in the occipital lobe that was most likely from the IS, but it doesn't seem to be slowing Kaylee down, that's for sure!!

Wish us luck and hope for a quick discharge :)

Awe...little ole us???

2009-02-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

Our blog got some pretty special recognition from Kyle's Treehouse, an Autism Awareness site while we were away on our trip to Las Vegas, with our friend Fairfax.

We received an email from Lyndsey Silvesti of Kyle's Treehouse that our blog would be featured in an "Inspiring Sites" post on the Kyle's Treehouse Blog. Wow, what a great honor. We have been a fan of Kyle's Treehouse for many years. It has some wonderful resources and helps by "empowering everyone touched by Autism to make effective choices".

It is a real vindication that we are reaching others that may benefit from reading about our life and our experiences. There is hope, despite receiving a life altering diagnosis. We try our hardest to instill in our children that they can do anything they set their mind to achieve and nothing, even their disabilities will stand in there way. There is no limit on what you can achieve with hope, patience and understanding.

A Very Bunny Visit

2009-02-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

Clearly, Fairfax, from Marissasbunny.com (a site that promotes Infantile Spasms Awareness), was a bunny on the loose! He went from the east coast to the west coast. Now, he's on his way to middle America. Who knows where the wind will blow him next.

We were able to grab a latte with Fairfax, California style. He said he likes his coffee like he likes all the children he visits, SWEET!!

We also took Fairfax out for a Valentine dinner to Cheeburger Cheeburger where he was delighted to take a spin in a convertible.

We took him from San Diego to Los Angeles to pick up Grandma, then to the bright light city of Las Vegas, NV. Wish we could have gotten a night time shot of him on the strip, but we only went out at night once and he said he was so tired from the long drive, he wanted to rest in the stroller (we actually were so excited about the volcano, we forgot to get a shot of him).

Fairfax is enjoying the rare view of California's snow capped mountains.

Fairfax is helping to navigate.

Fairfax, in the middle of downtown Las Vegas

Fairfax had fun at Shark Reef Aquarium in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

We ended our visit with Fairfax with taking him to KIDS Therapy where Kaylee receives her occupational therapy and physical therapy.

We sure had a great time visiting with him!! Hope he has a safe journey!

G5 Weekend Report

2009-02-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

This weekend was fairly uneventful because I was sick all weekend, EXCEPT for Kaylee's little stroll!! I did make Chinese food Thursday and Friday night and it came out pretty good. Mark proclaimed my General Tso's chicken was the best Chinese food he had ever tasted and almost ate the entire platter of chicken! Friday night, I made Pepper Beef and Veggie Fried Rice. The flavor was great, but I think next time I will just spend the couple extra dollars on better quality meat. It was a little tough. But hey, what do you want for $3 package of meat!

Saturday, Kaylee and Ethan gave their sick mommy the royal treatment. It was nice to have a relaxing day playing with them. We played beauty shop with Kaylee's Disney Princess Beauty Set.

The kids pretty much entertained themselves for most of the day which was nice. Ethan showed Kaylee how to play Kirby on the DS.

Sunday was another day filled with feeling sick, though I did still manage to get some cleaning done and grocery shop. Then we watched the Oscars and Ethan fell asleep in my lap. I was glad to see that Slumdog Millionaire won so many awards. It was a great movie. Very different from other movies. However, I would still like to see Milk and The Reader, since they also won in the best actor/actress categories. I would also like to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I do look forward to HP and the Half Blood Prince that will make it's debut around Javi, Kaylee & my birthday! Woo hoo!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

SHE WALKS!!!

2009-02-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

Though she actually took her first solo steps, two to be exact, on
February 12th. I promised I would not blog about it until she stood in
the middle of the floor unassisted and took three steps, so we could
techically consider it "walking". Yay Kaylee! You're on your way!

Viva Las Vegas!

2009-02-19T23:39:00.001-08:00

We had a really great time in Las Vegas with Grandma. We got to see the sites...we went to see the volcano erupt at the Mirage, we saw the Pirate Show at Treasure Island, we went to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, we went to Circus Circus to ride the Canyon Blaster roller coaster. We even managed to take care of Grandma's condo biz while we were there, which was the reason for our trip. We ate and ate and ate and ate! We went to buffets, restaurants, it felt like we ate the whole time we were there. We also got pay per view in the room and watched The Four Christmases. It was really good. I even managed to play $2 in a slot machine ;) I actually planned to play $20 either at blackjack or slots, but I got tired the evening I was going to gamble and decided to just hang out in my pj's.

Well, here are the pics. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week and had a wonderful Valentines. I look forward to catching up on my blogs to see what everyone has been up to.

Happy Valentines Day!!

2009-02-14T18:03:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a nice Valentines Day! We are on our way to fabulous Las Vegas! See you on Wednesday in Blogland ;)

Screw you too!! -talking to my tire :)

2009-02-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

Four new tires this afternoon. Found 'em for $460. Word to the wise,
shop around. Costco quoted $750!!!

G5 Weekend Report

2009-02-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Rain, rain is here again. We are pretty happy though, because we need it badly! It sure didn't slow us down from indoor activities. Friday afternoon we had a bowling birthday party we attended. It was so much fun!! Javi had only been bowling once before, but he did fantastic. Guess all that Wii bowling is paying off!!

STRIKE!! On the very first frame!!

Kay was my arm jewelry the entire party and Ethan slept in the stroller all the way until it was time to have pizza and cake. He did manage to get to bowl in the game after eating. He bowled one frame right before we left. He hit one pin and was thrilled ;) To bad I couldn't get any pics because I was helping him bowl.

Mom and Dad had a movie night after the kiddos went to bed. It was nice to relax and listen to the rain while we watched our movie.

Saturday, we had another bday party to go to. This time it was at Playtown, which is an indoor play place. We had a really good time and got to meet some new friends. Javi made friends with a boy named Ethan, who is a celeb in the Autism Community. His team won an award for money raised for the San Diego Autism Walk Now. They were like two peas in a pod. I made friends with his mom, Lisa. We plan to get them together to play again really soon.

Our Ethan had a great time too! The big boys included him in there dramatic game of Sonic the Hedgehog, where they each decided to be a different character. Ethan also had fun playing on this motorcycle. He even put some gas in at the play gas station.

Sunday was a lazy day for the kids, but mommy spent a good portion of it cleaning after we made breakfast. The kids played and watched Boomerang Network. Kay helped mommy dust the living room. It was too cute!

We had a pillow fight, which Ethan enjoyed immensely!

Then mommy got a much needed break to go see a movie with a friend. We got to see "He's just not that in to you". OMG, what a cute movie, but definitely a chick flick!! Good thing it was just us girls ;) Can't wait to see it again.

Hope you all had a great weekend too.

Speech Parent Training

2009-02-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

The class last night was great. For anyone more interested in learning about it, please visit their website. We have a small group in the class, only about seven families. We will have four visits from the speech pathologist teaching the class to film clips of us using the techniques at home. Tomorrow we film our intro video. I don't know if I will be able to post any of the clips, since the speech therapist will be maintaining all of them, but we'll see.

Sickies Strikes Again and Megameltdowns

2009-02-03T16:22:00.000-08:00

My pretty princess and my little middle angel are sick, once again. It started on Friday and has been getting better and then worse all weekend. Yesterday, we finally went to the doc. Kay has an ear infection, or the start of one, so she's on the pink stuff again. She loves it and always signs for more after she takes her dose. Thank goodness she doesn't mind taking meds!! She may be on them for another few years at least, possibly for the rest of her life. ACK! Being sick hasn't slowed her down one bit! No rest for the wicked. We did cancel therapy today.

We had her mid year progress review of the IFSP through the Regional Center. She has made partial progress on all of her goals, so we are happy. They plan to continue all of her services and we have also added the class for me Hannen's It Takes Two to Talk which I will be going to in about an hour. I am really looking forward to the class. Thank goodness daddy will be able to help out with the kids while I go to school ;) Weird to say that again!! Thanks daddy!!

Ethan stayed home from school today. I had sent him yesterday, but his teacher said he was so run down all day that he didn't really participate. I thought it best to keep him home to relax today so he could recoup a little.

Javi is already experiencing the effects of his dad being gone (six months in the CHP academy). These changes are really hard on him (and the rest of us). He had a MAJOR meltdown after school today. He is finally calm now after, breathing exercise, a run around the block and some alone time in his room, but we have gotten NO homework completed, despite trying to work on it for almost an hour...before the melt down really kicked in. He has done the same page twice over and answered all but 2 questions wrong out of 25. UGH!! It's going to be a tough adjustment. Poor baby!! Combine that will us also having more trouble with the school and the bus driver!!! I am sooooooo ready for a glass of vino. It's about time for the mama lion to pounce again. I wrote a long winded post in his comm log today, basically asking for extra patience and understanding during this transitional time for him.

Well, that's all for now. Just another fabulous day in the life...you know you envy me!!! LOL

G5 Weekend Report

2009-02-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Better late than never! I actually had this post ready last night, but had one video that had to be uploaded. I got a migraine and never finished it ;) Hope everyone had a wonderful Superbowl weekend. Friday and Saturday were pretty uneventful since two out of three kiddos were sick.

Friday, I made some Greek chicken avgolemono soup for Mark and I for lunch. I had prepared chicken souvlaki (Greek marinated chicken breast) for dinner for ladies' dinner and a movie night on Thursday, so we had a lot of leftovers. It was d'lish soup! We also had some leftover pita and tzatki that we munched on with the soup.

That afternoon, we had a "Superhero Afternoon" boys played a little live action Super Smash Bros with their plushy Sonic and Mario dolls. We also watched Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer. I also worked on the football cake a little. I baked the cake part. I rested most of the evening and went to bed early, since I too was feeling a little under the weather.

Saturday morning, Ethan and I made the chocolate buttercream for the cake. Yum! It smelled heavenly. Ethan was the official taste tester. It is so cute to see how interested he is in cooking and baking. He would rather cook with me in the kitchen than play video games. He actually shut off Wii when I asked if he wanted to cook with me!!

Javi went to Bates' Nut Farm with his cousin, Nana and Aitona for the day. Javi's dad left for the CHP academy in Sacramento on Saturday and will be there for the next six months. He will be coming home every other weekend, so Javi will still get to see him, but it's definitely going to be a big change for him. It was a nice distraction for Javi to do something fun with his grandparents for the day.

Daddy brought home some McD's for lunch and a much needed ice coffee for Mama. It totally hit the spot and I felt recharged to finish off decorating the cake.

I stayed up pretty late on Saturday night preparing food for our party on Superbowl Sunday. I made all the dips, veg tray, etc.

Sunday the kids woke up early and we played for most of the early morning. Then it was go time for mama. I started cleaning, more food prep, and setting up for the party. I made a much needed coffee run to Starbucks for daddy and I. Since the kids had gotten up early, I was sooo ready for a cuppa.

Our party kicked off around 2:30. We served food from just about every ethnic group. I had made some lumpia, pizza, wings, hot artichoke dip, garlic fries, my famous roasted salsa, asian pineapple teriyaki meatballs, hummus & pita, and of course, cake for dessert.

We had a really good time. There was about 15 of us, including the little people. Even did a little karaoke during half time. Here are the pics and vid. Mark & the boys were very elusive and managed to skip out on the pics and the vids.

Superbowl Sunday Cake

2009-01-31T17:46:00.001-08:00

Hope you all have a great Sunday, whether you plan to watch the game
or not ;)

Family Science Night

2009-01-30T10:16:00.000-08:00

We had a great time at Family Science Night at Javi's school. They did a great presentation! They had different buildings set up with different scientific centers. Building F, which is Javi's class building was set up with the body exhibits, another was set up with physics, another was set up with chemistry and the multi-purpose room (their auditorium) was set up with the solar system, planetary and world exhibits. We really felt like we were at an actual museum they had put everything on so nicely!! I was really impressed!

All the exhibits were interactive. Kids could run experiments like look at their eyes in the mirror through a magnifying glass, measure the small intestines, do forensics on their finger prints, magnetic energy, and they learned why popcorn pops.

Javi's fav was putting iodine on the crackers to see how the digestive system breaks down food. Ethan's fav was the popcorn. They also got a bag of really good popcorn at that exhibit ;)

My personal fav was the eco exhibits. It taught kids what material were recyclable and which could be tossed. They even had a trash/recycle basketball game where Javi won a pencil.

It was really neat!! I'm so glad that Javi invited all of us! Javi got to go out for dinner with his step-mom & dad right after, so he got to learn about the digestive track first hand.

New Blades

2009-01-29T12:39:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I'm sure you are probably getting tired of hearing about my sun filled outdoor California work outs, but here's one more. Mama got some inline skates!! Hopefully I won't irritate my old elbow injury with a fall. I went to the sporting goods store and bought a new pair. I had tossed over whether or not to buy a used pair. I shopped around online and found that a used pair of really good skates would probably run me about the same as a good pair of used. I went ahead and purchased some new and decided to go to Lake Miramar to test them out. I have been wanting another pair for a while, but really got motivated after seeing the bladers at the lake. Well, on my way to the lake, I discovered there was a Play It Again Sports (they sell used sporting equipment). I had checked on their website this morning, but they didn't have prices and I thought the nearest one was 30 min away. I thought, I may find a decent pair for $10-$20 cheaper, it's worth a look. I did find a nice pair of K2's for $29 in my size and decided to go ahead with them. Brand new, they retailed at $200. They fit so much nicer and I really noticed a huge difference in the stability and the way they rolled. Plus, they are nice and broken in, which actually reduces a risk for falls. So, the new ones will be going back this afternoon.

I'm usually a little weird about buying used shoes, but in this case, I was willing to just go with it for the reduced fall risk and the cost factor, should I become disinterested quickly ;)

I am still glad I went to the sporting goods store, because I was also able to purchase my long overdue arch supports for my running shoes!! No more achy feet and back!

Tonight's Family Science Night at Javi's school and it's also Ladies' Dinner & a Movie with my friend, Natalie. Busy night tonight!

Have a great day!

Kay was pretty tuckered out watching mommy do all the hard work ;) She feel asleep some where in the middle of the work out, all hunched over. Someone stopped me and I was able to lay the jogger back a little more.

All done! Sitting in my trunk enjoying the few & cooling down.

New Tuesday Activity

2009-01-27T15:50:00.000-08:00

An old friend of mine had invited me to go for a walk/jog around Lake Miramar. Kaylee and I were happy to oblige. As it turns out, she couldn't make it, so Kay and I had a nice walk/jog on our own. We rescheduled with my friend for next Tuesday, but I think we will make it a regular thing. We can go straight from physical therapy to the lake.

It is a beautiful 5 mile walk.

This is the point where I started to run. I had planned to run at the 3 mile marker, but there was no 3 mile marker, so this had to do.

This last and only straight away before you reached the parking lot. Has a beautiful view of San Diego. You can see all the way to the beach on a clear day, which is about 16 miles away.

Kaylee slept through the whole ride and woke up at the end. I ended up having to walk a bit during that last stretch. I really need some arch supports for my flat feet. Mark says it's because I'm old

A few more things regarding Kaylee. As it turns out, we are holding off on the orthotics for now. Yay! One less thing to fight her on. Her new meds are going well so far, but we haven't completely taken her off the Topamax, so we won't know for sure until a month or so from now.

I will be starting a parent training speech therapy class that is funded through the regional center beginning on Monday night. It's a nine week course, so I'm hoping it will be helpful in working with Kay. That in combination with scaling off of the Topamax (which can cause issues with speech), we are hoping to get Kaylee really talking in no time. She is probably at about a 12 month level for speech, so it's not too bad. She says about eight words consistently, including Mama & Dadda. So we'll see how that goes.

Rent-a-Wreck

2009-01-26T23:03:00.000-08:00

Need a demolition crew? Call Kaylee. Fast and efficient. She managed this job in just under 10 minutes while I was cooking dinner.

Funny how the spilled orzo formed a 5.

G5 Weekend Report

2009-01-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! We sure did.

Friday night, we hung out at home. Mark had gone in to the office for the first time in a couple weeks, so I decided to cook a special dinner. It was a Pinoy feast! I made lumpia and pancit. It was my first attempt. I made chili sweet sauce to go with the lumpia. Yum!! The lumpia was great, but the pancit, not so much. I have never used rice sticks before, so I think I may have over cooked them. They were a little gummy. I'll have to get some advice from my neighbor who made us a Philippine Feast a couple weeks ago for next time. Otherwise, the flavor was good.

Saturday, Kaylee and I went out shopping with a neighbor friend of mine. The boys stayed home to play video games. Mark has been working a lot lately, so it was nice to get some male bonding time in with Ethan. We were supposed to go to this great resale place, but it was closed so we got lost in Cost Plus World Market for a couple hours. I love that store! I did purchase a gift for the bday party we were attending that evening, which was a Twilight theme.

Rushed home to get dressed in my vamp gear. Did the whole undead thing with the makeup ;) Wore all black, the whole nine yards. Kay was my little vamp baby. She wore her punk rock cute little outfit. Looks like something from L.A.M.B., Gwen Steffani's kids' line. My little cutie. I was running late, so I forgot my camera. I don't have any pics :( My friend Natalie took some pics, so I will just have to wait on the pics. We had fun at the party. They had everything all decorated to theme. Complete with themed food ;) Wooden spears of meat (kabobs), bleeding red velvet cupcakes, Type O- and O+ blood on tap (sangria), just to name a few...Kaylee was tuckered out by 9pm, so we headed home. It was a twilight party, so of course, that's when it began, so she lasted for quite a few hours.

The boys had a great boys night in. They ate junk, played and watched movies. I didn't want to take Ethan, just in case he was scared by the costumes. He doesn't like parties much, so he said he wanted to stay home with daddy anyway.

Sunday was a lazy day. It felt great!!! Don't remember the last time I was that lazy. We laid around all day and watched movies. I didn't do one single productive thing except feed everyone. We had a "carpet picnic". Ethan, Kaylee and I packed a picnic basket full of goodies and laid out a plaid blankey on the carpet. It was fun to pretend we were out at the park. We tossed the ball around too just like at the park and we made origami too. It was too gloomy and patchy rain to have a real picnic, so it was the next best thing ;)

I made some yummy loaded baked potato soup for Sunday dinner. It was d'lish!! I'll have to write out the recipe sometime before I forget it. I improvised as usual!

Hope your weekend was nice and relaxing too. Have a great week!!

Grr...(update)

2009-01-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

As I originally thought, they did give him pizza. The excuse was we
didn't blatently say "Do not give him any food". We had said back in
October that he could have treats at school, but apparently the 5 or
so times we had asked if they noticed a difference in his behavior
since being on the diet FULL TIME since October was not descriptive
enough.

What I don't get is, if they were unsure, why not call? We also did
not get notice on the day the pizza party would be, only that it would
happen last week. We assumed Friday, since it was also "pajama day"
but, apparently we learned the hard way that assuming makes an a$$ out
of u & me.

Something I hope I have made abundently clear now is : Do not give him
ANY food with out verifying it with us!!!! Also, in the future we'd
like a two day notice of any special food treats. I know this is
possible because the regular ed teachers can manage special diet
concerns, so the special ed teacher shouldn't have a problem.

I am feeling like because she doesn't feel the diet is working and
because she seems to have little regard for Javi, it isn't a priority.
I will be putting in a call to the program specialist tomorrow to
report this incident.

Shanna Grimes
(Sent from my iPhone)

Grrr...

2009-01-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

Yet another school incident on the Javi front. Yesterday, Javi came home and reported that the class aide gave him pizza. Apparently, the class got a treat for turning in their homework consistently and they voted for pizza. For those of you that don't know, Javi is on the GFCF diet which the school is fully aware of. Not to mention, Javi said he asked if the pizza was gluten and casein free and they told him no and gave him a slice. Of course, this is according to Javi, but since he was reluctant to tell me because he was afraid he would get in trouble, I have a harder time believing it didn't happen.

Sure, accidents happen on the diet, but this seemed to be a blatant disregard for his diet altogether!! I am waiting to see what his communication log says before going to the principal. I wanted to get their side of the story first.

Oh, and surprise surprise!! Javi had his first meltdown in months the second he walked in the door because he may have lost his jacket. Full scale, crying, throwing-himself-on-the-floor meltdown. The evidence is irrefutable that he had pizza, just waiting to hear their explanation. To be continued...

Trip to Dr. Neuro

2009-01-23T11:52:00.000-08:00

This was another easy appointment. We've had a lot of appointments, but thank goodness they have been easy! Kay got a clean bill of health from Dr. Neuro. We are still scheduling her repeat MRI, since it's been a while since she had one (last time was when she was 5 weeks old). He said he would like to see her pick up in the development department, but otherwise is satisfied with her progress. He thinks with continued therapy that things will pick up. He definitely recommended adding speech therapy to her regime.

We have also decided to switch AED meds. We are going to scale off the Topamax and try Trileptal. The Topamax has worked great, but the doc and I feel pretty confident that she has beaten the IS, FINALLY! Yay!! We believe that the Topamax may be effecting her speech, since her cognitive skills are fantastic, but she just doesn't talk much. She says less than 10 words at 18 months. The only way to see if it's seizure or drug related is to switch things up. We are also hopeful that she will finally grow some hair too (hair loss is another Topamax side effect). Not that her baldy little head isn't cute, but it's sad when she wants to put bows in and brush her non-existent hair. She rests all my ponytail bands and barrettes on top of her head and does a kind of "TA-DA". It's cute ;) So, hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the drug store we go this afternoon. Hoping we don't get any static from the insurance company with the new drug, like we did with the Keppra. Doc said he has had good luck with insurance companies and Trileptal, so we shouldn't have a problem. So we begin our three week scale down today. Here's the schedule:

Week 1- 3 pills at each dose time, 90mg per day

Week 2- 2 pills at each dose time, 60mg per day.

Week 3- 1 pill at each dose time, 30mg per day.

All the while she will be going up on the Trileptal. So fingers crossed everyone! The Trileptal seems to have pretty much the same side effects as the Keppra, which were minimal, so we are hopeful it will work.

On a side note about Dr. Neuro...we got Javi's EEG scheduled to get him checked out. He will have a few hour, sleep deprived EEG in March.

Ethan's IEP Update

2009-01-22T22:58:00.000-08:00

Ethan's first annual IEP was by far the easiest ever! He met one goal and made and made partial progress on the rest of them. I had met with his teacher yesterday afternoon, so we had gone over everything that we were going to go over in the IEP, which by the way, is the most FANTASTIC idea!! His new goals are all social and speech/communication related and they are very appropriate for Ethan. I really got a sense that they know Ethan and have an very good understanding of his needs. The team also has a firm sense of the things that he is really good at as well. They have decided to increase Ethan's speech therapy to twice a week, instead of once. Ethan has been doing really well with his communication and recently had a burst in development, but they would like to really work with him now that he is really opening up. Keep that momentum going, lil man.

For now, Ethan will keep his placement and we do plan to have him in Ms. Danielle's class next year as well. He is also eligible for the summer extended school year program.

I just wish things were always this easy when it comes to an IEP.

G5 Extended Weekend Report

2009-01-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a great weekend!! How about that inauguration too? I wasn't able to catch it because we were in therapy, but I am sure I'll catch the highlights on the news.

So much to share about the weekend with it being such a long one. Friday night, we tried to go to Nickel City, a local arcade, but it was over run with teenagers by the time we made it there. Ethan had pooped out and feel asleep on the way and Kaylee was being, well Kaylee. We said we would try to do it on Saturday instead. Friday night after the kids went down, I went out for a bit to celebrate my friend passing his series 7 test. I was the DD. It was fun, ran in to another old friend from HS.

Saturday was a lazy day, we played video games and hung out, went to exchange our cable box, finally!! We had been with out cable for nearly a month because I didn't know that they were open on Saturdays and I never made time to do it during the week. We were going to go to Nickel City, but Javi has been so OCD about roller coasters and height requirements that we decided to forego Nickel City and pick out a new game, Thrillville, for the Wii. We did all our research online first to find the perfect "roller coaster" game for Javi. We also got Ethan a new GBA game called Sonic Adventure 3. Javi now has a new incentive system to stop "stimming" (flapping & clapping). So he (his pic) will have to move up the roller coaster train to be able to play for 20 minutes. Each car is worth 20min with out stimming.

Sunday we went to the beach for a bit. It was a gorgeous day out. We took out neighbor Audrey with us. Here's some pics. Of course we were home in time to watch some football ;)

Kids were tuckered out early from our day at the beach and went to bed early. I was able to pop over to see a movie at my girlfriend Natalie's house. We watched "Love, Actually". It was really good. I had been wanting to see it for a long time. Mark had been working a lot this weekend, so I was on my own for evening entertainment.

Monday we had our usual therapy session for Kaylee, a play date at the park with Javi's friend, Rory. Then we headed down to daddy's old stomping ground, Ocean Beach. It was so beautiful down there! I got some great pics of the kids with the sepia setting on my camera. I had never taken pics with the sepia setting, so I thought I would give it a go.

Tuesday, we had our usual Physical Therapy session, to which Kaylee did absolutely fab in! It is working much better for her to go back to work with Bonnie on her own. Ethan and I sat in the waiting room (Javi went to dad's). I checked blogs, he played and then we read a book together. It was a team effort! He is doing really well with the site words. Then we had a play date with my HS friend and 3 of her 4 kids at the park. Busy vacation weekend!!

Congrats if you made it to the end of this holiday weekend post!! Hope you all had a great weekend too!!!

It ain't over yet...

2009-01-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a happy Monday and MLK day!! For me, the long weekend isn't quite over yet ;) My kids are out for one more day because of the school district's professional growth. Nice that they made it a four day weekend for the kids. I will have our usual G5 weekend report a couple days late, since we have two extra days of weekend!! Think I'm ready for the weekend to be over. I'm tired from all these activities.

Got some great pics of the kids this weekend! We went to the beach two days in a row, since San Diego is experiencing a heat wave at the moment. It feels like summer. Temps have been near 80. Think I'm ready to curl up by the fire again and have a little more winter. Summer is nice, but best in the summer months, not it the middle of January!

Have a great day and we'll see you again in blogland by Wednesday morning!

GFCF Mac & Cheese

2009-01-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

It's simple, and uses simple ingredients you probably have, well, if you are on a GFCF diet that is!

1 tbsp GFCF butter substitute (I use Earth Balance)
2 tbsp of White Rice Flour
1 tbsp finely minced onion
1/8 tsp dry yellow mustard powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 c unsweetened GFCF milk substitute (I like unsweetened rice milk)
1/3 c shredded soy cheese (mixed variety)
salt & pepper to taste

2 c cooked GFCF pasta shells (I like the Quinoa brand)
1/4 c shredded soy cheese (mixed flavor of cheddar,

mozzarella & jack)
2 tbsp GFCF Italian breadcrumbs
Olive Oil cooking spray

In a small sauce pan, over medium heat, make a roux with first five ingredients. Slowly add in the milk and shredded soy cheese, stirring constantly with a whisk. Salt and pepper to taste.

Pour cooked pasta shells in to a lightly olive spray coated baking dish. Pour cheese sauce over noodles and mix. Sprinkle soy cheese and breadcrumbs on top of mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Enjoy!!

Legoland 2009 Pics

2009-01-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

Can alternatively be viewed on Flickr, CLICK HERE.

We had such a great time! It was nice to do something with Ethan all by himself. What a special birthday treat! I really enjoy getting to spend one on one time with each of the kids. Ethan was so happy. You can tell from the pics that he was totally elated to be the center of attention, for once! We always try to make special time for him, since middle children can often feel "squeezed out". It's double duty difficult with Ethan, since he has the least needs out of the three of them. I am so glad we were able to go.

Ethan's favorite ride was the "driving ride" where he got to go all by himself like a big boy! He was cruising in his mini Lego convertible Volvo. Sweet ride!! You know, chicks dig Volvos :) His least fav was the roller coaster. I took him on the Dinocoaster against his will, thinking he would enjoy it once he got over that initial fear (Javi was always like that at that age) but, nope!! He is not a thrill ride kinda guy, just like Mark. It was actually a very mild roller coaster, geared for little kids, but he still didn't like it. My favorite part of the day was the boat cruise. Our first ride. It was so cute to see the excitement in his face. I also loved the Inaugural LegObama Exhibit in Miniland. Complete with moving parade! It was amazing!

Thank you to Jamie and Mark for helping out with the other two kids so I could get out with Ethan. Also, thank you to my friend, Ryan for getting the tickets for us off the base. Gotta love those military discounts!!

We are at Legoland!!!

2009-01-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

More pics to come, but here's a teaser.

Easy GFCF Spicy Meatball Soup

2009-01-14T07:59:00.000-08:00

This one was a fav of Javi's. He ate three bowls for dinner the other night and had two bowls after school yesterday. He's a growing boy!

1 jar Organic Basil Marinara (We use Muir Glen)

2 jars Organic Chunky Salsa (We used 1 jar of homemade and one Muir Glen Med, woo, spicy)

1lb Turkey meat browned and seasoned with garlic and salt

32oz of water (Hint: two empty jars of salsa is about 32oz)

Brown turkey and add to simmering wet ingredients. Simmer on med-low for 20 minutes and serve.

Easy week night meal, since there is next to no prep and leftovers freeze well. You can add more marinara and less salsa if you like the spice on the lighter side. You can also add veggies like zucchini, carrots, peas, even add a puree of veggies for those kiddos that are picky eaters. The taste of the soup would cover up the puree. You can also make it fun with a "topping bar" like chili. GFCF sour cream, green onions, shredded rice cheese. Yum!

G5 Weekend Report

2009-01-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

It was such a nice weekend, celebrating Ethan's birthday! We certainly have been enjoying the cake all weekend. It's officially gone! I think it's the first time we have ever finished a birthday cake. Ethan had about six slices through out the weekend. I figured, why not? It's his birthday cake and he doesn't get it often. Enjoy it while you can! My mom took the last few slices home for my grandparents to enjoy.

Let's see...since you already know what we did on Friday. Let's go straight to Saturday. We pretty much lounged around for most of the day. We played wii with the kids and had left overs from the "breakfast for dinner" from Ethan's bday party. In the evening, my mom and I went to pick up chinese food, our usual Saturday dinner, from the little place a few blocks away from our house. The people know us and they are really nice. They make all of Javi's stuff special order because of his diet, which is really cool! We dropped by Home Depot while we were up there to purchase some duct tape to fix our dryer. The vent hose just keeps falling off. There is nothing wrong with the cuff that attaches it, but it just keeps falling off. I suspect it's because I dry large loads and it shakes the darn thing loose. Anyway, we ate chinese and watched movies, just relaxed. It was nice.

Sunday morning, we did much of the same, except for I went for a morning jog! My first in quite a while. It's time to burn off some of those Xmas lbs!! Woo, I have gained a few too ;) I am really motivated, so I am confident I will stick with it. I have also been trying to eat healthier...again! I got kinda "lax" during the holidays, so it's time to get psycho again.

My Normal Diet...

Breakfast is a small bowl of oatmeal with raisins and a coffee. Then for lunch, a fruit smoothie and a small snack (half sandwich, or soup, luna bar, etc.). I usually have an afternoon snack like half a banana or hummus and pita, then a normal size dinner (no larger than a salad plate full), which typically includes at least one veg. I try very hard not to eat sweets, but on occasion I like to have a piece of chocolate or a cookies. I love love love fancy coffee, so I can usually just reward my self with a coffee and I'm good. Of course, try to drink as much water as possible too.

This is my NORMAL diet. You don't want to know what I have been eating for the last six weeks!! But I'm sure it's not much different what everyone has been eating ;) I'd like to try to work out, strength training at least 3x's a week and cardio 3x's on the off days. I'd also like to incorporate yoga at least 2x's a week.

Sunday afternoon, I took the kids to my friend's Natalie and Steve's house to watch the Charger game. Mark stayed home to catch up on some rest. The ladies and I played Texas Hold'em during half time and in to the second half, since at this point the Chargers were a little behind. It was quite the roll reversal. Steve had done all the cooking for the game, then he played with the kids a little while the ladies played poker! It was most entertaining for me to witness this. Steve did a wonderful job hosting the football party. I know all the ladies are a tough crowd. Besides Ethan, he was the only guy ;)

Ethan discovered he is quite good at Golden Tee. They have a stand up arcade game in their living room, so Ethan had a good time. Sure he was amazed by an arcade game being in their living room. Kaylee discovered that she really likes dogs. She loved petting Apollo, Natalie's golden retriever. I could tell Mark saw my wheels spinning when I told him that Kaylee liked their dogs. He just said "NO PUPPIES". I whole heartedly agree, since I've been there may times already. Maybe sometime in the future, we can look in to rescuing an adult dog that is already house trained. I do really miss having the companionship of a dog. We always had a dog when I was growing up. It would be really nice for the kids to also have that kinship.

Natalie's dog, Apollo

Ethan's Birthday Pics

2009-01-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Ethan had a nice family birthday party. Since he is a little on the shy side, we opted to do favor boxes for his class, have a family party and do Legoland with Mommy on Wednesday next week, in lieu of a big party. We had a pajama party with "breakfast for dinner", Ethan's favorite meal of the day. Grandma came to visit from LA and our neighbors, Audrey and Burke stopped by for some cake.

I managed to find Mario Bros jammies at Target yesterday morning. What a find!! I thought, maybe I'll see if they have some Mario pj's while I was there getting bday wrapping paper and to my surprise they had them in his size! The other surprising find...they had a Sonic the Hedgehog tshirt for Javi! My mom had already purchased some Wii pj's for Mark (you can see them in the pic of Ethan opening his presents) for Christmas, so all the boys had their gaming jammies on ;) Cute!

We had biscuits and gravy, hash browns, eggs, and bacon. The adults had mimosas too, with the left over champagne from New Years. Cake for desert, of course! I'm still stuffed from all the carbs.

Ethan received all gaming presents, of course! His favorite past time! Thanks everyone!

Thanks for all the cake tips, Sharon. Couldn't have done it with out your wealth of cake knowledge!

Where did the time go?

2009-01-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow my little boy turns FOUR!! I can't believe it!! Where did the time go?? I'll show you...

You were the most beautiful newborn. You looked like a porcelain doll

and Daddy was afraid he would break you.

It wasn't long before you wanted do everything just like daddy...

But it was no secret that you were and still are Mama's boy...

Those eyes could melt anyone's heart...

They are like windows to your soul...kind, sensitive, and good natured.

Your smile shows your more devious side.

Yes, my little angel does have a devious side from time to time.

I remember your first time on the soccer field.

It was the first time I realized that you were not a baby anymore.

Now you are my big boy turning FOUR!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ETHAN!!

G5 Weekend Report

2009-01-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I had a nice newsy blog post so here I go. Warning this is going to be a long one, so congratulations in advance if you make it to the end ;)

Friday was just a relaxing evening. I wasn't feeling very well, so I took a nice hot bath and read the book I have been *trying* to read for the last two months with little success. I was having a discussion with a friend about books, so it prompted me to pick up the copy of "Eat, Pray, Love" that I still have on loan from Carrie. I have a deep admiration for reading, but it is one of the few pleasures that I can't commit to these days. I am not a patient reader. If I love a book, I will forego sleep and "crack out" as Mark calls it until I finish it. This is the reason audiobooks have worked out so well for me. I can multitask. I can clean, fold laundry or even listen while I am driving. Needless to say, books are one of my favorite guilty pleasures. There really is nothing like relaxing in a hot bath, enjoying the fragrant bubbles and the crisp feel of a paperback page turner.

Saturday, Ethan and I went to Target to do some returns from the holidays. We took a look at some toys while we were there. Ethan picked out a Star Wars Light Saber as one of his birthday gifts. Not my first choice, but we had a mom and her college age son chuckling as we discussed what not to do with the light saber. We discussed exactly how, where and when it was appropriate to play with it. I'm sure they must have been reminder of when he was a small boy asking for a similar toy. After Ethan made his promises not to hit the kitty, sister, brother, parents and any other animate or inanimate object in the house, we tossed it in the cart. Nothing like a light saber-wielding four year old! I'm sure he'll forget all those promises made. This saga to be continued.... Saturday evening, we watched the Chargers game, or rather listened to and watched the stats online, since our cable box is still out. With all the holidays and festivities, I haven't had a chance to return the box and get a new one. We aren't that big on TV around here, so I can go weeks with out really missing it (and have since it's been broken for about three weeks). I have tried reseting it twice with no luck.

Wow, the Charger game was a real nail bitter!! The game went in to OT, tied at 17 all. Chargers picked up the win 23-17. Woohoo!! I was invited to go out with some friends to celebrate the underdog's victory at the local pub, but preferred the company of my snugly sweetheart. We *tried* to watch "The Good Shepherd" with Matt Damon, but Mark fell asleep as usual. He tried so hard to stay awake this time too!! Mark can rarely make it through watching a movie with me without falling asleep. He says he just gets bored when he isn't doing something else at the same time. I completely understand this because I can rarely sit still long enough to watch a movie with out doing something else like folding laundry or doing dishes, or picking up. He's always telling me to sit still. I can usually make it through one movie with out falling asleep though ;)

Sunday, I took Ethan to Toys R Us to return a video game and also checked out some video game options for a bday present. We also decided on "grab bags" for his bday party at school. This is the concept we came up with:

It's a container with lego blocks, Lego Fruit snacks and Nilla Cakesters (some of Ethan's favs), and it will also have a juice box and a napkin inside. I thought it was fitting since we plan to go to Legoland in lieu of having a birthday party with friends over. We do, however, plan to have a family party on Friday evening (Ethan's actual birthday). We are going to have breakfast for dinner. Ethan's absolute favorite meal of the day is breakfast, so I plan to prepare a breakfast buffet of biscuits and gravy, pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs and hash browns. Then top it off with a Game Boy cake. Ethan's choice of cake theme this year. I don't want to get too ambitious, since we have other things going on this week also. It will probably be a round cake with a life size Game Boy made of rice crispy and fondant on top. I was thinking of putting the #4 on the screen.

Sunday afternoon, we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. We had a lot of fun. It was great to go, since we hadn't been in so long. It was a really nice way to close out the vacation too. Mark has the pics, so I will have to post them to flickr later. I've been waiting for two days to get the pics, so I' just going to post with out them.

Javi was away in AZ at a family reunion with his dad. He had a great time while he was away. He got to meet some of his family on his Nana's side.

Last week I took some pics of the new arrangement of our family room that I never posted. We decided to move the playroom in to the family room and make a little play nook in the corner.

I moved my office back in to where the playroom used to be and made it in to the study. We plan to put my mom's small dinning set in her also, but for now we are enjoying having the extra space so Kaylee can test drive her walker. As you can see in the pic, we also have a kids desk set up for the kids to share.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Happy 2009!!

2009-01-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics from our New Years Eve gathering. We had a lot of fun. Javi was a party animal!!! He stayed up until 1:30AM!! We karaoked at the tail end of the evening. Unfortunately, I didn't start snapping pics until after midnight. I'm usually pretty good about that too. Guess I should have appointed someone to be the camera person. I was busy playing hostess, cooking, talking, making sure everyone was comfortable, so we missed taking pics of half our guests that left early. I started out more dressed, but changed in to sweats about 11:30. Wanted to be comfy to ring in the new year. Unfortunately, Mark missed out on the countdown. He wasn't feeling too well. Guess those two martinis were too much to handle after a one year sabbatical from drinking.

There was a progressive party going on in the neighborhood, so we did rove a bit (Mark and I took turns). Javi ended up going to every party ;) I'm telling you, I'm going to have to watch that kid! He stuck near the girls most of the night. Thanks again to Audrey, our neighbor for helping out with the kiddos.

Hope you all had a happy and safe New Years Eve! Have a great weekend and here's to another year of friendship and love.

Simple New Years Cake

2008-12-30T21:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I didn't invest much time on it, but still came out cute and
banged out the whole thing in a couple hours, including baking time ;)
My friends out here are easily impressed, so they'll be happy I made a
cake, regardless of what it looks like...LOL!

Sharon, thanks for sharing some of your pro tips. I did use them, but
next time I will make more time to make it smoother, so I don't just
say "ah, good enough" *wink*

Countdown to the New Year!

2008-12-30T17:53:00.001-08:00

Been a busy week so far with the countdown to the new year. We have been preparing and getting the house all spiffed up and ready to receive guests for new years eve, plus, I just like to start the year off clean. I just usually wait until after all the holidays are over, but with the party I was a little premature ;) We have been purging cabinets, refrigerators, closets, garage, toy boxes. Pretty much, most of the house (except my master closet, which I did last month). Even did a little furniture rearranging! Yep, you know me!!

Jamie our helper has been a GODSEND!! She is truly a gem. She is both my hands (not just my right hand woman). She helps me with my OCD too ;) Although, don't know if it's helpful to be my accomplice *wink*. We have done so much over the last few days. The house looks truly amazing!! She actually helped me do yard work today! Way above and beyond the call of duty! I did manage to even steal away, sans children, this morning to go to drop off donations at Goodwill and go to Costco with my friend and neighbor. That was nice! Thank goodness she comes tomorrow too, I will be like a chicken with my head cut off, I'm sure. I am always a psycho the day of a party. I have most of my prep work completed. Just saving those last minute things, vacuuming, wiping down the bathroom, etc. Oh, how I love to entertain guests! I don't know why, because it is so labor intensive, but I love to have people over and cook, talk over a cocktail, have everything look pretty. Silly, I know!

Ok, I am going nuts with the smell of that cake baking. Yep, decided to make a simple cake, nothing fancy because of time constraints. Also can't wait to test out my new bread maker tonight after I frost the cake! Thanks mom!

Hope you all have a fantastic NEW YEAR!!! See you in blogland next year!!!

Christmas 2008 Pictures

2008-12-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas and here's our proof:

Kaylee Motoring around with her new walker. Hopefully she'll be walking in no time with some practice ;)

Clean up, Clean up, everybody clean up...

2008-12-26T11:40:00.000-08:00

Out with the old and in with the new. It's that time of year. We are going to start our sort to make room for our new toys. It's a good habit to get in to. I don't want the kids to be pack rats like me and Grandpa Jim *wink* (I know you read this Grandpa). The old toys don't get thrown away, they go to a good home, to someone that really needs them. That is what I tell the kids when this time rolls around. We purge every Christmas and Birthday (July). I usually start it the week before, of toys that I know they no longer play with and they finish with the ones that are a tougher decision. We have been doing this for the last few years, so the kids really don't know what it's like to keep stuff they don't use, so it's easy for them to let go.

Other than that, it's a day to start cleaning up the house and getting ready for the new year. You may think I am a neat freak (ok, I am a little) but, I am really not a psycho or anything. Our home looks quite lived in. Too lived in for my tastes!! But I never wanted to be that mom that makes her kids put the toys away when they are in the middle of playing with them because I can't handle disorder. It just makes me a little nuts when the whole house turns in to a playroom. My kids and husband are NOTHING like me. They don't care when things are messy. It doesn't seem to phase them. Ethan is a little bothered, but he can still make a pretty big mess. He just doesn't like other people to ;) Sounds like mommy!! LOL You should see my kitchen when I cook. I am a really messy chef. Appropriately enough, Mark tucked some Clorox wipes in my stocking this year.

I am hoping to have the house all purged and clutter free by our NYE party. We decided to have people here. We haven't had a party here since Ethan's birthday last year, so I thought it would be fun. I like the fact that we won't have to leave the house. We are going to have kids here too. We'll be playing Wii karaoke, American Idol 2, that we just received for Christmas and grubbing out to some yummies. It should be a nice relaxing time. I LOVE to entertain, so it's fun for me. I love cooking and having people enjoy my dishes. Making a Mexican themed spread of appy's.

Ok, better get to gettin' this house isn't going to clean itself! Although I wish there was a self clean option ;) I'll post some Christmas pics later! I'm also dying to use my new breadmaker, but I have to finish the kitchen before I bust it out.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

Warmest wishes from the Grimes Family.

G5 Weekend Report

2008-12-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We are winding down on days left until Christmas. Hope everyone has their shopping finished! I got the last of our "wrapped presents" on Friday. I headed up to Toys R' Us and got Ethan and Kaylee's last presents. I have some gift cards to pick up, but that I will do tomorrow. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?

My mom came up Friday night and we headed out to Costco to do some shopping for our tamale making party on Saturday. I did all the meat prep and cooked the meat for the next day. I also made the chili sauce and salsa.

The next morning, it was on! We went to McD's to pick up some breakfast and coffee and we got started. We wrapped and cooked for most of the day. We enjoyed our Mexican feast of chips and salsa, taquitos, beans and rice while we wrapped. Boy, it is a huge undertaking to make tamales. We made a lot. We also made several different kinds. We have spicy beef, mild beef, spicy beef and cheese, mild beef and cheese, and all the same varieties of pork. I also have another 5lbs of masa left to make sweet ones (cinnamon raisin). I was going to finish it up tomorrow. It takes so long to make everything that you have to make a lot or it's just not worth it. It's the same prep no matter what. We were so stuffed from the other food, we didn't even try the tamales until the next day.

Saturday night, I ended up going to my first live stand up comedy show. Mark and I were supposed to go together, which was mostly the reason my mom came up, but he was still not feeling well enough by Saturday night. We were going out to celebrate the birthday of a good friend of mine, so I didn't want to ditch out. Also, when you have a two week stretch of the kids without a break, it's good to get out and have a laugh ;) Had a good time, but don't know if I would do the whole comedy show thing again. It was pretty pricey, considering they weren't big names or anything. They were pretty funny and I did have a good laugh. I got to visit with some old friends and even managed to learn a few words in Japanese! All and all, good fun. Wished Mark could have come :(

Sunday, I took the kids to a puppet show in Balboa Park. We did get to see some really cute dogs dressed up in Christmas outfits. I don't know if they had some event going on, but everywhere we turned there was a dog all dressed up. They were really cute. The kids had a really good time at the puppet show too. We sang and clapped (clapping is Javi's fav thing to do *stimming*). It was a Christmas program, so it definitely got us in to the spirit.

Sunday night, I took the kids to have dinner at my friend Carrie's. We made some carne asada from my fav Mexican market, where I purchase most of my supplies from. Most people in there don't speak english, so I get to bust out some of my espanol whenever I go there. Mostly, I just say "Necesito arrachera preparada, cuatro libras, por favor" (I need marinated flank steak, 4 lbs please.) or "cuanto cuesta?" (how much does it cost?). My Spanish is pretty rusty these days because I don't need to use it that often. I can still understand it pretty well, but my conversational Spanish is pretty awful now.

Had a fun, but very busy weekend. Looking forward to relaxing a little now that Christmas is winding down.

...and then there were SIX!!!

2008-12-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

Santa's hour glass is slowly winding down! Hope you are getting close to finishing your shopping. I finished my shopping for the kids today. Hooray!! Now just need to pick up some gift cards and we are set! Yesterday we read the Night Before Christmas and the Christmas Mouse for our 12 days activity.

Tonight we are working on the prep for our tamale party tomorrow. We loosely celebrate some Mexican holiday traditions, like Tamales for Christmas and Menudo for New Years, which is by the way, a hang over cure! Tamales are typically made by the family and eaten on February 2nd, which marks the end of the holiday season, but for some reason, in California, it's become a tradition to have them around Christmas.

For those of you that do not know, a Tamale is a meat, cheese, fruit or veggies all enclosed in "masa" which is a corn meal dough and then wrapped up in a corn husk and steamed. It's eaten by unwrapping it from the corn husk and eating the cooked "masa" and whatever is incased inside. Yummy!

To lift your holiday spirits here's a musical interlude from the boys and also became part of our 12 days activity, which was watching Christmas movies ;)

Ethan's Preschool Christmas Party

2008-12-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

Kaylee and I went to Ethan's Christmas Cookie Party. We had a really good time. I loved watching the kids sing. Too cute!!

I also published some still photos to Flickr.

...and then there were EIGHT!

2008-12-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

Today was not the most exciting 12 days activity. We wrote out Christmas cards to our teachers and wrapped their presents. It had to be done, so I thought why not try to spice it up and make it an activity! I actually wanted Ethan to stamp some of the cards, but as it turns out, no stamp pad! So, he helped a little with the presents for all the teachers and therapists while Javi wrote his cards out. Ethan got tired and bored with this activity very quickly, so we never got to his cards.

We have 15 presents for teachers, aides, and therapists. We actually don't even give them to every one either. I only give them to people we know well and the kids see regularly. I would be giving out 25-30 presents if we did one for everyone they work with. Not that we don't appreciate what they do, it just would get really pricey to do one for everyone. They are little Christmas boxes filled with assorted yummy chocolates. They look pretty cute.

We presented Jamie, our friend and helper, with her present today. I gave her a "bonus", a gift for her, and one small gift for each of her two kids. She cried and said it was "too much". I only wish I could have done more. She actually told me it was the first present she has received in years. I couldn't believe my ears!! She has been going through kind of a rough time lately, so I wanted to do something special for her, since she is always so good to us. She has offered on more than one occasion to just watch our kids with out payment. She even came when I was sick and tried to leave with out me signing her time card. She is such an awesome person. I wanted her to know how loved and appreciated she is. We really are fortunate to have found someone that is so great with me and great with our kids. It felt good to do something nice for her. She really is more than a "nanny" to us. She is a good friend. That is what the spirit of Christmas is all about. It wasn't about the gifts, or bonus, it was about sharing that bond of friendship and appreciation for each other. The exchange of thoughtfulness. It didn't matter who gave what. That is what gift giving is all about. We can sometimes get wrapped up in the reciprocating monetary values. "So and so bought me a $10 item, so I have to buy him a $10 item.". It really takes the fun out of giving a gift. A gift as defined by the dictionary:

A gift or present is the transfer of something, without the need for compensation that is involved in trade. A gift is a voluntary act which does not require anything in return. Even though it involves possibly a social expectation of reciprocity, or a return in the form of prestige or power, a gift is meant to be free.

So while we are out shopping and wrapping and getting caught up in the Christmas hoopla, remember the true meaning of a gift this Christmas.

To me the greatest gift one can have are friends and family like you...Thanks for following the G5 family blog. We love you!!!

10 days to go!!

2008-12-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

We baked some cookies for today's 12 days activity. We made Gingerbread, GFCF Sugar Cookies (click for link to that recipe, in my opinion, they could have used some Xanthan Gum and I put about 1/4cup more sugar) and these yummies, that were Mark's fav, Toffee Oatmeal Chocolate Chip! Sounds weird, but they were delish! I found the recipe in Cooking Light in their 12 Christmas cookie recipes section of this month's mag. I altered it, of course. Me being me!! I hate to follow recipes, they are merely a suggestion to me ;) So here's what I changed:

I used butter flavored Crisco instead of margarine and I added an extra tsp, Almond Extract instead of Vanilla, Added refined baker's sugar about 1/4 c and just a handful more golden brown sugar (the recipe wasn't sweet enough for my tastes) and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Ok, so they probably aren't very light any more, but what the heck, it's Christmas!!

Here are the pics. Our friend Audrey came over to bake with us. She brought an apron for Ethan, so we all had them on. Ethan was asleep for most of the baking, but we did get a few pics while he was awake and he of course got to be the official taste tester!

G5 Weekend Report

2008-12-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I know I missed last weekend's report, but I'm trying to make it a regular habit. Mama Skates sets a good example ;)

Ethan and Kaylee's sickies are still lingering, so we didn't do much with the kiddos. Ethan is battling it the most and is still home sick with me. Let's see...

Friday, we did our 12 days, even though I know it was really 13 days 'til Christmas, I wanted to make sure Javi got to participate before going to Dad's for the weekend. We "elfed" the kids with Elf Yourself.com as you can see from the previous post. We had left over pizza and watched movies until we passed out. We also finished up our holiday cards and mailed them out. So, look for them in the mail this week!

Saturday, Kaylee and I headed out to the mall. It was a mad house, just as I thought it would be. Thank goodness I had a yummy Starbucks coffee to enjoy while battling the crowd. We went on a three hour shopping sprint. We did get a lot of stuff, but we have to return some of it sometime this week. I purchased a Apple Airport Base Station 802.11 N for Mark, but he decided we should wait on such a big purchase with Christmas and Ethan's birthday coming up. We donated at the Epilepsy Foundation's stand at the mall and got a shopping bag, gingerbread house and two cookies to decorate. Dr. Neuro's admin was working the stand, so we finally got to meet her in person. We actually have an appointment tomorrow. Saturday night was ladies night for Mommy. I made some yummy spinach balls and took a bottle of wine over to my friend Carrie's. We had a lot of fun.

Sunday I picked up some McD's breakfast for the whole family and some much needed McCafe's coffee. We enjoyed our 'hashfries' as Ethan calls them. Yummy! The best part of the breakfast, besides the coffee. Then it was a mad dash to the supermarket to pick up some ingredients for the cake I made for the neighborhood holiday party. A gift from Tiffany's which I thought would also be holiday neutral ;0)

Sunday night, I walked over to the neighbor's house with cake and a bottle of wine in hand (Mark decided he would prefer to stay home). It was a great turn out. It was probably the best turn out ever as far as the holiday neighborhood parties go. They had a lot of delicious food including a full ham dinner. Yum! I hadn't really eaten a whole lot that day just to prepare for it. I ended up just having a little nibble of each thing. There was some goat cheese pizza with sun dried tomatoes and really delish artichoke jalapeno dip, just to name a couple of my favs. Everyone was afraid to cut in to my cake. They said it was too pretty to eat, which of course it was no big deal. Nothing in comparison to a Sharon original ;) I knew I could count on my neighbor, Jon, who always boasts about my cakes, to hack in to it. I made a cake for his daughter's bday a couple years ago and I always take cake to all the hood parties. He ended up having two slices! It was half gone by the time I left. Thanks I'm sure to Sharon's wonderful BC frosting recipe. Mmmmm....I love that frosting and I hate frosting!! What I can't figure out though is how you get the butter cream cakes so darn smooth!! I will have to pick the expert's brain about that ;)

This AM I wasn't feeling to hot, due I'm sure to the three glasses of wine I had at the party. I am becoming a little bit of a wino this holiday season. I really enjoy wine. They had such a huge selection last night, that I felt like I was at a tasting, which is why I ended up having a few glasses.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

The G5 Kids have been Elfed!

2008-12-12T15:30:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

It's a Princess...just like Mommy

2008-12-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Ethan: Look mommy!! (playing Super Mario Galaxy, while Mommy was checking email)

Mom: Yeah baby, what's up?

Ethan: It's a Princess, just like you!

God, I love that kid! He's my boy!

On this weekend's agenda:

Friday, we are celebrating the 1st day of the twelve days of Christmas. We will be doing a different activity every day. Today, I think we will be doing Elf Yourself. I know the kids will get a big kick out of it. I will also be sending out our holiday cards today, so look for them in the mail sometime next week.

Saturday, I will be heading out to do some more Christmas shopping and hanging out with the kiddos. Of course another 12 days activity in the evening, then after kids go down, wooo hoo, it's ladies nite!! I am going over to Carrie's house for some girls fun. We are going to have some app's and a little vino.

Sunday night is our neighborhood Christmas party, so we will be stopping by, or I will. Still haven't really gotten a definitive answer from Mark on whether he wants to come ;0)

Cracking up to be a busy weekend. It's the holidays!

It's tough being sick!

2008-12-11T22:21:00.000-08:00

Ethan got to play Wii laying down for the better half of the day. He had a fever of a 103 last night and has a nasty cough. I don't think he will be going to school tomorrow, but we'll see. He hasn't been to school since Monday, so what is one more day? Besides, he might bring something else home with him if I send him back!!!

Kay is finally drying out. Her nose has been leaking like a seive for two weeks now, but she hasn't really had any other symptoms. Thank goodness!

I'm finally well. Though I have played it safe and tried not to wear myself down. I have been disenfecting like a mad woman everyday, so hopefully it will be gone after Ethan gets well.

Hope everyone else is fairing well this Sickie Season ;)

Getting in the holiday spirit

2008-12-10T17:01:00.000-08:00

My friend posted this to Facebook and I got such a kick out of it, I thought I would post it. It especially reminds me of you Danielle, since you are the only one of us that can really say you had Christmas in Africa!

This will song will definitely get you in the holiday spirit and put a smile on your face.

Battle of the Sickies

2008-12-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

More than half of the family is sick right now. Ethan, Kay and I are all battling something nasty. We are wiped out and runny nosed. Ethan is missing day two of school and Kaylee missed PT. We are hoping things will be back to normal soon. We cancelled our helper, Jamie, coming to the house today. We could definitely use her help, but we don't want her to get infected.

Today I am going to try to do some cleaning. It creeps me out to think of all the germs flying around. I'm going to take a little nap when Kaylee does, then see if I can get a few things done before she wakes.

I have been reading blogs from my phone, but I haven't been at my laptop until now, so I am going to try to catch up on some commenting. The kids have been rather clingy, so I haven't been able to get on the 'puter much. I have been going to bed when they do, so not much time after they go down.

Hope we find all of you well. 'Tis the season for sickies.

IEP Warrior, take 2

2008-12-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

Well, we had our second IEP meeting to finish up what we hadn't finished previously at the first meeting. It was completely pointless. I came out feeling 10x's more frustrated than before I walked in to the meeting. Javi is not really making a lot of progress in his current setting. In fact, he has regressed to the beginning of the year last year academically. His teacher said he is making slight and slow progress, but that is progression from a regression, so I wouldn't exactly call it real progress. Just as I said in my last post about this, it seems to be a complete class mismatch.

We attempted to use the "easy way out" and use an address change to switch him to a new class. Javi technically lives with his dad now, so using his address would put him at a different school. It was recommended and affirmed by a few people that this would be the easiest way to avoid all the complication of pointing the finger and saying that this was a crappy fit for Javi. The program specialist, flat out said he will not even be considered for a move until next year. She also said "considered", not guaranteed. She also seemed completely insensitive to the fact that Javi has no friends this year and that the kids in his class are starting to "tolerate" him now a little more than they were before. I guess in her eyes, the fact that he is tolerated instead of flat out ridiculed like he was before, is progress. I can also tolerate a pebble in my shoe, but it doesn't mean that I am going to learn to like it being there. I don't get a sense that Javi will ever truly be accepted in this classroom. I think his behaviors will be tolerated sometimes, but he may always be considered "the pebble".

We did at the very least, get a better feeling about the teacher. Definitely not to the level of caring we have felt from previous teachers, but a better feeling than we received in previous meetings with her. She seemed to show more of an interest in Javi being in a good place and making progress.

Ultimately what it comes down to is this, you can have every modification, assistance and service set in place in the IEP, but what matters most is whether or not the child is happy. Happy children typically produce better work and progress (just like happy employees). It's obvious to us that while Javi may be getting "used to the routine" he is not happy, not by comparison to previous years. I know that we can't go back to Deer Canyon (his previous school, the program specialist had eluded to the fact that this was not Deer Canyon and that there was no placement for him there) , nor do we care if we can. We just want our son to be happy and succeed to the best of his abilities. We want him to be well-liked and accepted and feel like he has friends, just like any other parent.

How long do we have to wait before we say enough is enough? How long will he have to struggle before they do something about this? I am willing to give it to the end of January, which would be when the semester is over, but if we don't see some positive changes and improvements, I think we may consider taking this to the next level. I think half a year for an "adjustment period" is long enough.

Ethan's Field Trip Pics

2008-12-06T00:23:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun at the Children's Museum with Ethan's class.

The IEP after for Javi, not so much, but I will update about that later.

This Little Piggy

2008-12-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

This little piggy looks better than it did yesterday!

It isn't slowing me down one bit. It looks much better by comparison to Mark's toes, after the two times he broke them, one of those times was on our wedding day! It doesn't feel too bad. I have stayed loaded up on advil to help with the pain and swelling.

I have a field trip for Ethan tomorrow to the Children's Museum. Jamie Poppins, our friend and helper will be coming to watch Kay while we are out. Straight from the field trip, I will be running to drop Ethan off at home, then whisking off to Javi's continuation IEP, to which I will undoubtably be late for. I told Javi's dad to start with out me. I only have 30 minutes between the arrival of the field trip bus and the start of the IEP. Talk about cutting it close!! Wish me luck! With this troop, who has time to slow down?

Christmas, in full swing

2008-12-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week. I have been out shopping for Christmas every day this week. I was trying to wrap as it came in, but I got about one thing wrapped and shoved the rest in the closet. I know I will be spending my typical evenings of blogging, tweeting and facebooking, wrapping presents like a little elf.

I am 100% done with Mark's shopping. 90% done with Javi's, 60% done with Ethan's and 40% done with Kaylee's. I will be happy to get 'er done by early next week.

We have our tree up, but we are waiting to trim it. We wanted to wait, so we could do it all together this weekend. The rest of the house is decorated. I finished that on Monday. I have been waiting to put up the exterior lights. I have actually been debating putting them up at all. With the energy crisis going on, I think I will probably just put them up before Christmas and turn them on on Christmas Eve, Christmas day and New Years. I thought it would be a much more eco friendly approach. We have exterior decor, but why waste perfectly good energy and money making the house look pretty for passers by? I think we can muster holiday spirit with out the lights being on 24/7. We have yet to switch to solar powered LED's, but hope to invest in them one of these years. Then we can enjoy them eco style!!

Don't forget to BYOB this holiday season!! That is to say, bring your own bag. If you don't have your own, be sure to recycle the one's you do bring home. I made the mistake of forgetting mine last night, so I had them put everything I purchased in one bag, which makes it much easier to carry anyway! Remember, Santa carries a sack that he uses every year ;)

Well, Ms. Grace, as I've been called for most of my life, has once again injured herself. I broke my toe while working out yesterday. Yes, it was only my second work out, since I committed to trying to get healthier by making more time to work out. Don't worry, I won't let it discourage me. I'll be getting right back in to my routine as soon as this toe heals. I am certainly not going to let it slow me down!!

G5 Weekend Report

2008-12-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

Happy December everyone. The countdown is ON!! This year I wasn't as prepared for Christmas as past years. For the first time in like five years, I didn't decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving and I also did not go out on black Friday.

This year, I decided to stick to a very specific list of items for Christmas, which usually does not coincide with Black Friday deals. I did do a little Christmas shopping this morning and I have been doing some internet shopping also. We are taking it easy this year on spending, just like the rest of America.

Let's see...Friday we obviously did not go shopping early, but we did go to the arts and crafts store to get gifts to make for the teachers and therapists. Later, we went to my friend Carrie's house to do yoga and we took the kiddos to lunch. Ethan's new favorite thing to eat is hummus and pita. I am so proud of him for trying new things. I am also happy to report that he took a bite of everything on Thanksgiving, which was a first. He usually just has plain mashed potatoes and a roll. Friday night we got a call from Carrie that she needed help with her flat tire, so I took Kaylee with me. I thought she might fall asleep in the car, but no such luck. I ended up taking her tire home with me to take to Costco to get it patched on Saturday. We came home and watched a movie.

Saturday I made Biscuits and Gravy for the fam. Then we helped Carrie get her tire patched and back on her car, then she took her daughter, Lucy, Ethan and I to get some Mex food to say thank you. Saturday night, Ethan and I went to our friends Brook and Matt's for Matt's 34th bday party. It was a poker party, but I wasn't really up for playing, so I helped Brook play hostess, since she was playing cards. Had fun playing with the kids at the party too. I hadn't seen a lot of them since they were babies. Brook ended up winning the first big pot. Woohoo, you go girl!

Sunday I cleaned house, while daddy got a much needed sleep in. We took the kids to the mall to go see Santa. We decided to go to lunch first, then by the time we made our way over to Santa, he was going on his lunch break. We tried walking around and wasting time window shopping, but by the time Santa came back, the line was so long and the kids (and Mark) were getting grumpy, so we decided to try another time. Not a total wash though, because the kids did have fun at the Apple Store, the Pet Shop where we got to hold a puppy and pet a bunny, and we also explored the Build a Bear Workshop.

All and all, a fun, but busy weekend. I am looking forward to taking it easy this week. I will be enjoying the holiday season, decorating and cooking as usual.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday!

Thanksgiving Pics

2008-11-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It wasn't what we expected it to be, but it was still nice. We had planned on going to my grandparent's house in Los Angeles, but Javi took sick on Wednesday night, so we didn't want to take any germs to my elderly grandparents.

I threw together a last minute feast and it was de-lish! Complete with GFCF stuff for Javi that actually came out really good. The pie didn't taste quite the same, but it was ok. I was too stuffed to eat dessert, but Mark and Ethan enjoyed the pumpkin spice cake.

Mmmm...can't wait to have leftovers today!

The g5 Family

Daddy's Girl

Our girl. The boys were done with pics by this point :)

Mommy's Girl

My precious boys.

Our Thanksgiving Tablescape

Kaylee in her Thanksgiving Outfit

Mmmmm...meat off the bone.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2008-11-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

We are thankful for friends and family like you.

Happy Thanksgiving from the G5 family to you and yours! XOXO

Girls' Night In

2008-11-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

Last night, my friend Natalie came over for a girls' night in. I made some grilled chicken alfredo pasta, caesar salad, and garlic bread. For dessert, pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. We had a nice bottle of wine from the Wilson Creek winery that I had been saving (Mark is not a white wine drinker, so I knew it would be consumed on an occasion such as this).

We grubbed and chatted. We had intended on watching a movie, the girly kind, but ended up talking through half of the movie. It was so much fun to just have a girls' night and gab. We definitely plan on doing it again sometime in the near future.

Here are those old pics I was talking about that she posted to Facebook:

Love those shades!

Holy moly, was I really that thin once? I was 19 in this pic.

Can you say: GROSS!

2008-11-24T20:29:00.001-08:00

This came out of the new Dyson vac. It was the equivalent to a gallon size Ziploc, stuffed and unable to zip closed. So disgusting that Kaylee was crawling around on this! I have been vacuuming every day since it's arrival and it is amazing to see how much it is still picking up.