Living in Georgia

It's been a busy week with little things here and there, which is getting me ready for the busy summer ahead of us with gymnastics, swimming and all Ethan's therapies. Whew, I need a break from just thinking about it. We did have a nice walk down to our community playground this afternoon. Ethan couldn't stop laughing on the swings and the slide (he couldn't get enough of the slide) and Jack made a little friend! Great afternoon. Speaking of therapies, Ethan starts his occupational therapy next week and I'm so excited. We got the therapy notes back from his evaluation and, while I'm not positive on how I'm reading it, the scores say from poor to very poor. We have been very lucky that Ethan hasn't had any medical issues and so far he seems to be doing well with responding to his therapies, so I really want to make sure he has the best of everything. Today has just made me a little blue thinking about Ethan not being 100% of what other kids are and

What a great weekend it's been, and we still have all day on Tuesday with Jason home! I hope you've all enjoyed a lovely weekend, too. These are a few pictures of Ethan doing his speech therapy, and Jack helping. Jack loves helping because Miss Stephanie always brings fun toys for Ethan to play with that Jack get's to play with when Ethan is done. I especially love the shirt that Ethan is wearing. It says, "I drive my mom bananas!" And boy is that true on many days. Being a single mom is tough sometimes and I'm not looking forward to Jason heading up to Ft. Bragg at the end of June. Oh well, we'll solider through it. We went to look for a projector for our theater room on Friday and the store we went to had these blow up aliens that Jack was having a blast playing with. When we left they let Jack take one home with him and he's been dragging him around with him everywhere since. He even sleeps in bed with him! Saturday we had a birthday party t

I'm having storage issues with my photos so I don't have a lot of pictures to share until we get my hard drive figured out and the photos moved over. Until then, I'll probably be blogging few and far between. Or without photos! Anyway, we got new chairs delivered this past week. At first I thought it might be too much for this room, but now I REALLY love having them in here. It feels cozy. We had a nice start to the holiday weekend. Jason got home early on Friday (about 2:30p) and we have him home until Tuesday night. We had a birthday party this morning and we're hoping to hit the pool sometime this weekend, since it just opened, in between the forecasted rain showers. This photo is a picture of Ethan during his speech therapy with Stephanie, his therapist. He's been making a lot of new sounds lately too! Not only that, but he's been pulling himself a lot too. Mostly he's pulling up onto his knees to look into the toy boxes but every now and then he

I've been dealing with sick boys for the past week. We were enjoying a lovely spring evening playing in the cul-de-sac and on the way down the driveway, Jack tripped over his scooter and got a big cut in his leg. This past weekend Ethan was suffering with a 101+ degree temp. It finally broke today and he's back to his usual self. He had been really quiet and not wanting to interact much but he's smiling and laughing more now. And even Jason has been suffering this past week. He tore or strained a muscle in his neck that extends down his arm to his fingers. He finally got in to see a doctor this past week and was able to get some pain medication. But he can't get in for an MRI until the end of next week. Hopefully it won't be anything that won't heal itself (and quick!). Jack posing with his Froggie and their sunglasses! We took full advantage of the sunny days (in between all the spring showers) to spend as much time outside as possible. One night we wer

I love living down here where the sense of patriotism and love of country is so great. I was driving home yesterday morning and kept seeing groups of people on every street corner with flags (plus flags everywhere even when there were no people). I got home and did a quick internet search to see what was going on and found that a local solider was killed in the war and these were people lining the route the hearse was to make. I almost broke down in tears. I've never seen this anywhere but in the south. I hope it happens elsewhere too but am doubtful. In all the moving and unpacking, I found my journal from my senior year in high school and have been tripping down memory lane. Wow, I can't believe how silly I was back then. I had a few insightful moments but mostly I was a silly teen (trying to keep it clean here). Thank you to everyone for putting up with me! :-) I guess I have these years to look forward to with my boys....so happy to not have a daughter (of course

Hope you all had a nice Mother's Day! Ours was pretty quiet and uneventful. It's actually been a pretty mellow week. We're still getting moved and settled in. I think we only have a few pieces of Jack's bunkbed left to move over. But we're loving the place more and more each day! Even though we're still living amongst boxes, everyone seems to feel at home -- especially the boys and the dogs! The fence was finished this past week and while the dogs are sad that they no longer have free run of the neighborhood (Amber would head out first thing in the morning and be out for about two hours or more) I couldn't be happier with the end result! We now just need to tear out a few weeds and add some flowers. We took a walk up to the top of the hill at the corner of the property line and this is the view of the house and the neighborhood from there.

We spent our first night in the house Saturday night and have been loving it ever since. Of course, we're still unpacking and finding homes for everything but having moved slowly over the past month has helped. We've already met a lot of our neighbors and LOVE them! We have a 13 year old across the street that is a dog watcher and soon to be a babysitter, which I couldn't be more thrilled about. We feel like we found the perfect home. Sunday was a nice (but muggy) day so we took a break from moving and took a walk to the playpark in the neighborhood. It was about a 15 minute walk and Jack took the lead with Stanley. Even though Stanley still gives Jack a warning bark every now and then, they are becoming fast friends and some nights you'll find Stanley sleeping in Jack's room (which Jack LOVES). We got back into the therapy routine today and Ethan has started to make a new noise. He now says ooooooooh, which is so exciting. It's funny what we now get exci