Goodbye Maggie

Our family dog, Maggie, was diagnosed with a tumor last spring, in the last few weeks she has taken a terrible turn for the worse, and tomorrow she will leave us, forever.
She has brought us much joy and laughter, she has cleaned up more table droppings than I can ever count, she has been patient while baby Adam yanked her ears, tail, and fur, she always wags her tail for us and loves her nick name Weasel.
Our sadness is great, especially loosing her around the holidays. It seems so unfair. Please remember our boys in your prayers as they deal with yet another loss in their little lives.
We love you, Maggie, you won't be forgotten.

Mom Sr., Adam Sr., Mom Jr., Adam Jr.

The Mom's and their Adam's!

Christmas, It's Almost Here!

We have bought all the presents, hung all the stockings, put up the tree and lights, watched the Christmas movies, but the gifts remain unwrapped! Without our family here, it will be a quiet Christmas, which saddens us a bit, but we are also looking forward to just relaxing and taking a few days retreat from life. Our wish is for you and yours to have a wonderful holiday as well. Oh, and get a little goofy, like us!

Sensory Integration Disorder

After our last speech therapy session, it is believed that Adam Jr. has Sensory Integration Disorder.
It is difficult to understand, harder to explain, although we did find a great web site that is really helpful. If you would like to better understand what we are dealing with, please take time to visit the Sensory Processing Disorder website.
We have begun using some of the suggestions for Adam Jr. so that once his sensory needs are taken care of he can focus more on learning and speaking. The hard part is finding the time necessary to implement what needs to be done with my busy schedule now that I work.
Please keep our family and Adam Jr. in prayer.

World Series - Here We Come

Look out world, the Rockies are on the scene! Last nights moment when Todd Helton caught the ball at first base and won the game, is still putting a lump in my throat! It was awesome!
The Rockies deserve the World Series, and I can't wait to see them win it!
Colorado is certainly excited about our team, from Rock-tober, to newly named streets, to songs written just for our team! Rockies fever is everywhere. I have to admit, I think I have caught it!
A local radio station has even made a song for the Rockies, and it Rocks! Check it out here!

Go Rockies!

Can you believe the run the Rockies are having? I am certainly a proud fan at the moment! We were at the game last Saturday night, it was so fun! I think it would be awesome to see them go all the way to the World Series, and the way our boys are playing, we may just have a chance! Go Rockies!

New Season, New Hair Color

Well as usual, as the seasons change, I get antsy. And what do I do when I get antsy, well change my hair color of course! It is a fun red again! Woo-hoo!

Someone liked my Photo

In May I ran the Bolder Boulder, which ends in Folsom Field. Later we viewed the post race events at the field. I took some pictures while we were there.
I put the pictures on my Flickr account, which I hardly ever use.
Then a few weeks ago I got an e-mail asking if I would submit one of my photos for Schmap. I did, and it got accepted! Kinda cool. So it seems my Folsom Field Photo is helping to tell a little about Boulder, I am glad I could help!
See the link above or the widget on this page to see the photo I took (Jenn G.) :-)

Working on the J.P. Schwartz Web Site

For work this last week or so, I have been given the opportunity to help with the posting of different things to the website, I even wrote some of the content about John being a Denver Computer Consultant. This is fun work for me. I am really enjoying my job.
Don't get me wrong, working from home can be time consuming and difficult. Some days it can take 5 of my hours to get 3 hours of work done (Getting paid for 3 fair hours, when it took 5 hours out of my day to really accomplish it, due to interuptions or things like taking kids to school or practice.) Regardless, it is the perfect job for me right now, the work is suited to what I know how to do, or am at least confident and capable of learning to do; the schedule is flexible enough for me to work around the kids and other responsibilities, and I still get one day that I work away from home, in John's office, which gives me a nice break from the day to day stuff here at home.
All in all, I just can't complain a bit, and feel really blessed for the opportunities I have been given.

Speech Therapy - 2nd Session

On Wednesday mornings a speech therapist visits our home to help Adam Jr. He has a speech delay for his age. While he is 26 months old, he only uses about 5-7 words. He does babble a lot. His lack of communication skills can result in tantrums and other not so fun behavior.
In looking at possible causes of the delay and the different behaviors Adam Jr. exhibits the therapist brought up two possible scenarios. One is something referred to as Sensory Integration Disorder and the other was Autism.
Upon hearing these possibilities a wave of fear and confusion ran through me. I thought maybe we had just allowed the Binky use to go on too long, or maybe, being a third child, we just spoke for him and catered to him too much.
I have done just a little research since yesterday on the topics. I certainly hope he proves to have neither. But I would hope for SID over Autism. I looked a little on-line at the symptoms of each and Adam falls into them about 50% of the time.
Behaviors such as tantrums that he cant figure out how to come out of on his own, changes in schedule causing melt-downs, sensitivity to being too hot, walking on his toes, hating to get his teeth brushed (we practically have to sit on him to brush his teeth), and obviously the speech delay along with the fact he also performed some other tasks later than other kids.
Adam is very bright, can follow directions (when he chooses), can interact well with people (again, when he so chooses), but has these other tendencies that are disrupting to him leading the typical 2-year old life.
Please keep your prayers with our family and with our little guy. We believe he will be fine. When I became pregnant for the third time, before we knew the sex of our baby, I would often pray,"God, I really want a girl, but if you give me a boy, please let him be destined for great things." Well, of course we have 3 boys, so I believe he is destined for greatness, one way or another!

Mostly Girls Night

Last night I went down to Runners Roost and met my friend Dana there to register for the upcoming Race for the Cure race. We got out of our vehicles and laughed at how we had somehow dressed exactly the same. She brought Brian Jr. and I brought Caleb along(Thus the "mostly" girls night out"). We went to Old Chicago and had dinner, then I followed her back to her place in Castle Rock.
We made up some margaritas and guacamole and broke out the scrap booking stuff and got crafty till about 1:00 in the morning.
This morning we woke up, had coffee and hung out, then out we went for a challenging 4.5 mile run through the canyon. I showered up at their place and headed home.
It was a great time, and I really miss her. She is the best friend a girl could have!

Chiropractor

Went to the Chiropractor today, seems I have too much stress and running is hard on my body. Go figure.
Ran 4 miles this morning.
Kids had good day at school ( I think ) and Adam Jr. did well without the Binkie today.
Last night though during his meltdown he dumped the entire 2.5 gallon fish tank on his carpet and poor fishy almost died. We are still waiting to see if he can recover and the floor is still trying to dry.
The weather is hot, but is cooling this afternoon.
I am working on SEO (search engine optimization) this is new territory for me. Fun to learn new things! Not sure you can ever really figure out what all those Search Engines are really looking for though.
That is all for today!

Welcome to our Family Blog

This is our new blog! We are excited to just let you know what is going on in our family. Trust me it is always a lot with 5 people!
It is late now and I don't have the time or energy to write much.
The big news of the day though is we got the call we had been waiting for today. Caleb made the Major League Competitive 9 year old team for next years baseball season. What does it mean? Well lots of time commitment, lots of money we really don't have, but it also means our son is one of the best of the best in his age group! (2nd year playing Majors) We are so very proud of his commitment to and love of the game! We wouldn't want it any other way!
Stay in touch, visit us often!