Disneyland- Seaworld- and Cousins

This is Edgar, with Miley and Mckenna

Aidan, Liam and Caden at Liams play

Mckennas favorite fairy is Faun, because
she loves animals too.

Visiting Mickey at his house. You can tell
how excited Coleman was. He wouldn't
stop covering his eys.

Caden- looking out at the docked
boats, near our hotel by seaworld.
I liked the name of the boat.

Coleman being carried by my sister Kristi into
Seaworld. He was fine once we got there, he just
didn't want it to be like Disneyland.

Our favorite- Shamu! Chad and Mckenna got
splased by Shamu 3 times on the 3rd row. They
were drenched and it was not the warmest day.

Kristi, Haliegh, and Miley

Mckenna with her new little
Shamu in a purse.

ALL the boys went on the river boat ride.
Even Coleman was okay with it.

Coleman, Haliegh and Liam waiting for the
dolphins to swim back by them.

Coleman, Jeff and Haliegh...waiting.

Mileys first real ride! Elmos Flying Fish!!

I'm telling this a little out of order, but oh well. To make a long story short, lets just say Disneyland wasn't the best place on earth for Coleman. He acted excited to go when we would talk about and show him stuff on the computer, but once we got there, I can't count the number of times he asked to go back home. Because of our sweet little boy we got the fast pass for all the rides and thankgoodness we did, he would have never made it waiting in line for hours for each ride. He did go on about all the rides he could, but during and after each ride, he seemed very stressed and wanted to go home. At about 4pm we were done with what we wanted and went out for dinner. I went back to the hotel with the boys and Miley and Chad took Mckenna back to Disneyland until 11pm. We told Caden to go with them, but he was just excited to stay at the hotel and play with his starwars ship he got after the star tours ride.

Everyone was very happy to get to my sisters house the next day and just play with cousins and relax. To say that my sister and her family are busy, is an understatement. They are very involved with this cool community theater and they do wonders for it!! It was a lot of fun to see Jeff in "Leading Ladies" and Liam was in "Treasure Island" the next day. Plus my sister does most of the costumes. And Jeff is not only in one play, but helping direct Treasure Island. We just sat back in awe of all they take on, but it looks a ton of fun and well worth it for them in the end.

I don't think I even talked to Caden the whole time we were there. He and his cousin Aiden were constantly playing something and kept them selves busy day after day. Mckenna had a great time with Haleigh. There is an age difference, but you would almost not even know it with how well they got along and Haleigh is so funny and mature for her age.

Miley was pretty obsessed with their HUGE dog Edger, who stayed in the backyard the whole time, but she wanted to see him at the door or she would say over and over again, "dog, dog, dog, dog, ..."

Coleman was as happy as ever just playing with all their starwars toys and watching Phineas and Ferb on the disney channel.

SeaWorld was probably the best for everyone since they were with their cousins and it was much more relaxed and less people. As you can see in a picture, Coleman was not happy as we were walking into Seaworld since he thought it was like Disneyland. What kid screams and cries going into Seaworld? But once we got in and he got a map, he was just fine. Now he loves to talk about the killer whales and dolphins.

Thank you Kristi and Jeff for having us, we had a lot of fun. Can't wait to see you in Denver soon!

California

Our flight into LA was smooth and on time. We get our luggage and go out to get on the bus to our car rental place. We wait outside for Chad for at least 30min. only for him to come out and tell us that we are at the wrong car rental place. ( I have to give Chad a little slack since he travels all the time and gets numerous car rentals at different places). Anyone could have mixed up Budget with Dollar car rental, they are very close in their meaning. I think I took the bulk of our pictures while waiting another 30+min. at the next rental car place. Coleman was content playing with his eve and wall-e toys in Mileys stoller, Caden as usual just goofed around and played with Miley, and Mckenna seemed as annoyed and impatient as a teenager.

FUN at Shantil and Nates

We flew into LA and went to my friends house, Shantil, who I haven't seen in 7 years. The best thing was going to their house and it felt like it had only been 7 days since I'd seen her. The kids had a blast from jumping on the tramp, climbing the steep rock hill in her backyard, playing with snails (yes, it't the girls playing with snails), and who knows what else they did when we weren't looking. Thanks so much Shantil and Nate for having us, it was a highlight of the trip!

Playing Catch Up...again.

Chad and I had the chance to go to Hawaii for a work thing he had. He only had to work a couple of hours for some of the days. We didn't do a whole lot but relax, hang out, and find the best food places to go to. It's funny how most of our vacation was centered around food. From the almond cookies at this Japanese restaurant, to the garlic shrimp in those run down huts with flies all over them.

We are not very good at taking pictures when it's just the two of us. Neither one of us wants to ask someone to take our picture and we don't like taking pictures by ourselves. But we did try to get a few. Like the close up? It's us taking a picture of ourselves!

Playing Catch Up

A friend of ours took some pictures of the kids a while ago. Group shots are almost impossible now a days, so it's safer to go with individual pictures.

I never even documented Mileys first B-day! We can't believe how fast the year flew and now she is walking around with a mind of her own already! We made pizza for her b-day dinner which was good, but no one seemed too excited about the organic gluten free cake and icing I made. Miley just picked around at it and only Coleman ate his whole piece. I guess that was okay since I made it gluten free for him. I really didn't think it tasted too bad!!

Caden is a snow shoveling machine! Any time it snows, he is right out there, wanting to be like his Dad. Dad shovels the front and Caden is responsible for the back patio. I have to say, he does a pretty good job for a five year old.

I can't believe it's the new year and the kids go back to school in a couple of days. The break has seemed like forever, but in a good way. I've loved having no where to go in the mornings and just hanging out. Chad has actually been around the whole time and I don't know what I'm going to do when he is gone next week monday through friday! Chads parents came to visit and were with us on Christmas and it was nice to have them around. They entertained the kids, made them cookies, took them to Target, and took them outside to play. It kept the kids fighting to a minimum. I was terrible at taking pictures, mostly because I didn't want to stress about it and just wanted to actually watch the kids open their presents etc... But also my camera is not doing well. It seems like no matter what I do, the pictures are not turning out like they used to. Chad says it's because I may have dropped it one too many times. Even though I have no recolection of dropping it, it may have very easily happened. To say I'm a "little clutsy" is an understatement.

BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY

I remember pretty vividly the day Coleman was born. My water broke in the middle of the night, my sweet friend Dacy who was on call, came over to be with my other two kids. And it was a blizzard of snow outside. It took us at least double the time to get to the hospital. Everything went well and easy, just like the other two and we went home with Coleman having a little jaundice. The next day we took him to get tested for his jaundice levels and he ended up having to stay in the hospital two more nights under the lights, where he screamed most of the nights. Before I was going to take him home, I was on the hospital bed with him and had a moment with him that I knew I wouldn't forget. It was a just a powerful feeling that he was a very special little boy who Heavenly Father sent to us. I know that it doesn't sound much different than what any mother would have with her new born child, but I knew it was different. At least different for me compared to the births of my first two.

He grew up very normal and right on target developmentally, but he was a little more fussy. He loved books and could tell me what everything was, his animals, colors etc.. After he turned two, I remember thinking he wasn't quite where he should be. When I showed him toys he would sometimes ignore me and he just liked his certain things. I would joke around with Chad saying that I think he's deaf. But then again, that can be very "boy" normal. He just kept getting bigger and more and more tempermental, and I started to think he was just a little immature for his age. So when I went in for his 3 yr. check up, I told my pediatrition my concerns. As I watched her try to interact with him, he never looked at her and it took a lot of effort to get him to do what she asked. Physically he was right on target, but socially not so much. My doctor said, " I think he is fine, but did autism cross my mind?.., yes." The words hit me in the gut, thinking that there was no way. When I brought him into this same office when he was two, I filled out this paper about Autism and if he had any signs. I remember marking no for every one of them and the same doctor said, "oh this is just routine stuff to ask, but I can tell that Coleman is totally fine." After that I trusted her to catch him up on his shots, and he got 4 jabs, 6 immunizations. He did have a fever for almost a week and his legs were swollen, but hey, they say that is normal.

My pediatrition sent me to a Developmental doctor and I started to go through our school system to have him tested. The first school testing I took him to was not good. They took him in by himself to do the tests, and when I came in, the first thing they said was that they were very concerned. He couldn't tell them what shapes or animals were that they asked, but I thought to myself, "he knows those things at home." I could hardley hold back my tears when they were talking to me and when I left, I just cried and cried in the car. At least Chad was the strong one. His attitude was that Coleman was going to be fine no matter what the outcome. It was who he was and he came that way for a reason. He was the same sweet little boy who we loved, no matter what is development problems were.
After all this stuff started happening, I would see something about Autism somwhere every week. One sunday, I opened the newspaper, and the Parade magazine cover page was something like, "AUTISIM, is there any hope." I threw the paper down and went into the other room and cried. After that cry, I haven't cried about it until now that I am typing this.
We took him to the Developmental Pediatrition, he had us do a test, and after 4-6 weeks time, Chad took him back to the doctor for the results. Chad called me on his way home, told me that Coleman was High Functioning Autistic and the doctor gave us some papers and pretty much sent us on our way to do the work ourselves. By that time, I was almost relieved to know what we were dealing with and now I knew what to research. Coleman started preschool, and after the first day of screaming the whole time, he did great after that. The teachers were great and had such high hopes for him. We moved to Colorado shortly after, so the transition throughout the summer and getting moved in was a little rocky for Coleman.

Now he is in school again, and is doing so well. Academically he is advanced and we laugh at how he knows just as much or more of things than his 5 yr. old brother. He of course needs help socially and things like waiting his turn are not easy, but I think he functions pretty well. I don't think Coleman is a whole lot different until I get around other 3 yr. olds and see how they talk and how freely their conversations run. Little Colme has a pretty scripted vocabulary.

We found a DAN! doctor and after weeks and weeks of collecting urin, stool, blood, hair, and more and more blood, we will have a lot of knowledge of what is going on in his body. We meet with the doctor in a couple weeks to go over everything and we will start the Vit. B12 shots. I'm excited to see him continue to get better and better.



I have been thinking about writing about this for a while now. Mostly to get things documented and I knew the process of writing things out would be good for me. A while ago I was talking to my friend about different trials people go through and how we stand in awe about what people deal with in life. She asked me how I felt about Colemans autisim, and if I felt it was a trial. I honestly never really viewed it as a trial. Especially when I think about how much more other families have to deal with. Starting a gluten and dairy free diet will not be easy, but really very trivial to what things could be. I feel really blessed beyond measure for what I have. I have four beautiful children and a husband who really acts like the mom more than I do. He not only works hard in his job, but comes home and can make up for anything I have missed in the craziness of the day. He reads to the kids, helps them with their homework and still finds time to play, wrestle, jump on the tramp, and then run them to Karate or mini-poms. We truly have nothing to complain about, but all to be grateful for. I appreciate all my family and good friends who helped me throughout this process with Coleman. For all those who watched my other kids while we had doctor appointments and who were there just to listen. THANK YOU!

HALLOWEEN

Since things have been a little crazy and with Chad being out of town, we didn't get around to carving pumpkins until about one hour before we went out trick-or-treating. Everything was a little rushed and Mckenna didn't do well with our rushing to get ready and taking pictures, that she had a melt down. So bad that we threatened her to miss some trick-or-treating time, which just made things worse. I was tempted to tell her that she wouldn't go at all, but I couldn't be that mean. She was so emotional, she ended up telling us she didn't want to go at all. I took the boys out down the street and came back for Mckenna but she just walked with me and refused to go get any candy. I guess that was her way of showing us who was in control! The boys went down the other side of our street and when they passed our house again, they ran in to show dad their candy and they said they were done. I think this was the first year we came home without buckets full of sugar. It's probably best, since Chad and I are the ones to steal most of it away. Mileys favorite part was sitting by the door playing with the bowl full of candy. She litterally played with candy bowl most of the night. She didn't get anything open, so she didn't know what she was missing out on.