Some more randomness

Here are some random pictures of the kids. Enjoy!

Peyton LOVES Aja. It's really quite cute. Of course, it's impossible to get a good picture of BOTH kids at the same time.


Oh yeah. I made bread. Finally. I can never get yeast to rise. So here is a picture of my success!! Mitch is convinced that I skip a step, but I never do!! So I'm so happy that I had some bread that actually worked! I made us some cheese bread and it was good!


The end result! I think my family downed one and one-half loaves at dinner!


Cohen went Trick-or-Treating at the CPD building today! By the end of it all, he was actually saying something that sounded a bit like Trick-or-Treat. It was so cute! They gave him a PECS card to hand to people this year, but I don't think we will use it as I'm sure they will have no idea what to do, so I've been working with him all day with it. Last year he ran into every one's house. It was really embarrassing.

That is Janelle, one of the MANY people who are helping Cohen. We LOVE her!


Everyone got a kick out of the Chicken costume! It was great.


And of course..Cohen "smiling". Our family pictures this year are going to be pretty darn interesting.


P.S. The new play list is dedicated to my kids. They all have different tastes, it's hilarious!

Updates..(I know I have updates all the time).

To answer a few questions been asked:

Janita: Cohen is on a waiting list right now for a specialty pre-school called ASSERT. There is a 5 month waiting list for it and that is something that the developmental pediatrician has told us would help Cohen function in a normal school setting and may even help his social skills since they are basically nil right now.
Cohen is seeing the following: Occupational Therapy (for sensory issues), Physical Therapy (he's not very coordinated), nutritionist, Behavioral Therapy, Speech Therapy, and the lady from the ABC class comes in and works with him and me as well. Her main job is to help Cohen become more engaged with the family. He will be starting in a class soon that will be with other kids and they will help him engage with other children and we will see how that goes. He was attacked by a little boy on Tuesday and he shut right down, I couldn't get him to engage with me anymore.

The job hunt has gone well. Mitch got an offer! It's with the company I was secretly rooting for and they have come back with an amazing offer, so we will probably go with it. It means that Mitch and I will be separated for awhile while I try to sell the house, but heck SL is just an hour away, not a big deal. I will be cutting back on my hours from work drastically, but will still work to retain the account I have and what I make I can use for whatever I want. I have a huge list! LOL!

Heather: The pediatrician is up here in Logan. He's great! I'm sad now that I will have to leave him, but I'm sure I will get awhile with him as the housing market really is not doing good. Can buy a house, selling is hard.

Liz: My favorite dog is a Daschund (sp??). I don't know why my pictures aren't working! I want to make wedding cakes as my dream job. I want to visit Italy or live there even. I LOVE fast cars. Another one of my dreams is to fix one up, yah, dumb I know, but always been a dream!

I hope I got to every one's questions! I will be posting some fun pics later this afternoon!

I'm in love...

With another man besides my husband. Okay, not love, but he's pretty great! LOL! We went to Aja's new pediatrician today and he spent one and one-half hours with me today!! I couldn't believe it! He looked up all her pre and post surgical reports, answered questions, told me what I should do in case of a malfunction, answered questions on her enlarged lymph nodes in her head, answered questions on her herniated belly button and then proceeded to talk to me about Cohen's blood work and what avenues we could take with him! It was awesome and I left there feeling confident instead of worrying that I would miss something and my child would die.

He did tell me that her fontanelle is closing faster than it should (it's barely the size of my finger-tip) so it would be harder to tell when she has a malfunction, but he didn't make me feel like it wasn't something that we (meaning him, me, Logan ER, and Primary's) couldn't handle, was very supportive of helping me arrange the helicopter in case of a malfunction and how he would contact the radiologist on call at both hospitals to get things going. He has 2 other kids under his care that are also shunted so he knows how to handle things. It was just a great bit sigh of relief!

Little thing:
Weight: 12 lbs. and 6 oz. (she's up 5 pounds since her birth)
Length: 24 1/2 inches.
Head Circ: 40 1/2 cm. (this is good. When she had her surgery it was 41.5)

He was very supportive of breast feeding and said there was no rush to introduce solids, which was very good for me as I believe in giving things a little time and not rushing it per se. So all in all it was a very positive experience and I left with a big smile on my face!

Tagged by Liz!

My wonderful friend, Liz, tagged me. So here goes!

MY FAVORITE VACATION:

I would LOVE to go back to Japan. Mitch is actually interviewing with a company where he would be traveling there for business, so I'm kind of crossing my fingers for that one!

MY FAVORITE COLOR:

All pink..All the time.

MY FAVORITE TREAT:

I love brownies. They are my weakness.

MY FAVORITE FRUIT:

I love all fruit!

A LITTLE KNOWN FACT ABOUT ME:

I love punk music! I usually listen to it when I'm alone as it's not appropriate for my kids to listen to. Also, I used to have gauged ears. YUM!

WHERE I WANT TO TRAVEL:

I love Italy. I would very much love to visit/live there.

WHERE I GREW UP:
I couldn't find a picture of it. Bountiful, Utah.

WHERE I LIVE NOW:
No place too exciting. Logan, Utah.

MY MIDDLE NAME:
Okay. It's JEHAN. JE-HAN. JUH-HAN. Not JOHN..JUH-HAN. Everyone always gets it wrong. I'm named after a previous president of Egypt wife. He was Anwar Sedat his wife was Jehan Sedat.

MY FIRST NAME:
It's Monique.

MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE:
I really don't want to post a picture of this one. It's kids with boogery noses. I would much rather wipe my kids' nose on their shirt than have them sucking it in all day! It's so gross!

MY FAVORITE ANIMAL:

I want one of these really, really badly!

PAST LOVE:

I still love fast cars, but was very much obsessed with them when I was younger.

MY GREATEST WISH:

I really want to learn to make wedding cakes (I make a killer cake, just don't know how to decorate) and open my own shop! My wedding cake was so beautiful and delicious that it's something that I have wanted to do as a side thing since!

All right..I'm done! I tag Tasha, Shelly, Heather, Lacey, Janita, Ashley and anyone else who reads it.

I'm not looking forward to this.

Oy... Cohen's got bad teeth. I mean seriously bad. Since the age of 1, when I first started taking him to the dentist, we've walked out of here with a 200$ bill or more. He has a cap on one of his front teeth and that little puppy cost us about 150$ after insurance. Well, we went to the dentist last week and the poor kid has the worst luck. He has to get 3 caps and have 2 cavities filled, and this is what they could see from checking into his mouth.They are going to have to take more x-rays because he wasn't being cooperative during that portion to see if there might be more cavities they didn't catch. The last time, when we got the cap, Cohen had a real rough time and they had to give him 2 shots in the arm to semi-sedate him and we were at the dentist office for almost 3 hours! This time, he gets to go into the hosptial to get fully sedated so they can work on him. I feel bad for him, he was born without enamel on his teeth and he has pitted dentin, so that means no matter what I do, he will always have cavities. As it is I brush his teeth with my electric toothbrush and give him fluoride pills. It's really bad when the first thing the dentist says when looking into his mouth is "I just want you to know that you aren't doing anything wrong, there is nothing you can do in this situation".

Dentist: 900$ (HOLY FREAKING CRAPP!) This could go up too because there might be things that they find while he's under!
Anesthesia: 300$
Operating Room: 500-700$.

As if there weren't enough little moths flying from my wallet. Like I said, I'm not looking forward to this.

Our ADOS Update.

Sorry to leave you all wondering. We went on Thursday to get Cohen's final part of his diagnosis and it was so mind boggling, I really just don't know how to explain it. They score him on a few different things and give him a "final score". He's a 15 out of 24 with the cut-off being 12. So what you or I would normally think is, Oh, he's mildly autistic right? I guess that isn't how it works. See, his communication is mildly autistic (which was weird to me when the kid is just barely talking), but his social-emotional is considered severely autistic. That part didn't surprise me in the least. So he's all over the spectrum, hence the term autism spectrum disorder or ASD.

Anyway, they told me that he could go on to lead a normal life, just be "quirky". I think they meant that as a comfort to me, but still, I don't want the other kids in class (when he goes to school) to walk away going..That is one weird kid. They said, he just might prefer being alone the rest of his life, which is okay with me as long as it doesn't affect his self-esteem. I know I'm not wording this right, but I really don't know how to express how I feel about this whole thing.

So the new thing he's going through is called echolalia. It's where he will sometimes just sit there and repeat the same thing, over and over and over and over again. We were in Joann's and he saw Buzz Lightyear (loves him) and he repeated "Mommy Buzz" for the next 45 minutes. I finally had to just hurry and buy my stuff because it's drives you insane after a bit. He's still really violent with me and we are trying to work on that. I don't know why it's just with me though. He doesn't do it to Mitch and Cohen and I have always been extremely close. Who knows? Quirky.

Mitch wanted to know...

Which gayA$$ he was and he is..


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Ladies of the world unite!!

You know you love the book series and can't wait for the movie!


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Zach will like this one..

Peyton writes pretty good for a lefty, and I think the Y in his name is very fitting.


Good, sweet, loving kid..Hard to deal with sometimes. He cracks me up!

P.S. Mitch told me I suck at making playlists (he doesn't like Portal), so I made a new one. I'm really not a huge geek, but these bring back fond feelings..I made it mostly for Anna. Love you!

What's going down..

Just wanted to update everyone with what has been going on with us this last week. Mitch has applied for a couple of jobs. Some down in SLC, Idaho, St. Louis, and Washington D.C. He had 2 interviews on Friday down in SLC that went really well and he has a second interview with one of the companies next week. Then on the 28th he goes back down for another interview with a different company. Sometime this week he's also heading up to Idaho Falls for an interview. The boy will be traveling around a lot! There are some people who are concerned about the fact that Mitch is changing jobs when the economy sucks, but don't worry, we aren't making any rash decisions. Everything is being thought through very carefully. While I hate to move back down to SLC, if it helps us out and Mitch is able to get with a company that actually has growth, then it's worth it to me. He got his MAcc this spring and wants to be able to actually use the education that he has gained.

Aja has her first cold. YUCK! The poor, little thing has red, runny eyes and is producing copious amounts of snot. I FINALLY found a pediatrician to take her on!! This is the SIXTH pediatrician I have contacted. Everyone else was uncomfortable taking her case on, and while it's been a pain in the butt, it's better that they are honest with me than taking her on and not knowing a dang thing about hydrocephalus. Even still, I don't really expect them to be taking on that part of her anyway, she has a neurologist for that and if she has a malfunction I don't plan on taking her to the ER up here anyway. We will just fly right down to SLC.

On Thursday we are getting the final results for Cohen's ADOS (autism diagnostic observation schedule) testing. This will tell us where he falls on the spectrum or they might down grade him to PDD (pervasive developmental disorder). We are crossing our fingers for a down grade, but I highly doubt it. He attacked the doctor while they were doing the testing, which is something he does when he's had enough of you. He starts getting violent. He grabbed a toy threw it against the wall, picked up the table and flipped it over, and then grabbed a chair and was in the process of throwing it at her before I intervened. I wasn't supposed to because of how the testing process is, but she was going to get a chair to the head and I really didn't want to be liable for that.

Oh yeah, and that stupid little ticker up in the corner isn't moving for a reason. I'm not losing any weight!! It's infuriating. I could practically kill myself with not eating and working out and the dang thing still wouldn't budge. I have a really hard time losing weight while I'm nursing, and I guess this time is no different. I'm not going to stress it anymore. I'm getting healthy and that is all that matters I guess. The weight will come off eventually.

So anyway, cross your fingers for us and pray that something REALLY GRAND comes along so that things ease up on us a bit. It's been a rough year.

Aja is 4 months old!

I can't believe that my little girl is growing up so fast! The time is just flying by and it makes me sad because she is our last one. She is so much fun. Unfortunately she won't hardly let anyone hold her without screaming. Hopefully it passes soon.

Here she is all bathed and prettied up ready to go to visit the gals at Mitch's work!


Sucking her thumb...and shirt. Her 3-6 month clothes are still a bit big for her.


Bath Time!! She loves taking baths. Yes, she is kind of going bald. She is my baldest baby, but she's still adorable. Where her incision is, she has blond hair growing in! Another blondie in the family!!


All cleaned up! This was taken this morning. Cohen wouldn't get out of the way for me to take a decent picture. This is as good as it gets.


And for all of you who were up in Idaho this weekend..a picture of the current bane in my life.


Cohen won't leave the bleepin stools alone!! Non-stop it's that horrible rubbing sound! What's worse is he especially loves doing it while I'm nursing and can't do anything about it! GRRRR! He's too stinkin smart for his own good. LOL!