Fullness

If I had to describe our summer in one word it would be FULL. It has been totally packed full of fun adventures with one another and with family and friends. In May I never would have predicted that we could fit so much into a single summer. And honestly, much of the reason that we were able to squeeze so much in is thanks to Elijah's new medication. The dosage still is not ideal, but we are inching our way there slowly. We know that it does something very good for his brain, so we have continued to perfect the dose. Thank goodness we have had the summer to work through the bulk of it!

This has been a long time coming, but both Dan's and my cars are basically useless. Mine is currently not working at all and Dan's is limping along like a 100-year-old man. Some big developments and blessings have come our way in the past week. We have purchased a new (to us) Camry that is seriously the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I have NEVER been more happy and grateful to drive a car in my entire life. I LOVE IT.

I love driving places and not being stared at for being so annoyingly loud. I love not having to park at the deserted end of the parking lot when I meet someone for a photo shoot. I love that the radio works and the seat moves forward and backward and that I can communicate with others in the car without yelling. Sammy's favorite feature of the car is the fold-down cup holders in the back seat. He loves them and exclaimed, "This is the best car EVER! My favorite one in the entire world!"

We have been working with my car mechanic cousin Trevor (who is sooo kind to us) to figure out which one of our pieces of junk we should salvage. In the meantime, my sister and her husband came upon an extra car unexpectedly so they offered us one of theirs. So now we have two working, non-embarrassing vehicles to drive. Yay! We are super grateful for not only our new cars, but also for the people in our lives who have helped us out so much.

All summer long I have wanted to sit down and write a post about new developments with Elijah, but things just keep developing so it never seems like the right time. I think what describes things the best is what I wrote in one of my last posts about Elijah being composed of puzzle pieces. We are learning what the main puzzle pieces are and that we need to guard those pieces with our lives and keep them firmly in place so that the smaller pieces don't fall off the table. Keeping sugar intake under control is a HUGE piece. Early, consistent bedtimes is another major piece and now so is reading his behavior carefully and changing the dosage of his medication accordingly. We have also continued with essential oils and I don't know if this is a main piece or not, but it certainly isn't hurting. Elijah does still have rough days, but the definition of "rough" has changed since last winter. Even when he is totally exhausted, he can leave a fun party without throwing a fit or use the restroom when asked (not always, but it CAN happen).

The boys have had so much fun getting to know my mom this week! She is visiting from California and we are having a great time with her. Elijah and Sammy were super excited to take her to see Inside Out (their second time seeing it, lucky boys), their most recent favorite movie obsession. They are also educating her on the topic of Captain Underpants, potty talk and brotherly "love."

It is going to be strange having both boys in school after this insanely busy summer. It's just over a week away! Thanks for peeking in and have a great rest of your weekend!

Our baby's 4th birthday!

I think it's safe to assume that Sammy had a great golden birthday! We began the day with Straw-Blue-Nkle-Berry Pancakes! 

Because of our (quickly) approaching road trip, I had some errands to run and work to take care of today. Dan and Sammy spent most of the day together. After his nap, the two of us sat at the kitchen table and frosted his birthday cupcakes! He requested rainbow cupcakes with green frosting and sprinkles.

As usual, we wrote out a number with the cupcakes. "Mommy! If you sit on the other side, it's a lowercase H!"

He was SO excited about the card we gave him. He loves singing cards, so this year he got a singing cupcake!

When Dan and Elijah got home from PT/OT, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Sammy and he blew out his number 4 candle for the second time in just a few days!

Then, presents!

He had gotten a bunch of bubbles from family members at his party on Sunday, but spilled ALL of them within a few hours. He was horribly upset about it. I sneaked a few bottles of bubbles into his pile and he loved them! The happy face says it all.

The ONE thing Sammy asked for this year was....a baby chick stuffed animal. ?? I'm not sure where this came from, but I found a cute one for him and he snuggled that thing like crazy! "Awww, sooo cute! He likes to snuggle me! He's SO CUTE, Mommy!"

As usual, Elijah shoots me a perfect smile with eye contact when I say, "Look here and SMILE, boys!" and Sam looks down with his silly, adorable grin. I love my boys!

Our "big" gift to Sammy was a talking Stuart Minion. Both boys were super excited about welcoming him into our family.

Tonight we did our standard Applebee's birthday dinner. Dan and I were just talking about how we're going to keep the boys believing that Applebee's is a super special place, and for as long as we possibly can! Sammy had a fun time at dinner, being sung to and being loved upon. I think he had a great golden birthday!

Our family would not be complete without our beautiful, handsome, FUNNY, silly, smart, growly-voiced, sassy Sammy! He has such a "sweet & sassy" little personality and I feel SO blessed to be his mama!

Car update: My awesome cousin Trevor worked on Big Red for most of the day and delivered her back to us with a new hood! He still has some tweaks to deal with, so we'll get those taken care of in the next day or so. And it doesn't bother me one bit that the hood of our red car is now black. It gets us where we need to go!

Tomorrow: Dan may be skydiving. I have a hundred more errands to run, things to accomplish and items to pack. Sammy will go to daycare after his well visit in the morning. Elijah has his LAST day of first grade (soooo happy to end this school year!). Side note...he has had two "great" days in a row this week! Tomorrow night I'll pick up our rental car and load up for our big trip. We depart Friday morning at 7:00a!

Thanks for checking in! I'm going to kick my heels up for a bit before bed. THANK YOU to those of you who sent Sammy something special in the mail! He LOVED being the center of attention this week and today.

Fitting it all in

Once again, our "weekend" with Dan is done. BUT! He only works for two days this week and then we leave for a little road trip. I don't know how this is going to go with our little screamer, but we are going to try it and pray that we have a great time. We will be heading up to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan for a family reunion on Dan's dad's side of the family.



I have been trying to focus on the little bits of progress that Samson is making and that really helps me see things more positively lately. His gas issues are slowly improving, his naps are slowly improving and he is having much more quiet-alert time where he is a happy little boy. Thanks to the most wonderful sleep book on the planet, we are finally starting to see some good patterns with his sleeping. We didn't discover this book until Elijah was four months old and totally sleep-deprived. Once we found it, though, we were able to implement some things that I believe have made Elijah the awesome little sleeper that he is. We have already started implementing these same things with Sam and we are seeing that he has some really healthy sleep patterns developing. We LOVE this book and highly recommend it!

This week has already seemed a little bit crazy. Our car needed some maintenance before our big trip this weekend, so the best mechanic in the world is doing those repairs as I type (Hi Trev!). In an attempt to be as balanced (and tired) as possible, we have crammed in a ton of things in the past few days. In addition to our trip this weekend, we have some exciting travels coming up in the next few weeks that I'm really looking forward to.

Sammy's morning nap has lasted an hour and a half with only EIGHT MINUTES of crying. Wonderful!!!! I'm going to try to get a few more things done before he wakes up. Thanks for checking in!