Picking Fights - She Is Her Mother's Daughter

Everyone dies laughing at how much Eden is like me. Her little personality is all me.

Lately she has started picking fights with me.

For example, one day I tried to tell her candy was yucky to get her to stop eating it so much and now before I even say anything she'll just out of the blue say "Candy is good Mommy, its not yucky!"

She does the same thing about her pacifier (or Binka). I tried to tell her Binka's were for babies and now she just tells me "Binka's are for big girls." When I asked her if any of her big girl friends had Binka's she said "yes" even though none of them do. Now she will say things like "my cousins have Binka's" or "Avery has a Binka" and they don't. I'm pretty sure my statement that she will take her Binka to college may come to fruition.

Big Girl Special Girl

Eden is very into letting everyone know that she is a "big girl." So I asked her "if you are a big girl what is Georgia?" At first she used to say "a baby" but now after our little talk about differences she says "A Special Girl."

My Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!

 Ya I know it was almost a week ago, cut me some slack.

 Our Valentine's Day was fairly mellow.

We had a playdate with Avery, but she didn't stay for long because she wasn't feeling well and was grouchy. The girls gave little treats to their friends (which of course I was up making the night before because according to Darryl I'm off my game. Normally they would have been done several days in advance).

Eden made me take a picture of her Nemo fish, but it does show off her cute nail polish. The day before I painted the girls nails (I had to do Georgia's while she was asleep in her stander). My friend Andrea gave me this awesome nail polish that dries in like 5 seconds its called Sally Hansen Quick Dry. If you have toddlers go out and buy some right now!

Then that night Darryl cooked dinner for me and his sister and her family came over.

I refuse to go to restaurants on Valentine's Day any more. I will not wait hours for a table only to eat subpar food served by a cranky waitress.

Darryl says that I don't have a romantic bone in my body. And considering I bought my own Valentine's present and refuse to go out, he may just be right.

Touring Preschools

When Georgia turns 3 she will start going to preschool. She won't be eligible for Early Intervention any more and will get most of her services through the school district. I'm slightly freaking out that my baby will be going to school. So in order to try and prepare myself we have toured a couple of preschools. We have several different options for Georgia, anywhere from she can go and be in a regular classroom in a regular school (we are not going to do this) to she stays home and a teacher comes to teach her. We have pretty much decided that she will either go to the Utah School For The Deaf And Blind (USDB) or a special needs school (they just built one close to our home called Horizon). So we went and toured both schools. I got the girls all dressed up because ya know you've gotta make a good impression. When we went to USDB Eden went to play at Damon's house but when we to Horizon she came with us. She kept saying "I want to meet a parent." Georgia went into her standard mode and slept through most of both tours. We liked USDB, we liked the teacher (she too had a disabled child), and that the class was small (only 5 kids) and we liked that she would get a lot of therapy and they were very parent centered. But we didn't like that it was so far from us (its in Orem), and that it was in a dingy trailer behind an elementary school, and its all day. We loved Horizon. It was new and fresh and had lots of equipment and it had a sensory room and a physical therapy room. There were lots of aides to help the kids and the teacher has been teaching special needs kids for 34 years. It even has a pool/spa. And its 7 minutes from my house and only half day. Georgia will be the youngest in her class (the class has ages 3-8 years old). But they are all similarly disabled, most of the students are wheelchair bound. The whole school only has about 75 students (there are I think 7 in her class) and most of those 75 students are on the older ARTEC side of the school. So I think we will send her to Horizon. Although a lot will depend on what happens at her IEP. I'm completely freaked out and she seems too little to go to school.

I remember when they were tiny and I was so looking forward to when Georgia would go to school so I could have a few moments of down time (sad, that just having crazy Eden at home is considered down time) and now that its here it seems too soon.

Eden is having a little bit of a hard time with knowing that Georgia gets to go to school and she doesn't. She so wants to go to school. Next fall I'll put Eden in preschool a couple times a week.

Whatever will I do with all the free time?

Hmmm . . . SLEEP!

A Family Home Evening Treasure Hunt

For Family Home Evening we did a treasure hunt.
Eden has been watching a lot of Jake and the Neverland Pirates so "Jake" came to our house and left some treasure. The girls had to follow the clues which led them to different spiritual places/things in our home and at the very end was a treasure box.

Strangely enough it was "buried" in our comforter.

They have been loving eating their gold coins.

My husband is a great big kid and loves doing this kind of stuff for them.

Painting With Daddy

Eden loves to paint with her dad.

This time he got her some  Warhammer guys to paint.

In case you can't tell its a wolf, a prince and a princess.
They have about 20 coats of paint on them.

For Valentine's Day I got a new point and shoot camera and so I was testing out its aperature priority.

Its a Canon Powershot S95. I bought it on ebay.
I'm kind of in love with it. It shoots in RAW and has a 1.4 aperature.

Darryl has been mocking me for how many cameras I have.

What? Who doesn't have 6 different cameras? (2 point and shoots, 2 DSLRs and 2 video)

I need all of them!

Eden's Christmas Dance Recital 2011.wmv

Finally Eden Gets A Turn

For the past few weeks Eden has gone with me to Georgia's horse therapy (usually Kim watches her for me). Eden's usually pretty good but she has a really hard time understanding that only Georgia gets to ride the horse. Finally, Georgia's OT Gary let her sit on the horse for a second before we left and well the smile says it all.

Peanuts4Peanut

We are trying to raise money to send Georgia to Now I Can. Now I Can is intensive physical therapy which will hopefully teach Georgia how to use her body and muscles in a productive way. We are excited about this opportunity as we have seen Now I Can change the lives of many children like Georgia but we need your help. Now I Can costs $6000 and insurance will not cover any of it. We were forunate to get a scholarship for half that amount so we just need to raise $3,000 to be able to send her. We would like to raise more than that in order to help defer some of the costs of Georgia's medical bills and equipment, but we'll be thrilled with whatever we raise. The cost of raising a child with special needs is staggering and sadly her insurance does not cover everything she needs and so we are forced to pay out of pocket for a lot of her care. We love Georgia and want to give her everything she needs to reach her full potential. That's where you can help. Please donate if you can!

So Much Sadness

This week has been really tough. Last Monday morning I got a text from my former secretary letting me know that the son of one of my fellow attorneys was released from jail and froze to death over the weekend. Her son meant everything to her, I can only imagine what she is going through.

Then later in the week I learned from facebook that a member of one of my online support groups who lost her ten year old son (who had Hydranencephaly) in October also lost her husband while they were on vacation. I can't even fathom what I would do if I lost my child and then less than 4 months later lost my husband. She has 3 other children as well. My heart just aches for her.

And on Sunday, Georgia's little friend Drew, who we met this summer, passed away. Its just too much loss. Having a special needs child you meet families with beautiful children and sometimes they just can't fight any more and it breaks your heart every time. It also makes you worry, is it going to be my family one of these days? It makes me hold Georgia a little closer.

Castles and Picnics

Eden has really started to use her imagination. She loves to play with her Princesses and her Supas. Last week the girls were both sick with colds and so they got a little stir crazy. Eden was bouncing off the walls so Darryl took her up to her toom to play. They built a castle out of blocks and then put all the princesses in the castle and the villians were attacking and storming the castle.

Then they set out a picnic for Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Eden was sure Robin Hood and Maid Marian were coming to our house. She kept going to the window to check. Luckily, they came while she was sleeping and left a note for her.

I love how her little mind works and she's usually really good to play by herself and be creative.