Fabric and Old Friends

Hey, You! If your stopping by, say Hi!

I just had an old friend from long ago (okay, Jr. High and High School, I am not that old yet) who found my blog and left a comment. I love this! I love to reconnect with people I haven't talked to or seen in ages! So, Aleisha, thanks for commenting! I can't find your blog (if you have one) to answer your question, so come back to my blog to see the answer...and leave me your blog!

Question: Where did you get the fabric?

Answer: They are Windham Fabrics:
Harmony by Rosemarie Lavin Pattern #26576, #26571, and #26575

Here is the only place that I was able to find some of the exact fabrics, in the same color, online. I bought them at Sew A Lot in Lexington, Kentucky. Good luck in your search!

By the way, I haven't touched this fabric...but... I am sending the fabric to my friend, Renee, and she is going to make a quilt for me! I am getting so good at out sourcing all of my projects! Thanks friends who sew so well! Amy and Shari, I will be in touch! Anyone else??

in 4 hours or less

I should get paid for the tourist advertising that I am about to do...

KENTUCKY! What a great place to visit! Free room and board with an award winning chef (okay, not really award winning, but she should be) and plenty of entertainment!

In four hours or less, you can see amazing things if you come stay with us! In no particular order...

Awesome People

The Duncans!!!

Alice in Knoxville

Renee in Nashville

Andrea in West Virginia

As Seen on the Food Network

KFC Chicken Where it all began! Sorry... ***This is where Colonel Sanders developed the recipe***
Louisville Eats
Lynns Paradise Cafe
Pizza Palace, Knoxville TN

Sports

Indy 500

University of Kentucky Wildcats

Louisville Slugger

Bengals Training Camp
Cincinnati Bengals
Cincinnati Reds

Kentucky Derby

A Few Cities That Might Be Of Interest

Cincinnati

Nashville

Winchester
Lexington

Outdoors/Scenic

Mammoth Caves

Natural Bridge State Park

Red River Gorge

Country Music Highway (Billy Ray Cyrus, The Judd's)

Fort Boonesboro

Horses

Kentucky Horse Park

Kentucky Derby

Keeneland

Theme Parks/Festivals

Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival
Court Day

Dollywood!!!

Six Flags

Nickelodeon’s Kings Island

Art

Shaker Village
Berea

And if everything else fails, here's for all you boozers!

Bourbon

So come see us, okay?

Muscle Men and Kisses

My sister (she would like to remain anonymous ;) finally sent me some pictures from our vacation to Utah last month.

Two hotties, Clark and Dallin, showing off their guns!

Cat nap time with Ellie and Jake

Clark is thoroughly enjoying my smooshy kiss!

Kali, Grandma, and Dallin. Kali is my niece, but she has been mistaken to be my child a couple times. One time, before we had Dallin, Paul and I had Kali at the store. As we were checking out, the clerk was so funny because she kept saying over and over to Paul, "Holy cow, she looks SO much like you! She is definitely your kid!" We just went with it. I'd claim her!

Yeah for progress!

Even if we don't hear or see it as often as we would like, Dallin is making progress. Sometimes it is so slow that we wonder if he is regressing. But lately, he has been doing really well. Okay, besides the enormous tantrums, of course! During these tantrums, I have to remind myself that he is only 2 and a half years old and a lot of these trantrums are just because he IS 2. However, he has started to scream IN time-out as well as out. UGH! Today, after three time-outs in a row, I finally put him in his bedroom and shut the door for a minute or two. This seemed to help because five minutes later he was grinning and giving me random kisses every minute and I even got a doggy lick! But today's frustrations had nothing to do with communication issues, he just didn't like the house rules, wouldn't follow them, and so he had to go into time-out...a lot!

Dallin has been using a lot of new words.

So back to the progress that we saw today: He has been obsessed with two plastic Easter eggs all day and walks around saying "aye, aye, aye" (egg). We just have to work on the "G" at the end. Later tonight, he was breaking the eggs open and saying, "cack! cack!" (crack)!!!!!! He loves the book, "Noisy Breakfast". In it, the dog and mouse crack the eggs. Yesterday, he helped me make cookies and I would CRACK the eggs into a cup and then he would dump the cup into the bowl. I think Dallin finally put it all together in his head that we "cack" the eggs!

Tonight, he wanted to put his socks on over his pajamas. He got one on by himself and was having trouble getting the other one on. He gave me the sock and said, "Do it!" I could tell this wasn't a pop-out, because the vowel sounds weren't perfect.

He was throwing so many fits today because we are trying to teach him not to dump his bin of toys all over the family room. I have lids on the bins that are a little difficult for Dallin to open. He picked one of the bins up (which is the same size as he is), brought it over to me and said, "tooooyyyyysssssss!!!!!!!"

Like every little kid, he loves to turn the lights on and off. He has been doing really good with "off" saying it pretty much how it is supposed to sound. "On" however is proving to be difficult for him, coming out as "awe, awe, awe". But he is trying to say it!

It is always rewarding when he does something that reminds us of how smart he is. He found the DVD "Ice Age" and brought it to me saying, "iiiiccce".

I finally got him to start saying more again... moe, moe, moe. And to sign milk. We also go him to sound out "mmmmm" as we were trying to get him to say and sign milk. Sometimes Dallin will stop using the communication devices that we have taught him, ie signing or trying to say the word or showing us, and he will just demand and point. It can be quite frusterating when he is pointing up to the top of the closet, for example, and we have to take down item after item just to figure out what it is he would like. We are so pround of him for trying so hard today!

And just for fun, during our Family Night activity, he stood up on the coffee table, put his fist up in front of his mouth (his microphone) and started singing.

A Living Prophet

This is Dallin and President Hinckley during Spring General Conference in 2006. Today, for Family Home Evening, we talked about the memories we have of our Prophet. This picture was one of the memories that Paul talked about. Another one of Paul's memories was when the Conference Center was finished and President Hinckley was so excited about the new podium, which was made from the black walnut tree that once stood near his home. One of my memories of President Hinckley is at the 2004 Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert that we went to with some friends of ours. As President Hinckley entered the conference center, we all stood. He walked toward his seat, turned to the crowd, lifted his cane in the air and waved it back and forth. That man always made the crowd laugh! We will miss him, but we are so grateful that his is whole and with his cute little wife again!
I am so grateful for a living prophet and I have already recieved a personal testimony that we will continue to have a living prophet on this earth.

Miss this...

Dear Grandma and Grandpa, Grandma and Grandpa, Great Grandma and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa (phew, I am out of breath),

I am sure that you miss this... but not this!
Love, Ellie

We've taught our children well...

No fighting!Be honest! Don't point fingers!
Practice good hygiene and dress accordingly!
Mind your manners at the dinner table!
And always smile!

whey awe daush?

Dallin has "pop outs" every once in a while. This is where, with perfect pronunciation, he says a two to three phrase out of the blue. Before we found out that kids with CAS do, infact, have these occurrences, people would not believe me when I said that I heard Dallin say these things. I even questioned my own hearing at times. We've heard: Let's go, back in five, and where's Dad. We love it when this happens. Directly after these pop outs, he goes back to his ew-ew-ew's and ah-ah-ah's. What is even more fun is when Dallin really is saying something and we can understand what he means. A couple months ago, he said, "Nie nie Mama." This is when I wanted to say, okay, you can stay up late. It just melts my heart and I love seeing this progress in him. Just this morning, he looked at me and said, "Whey awe daush? Daush**?" We were in my bedroom, next to my unmade bed. I figured out that he thought that his Dad was under the down comforter hiding. Where are Daddy, he said! Incorrect grammar, but who cares!!!

**Daush=Daddy and Dau=Dad**

Happy Marriage

Paul also told me a funny story:



One of his bosses heard this story on the radio one day.... (take a couple minutes to listen, only the first two minutes apply)



He went home and told his wife about it. Her response was more or less, "That's the biggest load of crap that I've ever heard!"



His quick reply, "I couldn't agree with you more, honey!"

I will admit it

I will admit to the fact that is me. I am a complicated woman, and poor Paul is married to me. In fact, he is the one who sent me these pictures. My initial reaction? "Whatever!" And then I laughed because I realized I was being "a woman".

Here you go Andres

My friend, Adres, tagged me about a billion years ago. Remember, I don't like to follow the rules.

"7 Random things about me (& those I live with since they are my 24/7)"

1. Dallin's favorite thing to do lately is brake his crayons in half. It doesn't bother me, but it drives Paul crazy. So we are going to melt them all down and make new ones. Paul and I are a whole lot more excited about this than Dallin is. When I was a kid, I would let crayons melt in the sun and then stick my fingers in the melted wax. It hurt, but it was so much fun!

2. Ellie is now sleeping in 6 hour stretches during the night! Hooorayyy!!! Now if we can only get her to go to bed before 11:30pm. I keep telling Paul that it would be beneficial for us to move to the West Coast to take advantage of the Pacific Standard Time!

3. Dallin has decided that he wants to be potty trained. And when he does go, he makes sure that EVERYONE looks in the bowl to see what's in there. After an enthusiastic, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!" from him, the toilet gets flushed. Let's just hope this phase continues and our diapers get cut in half!

4. After a successful grocery shopping trip with both my babies, I shut my purse (incl. KEYS and CELL PHONE) in the trunk. Luckily my kids were still in the cart or rather the "buggy" (That one's for you, Alice). I had to borrow a phone to call Paul at work. I then went back into Kroger and perused the store, again, for a half an hour until Paul came to rescue us. The best part was that he had carpooled to work that day, so he had to "talk" his ride into leaving early!

5. I am up way too late right now. Everyone else is sleeping, I should be too!

6. For the first time in my whole life, I have not enjoyed winter this year. I think it is because of the new baby and my crazy hormones. I am always freezing cold, therefore I feel like everyone else should be cold. I am always checking on Dallin and Ellie in the middle of the night to make sure that they don't feel as cold as I do.

7. As much as Paul and I pretend that the writers strike is not bugging us, it really is! We didn't realize how much we rely on "our shows" to entertain us at night. Shows I miss seeing every week: "Chuck" and "The Office"

To You Mom

Anyone who is a mom, or has had a mom (in other words, YOU) will appreciate this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W95Y8hNQiH8

A post from Dallin's new blog

I have started a new blog for Dallin. It will primarily focus on his speech communication disorder. Here's the link: dallinspeaks.blogspot.com

I wanted to, however, post this story on our family blog. I wanted to share with everyone a really cool story that has happened in our lives recently.~~~

Have you ever wondered "why?" Why are we not here or there? Why didn't this or that happen? Why were we prompted by the Holy Spirit to apply for a job in Kentucky, so far away from all of our family and friends? Why we felt like we needed to live a whole town away from Paul's job? Why, when we wanted to rent, we couldn't find a place that didn't scare us, so we bought a house instead? Why we thought the stream in the back of our yard was so cool? We had a 15 month old at the time, what were we thinking? A lot of things have come into place this past month. We were given further light to see the path ahead, and behind. I am going to attempt to write about the events that have taken place over Christmas vacation. It will probably be the long version and not the short.

My sister-in-law, Heather, has a friend Rocky, whose daughter has CAS. Heather was great, she arranged a "meeting" so that the two of us could talk while I was in Utah. We met at my MIL's house and Rocky got to work telling me all about her 3+ years experience working with her daughters speech. She was so amazing and it was so great to talk to her about everything. THANK YOU ROCKY AND THANK YOU HEATHER!!! She is letting me borrow some of her materials that worked really well with her daughter. Two of the books that she showed me where "Easy does it: Apraxia-Preschool" materials book and therapy manual. I have to admit, I went home quite overwhelmed. Rocky seemed so on top of things. One of those put together mom's that I would LOVE to be, but probably never will be. Like I said, she was amazing! I had a bad night, full of a toddler with a cold and a newborn with colic.

The next morning I woke up with a renewed vigor. I could do this! So while my two babies where still sleeping, I opened up the the therapy manual and began with the table of contents. But the "about the authors" page caught my eye, so I began to read about them first instead. WHAT!?! Did both bios just say they worked in Kentucky!?! One even mentioned the town that I live in, the other just 20 minutes away. I immediately tried to call my husband at work, no luck. So I called my mom at work and made her cry in front of her fifth grade class. I still couldn't get a hold of Paul so I sent him a quick email (over the phone is so much better, more suspenseful). I was on top of the clouds all day. This was such a great turn of events.

We all got back home to KY safely. Now what do I do with this new found information? I looked on the Internet trying to find names, numbers, places, but nothing really was coming up. I had once had a friend from my church tell me something about a program at the school near my house, but I couldn't remember exact names (I thought it might be one of the authors of these books). I resolved to talk to her at church that week. Then Friday night we were at some friends house and I mentioned the above happenings. "She was our daughters speech therapist!" They exclaimed when I tried to recall on of the authors names. They loved her!!! Then on Sunday, I told my friend about it all and she said that there was a possibility that she would be seeing one of these ladies the very next day. She did, and she told her all about Dallin. I now have her phone number and all the information that I need to move forward. Both of these authors work for OUR County school system, and I hear that they are great and amazing and wonderful to work with. And as I mentioned above, one of the elementary schools that they go to is right in my back yard.

So, the moral of the story is: God knows what he is doing when he sends a little family clear across the country. Why, why, why? Just because.

Waiting for our ride

The flight home went really well. I had Dallin and Ellie by myself. Ellie slept the whole time. Dallin was pretty good, and even let the stewardess buckle his seat belt for take off. Our plane was almost empty, so we had a whole row to ourselves. The only mess that was made was my fault; I spilled Dallin's drink on him. And the only thing that was broken was the air vent because Dallin poked his finger through it. I told the stewardesses that he broke it and they said, "no big deal". Hopefully it really wasn't. And hopefully you don’t get the seat where the air is blowing ninety miles an hour at you! There was no one in the seats in front and in back of us, so Dallin wasn't bugging anyone as he wiggled around either. We had a direct flight to Cincinnati and it was 30 minutes ahead of schedule, so the flight was only 2 hours and 45 minutes. I am so grateful to everyone who prayed for us to have a great flight, because we did! It was funny, though, because we did get in early, we had to wait 30 minutes at the luggage pick-up for Paul to get there. We were quite the sight: 2 tired, whiney, and hungry kids, 3 huge suitcases, a car seat, a stroller, one overflowing diaper bag, a portable DVD player bag, and a mom who had to go to the bathroom. I decided to pay for a luggage cart seeing as someone was starting to clean the carpet right by us. I was then quite the sight, AGAIN, as I tried to load all the luggage and the car seat on the cart as Ellie was strapped to my chest in a baby carrier. Luggage kept falling off, then getting stuck in crooked positions. Dallin decided that with my attention focused elsewhere, he would throw the contents of the DVD bag all over the floor and spread out a little more. As if we weren't taking up enough square footage. I would have laughed at myself if I would have been a bystander. But there was no one else around except the carpet cleaning guy who seemed to ignore the fact that I was there. Paul finally arrived (bad weather on the way up), I got to go to the bathroom, Ellie and Dallin got fed, we got everyone and everything to the car, and we were on our way home. Poor Paul was so tired after a week alone, with ample opportunities to get all the sleep he wanted, that I had to drive half way home. It's an hour and a half drive. Poor, tired guy was falling asleep at the wheel. The kids and I got to sleep in the next morning and we are still trying to adjust to the time change, so don't call before 10.

No more what?!?!

No more chocolate! Is seems as though every time I eat chocolate, Ellie decides to stay up all night SCREAMING!!!! I love chocolate, but I love my happy baby and SLEEP even more! I wonder when the withdrawals will start. I now feel your pain, Sarah B. (who is allergic, apparently). Sweet sweet chocolate....

She doesn't like me eating dairy either. That rules out ice cream and cheese. There goes my repertoire!

A Plethora of Pictures from Christmas

We had so much fun in Utah visiting family. Despite a lot of sick kids (some screaming a lot), good times were had! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO MADE ALL THIS POSSIBLE!!

We wish we could have spent more time with the Duncan cousins but there is a family rule: All kids must get sick when we get together, darn it!!! Strep throat, pneumonia, bronchitis, colds, etc....

A shout out to my bro-in-law, Jody, who missed all the Christmas festivities with his family. We missed you while you were in the hospital on Christmas Eve getting your appendix taken out.

And Shelby, I would LOVE any pictures that you took with your camera!

No lengthy explanations, I will let you fill in the blanks. Just plenty of pictures for your viewing pleasure...

We had fun decorating our gingerbread house.

Unfortunately, it did not survive the earthquake (Dallin).

What a talented boy! He writes with his toes.

Dallin LOVED the snow on the trampoline in Utah.

Mary (Sydney) holding baby Jesus, Joseph (Tyler) holding another baby Jesus (Ellie), and the lone shepherd Dallin.

Those eyes.... that face... he looks so innocent.

My uncle Robert, what a looker!

Dallin and Paul had so much fun swimming at Zermott. They were fish in a previous life.

My nakee babies! Yummy!

During the photo shoot, Kali insisted on getting a shot with Ellie. She was so good at giving her hugs!

This is my brother, Mike, he's single. Any takers? I also have a bro-in-law..... come on ladies!!

Dallin: "Now, Mom, I am not really sure about this."
Ellie: "Good grief, we have to act like we like each other??"

Dallin and Papa in the two headed sweatshirt.

Here's Jakers! He's so cute and shmooshy!

Ellie with Papa Steele and Grandpa Duncan.

Dallin and Kali "helping" Grandma make cookies.

Lead me, guide me, walk beside me...

Have you ever wondered "why?" Why are we not here or there? Why didn't this or that happen? Why were we prompted by the Holy Spirit to apply for a job in Kentucky, so far away from all of our family and friends? Why we felt like we needed to live a whole town away from Paul's job? Why, when we wanted to rent, we couldn't find a place that didn't scare us, so we bought a house instead? Why we thought the stream in the back of our yard was so cool? We had a 15 month old at the time, what were we thinking? A lot of things have come into place this past month. We were given further light to see the path ahead, and behind. I am going to attempt to write about the events that have taken place over Christmas vacation. It will probably be the long version and not the short.

My sister-in-law, Heather, has a friend Rocky, whose daughter has CAS. Heather was great, she arranged a "meeting" so that the two of us could talk while I was in Utah. We met at my MIL's house and Rocky got to work telling me all about her 3+ years experience working with her daughters speech. She was so amazing and it was so great to talk to her about everything. THANK YOU ROCKY AND THANK YOU HEATHER!!! She is letting me borrow some of her materials that worked really well with her daughter. Two of the books that she showed me where "Easy does it: Apraxia-Preschool" materials book and therapy manual.

I have to admit, I went home quite overwhelmed. Rocky seemed so on top of things. One of those put together mom's that I would LOVE to be, but probably never will be. Like I said, she was amazing! I had a bad night, full of a toddler with a cold and a newborn with colic. The next morning I woke up with a renewed vigor. I could do this! So while my two babies where still sleeping, I opened up the the therapy manual and began with the table of contents. But the "about the authors" page caught my eye, so I began to read about them first instead. WHAT!?! Did both bios just say they worked in Kentucky!?! One even mentioned the town that I live in, the other just 20 minutes away. I immediately tried to call my husband at work, no luck. So I called my mom at work and made her cry in front of her fifth grade class. I still couldn't get a hold of Paul so I sent him a quick email (over the phone is so much better, more suspenseful). I was on top of the clouds all day. This was such a great turn of events.

We all got back home to KY safely. Now what do I do with this new found information? I looked on the Internet trying to find names, numbers, places, but nothing really was coming up. I had once had a friend from my church tell me something about a program at the school near my house, but I couldn't remember exact names (I thought it might be one of the authors of these books). I resolved to talk to her at church that week. Then Friday night we were at some friends house and I mentioned the above happenings. "She was our daughters speech therapist!" They exclaimed when I tried to recall on of the authors names. They loved her!!! Then on Sunday, I told my friend about it all and she said that there was a possibility that she would be seeing one of these ladies the very next day. She did, and she told her all about Dallin. I now have her phone number and all the information that I need to move forward. Both of these authors work for OUR County school system, and I hear that they are great and amazing and wonderful to work with. And as I mentioned above, one of the elementary schools that they go to is right in my back yard.

So, the moral of the story is: God knows what he is doing when he sends a little family clear across the country. Why, why, why? Just because.

Learn more about it...

Taken from the website below:

"What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder. For reasons not yet fully understood, children with apraxia of speech have great difficulty planning and producing the precise, highly refined and specific series of movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and palate that are necessary for intelligible speech. Apraxia of speech is sometimes called verbal apraxia, developmental apraxia of speech, or verbal dyspraxia. No matter what name is used, the most important concept is the root word "praxis." Praxis means planned movement. To some degree or another, a child with the diagnosis of apraxia of speech has difficulty programming and planning speech movements. Apraxia of speech is a specific speech disorder.

In typically developing speech, children make word attempts and get feedback from others and from their own internal systems regarding how “well” the words they produced matched the ones that they wanted to produce. Children use this information the next time they attempt the words and essentially are able to “learn from experience.” Usually once syllables and words are spoken repeatedly, the speech motor act becomes automatic. Speech motor plans and programs are stored in the brain and can be accessed effortlessly when they are needed. Children with apraxia of speech have difficulty in this aspect of speech. It is believed that children with CAS may not be able to form or access speech motor plans and programs or that these plans and programs are faulty for some reason."

Here is a link that will give you more information on apraxia of speech: http://www.apraxia-kids.org/

APRAXIA?

Dallin is 2 1/2 years old. He is bright and funny. He loves to grab his new plastic power tools that he got for Christmas and fix things with his dad. He loves to help his mom cook and bake in the kitchen. He loves his little sister and likes to feed her a bottle and give her kisses. If you walk into his home, he will grab you by the hand and lead you to his toys to play with him. He loves to be around people. He has an amazing grin that wins you over. He loves to dance and sing. He keeps his parents on his toes. Like a typical 2 yr old, he can be quite the Mr. Sassy pants. He hates taking naps, but falls asleep anyway. He doesn't like that he's learning to share. He wants more, more, more candy and seems to think that he is on the chicken nugget and quesadilla diet. And if he had his way, he would watch "Peter Pan" and "Cars" all day. Dallin is a typical 2 year old.

Dallin has been going to speech therapy now for 6 months because of a speech delay. We found out about 3 months ago that Dallin likely has a communication disorder called Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

My husband and I had only "a few minutes" to breath about this before baby #2 came our way. Insert the holidays and a trip back home. We are now back to real life and reality is settling in... again.

...Here is our journey ahead...

Elizabeth June is now official!

We were so fortunate to be able to have Paul bless Ellie this last Sunday. She was blessed right after her cousin Jake. It was such a neat experience to have all our loved ones there for the blessing. My sister, Kodi, and I were so excited that it worked out this way. My friend Sara (Frisby) Collett made Ellie's AMAZING dress out of the skirt of my wedding dress. I can't thank Sara enough for this beautiful gift! Sorry this isn't a very good picture of the dress, but you can see just from this how neat it is! Here is stoic Jake and cranky Ellie. It was so funny taking pictures of the two, Ellie usually screaming and Jake just staring!

We finally got a good one!

And here's the man! What a cutie!

This photo shoot was full of unruly children (both mine). I have just come to except the fact that I might never get the perfect picture... OH WELL, these ones make us laugh!