Jake saw some program on PBS where these kids are replicating how the stomach works. These kids take a plastic bag and put a lemon, some water, crackers, and bananas and then mix it together with their hands and explained that this is how the stomach works. Jake was just dieing to do this and I told him it isn't going to taste good. After catching him trying to do this on his own I finally allowed him to make his own. I gave him the lemon, water and a cracker (we didn't have any bananas). He mixed it with his hands and then pored it in a cup and.... YUCKY!!! Then he said "Mom we need to buy some bananas." As if the missing bananas was the reason it tasted bad. It probability tasted more like a vomit mixture. Gross!

Which looks funner to clean up?

This happened on the same day. Saturday morning I woke up to two boys eating Doritos and a room full of shredded Styrofoam. Then that afternoon I discovered a lake in our back yard slowly inching towards our house. We usually get about 3 feet (length) of water next to the fence, but this year with all the snow we keep getting we got a lot more. So that resulted to a trip to Home Depot to buy a sump pump, waiter shoes, and borrowing hoses.

This is our new puppy Milo. It was very sad the way Soby died. Jake took it very well and surprisingly Aiden had a harder time with it. Every day Aiden would say "Soby died". Jake would just say "soby bad dog". Soby was a VERY hard dog and I don't know how much longer we could have kept him anyway.

Milo is a pure bread golden retriever. Isn't he just the sweetest thing? I am not really a dog person but I can't help but fall for him.

Jake has really come along way with his speech. A year ago I looked forward to just the simple things in life .... like him telling me about his bad dream he had or asking for a cup of milk or (SNIFF) telling me he loved me. Well a year later he can do all these things. He actually tells me and Matt "I love you too" at least 10 times a day. It is so sweet and we simply cant get him to leave out the "too" part. I guess he is making it up for when he couldn't tell me he loved me:)

For the life of us we can't get him to say open this he says "op this."
His speech is rubbing off on Aiden (not a good thing).
He absolutely loves school and riding on the bus.
Aiden recently smashed Jakes middle finger in the door causing it to turn black and he proudly flips off everyone who asks him about it.

It was that time of year to get Aidens hearing tested again. Turns out that his right ear isn't working at all but his other ear is working perfectly. He might have a hard time telling where sounds are coming from and his ear may get fatigued when he goes to school. A hearing aid won't help him and a cochlear implant is not an option.

Aiden speech development has been slower than I hoped it would be at this point. I know he didn't have apraxia which is what Jake has but I wanted to get him tested. Turns out just he is behind. His problem isn't like Jake which was absence of speech. Aiden talks a ton but he is incredibly hard to understand. He talks in complete sentences and sometimes I can't even pick out one word that he said. But if I ask him to say a word he can almost say it, which Jake could never do. I have also noticed that he is picking up on the things that Jake is saying. So Aiden has been enrolled in a program once a week that I take him to help him with his sounds. He seems to like it and makes his teachers laugh almost the entire time.

Tonight Jake came and sat down on my lap and I cradled him like a baby and said "I love my little baby Jake" and he said "no I'm not a baby, I'm big, I'm strong." I asked him where his muscles were and he points to his elbow. I told him that his muscles were in his bicept and showed him and he points to his elbow and said "no, I'm strong here" and without any warning he elbows me in the gut. Then he says
"see I strong."

I guess he was right! Jake does have muscles in his elbow.

Tonight Aiden insisted that Elmo walked around in princess shoes. There is an episode on "The Simpsons" where Elmo is being tickled and he says in an angry voice "no means no"! Thanks so much Aiden. I really needed a good laugh especially after everything that happened last week.

I want to thank everyone for your prayers, love and support. There are so many kind people that have helped us during this difficult time. I know that my heavenly father loves me and I am so thankful that my family can be together forever someday. I love my dear husband (I don't know if he still reads my blog) but he has been SO supportive, and loving, and I am just so lucky that I have such a great guy. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

This year we were invited to a costume party. I got this from the DI for $2.00 added a whole lot of red paint and....



For Matt's costume I got a women's suit top for $4.00 with some $8.00 men's pants and 2 rolls of white duck tape and wa la Beetle juice. We splurged a little on the wigs but I do have to say they complete the costume. I went a little art crazy on Mat ts demon tomb stone. But I like making that kind of stuff so it was fun. Matt tried to hand out bugs and snakes to kids and had the perfect Beetlejuice voice. It was hilarious to watch him interact with the kids.

Beetle Juice and Lydia Bride












Jake was Batman( picture coming soon)
Aiden was Robin for 5 minutes. He HATED it. And I knew how he felt about wearing costumes so I made a point to make something very simple and not complicated. Just a shirt and pants with the letter R. Cant get simpler than that right. Last year I made him wear his monster costume and he cried half the time. So this year I decided Trick or treat was supposed to be fun and what is fun about screaming about a costume that you don't want to wear. So Aiden went in a Gap hoody. Because of the weather (rain) we didn't get very many people question about his costume. And he had a lot of fun which meant Mom had fun.