TrUe SuMmEr'S eNd...

They drained the swimming pool today! Waaah! I thought we could go swimming this weekend for one last time. What ever happened to closing it after Labor Day???

NeW BeGiNniNgS...

The girls are officially in school! Here they were in their first day outfits! Bethanie is in 4th grade this year and Madison is in her 2nd year of Preschool! They were both very happy and excited this morning!

LaSt WeEk Of SuMmEr...

This has been quite a stressful week. Summer is a really hard time for our family. I think this has been one of the most difficult and challenging summer yet. Many things have taken place, including parents needing extra help, our sweet kitty being sick all summer and needing extra care, our sweet niece and her car accident, puberty, extra kids here nearly every day, my own health. It is on a good day, just a struggle to fit everything in, but as exhausted as I am, I am lucky to get half of what needs to be completed. The girls start Monday for school and they are MORE than excited. Bethanie has a new teacher to the school this year. It is a man teacher and she is quite upset and nervous because she doesn't KNOW him. Plus, she will have a different PE teacher and Music teacher (they come from the middle school to help ease their transition next school year). NONE of her friends will be in her class. SHE is upset about that, I am not. She is the kid who will make one really great friend and it will continue on for a long time. She will be a Peer Mediator this year which only a handful of 4th graders are selected to do this. I am so proud of her wanting to step up and help other children who are younger, and have needs. She will be great at it! Madison is MORE than excited. I don't even know how to describe it. She was lucky and saw her teacher over the summer a LOT. We saw her everywhere. But Madison is really looking forward to seeing really just one person.....COBY. Her boy friend. :P Even though she has married him many times this summer in play, she will probably just ignore him. LOL!

I am planning on a good two-three weeks of getting the girls on a good solid schedule before I introduce Matthew to his school work. I honestly think *I* need the time to recover from a very difficult summer.

Carlisle has been feeling better the past couple days. On Sunday, we had to call the vet to come to the house. He took his temperature and it was 104. It really shouldn't go higher than 102.5 at the highest. At some point during his illness, it was 105. WAY too high. So he gave him an injection, and the next day he came back and re-tested him for Feline Leukemia. It was also positive. We will lose him eventually. We just don't know when. :( What a sad heart break. I love this cat so much! Not to mention, the kids. I don't look forward to when that happens, but we are just trying to have as much fun and interaction as we can with him, help him to have fun and give him a full life while he can. We wont allow him to suffering. Feeling unwell doesn't = suffering. But there will come a point where the meds we are giving him will stop working. :(

I am working on stocking hats-as many as I can for Fall-Fest. It is in just a month, and I really want to have at least 50= hats to have for sale. 100% of the profits go directly toward our Autism Foundation. Speaking of that, we had a WONDERFUL $200 donation the other day. Our first monies allocated for our foundation! This will allow us to purchase some advertising materials like a banner with our foundation name on it. We plan to sell lemonade/hot chocolate, cookies, cupcakes and hats. There might be a few more things, depending on how much I can get done for it. ALL profits will be donated back into our foundation. I am so excited to see it finally getting lifted off the ground and so thankful for that donation! ! ! ! ! ! !

Its 1:30 am. I really need to go to bed now....

Carlisle...

It has been exactly 12 days since Carlisle was last sick. Today we had to call the vet to come to our home and give him another injection. What a great vet we have. It is nice to have one that comes to the house so we don't have to stress him out more than he needs to be. He has a fever of 104. Don't like to see cats with fevers of 101-102.5 that is too high, so 104 is really too high. He seems to have a throat infection of some kind, we just cant seem to get rid of it. We are also going to have to retest his leukemia test. This isn't the vet that diagnosed him, he was on vacation when we had to take him somewhere else to have it done. So, once he feels a little better this time, we will get him tested again and reaffirm whether it is leukemia or not. I PRAY ITS NOT. I couldn't stand to lose him. He is my solace. I look forward to coming home to him. I just love him so much. Pray for Carlisle!

OvErLoAd...

While I hate seeing summer come to an end, simply because I miss the girlie's terribly when they are away, I am looking forward to structure. Summer is such a hard time for me. Much of the time I am tied to the house because Matthew has a hard time leaving the house. Its his safe place. But in keeping fairness and balance, I want to give the kids an opportunity to have fun, go out and do things together, and as a family. Matthew is rejecting every opportunity we give him, and its usually quite the ruckus. He has hit puberty so some of it is normal behavior but other behaviors are alarming in the fact that he only wants to be at home.Taking him to church has been a huge issue. I know its normal for some kids when they hit teenage years don't like to do, but this is a different situation. It is a fight and argument constantly while at church. It is so exhausting. We need help, and support. But we are left to deal with it all alone, which is so hard. I wish people would just HELP us. We have one week to go before the girls are in school. I am praying for some relief to get some rest and get caught up on the things I have wanted to do. I hate to complain, but I am really just burning out. Summer time is so hard. I love having the children home, but usually there are anywhere from 5-11 kids here at any given time. I am just really burned out.

In the mean time, we are working on the North Central Kansas Autism Foundation. We had a fairly substantial donation the other day. I pray for more generous people like this. Its exciting to see even a bit of money come in so we can get some of the basics. Next month is our first OUTING. Fall Fest. :)

SuMmEr cLoSiNgS...

Two weeks from today, Bethanie and Madison start school. :( WAAAH! I have completely enjoyed having my sweet Bethanie home with me daily. It is my last year with Madison home most of the time. Next year at this time, I will be so sad that she will be in full-day Kindergarten! WAAAAH! My children are growing up. It is hard to realize that Matthew is technically in Jr. High. I am so thankful that our Jr. High for him is in our dining room. I cant imagine Jr. High this day and age, let alone going when you have autism. I have not regretted for a moment keeping him out of the public school system! Soon his new curriculum will be here. It has been shipped! So, this next two weeks we are going to try to cram in all the together time we can. I am missing my B girl already. :(

Madison's Catch-Phrase...

Ba-Ba'am!

Oh, and she is 4 1/2 and rides her bike with NO training wheels now. :P She is a force to reckon with!!! :)

NeAr DeAtH ExPeRiEnCeS...

In the past week, five of our family members had near death experiences. Our four, and Heather with her car accident. Yesterday stunk even more. We found out our sweet cat, Carlisle, has been sick so much since May because he has Feline Leukemia. This is such a heart break. I just love this cat. I look forward to coming home, just to see him. He "belongs" to Bethanie, but cats tend to choose their own owners. He is like a protector of the family. Each night he will go from room to room to check on the kids, and then ends up sleeping in our room. We don't know how long he has to live. He has a secondary infection, so we have to get that under control. I don't know what kind of treatment we can give him but we will do our best to keep him healthy. Right now he is on antibiotics and high dose of vitamins to up his platelet count. I am so sad. Just so sad. :( I have told the kids that he is very sick, and he might live a few months, few years or many years. No one knows. We just have to love him while we have him. :( Funny, the impact animals can have in our lives.

Eternal Soul Mate...

Yesterday was our 20th wedding anniversary! Where has time gone? In some ways it has crawled by, looking at it daily, weekly, but looking at the entire picture, it has just gone so fast! So many wonderful and not so wonderful things have taken place over the years. Somehow, we just get busy living and forget to live. :P We didnt go out and do anything special. We did take the kids out to lunch, but our city was doing a city wide block party (1st annual). So we were part of the three organizer families. YAY. It went off really well. OUR neighborhood was a success. We had about 40 people. Jeff was in charge of the games. I only stayed long enough to eat because Matthew isn't into the social scene. It was either take him home, or force him to stay resulting in an ugly meltdown in front of everyone. I don't want that at all. So we came home and the rest of the family stayed for almost 2 hours longer. They had a great time. But anyway, back to our anniversary, I bought Jeff a watch he has been eying up. He really loved it. Tonight he had to go get it sized and he is excited to wear it tomorrow. He has a thing with watches. I suppose its like me with kitchen gadgets or purses/bags. :P He was very thoughtful. He bought me a body pillow and a new king size pillow. I didn't have the heart to tell him I don't like change and I love the pillow I already have. I am certain, they will find a niche with a head all to happy to sleep on them! ! ! But he also gave me a music CD that I have been wanting for a while (Adele 21). I just love Jeff. He is such a good daddy. He is a wonderful husband and provider for our family. He is my love. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful man in my life!

HeAtHeR...

Our 16 year old niece, Heather, is my brother's daughter, wrecked her car this morning. It flipped and rolled. She was ejected out the back window and left on the ground safely as her car continued to wreck. Angels certainly held her through this. Also, while she lay there on the ground, screaming in pain, someone came within a minute or two to be with her. She wasn't alone long. She has an L3 compression fracture (in her spine) and will wear a brace for 6 weeks or so. She has minor scrapes and bruises and is dirty but she is OK. What a blessing. By the looks of her car below, you would see that had she actually been buckled in, she would have continued to flip and roll. But for her, she was planted safely on the ground.

I love you dearest Heather! :)