Bye, Bye Marnie!

Matthew has been seeing Marnie for Speech/Feeding Therapy since he was about 2 or 3 months old. She has seen him come so far. She took a position with Phoenix Children's Hospital and is no longer doing home visits. Also, he is to the point where he is doing really well with feeding and he will transition to a speech therapist to focus on his speech. He no longer has thickened liquids, and is eating more and more chunky types of food. Marnie was the last of his original therapists. We are sad to see her go but so happy he is moving on and developing. Doesn't Matthew look so thrilled, he must be sad. Actually, he was exhausted after his second therapy, and his IFSP that day.

Saturday Work Day

We have started to make a better effort on Saturday's to do more work around the house now that the girls are getting older. While Sawyer was in cleaning her room, Abby on her own accord came out to help her dad do the yard work. Isn't she a great helper?

Abby and her daddy.

Raking the leaves with style.

Doesn't she look like she is dressed for yard work. She is wearing her ballerina PJ's and some bracelets. What a funny girl!

It's Official...

...I am pregnant! It was a complete shock to Brendon and I(no, we weren't trying). We are excited though, however, I am a little nervous, considering all I do for Matthew still. I don't know the logistics of how this will work, but I have faith that all will be fine, and I won't completely loose my mind (maybe just a little). This pregnancy was horrible at first. I was, I think, the sickest I have been. I was sick all day every day for about 6 or 7 weeks. Thank goodness that is over and I can actually cook and clean a bit. Now I am just super tired all of the time, no matter how much sleep I get.

I finally made it to the doctor, I was only 16 weeks. I was out of town for a month and when I got back and called I had to wait 2 more weeks. It is nice though because my next visit I will find out what I am having. My bet is it's a girl. I guess we'll see. It was really fun though to see this baby moving and grabbing it's feet. I got really excited! I am due the beginning of February. Yeah, another baby due in the winter!

Swimming Fun!

Here are some pictures of the girls swimming. They love going over to grandma's house to swim with grandpa. I originally took these pictures because for school Abby had to make an "All About Me" poster. One of her favorite things to do is go swimming at grandma's house so we took some pictures to put on her poster.

Abby has become quite the fish. She is much more confident in the water. I think next year she will be swimming all by herself.

Grandpa, Sawyer, and Abby in the pool.

Grandpa launching Abby into the air.

At the end of August, Brendon's brother, Michael, had a graduation/birthday party at Carson pool. It was a lot of fun, we even got Matthew in and he didn't cry. Abby had a great time in the shallow pool where she feels so comfortable because she can reach. She was in there for hours just swimming away. Sawyer spent most of her time jumping off the diving boards, doing cannonballs. She was even going off the high dive! What a brave little girl. There were also slides there that she went down as well. It was a fun night!

Here is Abby sitting under a water fountain thing. Unfortunately these are the only pictures we got from that night. Our camera died before we could get Sawyer or anything else. Oh well, what can you do, right?

Happy Birthday to Me!

August 19th was my birthday, and my friend Natalie called me up and took me out to lunch. We went to Liberty Market, because I could get a free meal. It was so yummy!

Here we are getting ready to eat.

Look at our yummy food. I got a grilled chicken sandwich, and Natalie got a pizza.

After lunch Natalie took me to Krispy Kreme and I got my free dozen box of glazed donuts, so good!

Yummy, I can't wait to take those home. Side note, Sawyer loves those donuts and I think she had as many as me if not more. One day she made her own lunch and took one for a sandwich, lovely! Thank you Nat for helping me to celebrate my special day!

Abby was kind of silly the day of my birthday she had loaded all of this stuff in her backpack and was trying to take this to school. I have to check her bag because I never know what she is trying to sneak away to school.

I got out of the shower and Abby said that she did this for my birthday, isn't that so nice. I asked her next time to draw mommy's birthday present on a piece of paper and not the door, since we don't draw on anything but paper. Later she saw that it was gone and was a little upset that her birthday present to me was gone! How can you be upset that your child colored on the door when it was meant as a present? How precious!

That night Brendon and I went to Joe's BBQ because again I could get a free meal. I totally took advantage of the free stuff for my birthday. The only thing I missed was my free grand slam breakfast. I didn't think about the fact that I could have gone with Abby and Matthew and got it until it was almost lunch time. Oh well! Overall, it was a great birthday I just didn't get to relax as much as I would have liked. When does a mother ever really get to, right?

Back to School

Yeah, school finally started! I have been waiting for this day for awhile. I love my children but oh boy Sawyer and Abby do better not being together every day, all day. Sawyer started 2nd grade at Franklin NE, and has Mrs. Spencer.

Here she is in her first day of school outfit. Isn't she lovely?

Getting ready to head off to school.

Abby, is still at EMECEC and she still has Mrs. Jenn. Here she is saying "cheese". Can you tell?

I love this girl, she is so dang hard to get a decent picture of. Here she is in her first day of school outfit.

So, funny story. I went to meet your teacher at Abby's school. I totally went to the wrong classroom. I was so confused by everything that all the red flags I saw didn't clue me in. Anyway, the classroom I went to was for MELP and apparently they go at different times. So, I was like great Abby already has her bus schedule and it is for the wrong time. So, I go through the headache of trying to get her bus changed. I have to now take her the first day of school. I go, this time to the right classroom and low and behold it's her teacher from last year, like I thought it was supposed to be. She let me know I was an hour early. I then explained what I did. We then had to switch back to the original bus schedule and I got to take her to school the rest of the week. Go me!

Flagstaff

After going to Eagar for a week and a half, then Greer for a week, we came home for about 2 days and we were off again to Flagstaff. Matthew had therapy Monday and Tuesday and we left Tuesday when he was done. It is a fun time of more cool weather, more relaxing, and fun in the sun. We spent most of our time playing with cousins, swimming, goofy golfing, reading, and etc. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures but I did get a few of us swimming and golfing.

Here is Abby riding on Uncle Trevor's back.

Marcus playing with his boys.

Marcus getting ready to golf, while Abby and Trevor look on.

Ruth and Sawyer speeding through the course.

The group being goofy while golfing.

Greer

While Travis and Stephanie were down from New York we went as a family to a cabin in Greer to get out of the heat and to have a little family reunion. It was so nice up there and so beautiful. We did crafts, had scavenger hunts, visited, read, played games, went on hikes/walks, played on the roller coaster as the kids called it, ate, and much much more.

Here the grandkids are decorating their bags Grandma made for them to carry their stuff in they would get throughout the week.

There is Sawyer's masterpiece.

Abby was sleeping while this was going on so I made hers later with her. Well, mostly I did it.

This is what Matthew was doing while the bags were being made so again I made his later with help from Sawyer.

I think Stephanie was trying to keep Collin entertained so she could make dinner so she put on Curious George for him on his portable DVD player. Soon the others joined in, it was too cute.

Collin was so cute he would smile and laugh at the movie plus I think he loved having all those cousins around him. He thought he was in heaven.

Abby enjoying the weather, while coloring outside. See there are times she can be calm.

Here are the kids on their scavenger hunt. The girls took turns reading the clues while everyone took turns finding the clues.

Here they just got the clue out of Uncle Travis's back pocket. What a silly place to hide it Grandma!

After they found the box of stuff Grandma would give them a little lesson about Christ and would have a fun treat/toy that went along with her lesson.

I think this was the lesson that Christ is the Light, and they got glow sticks, or something to that effect.

One afternoon we went fishing but we didn't catch anything. Sawyer did feel a tug but no bite.

Brendon would cast the line and then hand the pole over to Sawyer.

He would then sit and wait and slowly reel it back in.

I was trying to keep Abby busy since she wasn't fishing so we went over to the small waterfall and we were throwing things in the water and watching it go down the fall. This is a picture from where we were.

The girls on our way back from our exciting fishing expedition. Don't the girls look so thrilled.

Brendon trying to get a picture of the girls because I asked him to. I wanted action pictures and he got posed ones. This is the before picture...

... this is the after picture. I think he told them to smile and be nice. It is a cute picture though.

Sawyer and Ruth.

Matty, what a cute little dude. We actually got a nice picture of him smiling.

The men and the kids went out for some evening fishing, again no luck though.

Sawyer and her dad fishing again.

Eagar Fun!

When Brendon came home he left Sawyer up in Eagar with Grandma Neus. They had a lot of fun and did a lot of fun things. She was able to play with her friend Erica everyday. They went to the park, to the lake, watched movies, did crafts with Grandma Neus, and much much more. Sawyer got to go into Show Low with Grandma and even got to eat out a few times, lucky her. One weekend Grandma Neus came down to the valley to have a birthday dinner with her mom so Sawyer got to spend the weekend with Grandpa. He took her to see The Prince of Persia and out to eat! She says she missed me but she only called once to tell me it was raining and to rub it in. I don't think she missed me that much.

While we were home without her we had a good time going to Grandma Evans' and playing at home. Abby was in 7th heaven. She slept in Sawyer's bed and got to play with her animals. She thought it was so great. It was actually nice not having the two girls fighting. Abby was very pleasant and a great help. Everytime I asked her to pick up things she would. One day she even came in and said I cleaned my room mom. It was so nice, but I missed Sawyer.

On the 14th of July I drove up with Matthew and Abby to go spend sometime in the cool weather. It has been great! The weather has been wonderful, and the kids love to go to the neighbors and to the park. They keep busy and out of my hair. Monday through Friday the school does breakfast and lunch at the park so most days the girls go over there and eat. We have relaxed, and had a great time. We were sad, though, because Grandma Neus had to go down to Mesa unexpectedly because we found out Uncle Brian, her son, has colon cancer. I am glad she went to be with him but we sure do miss her here.

These are the projects/crafts that Sawyer did with Grandma Neus while here by herself. Sawyer made her projects, and Grandma did ones for Abby, the A and the birdhouse. Sawyer also painted and decorated a treasure box, and on a rainy day they made salt dough, which is the snake by the S.

The first Saturday I was up here there was a health and wealth fair at the park. I wasn't feeling good so I didn't go over there to check it out. Next thing I know the girls come back with all this free stuff. Backpacks, bags, books, pencils, crayons, rulers, stickers, coupons, tattoos, balloons, notepads, bookmarks, posters, magnents, stencils, buckets, and all sorts of stuff. SCORE!This is all of Sawyer's stuff!
This is all of Abby's stuff!
This is the next project the girls did with Grandma Neus. We were present for this fun craft. I forgot to take pictures of the process because I was busy making Abby's flip-flops. Abby's are the green ones. I went a little crazy with the material strips, oh well!
The next project I headed up because we didn't do them before Grandma Neus left for Mesa. Let me tell you the prep work was a little more involved than I thought but the end result was nice. Here is Sawyer working on tying her blanket.
Again I did Abby's for her so here she is reaping the benefits of my work, while Sawyer finishes her blanket up.

Here is the finished product of Abby's blanket and flip-flops.

And here is Sawyer's finished projects that were done while I was here.