Winter Break

Here's Chase's 4H bunny.. it's a Polish Buck and his name is Weasley ( we had a Harry and a Potter but unfortnately the cage wasnt as predator proof as we thought)

Kylie today after I forced them to go outside and play!

Chase, Kylie and our baby puppy Boomer ( a 12mos old male F2b ( which means his mom was a goldendoodle but his dad was a poodle ) goldendoodle that was shaved a few months ago)

Kylie getting ready to go Tubing at Timberlee Resort

Our Christmas tree. Not so spectacular but it has alot of memories on it...

The World's Worst Blogger EVER!!

Ok, I never claimed to be good at this : )

I did end up getting that Toddler Assistant job, I LOVE IT!!! It's really keeping me busy though

Kylie had her IEP and qualified for services based on a Learning Disability Label and now recieves special help in Language Arts daily.

Chase HATES the 4th grade, says it's too hard, too much homework and he doesn't like the other kids in his class. His class is a 4,5,6th grade and I think that there's been some bullying going on and seeing Chase is small and different he's the one who gets picked on. He's NOT use to that AT ALL. He has never had a problem socially before so this is something new to deal with.

Drew FINALLY jumped on board with the adoption plan I have. He said YES!!!! So the search for our child is on... Not sure where we will find out child but I know there is one out there waiting for us to find him/her. We have decided that we are looking for a child 3 or younger, girl or boy (although Drew is pushing for a girl.... I feel like it's going to be a boy), mild/moderate physical special needs... something like Mild CP, Clubbed Foot, Etc....

Here's a few pictures of Kylie at her Holiday Program at school. This year it was "Holidays Around The World"

monday moments

Another busy day! I found out this morning that Kylie will be getting special ed services for language arts and will also be getting some OT. I'm amazed that they actually qualified her because the whole team originally told me that she didn't qualify but after some thought they did additional testing on her and she does now qualify.. her official IEP is friday morning.

The kids were at my ex's this weekend and chase ran another cross country race on saturday, 1 mile in 9:02..... his past races have been 9:09, 8:30 and 8:47. He loves it! He's not the best at it but he's not the worst either. I'm glad that he's finally found something that he enjoys and is good at.

OHHH!!! At cross country practice today that principal came out and talked briefly with me and strongly hinted that I got the toddler assistant job, i'll find out officially later this week when human resources call!

A couple of days ago Kylie decided that she wants to be Pippi Longstocking for halloween...remember her???? The worlds strongest girl who has a suitcase of gold, a monkey, a horse and lives alone because her pirate dad is lost at sea??? I LOVED THAT STORY!!! So I was so excited to make this costume that I finnished it in ONE DAY!! I found a navy jumper at goodwill for $1.79 and i cut the bottom off of it seeing it was a size 10 ( kylie is a 6) which gave it that well worn baggy look that i wanted. I bought a square of bright yellow and a square of bright red for the patches on the front of the dress and stitched them on by hand with white thread.. i literally stitch it on to look like a 9 yr old did it. Then I bought an adult small long sleeve red shirt at walmart and these funky stripey knee high socks and another pair of sort of solid color knee high socks ( remember she worn mismatched socks!) ... i picked up pipe cleaners for her braids to stick out too. Anyways it was so simple and it turned out adorable. I tried to take a picture but the flash wasnt working and the picture was too dark. I'll try again tomorrow. Chase wants to be a Fisherman.. that should be easy!

Bye Summer

Summer's officially over : ( It's definately fall in Northern Michigan, the trees are turning colors and people are wearing pants. I'm sad that the lazy days around Grandma and Grandpa M's pool are over...time to drag out the sweatshirts and hot apple cider.

Me and My Lil Guy

I hate pictures of myself, but I hope Chase's adorableness hides my ickiness. This was taken a month ago at the Maritime Heritage Day thing ...

how can I be so different

I'm struggling right now with my strong desire to adopt and our inability to be able to afford it right now. But what's the hardest to deal with is my parents. They actually told me that if i adopted I would be taking "things" away from chase and kylie... I sooooo don't see it that way at all. I see it as giving chase and kylie a sibling, someone to share life with, to learn with and to love. Which is so much more important than things. My parents looked at me like I had 10 heads and didn't have a single thing positive or nice to say. It shocks me that I was raised by these people. My whole life I have wanted to adopt, internationally and most likely a special needs baby. But I don't know why I have always felt so strongly about it, especially seeing my parents definitely didn't instill this value in me. But I have always been the person who cares way too much about everyone else and who would cry when ever i heard of something bad happening to someone else...even if i didn't know them. I am a strong believer that it takes a Village to raise a child, and that children are our future and if we don't care about them then we don't care about our future and that every body is important and deserves someone to love them. I know that my children have this value, they know that they can NOT tease or make fun of someone because if mom finds out then they are in HUGE trouble and that they know that they wouldn't want to be teased. We were looking through pictures of adoptable children on the Internet and chase was sitting next to me and he saw a picture of a little boy who had dwarfism and chase said " oh look at him he's so cute , he really needs a family so that he can grow up and be someone and i bet a family could learn a lot from him" I was so proud that he thought that way, that not only would the little boy be lucky to have a family but the family would be lucky to have him. My kids amaze me every day... they have more humanity in their little finger than some adults have in their entire bodies.

I love this boy

I feel lucky that I have a child who has always been a little slow at growing up. Sure we get stares when he's acting like a 4 yr old in public (he's 9), and when he makes faces and acts silly when he's nervous... but I have the priviledge of having a 4th grader that makes sure to hug his mommy in the hall before school no matter who is watching... I don't want him to be a "mommy's boy" but I have to smile and be thankful that I have such a special little guy.

Chase's IEP

Yesterday morning was Chase's IEP meeting. It was fairly uneventful. He will still be receiving resource room help (thank goodness!) but will no longer get O.T. or Speech. I'm not surprised with the O.T. seeing that it was just as a consultation this past year, she basically said that she doesn't expect him to improve and that he's about as good as he's going to get as far as his fine motor abilities go. I'm sort of shocked that he won't be getting Speech anymore, his speech is strange and immature. But the speech therapist felt confident that the resource room teacher could keep an eye on it and if anything arises to just call her but she didn't feel that at his age speech was going to help much more. We talked a little about my concerns that there is a bigger picture that if causing Chase's problems and they thought my concern were valid based on his birth history and developmental track and told me what steps to make with that... so I'll be calling his Ped. to get a consultation on what to do next.

Busy week

Wow, It's been a busy week! Kylie is finnishing up her testing at school to see if she qualifies for Sp. Ed. So I've had phone call after phone call from the school asking me questions and asking me for my thoughts on this or that. And then the social worker called because Chase's IEP is up for renewal next week.
I've been on the phone with my lawyer all week too. I'm still in a custody battle with my ex... we are requesting that he has a psychological evaluation done. He's just screwed up... he doesn't know how to parent. He relies on his mom to do the parenting and he says very inappropriate things to the kids and they HATE going there. Based on the evaluation he might have to have supervised visits. That court date is next week too.
And then the good news is that I got a new car on Friday!!! Brand spanking new! It's an 07 honda civic hybrid which is awesome because we get over 40+ miles a gallon. I was driving a 04 ford explorer that got 12 miles a gallon going down hill. So hopefully even though our payment is higher we will make up the difference in gas and then some.
Yesterday I took part in a Road Rally.. it's like a scavenger hunt. It was a fundraiser for the catholic school system. I'm not catholic and my kids don't go there but I had friends attending and it was going to be a fun night out. So 8 of us piled in a suburban and solved puzzles and ran all over town taking digital photos of us at different locations with different items. There were 21 teams and our team came in FIRST place!! We won cool prizes and had a tons of fun!!

chase's fishing trip

Chase and Drew with the catch of the day!


Chase and his buddy



First fish of the day

Chase had a great time fishing ( he always has a great time fishing though) and the guys caught 9 Salmon in Lake Michigan.

Kylie's home of imaginary friends

If you have a child in the early school age or even younger then you have heard of the cartoom Foster's Home of Imaginary Friends. Well kylie doesn't just want a TV show she LIVES it. Since she started watching the show she has a collection of her own imaginary friends. Most are based on pokemon characters and some are completely made up creatures. Awhile back she gave one to my dad... it was a small alligators named Zitty. Grandpa plays along and tells Kylie the misfortunes that Zitty gets into . Like when he stepped on his tail and he hid under the bed. Kylie actually looked under the bed for it and scolded grandpa for hurting his friend. When pressed Kylie will agree that the imaginary friends are just pretend but I think that she wants to believe that if she believes hard enough that they will be real. It drives her very literal brother nuts, he can't pretend something unless it could actually be real. Even as a toddler he couldn't pretend that his dinosaurs were going on a picnic or to a movie. They could only fight or hide or walk around and growl.. they couldnt even talk!

While I sit here and type, Kylie is running back and forth in the living room literally bouncing off the walls. When asked what she was doing she said "I'm trying to go so fast that I run right up to the ceiling." I tried to get her to calm back down and she said " oh fine mom...but I don't know how I'm ever going to be a spider then!" Sometimes I don't even bother asking her to explain....

Day one

I guess today is as good of a day as any to start a blog. Here I go.....

Wow... This is harder that it looks when I read other peoples blogs. I'm not much of a writer, more of a reader I guess.

Well my name's Stephanie and I'm married to my husband Drew. We were married October 28th 2006. Drew owns a Lawn Maintence company and goes to college full time also. I am a stay at home mom to Chase age 9 and Kylie age 5. This blog is really more about them than about me so let me tell you a little more about each of them.

Chase is my first born, he was born July 15 1998 at 33 wks gestation weighing 4 lbs 3 oz 17 inches and spent 16 days in NICU. Now he's 9 and in the 4th grade. Chase was Diagnosed ADHD at a young age and has been in OT and/or speech therapy since he was 17 mos old. Last year he was diagnosed with a language based learning disability which also interferes with his reading and writing. Chase loves fishing ( and is actually going charter fishing tomorrow for salmon), snowboarding, wrestling and pokemon cards.

Kylie is my baby, she was born Novemeber 11th 2001 at 32 wks gestation and was a whopping 4 lbs 13 oz ( 98%tile for her gestation!) 17 1/2 inches and spent 13 days in NICU. Kylie never received any early intervention and was always right on in her development. She was diagnosed ADHD just after she turned 4 yrs old. Kylie is 5 now (almost 6) and in the 1st grade. Kylie is currently being tested for the learning disabilities too as she has the same reading and writing issues her brother had at this age. Kylie loves dolls, pokemon cards, milk, imaginary friends and acting like a monkey.