Happy Halloween

The other pictures are posted to webshots...use the link on this page to get to them. Happy looking!!!

The infamous spider

This is somewhat close so you can see a little detail. The legs are all tucked up. His abdomen area is about the size of a quarter and with the legs extended a little bigger than a half dollar. Obviously not the biggest in the world but bigger than we usually see.

A little blurry...darn camera! But you can see he is a pretty big spider. Do you like the christmas trees branches in the background?! Kevin caught a big moth today to make sure he does not go hungry, what kind of hosts would we be if we did not offer our guest dinner? I wonder what name we will bestow on our new friend??? hmmm...may be Bonnie and Clyde since there are two of them out there. I think this one will be Clyde. He kind of looks like a Clyde...don't you think?

Spooky...

Ok, so I was going to go out to our shed to bring in some boxes with fall/halloween decorations. I opened the door and saw a BIG web and right in the middle was a BIG spider. I tapped the web with a broom and it scampered up to the ceiling. Of course I was intrigued and weirded out at the same time, as I noticed another rather large arachnid in the back of the room. I did not feel well equiped to do battle with the spiders...since I was not encased in some kind of protective attire. I am not "scared" of spiders...I just don't DON'T want them on me. So I left the shed empty handed but curious to know what the name of our new live in friends are. I searched web sites looking for some kind of pictures resembling them but alas I could not. All I know it they are BIG and BROWN and have HUGE webs at least two feet across...AND no I am not exagerating. I will post a picture to prove it...soon. Anyway, whilst looking on the web I came across an interesting story about the picture you do see above. It is from Tawakani park about 50 miles east of Dallas. It is a spider web made of apparetly lots of spiders...like a community. I know it looks like tent worm webs but they are not. Those people that study insects for a living (It starts with an "E" & I have no idea how to spell it) have been studying this location to learn more about it Pretty cool I guess. If you google worlds largest spider web you can find lots of links with more info.

Well, that was my adventure today and my house is still not decorated for fall.

A boy and his big Thumper

On the count of three....1, 2, 3....AHHHHHHHHHHH. What is it about sleeping children? Perhaps for that moment in time they seem so innocent and precious? NOOOO, the fact that for a few minutes you have SILENCE! Kevin asked me the other day if other parents can't wait for their kiddos bedtime to have some peace and quite. I said are you kidding, of course...duh. It's like you have crossed a finish line after a very long marathon. Then you look around the house to assess the damage of the day and think if you called the President he would probably approve your house eligible for disaster relief funding. I don't know if anyone else can relate but I am thinking you can. I love it all though, how can you not. I look around the house and see all the toys and the chaos of it all is overwhelming on a day to day basis but I know one day the toys won't be here anymore and we won't have the moments like in the picture. One day we will look at Austin and Aiden as men and reflect on these days and we won't remember how exhausting it all was, just that we lived life...messy...loud...and with lots of love.

Look closely

Yes...that is Kevin up in the Pecan tree in our front yard pruning and sawing. I just felt compelled to take pictures. At the time he didn't know I was taking them.

Happy Birthday Kevin!!!!!!!

This was the birthday dinner Kevin's parents were here for. They were here visiting the week of labor day. We went to Texas Land 'n Cattle, so yummy so yummy! You can see Austin staring in wonderment. He LOVES birthdays, birthday cake, birthday presents...anything BIRTHDAY! This is Kevin's last birthday in his 30's but don't tell him that...shhhh.

Notice what Austin is looking at...mmm...can you blame him. It was delicious!!

More Birthday pictures

Could this be a peace offering...we could only hope!
I don't know why but I love this picture.
The funny thing about this picture is that we did not stay here. We moved to another table because it was too close to the door the staff kept going in and out of and was a distraction for Austin.

MUST SEE CLIP-TOO FUNNY

You HAVE to go see this clip. It is of a South Texas traffic stop...border patrol? Once you click on the link you may have to scroll down a little to see the video clip.

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/south-texas-traffic-stop/3536425856

Day at the ranch-Sunday the 9th

Our church had a special picnic for all the voluteers, Kevin volunteers each Sunday in the Children's Ministry working with special needs children. We had a great time. We had to ride the tractor twice and if we went with Austin's wished we would have rode it several more times. The ranch we were at is called Circle R ranch in Flower Mound, very close to the ranch we visit each year that has an awesome pumpkin patch.

Yes, Austin wanted to ride the mechanical bull. He did an awesome job! He had that, I am frightened/terrified and excited look throughout the ride. You know prefessional bull riders try to stay on for 8 seconds...Austin was on for over 30! Here is the video...It is a large file and may take some time to fully load.

A touching story...

I receive emails from autismspeaks.org regularly and they have a different story each time. I liked this one because I relate so well, like someone was writing about me. It's funny how everyone has their own perspective of what you should do or how to react or how to feel. What the reality is everyone has their own story and they are all beautiful and wonderous. How lucky we are to beable to share them. I have said often Austin has taught me more things than I could ever teach him, I will spend my life trying to repay him for what he has done for me and our family.

The Most Important ChoiceBy Paula ScheiderEditor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author exclusively.





I got to choose her first name - Fiona. Her father chose her middle name - Claire. I got to choose her Easter dresses, her birthday and the Winnie the Pooh motif on all of her furniture. I chose her godparents and her doctor and her first shoes. Her father chose

her car seat and her bath toys and the darling little shirt that said “Oink!” with the piglet on it. We chose her Christmas ornaments and the gifts under the tree. We chose to have our Fiona. We did not choose autism. In the beginning, before I was able to get an “official” diagnosis, my choice was to comb the message boards and Google for hours. I chose to buy hundreds of dollars worth of educational toys and videos. I chose to chat online with other mothers whose children were diagnosed and I chose to cling to the ever-dimming hope that I was wrong. For weeks, I vacillated between anger and resignation, certainty and confusion, jealousy and joy. There were days where all I focused on was autism and all of the negative stories. There were nights that I did not sleep – instead I made list after list of everything Fiona would miss. Everything we, as her parents, would never experience. I mourned and I raged and I begged and I cried and I made more lists and I surfed and read and researched. The internet is a miraculous thing. The amount of information available is overwhelming – whether it's autism or auto mechanics. Want to spend hours reading tragic story after tragic story about an autistic child? I have your message board. Interested in insurance nightmares? Educational struggles? I've got another hundred message boards for you. Vaccines? Type “autism” and “vaccine” and you get almost one million Google hits. Or perhaps you would rather read about autism from the perspective of an adult with autism – there are literally hundreds of blogs to choose from. And some are joyful and some are depressing and some are infuriating and some made me sob. I gave up a thousand times and started over a thousand and one. Then one day, as I was wallowing in my pain and anger, a question came to mind.Do you want to spend time mourning the daughter you can never have or do you want to spend time loving the daughter you have been given?And then I made my choice.I turned off the computer and I began to dance with Fiona.I abandoned my quest to find out “how” it happened, because frankly, I don't care. I tore up those mental lists of everything we were cheated out of and made longer lists of our blessings and accomplishments.I dug out my sign language book from college and began working on communicating with my daughter.I made the decision to do everything I could to make Fiona's life her own, as opposed to the one I wanted for her.I remembered that I have 3 special and unique children, not just one with autism.I began to celebrate every small victory and accomplishment, because they mean so much more.We chose to be Fiona's mommy and daddy and not victims of autism.And now, every day, I choose to be happy.As a sidenote, it has been almost a year to the day that we were told that Fiona was severely autistic and would most likely be non-verbal. I guess no one shared that with her, since at last count, she is at close to 100 words (and Mommy is one of them!), can say her ABCs & count to 20 and can recite much of "Green Eggs And Ham" from memory. Every single day, there is another step forward -- what more could we ask for?


Autism Speaks Canada


Autism Speaks UK

Privacy

Terms of Service

Contact Us
© 2007 Autism Speaks Inc.Autism Speaks and Autism Speaks It's Time To Listen & Designare trademarks owned by Autism Speaks Inc. All rights reserved.

Central Water Park

Austin was able to go down the big blue slide this year. He was not afraid at all. He counted the steps all the way up, there are 34 in case you didn't know. The lifeguards have been just great with him this season. I will be sad to see the parks close since there has been so much rain this year we have not been able to go as many times as we wanted. I updated the webshots album so you can click on the link at the top right of the page and see the whole set of pictures.

Bye Bye!!!

So we said goodbye to the BMW yesterday. It sold! A very nice familty bought it even though the guy's wife really does not like the color green. For some of you, you never even got to see it in the short time it was ours. It's a bummer that we had to sell it for way under what we bought it for, you can see some of the damage on the passenger side resulting from the accident we had on Mother's Day this year. It may not look like it but the cost was a lot more than you would think. We had not even had the car for a whole month at that point. Kevin has the paperwork to file the civil suit due to the fact that the driver did not have any form of ID and the car was not hers and the car was not insured. If you don't know the whole story and want to just ask and we will fill you in. Anyway, goodbye green BMW...we won't miss you all that much.

Yes we are still around...

Austin with his teacher and certificate.
hmmm...I wonder what she could be thinking...by the way the other boy is Pedro..VOTE for Pedro (for all you Nepolian Dynomite fans)
And Aiden was there to cheer on his BIG brother!!

I know it has been awhile since we have posted anything...SORRY!!! I promise to get it in gear and post our most recent pics and interesting things we have to share. One really cool thing is today was Austin's ceremony ending his summer school program. He received an award for specific attention to detail. GO AUSTIN!! PLEASE bow your heads in prayer due to the school year does not start until August 27th and I am sure Austin will be coming up with ALL kinds of fun things to do around the house since he will be home with daddy during the day. Daddy will have to be VERY creative to keep him occupied! I know he will do a great job and have fun too!

Happy 4th

We went to Denton, we missed having the Willis family with us :-(
Austin of course had to walk up and down the long path. This place is normally packed! We were surprised to have so much space.

Aiden saw the football game and joined in the game, without asking I might add...how rude!
The family right next to us had two boys (3 1/2 & 2 1/2) and would you believe their names were Aiden and Austin, Aiden being their oldest.

To see the rest of the album you need to go the link we have that takes you to webshots. Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th!!

More Rain!

This was from the storms on Tuesday. This time the water almost made it all the way across the street. Our poor Jasmine bush has been hanging in there.

I'm a hot toe picker!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZHW3ODFhvo

Everytime we watch this we laugh out loud. Hope you do too! Please do not think any less of me after viewing!

The water is about halfway over the street. June ended up being the 2nd wettest month. We only missed being the 1st by about 1/2 inch of rain, 1928 still holds the record at 11.58 inches.

It's hard to see but the water is up to the license plate of our neighbors car.

Moving from toddler to little boy!

I can't believe how much Aiden has changed this past month. He has an amazing memory. One of Austin's favorite movie is Jungle Book II. Well Aiden has memorized the ENTIRE movie and acts it out. He really gets into it, especially all the songs. I will have to post a video.

Austin's ouchie

See how it is purple on the bottom (and swollen) and the top. He smashed it pretty good at school yesterday. It also broke the skin around the cuticle.

Austin did such a good job! We are just thankful there was not a fracture. He has been really great about not pulling the splint off. The doctor said it will take about two weeks to heal. We retapped the splint this morning, I won't post pictures of that, there was alot more bruising today...ewww.

Ft Worth Gardens

We recently went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. It is a place I love to visit. Kevin and I had our engagement pictures taken there over 7 years ago. Below are some pictures of the boys from last years trip compared to this year. If you click on the link at the top of the page on the right it will take you to our albums and all the pictures from this year are there.

2006
2007 and still taking time to stop and smell the flowers!

2007

2006

Mommy and Aiden at the Botanical Gardens 2007. We came back to take this picture in the same spot! The flowers were different colors, but still my favorite! Same spot from 2006. I remember this day sooo well. It was a great day with the boys.

Vacation blues... :-(

Ok, so I am on vacation this week and could we get a little more rain please. I mean really I didn't want to spend any time out in the sun or anything! If you detected some sarcasm then you would be on target. I have of course LOVED being home soaking up all the time I can with the kiddos. We have managed to get to the water park once and hope to get there a couple of more times. We may just pack up and drive somewhere, where there is NO sign on RAIN or any other form of moist air particles falling towards the ground!!! So, I will look at this lovely picture and daydream of being there floating around without a worry in the world.