Snow Day, Power Outage, and Christmas is almost here!

It has been a full couple of weeks, as the first few weeks of December tend to be! We went to Redmond Lights that night that I wrote my last blog post, which was a lot of fun for Lynsey and the boys tolerated:-/. Brian basically took the boys home early and I stuck around with Lynsey and her friends Alice and Maggie. We also had some interesting weather that next week, with some hail one day and then snow on Friday the 9th! School cancelled, the kids had a snow day! They had a lot of fun playing in the snow, making a very cool snowman (who needed an umbrella to protect him, and he actually lasted a few days because of it!). 

What else did we do . . . I took Lynsey and Nathan to Redmond Town Center last Tuesday and they rode the carousel and went ice skating! I didn't realize this but it was the first time for either of them - I'm a very bad Canadian apparently! They absolutely loved it, Nathan has started asking to play hockey(!). We might end up going again this week, we'll see how it works out. Nathan had his preschool Christmas play on Thursday which was pretty cute:-). We had a power outage Friday from about 4:30pm until about 9pm - that was an interesting experience! Adam was not a fan at first, but thankfully he got used to it and it was okay. Brian and I went to a holiday party at my friend Wendy's house on Saturday, and I went caroling with some neighbors in our neighborhood on Sunday! We really are so lucky to have ended up in this neighborhood, it is such a neat place! There were people that joined us as we went from door to door singing Christmas carols, it was really well received (except that one house that waved us away:-/). I feel like it's kind of risky doing something like that in this day and age but it was a really fun experience! 

What is going on with the kids . . . I had Adam's IEP meeting this past week, and received his evaluation results. Not surprisingly, they weren't really able to do any formal evaluations on him since he doesn't exactly perform for people assessing him. I think they are on the right track with how to help him, it's really hard for me to know if the goals they have are shooting too high or too low. There is no point to having lofty goals if he still isn't putting his backpack in his cubby when he comes into his classroom in the morning! He has also had a few visits from the Program Manager of his home program now, and we will probably start with the therapy assistants sometime in January. He is starting to understand that this woman has been here several times now and that is not good news for him, in his mind anyway. He really freaked out last week when she was here. The good thing about that is her being able to witness the problem behavior first hand. 

Lynsey and Nathan are starting to drive me NUTS with their fighting! They have always played together very well, with the occasional argument, but those arguments have gone through the roof the last few weeks (and just in time for Christmas break, lucky me!). I am struggling with how to respond in the best way. I realize sibling rivalry isn't exactly new under the sun, but with Adam being atypical and Nathan being quite a bit younger than Lynsey, it has never really reached problem levels before. I am finding that I have very little patience for it (big surprise, I suppose most parents would probably say the same thing!). How many times can you tell them to just work it out?? And seriously - how badly did that little swat he gave you as you were passing by him really hurt?? I am trying very hard not to take sides, but that is easier said than done. I am hoping this escalation is just a phase that will pass and they will get back to getting along (and yes, I do believe unicorns are real as well! Can't fault me for being optimistic!).

The Christmas shopping is done and we are getting ready to head to Edmonton for Christmas! Our kids will open their gifts from us on Friday, since Brian has that day off, and then we leave early Saturday morning. Who can believe Christmas is less than a week away?? Merry Christmas everyone! See you in the New Year!

Trip to Vancouver, American Thanksgiving, Trip to La Crete, and more

Once again, it feels like a lot has happened since my last post. Life is just continuing to move so quickly! Nathan had a little Thanksgiving parade at his preschool which was pretty cute:-). That weekend (the one before Thanksgiving) we went to Vancouver (actually, we never went into Vancouver but stayed in Langley at our trusty Hampton Inn with waterslide). The kids had a great time! We did a lot of swimming, eating out, and relaxing. Great to be back in Canada again, as usual! 

For Thanksgiving, we went to the Davey's house and had a great dinner with them and some other friends. That night we actually went out to Target and Kohl's for Black Friday shopping! I had never done it before, and I do not feel the need to ever do it again. I don't really know what the point of it was for me, I guess if you are looking for a very specific item that will have a deep discount only on that one day then it makes sense, but it is not for me. The next day, Adam and I were off to the airport to get on the plane to Edmonton! The flight was good, pretty uneventful. We had a nice dinner and evening at Brian's parents, and then early the next morning I got picked up by my Three Hills sisters and off we were to La Crete for my uncle's funeral. How this trip all transpired is that I had tickets to come to Edmonton from Friday to Sunday to come hang out with Becky while she was stuck in Edmonton on dialysis. But, my uncle Henry died quite suddenly on the Monday of that week, so everyone's plans changed. The funeral was on Sunday, so I was able to change my flight home to Monday, and Brian's parents were able to shift their schedules so they could watch Adam for me on Monday. So, a group of us went up for the funeral. I am so glad I was able to go. It was really good to see so many people I hadn't seen in ages, and I think it was good for my parents to have so many of us there. They were very close to my uncle. The drives to and from La Crete were really good, too, did a lot of catching up with my sisters. It didn't feel a million miles long for a change! Adam had a great time with his Grandma and Grandpa while I was gone, it was a very worthwhile trip for sure.

This week we have been trying to get ready for Christmas. Yesterday we had our Facebook Christmas party, which was a lot of fun! Today we put up the tree and got out the Christmas train, we are officially ready for the season! Adam's home program has gotten started, we met a few of the consultants/program managers on Thursday. They will come over a few more times over the next few weeks and try and get to know Adam a bit (he tolerated them being here, but he didn't hang around them or anything - it will take them some time to get to know him for sure!). The therapy aides won't start until after Christmas, which is actually good because we are going back up to Edmonton for a week at Christmas. Hopefully this will work well for him! We won't know until we try anyway, all we can do is keep doing what we think is best.