Playing a game of catch-up!!

Hi everyone! I haven't written in a couple of weeks. We've had quite a lot going on with lots of good changes.

First off, Happy Valentine's Day! We didn't do very much...just hung out at the house and spent some time together. Braydon got me a quatrafoil mirror that I've been wanting, and we hung it up in the front living room. We finally painted and got furniture for in there. It looks beautiful even though it's still a work in progress. I have to get a rug and possibly some pictures for in there. I've also got to get drapes. I took some pictures for you to see the living room and the half bathroom downstairs.

The half bathroom:


Another view of the half bathroom showing how the flowers going along the wall:


The front living room looking from the front door:




I will take more pictures of the kitchen and family room later. We've been slowly painting the house and trying to make it seem more like home. It's coming along. We've basically finished the downstairs except for a few accessories and things like that.

Anyways, after Valentine's Day, Carla came to visit for the first time in a year. It was sooooooooo good to see her!!!!! There is nothing like hanging out with your best friend that completely understands you. It's the best feeling in the world. We got to go have lunch together and have girl talk. We saw a movie, built a snowman in the backyard, and went to dinner with Braydon at The Melting Pot. Yummy!!! Landon fell in love with Carla the moment he saw her. He wanted her to sit down and play with him. She gave him tons of hugs and Carla was willing to go along with him. We had so much fun together and I was really sad to see her go. She has more pictures on her camera than I took, but here are a few until I get the rest from Carla:




As for Landon, we have been super busy with trying to rearrange his therapy schedule moving from four days a week to three. I talked to Landon's teacher that come out from Papillion School District. Her name is Kerri and she worked under Landon's old teacher, Lois, from Bellevue Public Schools. It was nice to get a teacher that was recommended from someone I trust. Anyways, so I have been talking to Kerri about getting Landon involved with some other kids. Not only to help him, but to help ease my anxiety about sending him to preschool. We decided to go to a couple of "classes" at the YMCA to start off with. We went into a class called "Gym and Swim" although Landon couldn't go to the pool part of it. He got in about an hour of playing and observing the other kids in the gym part. These kids were older than him by about a year, which made me nervous at first, but Kerri told me it's actually better because it will help him to have someone to look up to. They call them "peer models" in the school system, and Landon will actually have kids in his 3 year old preschool class that are 4 to help the 3 year olds learn what is expected of them. We have talked about putting Landon in preschool at 3, and I think he would really benefit from the interaction with kids on a daily basis. We will be talking more about this tomorrow. I have a meeting with his teacher along with some of the therapists from the school system. We're going to talk about what will be best for Landon in the next 6 months to a year. More on that later...

Kerri and I decided that since Landon did so well at the Gym and Swim class, that maybe we should try him in a class that has kids that are more his age. She suggested another class at the YMCA that she had taken other kids to and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the class didn't have enough interest, and it was cancelled. We found another avenue to pursue that is offered through the school system. They have a motor play group on Monday mornings where the physical and occupational therapists (along with the teachers) work together and play with the children in a preschool setting. They have all sorts of things to play with there from slides to arts and crafts to pretend vacuum cleaners. It's a come and go as you please sort of thing, so we took Landon to see how he would like it. Landon had a blast!!!! There was only one other family there with 2 young boys about Landon's age. They all played and Landon ran around pointing to all the signs. I'm excited for him to start going to preschool. I think it will be really good for him to be interacting with other children. He will learn so much from them. For now, we are going to go to this play group every other Monday. Every other Tuesday morning Kerri wanted to work with him on focusing on a task. Landon gets side-tracked and/or stuck on something and it can become quite a problem in school. She suggested we use a reward system with him to try and get him to understand that he will not always get to decide what he's going to be doing. We'll see how that goes...it should be interesting. :)

Theresa (Landon's nurse) and I took Landon in today to the GI clinic to get him weighed and for me to turn in his food journal. He weighed in at 31 lbs. and 1 oz!!!!! He's been eating soooo much more than he ever has, and is starting to do more self-feeding. I'm so proud of him and all the progress he's made. I'm excited to see what the dietician says. Hopefully, we'll hear from her in the next week or so as to what we need to do next.

I'll leave you with some cute pictures I took of our little man. Hope everyone has a good rest of the week!!