Photos

I'm officially calling my anxiety "in remission". There are no more physical symptoms and my days are filled again with a variety of activities and interests. I have all the time and energy I need to meet my family's needs, keep myself physically/mentally/spiritually healthy, and even serve others. I feel closer to Bobby and we work together to meet our kids' needs. We've had several significant and meaningful conversations about parenting lately. Life is sticky. Our ideas for smoothing things out may be different, but we have the same goals in mind, so we eventually come to a course of action that suits us both. I'm lucky to have Bobby as a partner.

It's been FOREVER since I uploaded photos, so here's a glut of them :)

Thanksgiving 2021 in Copley, OH, with the Garner family. We've known the Garners for 18 years and our kids have sort of grown up together. I call them our "friend-cousins" or "frousins." Here, Bobby is helping Robert use the Garner's scroll saw to cut out a Pinewood Derby car. We planned a little Pinewood Derby competition for the holiday.

Thanksgiving 2021. Bobby discovered he's bald enough to secure a plunger to his head. The plunger belongs to G Garner, and it's a toy, not a tool. James discovered several other body parts it could suction to.

Thanksgiving 2021. Matthew is painting his penguin-themed Pinewood Derby car.

Alex using the Garners' drill press on his rainbow watermelon car to fit the weights.

Thanksgiving 2021. Alex, N, G, and Rk spent hours on a couple Dungeons and Dragons adventures. Robert and James listened on. Alex likes the storytelling aspects of D&D much more than the actual battling stuff, so everyone helped build the story together. I loved hearing them laugh and shriek and laugh some more. It got Alex out of his room and engaging with peers. It also resulted in a series of inside jokes like, "Kill the cube, kill the cube. Don't disappoint the master. Master!"

Thanksgiving 2021. The Pinewood Derby! The Garners had access to an official track with electronic timing and tournament software. R Garner took first with her bike-themed car. Matthew's penguin car took 2nd and J Garner took 3rd. James got the "turtle" award for being last, which caused Matthew a lot of sorrow. The baby turtle stuffy was adorable, and it was the only reason Matthew wanted to be in the race at all. He wanted to lose SO badly.

Thanksgiving 2021. We had a chocolate tasting in 3 sessions. Here, Bobby has just set up for the first tasting. I now know that there are some chocolate bars I never need to try again. Ghirardelli is still my clear favorite.

Thanksgiving 2021. We ran our own little Turkey Trot 5k

Thanksgiving 2021. We played games. Who has time to play games during the day?! Well, when a majority of the kids are old enough to play D&D for hours at a time, I do!

Early December 2021. The rest of our family got their second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Matthew is disgruntled on the outside, but he's actually very happy it's finally over. The first dose was psychologically hard for him...his blood-curdling screams and vicious flailing drew a lot of attention from the other folks at the vaccine clinic...and anticipating the second dose was hard, hard, hard as well...but he was remarkably contained when the time came and even held his shirt down for the nurse. That's courage, my boy. You've got it.

 

Our most recent family photo. The kids were grouchy about it being in their church clothes, so some of them insisted on more casual footwear. It was freezing cold and raining. Alex said something that got James to shoot him a lighthearted stink-eye. I'm glad my friend caught that moment.

Here's the official new family photo. No stink eye involved.

Pummelos. Our family's favorite citrus fruit. It's only in our grocery stores for a short time, so we've been enjoying it a lot lately.

We finally disassembled our 3D globe puzzle to be put back together another day.

Alex put together some winter break activity kits for kids. He sold some to a couple families in the ward and I bought a couple for James and Matthew. They've REALLY enjoyed them. Here, Matthew is mixing peanut butter, butter, and chocolate chips to make muddy buddies. He's also done a Christmas scavenger hunt and invented his own board game. Any time he's bored, he just asks, "Can I do something from my kit?"

We adjusted chores a little at home. Here, Matthew is vacuuming out the van. Like his earmuffs? Those are a recent acquisition due to Alex. Alex believes he is on the autism spectrum. He insisted, therefore, that his sensory issues were far too extreme to allow for regular chores like vacuuming (noise) and hand washing dishes (texture/moisture). He also insisted that his people-free time in his room was far too precious to sacrifice for chores that would be less demanding on his sensory system (loading/unloading the dishwasher, mopping, cleaning a bathroom). I held the line, though, and agreed that it was a genuinely difficult decision to make. I said he could take a few days to make the decision. At that point, he let out a huge, exasperated sigh and said, "Fine. Just give me vacuuming." I purchased the hardware ear muffs to reduce the noise level. Matthew looooooves them. Alex tried them and excitedly told me, "The white noise from the vacuum and the sound dampening from the ear muffs made it so I could think straight with real words for the first time in a long time!"

We had a pretty heavy frost the other day and James collected a bunch of it from outside and made the "first snowball of the season"!

Alex and his shoulder buddy, Peanut, with a new shoulder gnome. Thanks, Heidi, for the ornaments! We love them!

Another activity from his winter break kit: microwave popcorn from scratch! Matthew mixed some popcorn kernels and oil, put them in a brown lunch bag, and microwaved it to perfection.

Here's a little photo display I put together for our family's 20th birthday: one photo of our family from each year 2001-2021 :)

Today, Matthew and James took every single blanket in the house and put it under the card table. Then they brought in pillows and built cushion walls. They've been "digging around" in the blankets like moles. Matthew gave me a "tour" by digging down into the blankets, moving over a little, and popping up in another place he called his kitchen or living room or bathroom. Robert added another layer of cushions so thick that I could barely hear the boys playing under there.

James surprised me again today. He asked if he could spend some of his own money to buy little bottles of sparkling apple cider at the dollar store. I groaned, but had the time and opportunity, and complied. It turns out, he didn't want them for himself. He actually bought them to put in other people's stockings. Everyone except himself. And then, when he realized that Christmas would fall on chore day this week, he secretly did one of Matthew's chores for him. James is amazing. I don't give him enough credit for those choices.