Slacker!

Yes, I have been a total blogging slacker this week. Want to hear all my excuses? No? Oh well. I rally don't have any anyway! I always hate it when I follow a blog through a long adoption process and then once the child is home we hear nothing. Yeah, the finger is pointing to me. 

So, let's catch up,  shall we? Ahren's physical progress is coming along. We took him back to the orthopedist and he was happy with the muscle development. He is still much less stable than other kids his age and about as limber as a dish rag, but he is progressing. At this point the doctor wants to keep up doing what we are doing (lots of physical activity, no shoes most of the time) and see him again in a few months. It's so hard to tell what is just muscle weakness from inactivity versus some cerebral palsy issues when he is so young. Poor little guy, though, he falls so much. He has so many bruises and skinned knees and elbows. 

Ahren is speaking almost entirely in english now. It has become a struggle to get him to use spanish and he absolutely refuses to answer me if I speak to him in spanish. I have friends who are fluent and try and talk to him and he just sticks out his chin and says NO! The other day he said 'chocolate milk' plain as day. He is doing very well peeing in the potty, not so much with the poo poo. We aren't pushing. He eats everything now, and a lot of it! If we make scrambled eggs he will eat 3-4 of them. He can down 2 bananas and 2 cups of yogurt for a snack. He eats a lot of healthy food, so I am not worried. He is also on the go constantly so he is burning off a lot of calories. He lost a little weight at first, probably because we weaned him off of the bottles every 4 hours. Those calories have been replaced with fruit, yogurt, whole grains etc. 

Today I am cleaning out our big chest freezer. Even though we had a generator during Hurricane Ike, it didn't run everything all the time. The freezer partially defrosted and then refroze in one giant blob. A lot of what was in there is probably freezer burned now. I am thawing all the meat and cooking it down with rice for dog food. I just HATE to waste it and jackson does best on a hypoallergenic diet of fresh meats and rice anyway. At least I won't be throwing it away.

Lately I have had this urge to stock up, cut back on spending, prepare to tighten the belts, etc. The way the economy is going and the unrest that comes from the change in presidents has me unsettled. I made the mistake of looking at my 401K and the kid's college funds and about wet myself. I will NOT do that again anytime soon. I just keep telling myself that every dollar going in right now is buying many more shares than normal, so that is a good thing. 

I made my own laundry detergent as part of my 'back to basics' savings kick. For about $20 I have enough laundry detergent for the next 6 months for a family of 6. The best part? It works! I had a towel that was originally cream colored but somehow had gotten washed with something and turned pink. I used the home-made detergent on a load of towels and the pink towel came out cream colored again! (That makes me wonder how it will work in the long run on colored clothes....I'll have to let you know) You only use 1/8th of a cup per load. 

Today I am also making cookie dough, adding in the leftover Halloween M&M candies instead of chips and freezing it in single cookie portions. (Drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheet lined with waxed paper, freeze, transfer to ziploc bags) They are then ready to pop in the oven a few or a lot at a time! 

Right now the boys are all out in the barn working on a project. They are building the new bed frame with storage for Levi and Ahren's room. My heart about bursts when I look out there and see them. All three have on safety glasses and are intently bent over the wood. All together now....awwwwwww. 

We went to a birthday party at the next-door neighbors house for their 3 year old. There were lots of kids all between the ages of infant to about 6 yrs old. There was a group of girls about Levi's age that were absolutely wild. They took over the bounce house and attacked anyone who went in. Levi got tackled several times and decided to get out. One little guy, 3 yrs old, ended up crying and trying to get out but they kept knocking him down and calling him a baby. I was watching and said they needed to be nice to the smaller kids. One little girl looked at me and said, 'I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear'. I think Chris pulled me out of the entrance as I went in to give her the smackdown! (Just kidding) I did find the Mom, who happened to be 2 steps from the bounce house and paying NO attention whatsoever, and told her what her lovely little puke had done. She made the girl apologize, but just a little bit later she and her posse were back in the bounce house reigning terror. Ahren went to go in, got halfway thru the door, and backed out as fast as his chubby little legs would carry him. Good choice son!

Later I will work on uploading some new pix.