The Graveyard Book, first chapter, read by the Author

So I was reading my favorite authors' web page and ran across this... just click on the play button and hear the first chapter of his new book read by himself. This is why, exactly, he is my favorite...he reads his own work so you hear it exactly like he thought it, and he's British, the accent doesn't hurt. I'm so excited to get my SIGNED copy on Friday when Brian and I turn into Neil Gaiman stalkers and go to the reading in Seattle. Brian isn't much of a fan of anyone really, but he agreed to be my date. I'll tell more about it after! ENJOY!!

University of Life

I'm putting in an email my Mom sent to me a couple of days ago, instead of forwarding on to all of the people in my mail box whom I think would enjoy it or benifit from the advice given. I'm passing it on because I think that it all makes sense. Sometimes I wish I got class credits from the stuff I learn attending the School of Hard Knocks (Life U.) I take on-line course work occassionally through emails from Mom, who turns out to know a bunch of stuff! So enjoy, I hope you learn something too. (BY THE WAY... My Mom did not write this(that I know of) but practices most of these principals.)


1. Pray
2. Go to bed on time.
3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.
4. Say No to projects that won't fit into your time schedule or that will compromise your mental health.
5. Delegate tasks to capable others.
6. Simplify and unclutter your life.
7. Less is more.
8. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.
9. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump the hard things all together.
10. Take one day at a time.
11. Separate worries from concerns. If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety . If you can't do anything about a situation, forget it.
12. Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases.
13. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc
14. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut) This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.
15. Do something for the Kid in You everyday.
16. Carry a Bible with you to read while waiting in line.
17. Get enough rest.
18. Eat right.
19. Get organized so everything has its place.
20. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality oflife.
21. Write down thoughts and inspirations.
22. Every day, find time to be alone.
23. Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don't wait until it's time to go to bed to try and pray.
24. Make friends with Godly people.
25. Keep a folder of favorite scriptures on hand.
26. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good 'Thank you Jesus'
27. Laugh.
28. Laugh some more!
29. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.
30. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).
31. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most).
32. Sit on your ego.
33 Talk less; listen more.
34. Slow down.
35. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.
36 Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never been grateful for before.

Superman

Before you start to read this particular entry go up to my play list, scroll down to the very bottom and turn on R.E.M. Superman.

OK, got it? You need to wait until the music starts... wait for it, keep waiting...wait...Now read...

Just this past week as we were driving down the road to go somewhere, probably speech therapy, and this song came on the radio. Anders pipes up for the back seat and says

"I love this song!" (he has never heard the song before)

I say, "I love this song too."

He says back, " me too."

This is the end of the whole conversation. I'm blogging about it for the reason of celebration. Last July 3rd (2007) Anders had a surgery to put tubes into his ears because he wasn't hearing. In June(2007) we had had his hearing tested, (because he wasn't speaking) and found that he wasn't hearing anything. Tubes are usually placed because of reoccurring ear infections. As of July 2007 Anders had only had one ear infection, but if you were able to open his head to see his sinus cavity, you would see that his Eustachian tube were bent,(all children's tubes are bent, and will straighten as they grow, but Anders are bent in such a way that prevents them from working correctly.) and his head was completely filled with fluid to the point of deafness. We were very lucky to find an ENT who also felt the urgency to fix the problem, and placed the tubes three days after seeing us for the first time.

Now imagine being deaf, and SUDDENLY being able to hear. Going to sleep, and waking up as a hearing person. Life would be amazing overwhelming! Everything you hear would throw you off, airplanes flying in the sky, a car driving by, birds in the trees, music in the car, everything would be new. Now imagine you have no words to use to express your fears, excitement, etc. What an over-whelming sensation! This is where all of Anders therapies and therapists have come into play, and thank goodness for all of them.

The reason for all of the celebration is just this... our son can hear, can speak, and most importantly can function in a world that is amazingly overwhelming. We still have moments when things are a bit too much, but we also have moments where he can hear and point out the airplanes flying overhead or sit back and enjoy an REM song in the car. We are truly blessed.

The Hump

I feel like I've done a lot of Blogging about Liam. Maybe because he seems to be the one doing the most changing lately. This week Liam hit "the hump" in language development. Sounds bad huh? "The Hump" is just this... when a child goes from being a first words user to being a combiner. (These are very technical terms that speech therapists use) A combiner is a child who uses more than two words in a sentence, or uses signs with appropriate words, more than two to form a sentence, in an act of communication. So this is how the week went, and I have to say I never noticed this big of a jump with either Elleory, (who started as a combiner, lots of words right away,) or Anders who has been slow to speak, yet very consistent in his progress. Back to Liam... On Wednesday I noticed that every thing that came out of Liam's mouth had a pronoun attached, "Liam's toy, Mama's juice, Mine blanket" etc... This is a great deal! Thursday, everything had a "NO!" attached to it, IE "NO! Liam's toy, No Liam's juice, mama's juice." This is all very incredible to me, but this is what it boils down to. We have come to the point were Liam notices and is VERY vocal about fairness. Last week, when Anders stole his toy we had tears but Liam went about his business and found something else. This past Wednesday came "the hump". The 'I'm going to scream AND use words when Anders takes my toy AND I'm going to cry and throw the fit as well. By the way, I want that toy back.' hump. Great language progression, fantastic communication! What this means for me, is more refereeing with Anders, more negotiating with Anders, more time-outing for Anders, yet on the other hand, easier communation with Liam at least. It's a strange balance. Anders of course has something to say about it..."freakin' kid!"

Quotable quotes

I really have nothing to write about so far this week unless you want to hear about the enrichment meeting saga, which really isn't a saga, more of an irksome quirk in my ward. Or about the mom in my neighborhood who thinks I'm crazy. I don't know why, or what I did, but she told my Physical Therapist, who we see in common, and I guess they had a bit of a discussion about me. Still investigating that one. Anyway the big news is I found the quotable quotes book hat we keep around to write the funny things our kids say. (It was temporally lost in our closet, and we have been forced to write down the quotes on pieces of paper, that I then filed in the bin by the phone, and when it was finally overflowing this week... needless to say there has been rejoicing on my part over the finding of the book! And just so my mom knows, I found it right were I was looking for it, in a pile.) I thought I'd share some.

Elleory- "Well, I don't know how to put it, but you guys can move when I have my own apartment, 'cuz I'm not leaving." -on the subject of potentially moving back to Colorado in February 2008

Also, while listening to a U2 CD in the car, and practicing her air guitar, Elleory said" it would be so great to learn to play this song on a real guitar...in six easy lessons.

Anders- (really only has 2 quotable quotes so far.) "MORE! HOLE! NOW! Please..." requesting donut holes. This represents Anders first more than two words sentence, a HUGE breakthrough on the speech therapy front.

Liam- Had his first quotable quote on Sunday. As the Deacons were bringing the sacrament closer,and closer to our pew, he yells " Our Friends, Our Friends!" Pretty much blew the mood around us, but at least it was funny!

I have more, if you are ever interested. But for now, I'll leave it at that. These children are my joy!

Tender Mercies

I normally don't pray over my computer. NORMALLY. I normally don't delete important things either. Somehow, and he explained it to me but as I'm NO GENIUS when it comes to computer things, my friend DAN "THE COMPUTER GENIUS" PRICE found my deleted blog entry!!! Something to do with old email. All I know is that my First day of fifth grade blog is back up, and almost all is right with the world! THANK YOU DAN!!! (And, Thank you Heavenly Father for sending computer genius' into my life!)

Elleory's "first day of school" tragedy

CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!!! So because I'm SO VERY LAME with my computer skills, I accidentally deleted the post about Elleory's first day of school. True, I was messing around with the edit feature on the blog, but I should be able to undo it somewhere!?! Elleory is pretty crushed needless to say. I guess I will leave well enough alone from now on.

Three Whole Hours

Now that school is back in full swing I have a new treat this year. Three whole hours to my self, all alone...just me. AHHHHH bliss! I didn't plan on this until November when Liam turned 22 months. But genius child that he is, he was accepted into his preschool class 2 months early. Actually it has more to do with Anders being in the same class and that the number of students was at the low end, and that he is just ready to start. So off he cruises to preschool with Anders for an hour and a half on Tuesdays and Thursdays and enjoys every minute of it. He is such a big,(and big)kid. You would never know that technically he isn't suppose to be there. He just walks in goes right to "work" without even looking back. Right next to the school is a great LITTLE mall. It is mostly food court, with probably 20 restaurants, all food from different countries around the world, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Mexican, Greek, etc. No "fast" food anywhere. At the mall there is also a library branch, and a Joann's and a Michael's, oh, and an Old Navy. So plenty to fill my time. Today I ate lunch at the BB-Q restaurant, pretty good BB-Q, and read Elleory's library book on Magellan. Pretty interesting stuff. But the best part was the time alone. True, I am paying for it. but it's worth every penny!

The First Day of FIFTH, yes, Fifth Grade

OR IN OTHER WORDS, MAN AM I GETTING OLD!!!

The 'Please don't take a picture, walk me only half way to school, and I will quit talking to you when my friends show up' day of school. I guess we knew this was coming, and honestly I'm OK with this... I actually think it's kinda funny. I'm not sure Brian feels quite the same way. Elleory and Brian had the half walk to school and I'm afraid to say little miss, Daddy got sneaky pics of you! It was a good day (I guess) I over heard her tell the neighbor that her math was hard. She told me about the great view of MT. Rainier she has from the window that her desk is by, and how she LIKES being on the edge of her classroom because she seems to be able to work better. I'm already impressed with her teacher, who gave ME first day homework, an essay on Elleory, due by the 12th of September. As I am an expert and will try to keep it at essay length and not write a book. I'm impressed that she wants that imput, most teachers, I find want to find out on their own about the little quirks that make their kids tick. I digress...
All in all It seems to be an OK begining. I'm just shocked at how fast the years are going by, In my reality, I'm too young for a fifth grader!

Death of the Ziploc Box

It went back into the trash this morning. No one noticed. It was well loved and had fulfilled the measure of it's creation, and then some. (Smashed completely flat by the trampling of little feet.) It was replaced last night by a younger slimmer model, (isn't that always the case??) one that hadn't the need for the plastic surgery of church library tape. It will remain forever in the corner of my heart, and in the corner of Anders mind, and I'm positive that long after the trash man has come and gone he will ask me "Where my boc go?"