Life

Oh Life, how it changes. There have been a lot of changes in my life as of late. So many that have been really hard but God is so faithful and is always reminding me he is in control of all things and that no matter what he will see me through and my boys through even in the toughest situations. Gabe and I are going through a divorce. Things are not final right now, the first set of paperwork has been turned in and the final papers will be turned in the first week of Feburary and then things should be final shortly after that. Gabe and I are working really well together. And have opted for a consent degree divorce which means that we did all of the paperwork together and worked out every little detail together with no conflict so that the boys and most importantly the Lord will look back on this time in our life and know that we handled ourselves in a godly manner even in this tough time. He will still be a very large part of the boy's lives and neither of us would want it any other way. For those of you who have been with us in this thank you so much from your love, support and prayers. They have ment the world to us. For those of you who are reading this who are stunned, I am very happy to answer any questions you have about what is going on in our lives in more detail. The boys and I also have moved to Colorado Springs to live with my sister and her family there. So crazy is an understatement of our lives right now. You all know me and you know I love crazy so this is so great, 8 kids from 1-11 years of age and a a variety of special needs, and only 3 adults, luckly my sister loves crazy too, so we are having such a hay day and can't wait for our first crazy adventure of christmas morning. I have no definite plans as of right now, just to get the boys all set up here in colorado. John is in the autism program here which is the same type as the one in Arizona. James is in the preschool program. Jordan is all set up with his speech therapy and hopefully OT in the next few weeks, and John is still in the process of getting all of his home based therapies. God is really taking care of things here and has been so faithful I can't even begin to explain all that he is doing for me and the boys. And all of the great people he has raised up in my life at this point to give of themselves to help us out. I would be no where with out my Lord and his incrediable love for me and his direction. I love you all and the thing I and the boys and Gabe needs the most right now is prayer. Jer. 29:11.

snaps trip/revolve tour

Disneyland Downtown Disney Parking lot Hey Hey our theme song sung by superchick praying at the beach, I had each girl pray for the girl on her right, I loved hearing their prayers to the Lord for each other, it was powerful Leaders (left to right) Heather, Julie, Andrea(our great jr. leader), Chelsea, Me
We had such a great time during this trip. I have been so blessed leading this group of young women and the Lord is always working in our group and it so amazing to see and be a witness to God's great work. We took 16 girls (one of those a jr. leader) with us and 4 leaders. We left for this trip on a Thursday and drove straight to Cali (as the girls call it) and on friday we took a trip to disneyland. It was such a blast and all of the girls and the leaders had such a great time. Friday night kicked off the conference, which was filled with great music and some great speakers. On Saturday we had the conference most of the day and grapped a quick bit to eat and headed to downtown disney for some shopping. Yeah! Saturday night proved to be the most fun and entaining night we had there. What happens at snaps stays at snaps, but I will let you have a sneek peek at some pictures. Sunday we headed to Huntington beach before driving home. The beach was beautiful, and peaceful we even got to watch some surfers. I can't wait to next year, and the best part of the whole trip was that the girls wanted more out of revolve tour, more meat. I love it. Hearing those things makes my heart leap for joy that teenage kids these days want more from their relationship with God, they want to grow, they want to study, and I love it. Thank you Lord. I will have more pics posted on flicker so check them out.

Jordan

We had our IFSP (individualized family service plan) yesterday with the people from DDD. We wrote some goals and talked about our next steps. Jordan will be getting a speech therapists that will come work with him each week, a Devolpmental specialists that will also work with him a few times a week, and maybe an occupational therapist. So that is where we are. We hope with all of these in place he will catch up to where he needs to be and no other problems arrise. We will still be talking with our peditriction on if any futher tests need to be run and hopefully soon we will get tubes in his ears. Thanks so much for your past and continuing prayers. And I will keep you up to speed as we hear or find out things.

Peace

Looking out at those waves and knowing what is going on in my heart and in my life I felt a peace that I have never known. God, the God who made all of this, the God who controls all of this, is going to carry me through this time in my life and I will come out on the other side, it may be months or years but I will come out. And even though I am tossed about in the waves of life, I know who made those waves and who controls them and I have nothing to worry about even though I feel like they are going to pull me down and I will drown. I won't because God will give me everything I need to rise above those waves. What a promise he gives us and what a reality that became in my life that day just standing there and taking in the beauty.

Califonia

Gabe and I went on a great trip to Califonia just last week. We have had this trip planned for abotu 6 months which seemed like forever and it would never arrive. But it did and at a time when we both really needed it. I posted a few of my fav. pictures on here, you can see all of them on my flicker site. Well we got the Southern Califonia city pass, which gives you admission to 5 different parks. We had a pass to disneyland and Califonia adventure, sea world, san diego zoo, univeral studios. We left on sunday after a meeting and had until the next sunday afternoon to come home. So each day we did something different. We went to universal studios on Monday that was fun, I went on the scarest ride of my life, the Jarassic park ride, it had a 84 ft drop, I thought I was going to die, really i thought I was going to die. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday we did disneyland and CA adventure. They were fun, we definitly loved CA adventure more and hope to take the boys there really soon. On Thursday that day was just an adventure from the start. We got up really early so we could head to San Diego to find that our van had been taken over by ants, A LOT of ants, everywhere. So we headed to a car wash and had everything vaccumed and washed and then bought some ant spray and sprayed the heck out of our car and then drove to San Diego almost choking on the fumes. But at least our ants were gone. The zoo was fun, really hot and a lot of walking but oh such beautiful flowers all colors and kinds. I loved it. Sea world was so cool, we didn't ride any of the rides but caught a few shows, petted some rays and even petted and feed some dolphins, that was my favorite part. On Friday it was our free day with nothing really planned so we got up early went to the beach which was so incrediable. The we went back to CA adventure, I told you we really loved that place. Everynight we walked around and ate at Downtown disney, we loved eating at Tortilla Joe's very good food. And wanted to hit something with live music but no one played live during the week. On Saturday we headed home but stopped off in Pasadena so see our great friends Mark and Kim and had lunch and spent most of the afternoon there catching up. That was our great vacation and I hope you enjoy the pictures. We did miss the boys so much but I think they had such a great time with friends and family while we were away.

Jordan Update

I got word on Jordan yesterday. He is delayed in both speech and social emotional skills and even needs some Occupational Therapy(which will help devolope his fine motor skills, like pincher grasp and using both hands to do things). So we are currently being referred to another agency that can provide more for him. It is the same agency that John has services through so that is helpful. And we hope that with these services that he will recieve he will catch up to where he needs to be and it is still a little early to tell if he is autistic or just behind in some skills, but I am still worried and we could use all of the prayers out there to get us through this time in our lives. We have traveled this road before but I don't think it makes it any easier the 2nd time around and we just want our boys to be cared for and get everything they need to have a great and fulfilled life. I will keep you all updated as we hear more. And we love and miss you all.

Newest family member

Our family grew just a bit bigger today. One of the ladies I know here on my autism yahoo group was giving away puppies. So we decided to get the boys one. I know what you are thinking, What! a puppy with three boys you decided to get a puppy? Yes we did. And the boys are loving it. We picked him up this morning and the pictures are the boy's first introduction to him. We named him Mr. Echo. John picked echo and we added the Mr. because of the best show ever LOST and Mr. Echo is one of the men that was on there. So we are looking forward to the adventers that we are going to have with Mr. Echo and they have already started. John is a little nervous around him but likes having him a round and James is also nervous but likes to watch him. And Jordan well that boy thinks it is the best day of his life. He is LOVING the dog he follows him around every where and visa versa. I think the day's around here are going to be more crazy and more funny and I didn't think that was even possible.

God is Good

Recently everything in my life has begun to fall apart but I have been digging deep into the word and seeing God's grace and mercy has made one thing clear to me. He is good, even when life is falling apart all around me and I feel as if I'm are going to drown in it, and there is no way out. God is still there, still holding on to me. Still leading me, still loving me, still carrying me no matter what. That is a promise I really need to grab hold of right now and I love the words of this Point of Grace song because it says what we all need to remember and we always tend to forget it on a daily basis but we need to remember it and hold it very close to our hearts. It is one of his greatest promises to us. Be blessed today and please always remember that no matter how bad this life can get he is still there and still good. I am learning that each day and I hope that you will know that too. Nothing is too big for him to handle. Praise Him for that. When the sun starts to rise and I open my eyes You are good, so good In the heat of the day with each stone that I lay You are good, so good With every breath I take in I'll tell You I'm grateful again When the moon rises high before each kiss goodnight You are good When the road starts to turn around each bend I've learned You are good, so good And when somebody's hand holds me up, helps me stand You are so good With every breath I take in I'll tell You I'm grateful again 'Cause it's more than enough just to know I am loved And you are good So how can I thank You And what can I bring What can a poor man lay at the feet of a king So I'll sing you a love song It's all that I have To tell You I'm grateful For holding my life in Your hands When it's dark and it's cold and I can't feel my soul You are still good When the world has gone gray and the rain's here to stay You are still good With every breath I take in I'll tell you I'm grateful again And the storm may swell even then it is well You are good So how can I thank You And what can I bring What can a poor man lay at the feet of a king So I'll sing you a love song It's all that I have To tell You I'm grateful For holding my life in Your hands

I am amazed at how my boys grow and how fast. It brings joy to me but also makes me even more unsure of what I am doing as a parent and if I am even doing the right thing. Right now as I write I am thinking oh my what have I gotten into being a parent and a parent of three boys at that. But I am also reminded that the Lord choose me to be their mom. I don't know why or even if I can do it, but I am honored that the Lord gave me the best boys in the whole world. Pray for us as a family. Many things are happening in our lives right now and wjust need lots and lots of prayers. And please especially pray for these things: Gabe and I and our marriage, John starting all day kindergarten I am not sure how he is going to do and I don't even know how I am going to do, James and his attitude things are getting worse with him, and Gabe and I are at a lose on how to help him, and Jordan's development. As many of you know this has been a constant concern for me and sadly I think my fears are becoming a reality as far as if we have another autistic son. Jordan is following closely in John's footsteps when he was a baby. We do have an evaluation coming up and we pray before then that things change but if not. That the Lord will equip us to start this journey again with our baby boy and that he will continue to empower us and strengthen us in yet another hard path. And please also pray for a dear family that is close friends of ours, they too are starting down a very hard and troubling path as they just found out that their oldest boy who is only 4 has Cystic Fibrosis. I will update as soon as I can about all of these things, and thanks for reading, and praying.

VBS

Gabe did such a great job on pulling together and running vbs. This was his first one so he was a bit nervous on how it would go, but it was awesome. Our theme was power lab so that was so much fun to work with, we had tons of cool science experiments and great music. We met our goal of 150 kids, actually I think we even had a few more than that. And the 3 boys just loved it. John went with the kindergarten group and did really well as long as he didn't see us, which was hard because I was taking all of the pictures. James was with the preschool group and loved his leaders and has asked to go back to vbs almost everyday since. Jordan was in the nursery with some other workers kids and had tons of fun, even did some crafts. I was crazy busy running around taking a million pictures and Gabe was running around making sure everything was running smoothly. It was a great week, but I must say we are happy it is only a one time of year event. :) I have posted some pictures of all of us. Some are pretty basic but I will explain a few. One of the great experiments we did was soda shooting up in the air using diet soda and mentos that was so so cool and tons of fun. Also we made some great gew that the kids all got to walk on. I don't know if you have seen this, but if you apply pressure to it, it becomes solid but keeps it's liquidity form. it is so cool, but you can walk on it. So when we talked about Jesus walking on the water all of the kids also got to walk on water and of course some of us leaders too. :) I can't wait for next year but it is nice to sleep a little in between.

Stand up even when you can't

I love this song and in the recent days I have found great comfort in it. I hope you do to. And God will always give us the strengh to keep going no matter what and I am living that right now. Please keep us in your prayers. Stand You feel like a candle in a hurricane Just like a picture with a broken frame Alone and helpless Like you've lost your fight But you'll be alright, you'll be alright [Chorus:]Cause when push comes to shove You taste what you're made of You might bend, till you break Cause its all you can take On your knees you look up Decide you've had enough You get mad you get strong Wipe your hands shake it off Then you Stand, Then you stand Life's like a novel With the end ripped out The edge of a canyon With only one way down Take what you're given before its gone Start holding on, keep holding on Everytime you get up And get back in the race One more small piece of you Starts to fall into place Oh

One of the greatest sounds in the world

I am currently just listening to by two boys play together upstairs. It is bringing me to tears. This a VERY rare occasion in this household. That here is no fighting or yelling but just fun. Oh the little things how I rejoice in those. Thank you God for those little things because they get me through the bigger things.

Summer Fun!!!

Man has life been that busy that I haven't even been able to write? As you know any of you in youth or children's minstry, life gets really busy when school lets out. Gabe and I have chruch activities out our ears and not just in one ministry. We started a small group for young marrieds which is great, we have I think about 10 couples. Yeah! You know that feeling when you are right where God wants you even if you didn't expect it? Well that's where I am in a ministry here at the church. Not only the small group of young marrieds, which we really felt God leading us to start but also I am a head leader of a high school girls group (snaps) with about 8-10 girls and there are 4 of us leaders in total. Head leading this group kind of fell in my lap. Our other head leader had to leave because of a job opportunity for her husband arose at another church. But I think moving us here and me being involved in this snaps group since Janurary, the Lord was preparing me to lead them. He knew that he needed me there to help and support Chelsea and then to move into her spot when she had to step down. How awesome our God is and how greatful I am that he choose to use me when he didn't need too. I love doing it and I wouldn't want to be any where else. When I first arrived at this church I wanted to be involved so much with women's ministry, I thought that is where I would best fit, but I love when our ways our not God's ways. Well most of the time I love it. :) I never did get involved with womens group but instead this ministry of young women. Yeah! I love ministry! I love the busyness, I love day trips and sleep overs, car washes, and now even I love T.P.ing which I recently did with the high school girls for the very first time. They were pretty excited to get me out there and I was pumped up as you can see in the pic. I have included some of our other great pictures from snaps, there are so many and I could just post a few, but my others will be on my flicker site so check them out. I hope to write again soon, but we may have to wait until the crazyness just stops if it ever does. Summer is crazy but it makes for a lot of great memories also. Both at church and at home. I will write more about exciting things happening at home later, but the big ones for now are that John has lost his first tooth, he is pointing at his hole in the picture and James sported his first mohawk. AHHH summer fun!!!!

Online course

I am taking an online course on applied behavioral analysis (ABA) it is an intensive therapy regimen for autistic people. They needed test subjects for an online course so of course I signed up and want to learn as much as I can, we hope to get John on this program at some point but it is very costly and not many places and/or people provide it, so I want to learn as much as I can about it. Anyway I was reading and watching the videos it provides and I was overcome with seeing these other children act just like my child. We tend to live in our own little world and I know how John is and how he behaves, both good and bad, and even the silly autistic things he does, that make us laugh but to him make complete sense. Like getting right up in your face, nose to nose to see his reflection in your sunglasses. And I felt a bit overwhelmed that we are not the only ones living this day in and day out. I know others do and I am even part of a yahoo group here in the valley that talk everyday via emails. But seeing it is so different. And right now my heart aches and prays for those like us who live this life and who need more strength and love, and prayers just to get through one day, one hour, one minute. Please take time today to pray for those; the many out there that are affected by autism and take a stand when some one asks about it and when you are out in public and you see a child acting out, don't judge you don't know what is happening at home, or what difficulties that family has, instead pray for them. Love them, give them compassion. Treat them like Jesus would treat them. Quiet doesn't always mean "shy"A tantrum doesn't always mean naughty AUTISM Would you know it if you saw it?

New House story

Ok so I promised you the whole story on getting our house, so here it is. Well first to find it was a blessing already, it was in short sale and the sellers needed to get rid of it fast because the husband is in the military and they are moving. So when I first saw it I knew it was the house for us, I loved the layout, the space it gave us, extra rooms that were not even listed, great size to go with the unbelievable price, and in the right school district (which is a huge thing alone, because John needs to be in this district so that he receives all of the things he needs), good neighborhood, I checked to find out where all of the predators are, you all know me. I did my homework and knew in my heart that this was the perfect place for us and definitely where God wanted us to be. And Gabe and our realtor among many others said that this was not going to happen, to get it in the price that we needed was just not going to happen, but I told Gabe I knew this was our place and we needed to leave it up to God to take care of all of it. So we placed an offer and it was counter offered and then we counted back and that was taken, miracle because it was still way below the actual value but with the market right now it really worked in our favor because the bank just needed to get rid of it. So of course we thought we were home free, but God had other plans, nothing is that easy for us, and we should have known. But just getting the bank to accept our offer was huge and already a great witness to God's grace, but he still needed people to see his full working hand and all that he can do, move mountains, no matter how big. So we start the mountains of paperwork, and inspections, and more paperwork and go here and there talking to everyone. We hear that we will be closing on the 31st of March. That day rolls around and we find out that we are actually not approved like we were told because I had to be on the loan (which at first we were not going to do), and since I was going on the loan they had to count all of my debt and for me showed no income. So that hurt us very badly. And we knew it would but we added me to the loan and then couldn't get approved. And then we found out that we had until April 9th to get a new loan approved, or we would lose the house, our escrow money, the inspection money, everything. So we started completely over for a different loan with Gabe's grandparents co-signing for us, which we a miracle as well, and everything had to be done within about 3 business days, which you know banks can never do, we were stressed to say the least but still left it in God's hands, to work diligently and push whatever needed pushed. We had so many great people also working non stop for us. And on Friday the 11th we got our keys to our perfect home. We realized that through all of this God still had work to do on us and other's around us to proclaim him and his mightiness, and to trust him when all hope was lost and it was impossible to even continue to get this house. We knew that God wanted us to push through and give him a chance to work and not just give up and through it we got to see him preform so many miracles I can hardly believe it myself and it was such a pleasure to be apart of his work. Tiring and stressful but what has come from it is matchless, not only did we get the house, but so many people we got to share with about him and how he works in miraculous ways and plant seeds in their hearts, family members, our realtor, mortgage guy, title guy, people that came to bring us papers to sign, the sellers, and so many others, every time we turned around we were sharing with someone else about our great Lord. I wouldn't change any of it, I am so thankful everyday that God uses us to help in his plans and it humbling to know that we are worthy of him working on our behalf in every aspect of our lives. Well that is our newest adventure and I am sure another is right around the corner and when it happens I will be sure to let you know every detail and what great and mighty work the Lord had done for us again.

Update on John

Well we had our last of the meetings for transitioning to kindergarten. John will be going to a school here that has an autism classroom. It sounds like the perfect place for him, he will have lots of therapy, like music, art, and tons more, even one outside playing sports. They said that in this program academics tend to suffer because they are working on getting the behaviors under control. But for those of you who know John, know that he will not suffer in this area, he is so great at all of his letters, numbers, shapes and the other basics that you learn in kindergarten plus I work with him at home on these things as well. And his one big goal this year, is more language and also the ability to write his name, so please pray for these things to emerge. I just wanted to let you all know where he was at and how things are going for him. Moving into the new house is proving to be a bit challenging as he just wants to live there and stop going back in forth, but that should be resolved soon and I think he will be more settled.

Our New house

Can you believe it we are home owners for the very first time. We had some Major hiccups since my last post. That full story will come later. But God gave us a few miracles through our trails to get us to here. We recieved our keys on Friday and now we are in the busy process of moving in. The boys are excited and love running around, and especially jumping on the trampoline that we got with the house. We are all so excited but very tired, so I know once we are moved in and settled that we will all be having so much more fun and really grasping the sinking in knowledge that we just bought a house and it is ours. Yeah! I am beyond words right now and really just so happy.

growing

Oh how big my boys are growing. I see them and I am overjoyed and saddened by how fast time flys by.

House update

The Lord has been looking out for us in this whole situation, as he always his, and by his grace and plan WE GOT THE HOUSE! YEAH! We will be closing at the end of March. Now the fun begins, we will be setting up the inspection and getting with bank and hopefully moving within the next 3-4 weeks. We are so excited and the boys are going to love our new place, and it is going to be great to have something that is ours and hopefully will not have to move for a long while since I hate moving. AHH! Now we and ask all of you to pray that the transition is smooth and that John most of all will adjust well to the new house and new location. We hate moving him so much. It is a lot of stress for him, but we are preparing him and having him involved with as much as we can that way it is not such a big shock. And James is helping a tons with things too, he came with us when we first looked at the house, and loved it and now will be going back when we have the inspection so that he is not shocked either. I don't think Jordan is really going to care all of that much, it just means a new fun place to explore now that he is super mobil. So with the end of this, let the fun, and crazyness of moving begin.

Big week in our house

It was a huge week for us, well for John, he tried some different foods, which for him and us is HUGE! He ate stuffed shells and also half of a hamburger with mustard. On different days of course. But hopefully this will be the start of him being more open to new things and then we can get the things he needs into his diet. Praise the Lord.

Sunny skies

Have I said that I LOVE the weather out here. I don't have to wait for spring to arrive, it is here. It has been 80 all week and will continue to be so for the next few. I love it, I have been out in shorts and all of the boys in shorts playing outside everyday. Each the boys have their most favorite thing when outdoors, and I love watching each of them. John the water table that gets filled up then all of the water is on him in about an hour, James feeding and/or chasing the birds, and Jordan trying to eat all of the dead grass. I love airing out the house from the winter also, so all of doors and windows are open. I love that when I am waiting for the boys to get on and off of the bus I just sit in the driveway and enjoy the warmth, even could get a tan if I was out there long enough. And listen to the birds. That is one huge perk of living out here, the weather, at least for now, I am not looking forward to the fry and egg on the sidewalk kind of heat. Well for all of our friends and family living in snow and ice, I am sorry, and I wish that you were here to take a pinic in the park with us and enjoy our warm sunny days. At least now you know when the best time to visit is.

First Post

Well here it is, my blog, can you believe it? I have been wanting to start this for about a year now and finally took the chance today even though I have so much other things I need to be doing. But hey talking to all of you is definitly my big to do everyday. Well lets see update to this point. House hunting: We are still waiting to hear about the house, the buyer accepted our offer but we are waiting to hear from the bank. Hopefully we will know in about a week and then the crazyness of moving will begin. UGHHH! Kindergarden transition process has begun for John. We had a first of 4 meetings yesterday to get John placed where he needs to be for kindergarden. He will now under go so many more tests, like always and then we will meet to go over the results, then keep moving from there. Let me leave this thought with you today as I was listening to this great song by casting crowns this morning. What if His people prayed? What a changed world this would be, but even smaller than that, what a changed family, heart, life we would all have, if we just prayed in the bad but even more in the good.