Autism awareness month

April is Autism awareness month. As many of you know Ezra was diagnosed with autism and because of that it is a huge part of our family. Day in and out we have therapist in our home. Between his preschool and therapist he does a total of 30 hours a week of therapy. We have an amazing team of people working with him, and I fee so blessed. He is a hard worker! I haven't talked much about this on my blog, it honestly wasn't something I wanted to do because it was so personal, but really I want people to know now. I want people to understand what autism is and what its not. To learn more about autism I suggest going to this website, Autism Speaks is a great website and tool for everyone that is interested in learning more about autism. Ezra amazes me constantly with his progress. A year ago he could barley say 20 words total, but now is speaking sentences. For example he is banging on the door right now saying "open door mommy, watch baby Einsteins" This is huge, for him to combine so many words together is huge progress. A year ago they said he was talking a one year old level and his receptive language was even more behind, this made him almost 2 years behind his age, now he is 3 1/2 and is talking at a 3 year old level and his receptive language is at 2 years and 9 months! he is catching up so quickly and I love it! He LOVES his ABC's and can read and write many things, for his age he amazes his therapist on this level. He also is a smart little boy with numbers. I honestly thought he could only recognize numbers 1-13 but just the other day he went all the way up to 30, not just saying the numbers but actually recognizing the written number and now he is even writing numbers 1-10!

April is autism awareness month and to kick it off on April 2 they had a huge walk in Tucson. We went and had the support of my brother and his wife along with my grandma and grandpa. The walk was 3 miles, and I'm pretty sure Ezra walked at least 2 1/2 on his own. The kid enjoyed the bounce houses, train rides, and animals. One lady that does horse therapy brought horses for the kids to paint on and walk. Rylie was seriously in heaven! Her and I must have stayed with the horses for at least an hour. I think she is a cowgirl at heart. I also make matching shirts for our little group to wear. On the back we did "Team Ezra" with the kids hand prints. On the front we had the autism puzzle and our names that Ezra calls us by. For Ezra's front he wrote his name and it said "team captain"

If you have any questions you would like to ask me, feel free to ask. Like I said, I like to help educate people and I don't mind sharing our story.

yes ezra is dancing around with no shoes, he refused to put them on, and i figured it was his day so why not let him keep them off for the moment!

Some updates Feb-march

So even though I have blogged in two months we have actually done quite a bit. February we finished celebrating Rylie's birthday by FINALLY having birthday cake with her, and you can see she really enjoyed it! Then of course we had valentines day. Both of the kids are in a preschool program so between their friends, teachers, and therapist I think I almost went crazy making homemade valentines. I make a total of 22 crayon hearts with a starburst candy and wrote on their card "hope your day is bursting with love and color" . Then for the teachers and therapist I made cake balls. (soo yummy) The note for them read "you are as sweet as cake". Valentines was fun, and I actually really did enjoy making all homemade treats, however 22 kids and 9 teachers/therapist adds up pretty quickly so next time I will simplify! Also in the Feb. collage is a wreath that I made. I like it a lot, I just need to spray paint the hook to a more neutral color. And that folks is the month of February Highlights :)

The month of march proved to be a fun month for us too. We went to the zoo early on in the month then to Vegas to play with Grandpa Baker. Rylie loves animals, and loved the zoo. Unfortunately its too hot here already to go back, zoo months in Arizona are really in the fall and winter. We also had fun playing in shaving cream and getting all messy! In Vegas we went to Coke world and tried soda from all over the world, honestly I think I only like 3 flavors!

In march my mom, or Sweetie like Ezra likes to call her, came to visit for a couple days. It was a lot of fun because we had her here for 4 days with no agenda. Seriously she just came and played with us and we didn't have to rush anywhere or do anything on any time frame, it was really nice. The kids enjoyed the sprinkler under the trampoline (and still do), planting flowers with sweetie, getting messy with sidewalk paint and chalk, and just playing all day! We love when Sweetie comes to visit and look forward to seeing more of her this summer!

5 year anniversary and birthday fun!

Right when we got back from Utah Devin and I got to celebrate our 5 year anniversary and my 28th birthday! It was a perfect weekend. Tannis and Clayton came up to watch the kids for us so that we could get a hotel one night. On Friday night we went to WICKED!!! It was awesome. Words can't describe how happy I was to finally see it, and to top it off we had awesome seats! Devin did a great job making the room look very romantic and he gave me a beautiful necklace for our anniversary. The next day was my birthday. We decided to do something that we have never done together and that we can't do with kids...so I figured since he went to a musical with me the night before I would agree to go shooting with him. I will admit that I was very hesitant that I would even enjoy doing this, but it was actually kinda fun. It was also fun because we haven't gone shooting before and it was something he really enjoys doing. After we we went shooting and shopping we went home to have cake and ice cream with the kids and Tannis and Clayton. I love Costco cakes...enough said :) Devin also got me Clinique Happy perfume for my birthday..or not happy but the pink one..basically i love the way it smells. It was a such a great weekend.

Like I said January was a busy month!

Utah Trip

So I was TERRIBLE taking pictures while in Utah. We went to Utah to celebrate Neva being married. Scott is a great man and we are very happy for them, they are very happy too! We did a lot of things and I honestly only took like 10 pictures..lame right?! We did have fun going bowling just the 4 of us, and I did take a quite a few pictures of that.

don't you just love her cheesy smile?

Devin bowled a 120, I had a 112, and the kids both got 80

Ezra loved it!!

This was the best pictures I had of when I got together with Ashby(Breanna), my first companion in the mission and Hill (emily), my last companion in the mission. In order from left to right we have Olivia (Ashby's), Ezra, Ashby's niece, Rylie, and Ander(Hill's). It was a lot of fun to get together and see each other's kids.

At Trolley Square they had this tornado simulator and as you can see Ezra loved it and Rylie not so much.

The girls getting our pedicures before the wedding! I think Neva was way too stressed to really enjoy it, but we still had fun. Sad story actually, they were waiting on me because the only had 2 workers and 3 of us so it took a lot longer than we wanted. So when it was time to dry my toes I thought I had waited long enough and went ahead and put my shoes on (after 10 minutes of drying) and my toes and my pretty design totally got ruined!! I was so bummed, so basically it took 2 1/2 hours an then my toes were ruined in the end anyway...boo!

Me and Christa representing! haha, i think my hand looks huge in this picture...

We had such a great time in Utah, we had a full week there so it was a nice little family vacation. In addition to the pictures I have here we also visited my good friend Brittney and her family, ate at cafe rio way too many times, I went out to dinner with good friends I used to work with at the bank, and had a great time seeing friends and family at the wedding.

Ezra aka El Guapo :)

So the potato head continues!!! Isn't he so funny?! I laughed pretty hard when I saw what he did while in the car and then insisted that we use real potatoes for a potato head. Although he has taken a break from Mr. Potato head we are going on 2 weeks now...now he back to loving letters! I just love Ezra and he makes me laugh so much, and I know i'm biased but I just think he is so handsome! He is doing soo good these days, the extra hours of therapy are really paying off and he is making such great progress. We have an awesome team working with him, and we feel very lucky to be were we are right now to receive the services we are for him. I love when he tells me, "mommy, i love you" or "OK mommy" those two phrases just make me smile every time. He is so good at his letters. He spells his name, stop, open, red, mommy, and daddy. Those are what he spells out, but he can actually read quite a bit of words too..he amazes me the things he picks up at school and what he can memorize.

the many faces of rylie

Rylie is officially 2!! I will admit that we haven't really celebrated her birthday yet. January was such a busy month, then both Rylie and I got sick so it kinda just came and went. But I am planing a fun little "play date" for her and her friends, we will make sure to have cupcakes with her friends. (its just a couple weeks away still b/c of scheduling!) Luckily for me she doesn't really know the difference at this age :)
We really just can't get enough of Rylie and her beautiful smile. When she smiles it just kinda takes up her whole face, and then the dimple comes out and well it melts my heart every time.
She is a busy little girl. She loves playing outside, jumping on the trampoline, playing in the sand, COLORING!, playing with Guapo (the cat), wearing a purse and shiny shoes, eating peaches and bananas, being tickled, dancing, and spinning in circles. She is all about the fun but is still timid with new things. She isn't very vocal but she is using her baby sign better and better every day.
You hear it all the time that we need to cherish these moments with the kids because they grow so quickly, and honestly I can't believe that she is already 2 and not my little baby anymore. (although one of the words she does say is baby as I rock her in the glider) She really is our sunshine!

Christmas

Christmas was awesome this year! It was so much fun having the kids be old enough to start really catching on to a lot of the things and also being able to include them in on more activities. This year I had to make 21 goody plates!!! Isn't that insane? Yeah, I think it is. I had 21 goody plates to make, an Activity's day activity at my house with eight 10-11 year old girls at my house, and a preschool party to go to on top of all my other day to day things. Seems like there was a lot more, but I can't think of anything else off hand. Needless to say December went by very quickly.
I admit that we spoiled the kids quite a bit this year, and honestly their favorite toys are the $10 or less toys...lesson learned for us. :) We had a nice dinner with our friends next door and just really enjoyed our day. The kids and I also went down to Tucson to celebrate Christmas Eve at my Grandma's. I love that we have that tradition in our family and that we have such a nice gathering place. (Thanks grandma for all your hard work! We love you and that you do that for us!!!) Christmas morning we got to talk to Elder Hine, open more presents, and have a brunch with my Dad, step mom, and Aunt Anita..and again open more presents! I love spending Christmas with family. I love driving by lights on people's houses or taking the kids to see the Temple lights and having Ezra sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" every time we see Christmas Lights. I love showing pictures of Jesus to the kids and them knowing who He is. I love giving to people and knowing they appreciate it. I love Christmas! Most importantly though, I am so thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and the blessings I have in my life through Him.