She went and did it!  Katie turned 21 on October 30.  I just can’t believe it.  Here’s a photo of her a few weeks before her birthday.

Here’s the afghan I made for Katie’s birthday gift.  I also purchased a couple of things for her, but this I made myself so she’d have something special for her 21st.

She loves camoflage and her favorite color is pink.  She really loves it!

I just had to share this!

http://www.skiptomylou.org/2008/10/29/mummy-treat-containers/

 I will definitely keep this idea in mind for next year.  Too late for this year.

When we lived in the Houston area, one of Gregory’s therapists gave us this story (for lack of a better word).  It was soon after Gregory’s formal diagnosis of autism, and she knew we could use some inspiration.

“The Beauty of Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability—-to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this…

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ‘Welcome to Holland.’

‘Holland?!?’ you say. ‘What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.’

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you never would have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.’

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.”

We keep a copy of this on the refrigerator.  It’s our inspiration on bad days. A reminder that Gregory is, indeed, a very special child.

Typical of Gregory, when he gets sick with anything (even a cold), he stops eating and drinking.  Dehydration is next, then off to the hospital for a few days of fluids and meds for whatever caused him to stop eating and drinking.

Last weekend, he started downhill.  Sunday we were at the Doctor’s office at 2pm. Ear infection and cold virus.  She sent us home with antibiotics for the ear and told us to come back for follow-up on Monday at 10am to see if he had any improvement.

Monday at 10am, he was extremely dehydrated and off we went to the hospital.  Fluids, bolists, meds…and he started drinking again on Tuesday.  We were sent home on Wed.

By Thursday morning, Gregory wasn’t drinking anything again…back to the Doctor’s office and straight back into the hospital.

We got home tonight and I’m exhausted.  We were home less than 24 hours between hospital stays.

This is a typical sceanario for Gregory, though, through the fall straight through to spring.  We were just about a month early this year. lol

I’m exhausted…gotta love vitals every couple of hours through the entire night.

I’ve got a few posts planned for this week.  Just need a good nights rest and clean up the house first.

When we got the Buff Orpington chicks (full story to come), I had no intentions of keeping a Buff Orpington rooster.  I planned on only keeping the hens out of the 5 we got, for yummy fresh eggs.

Well this handsome guy, we call him Hank, has totally won all our hearts. He is the sweetest thing since sweet cream

He’s about 8 weeks in the above photo. It was taken on Sunday.

Katie (my grown daughter) is living with us for now.  She’s quite smitten with Hank (and all the chickens, for that matter).  She, Felicity and I are partners in crime with planning for our new chickens, turkeys and guineas.

As I have read and heard, Buff Orpingtons are absolutely the most docile, friendly and loving chickens!  We love them! 

Well, after Mike pushed to get through his training (at the request of his District Supervisor) for promotion with TSC to Store Manager, now we’re told, there’s no place we could transfer until maybe next spring. UGH. 

So we’re here, in Amarillo, indefinitely.  It’s fine, though. A great opportunity has opened up for Gregory through the place he goes for all of his therapies, so we have decided staying here as long as necessary is a good thing. He will be attending preschool, as well as all of his therapies. Four days a week, 9-12.  It’s really good for Gregory.

We will continue to homeschool Felicity.  She will be participating in 4-H, soccer, and Girl Scouts.  There’s even a Girl Scout troop in each level here that is mainly homeschooled girls.  She’ll be able to make all kinds of new homeschooled friends!

There’s an equine rescue about 5 minutes from our house that Felicity and Katie (my grown daughter) are going to volunteer.  They are thrilled!  They both adore horses!

We FINALLY found a Catholic church where we are comfortable.  It took 2 years, but the Parish in Canyon, TX, is about 10 minutes from us and it’s a very comfortable place. Lots of “country folk” there and not “hoity-toity” as we have felt the others we attended here in the Amarillo area were.

Katie has decided she wants to finish her Senior year of school (finally).  We are researching an online high school that’s specialty is helping kids finish high school online. She will be able to get an actual diploma, not having to take the GED.

Gregory was approved for his MDCP program, which provides paid respite care for him to give me a break to work, clean house, etc.  Katie has been hired to be his care provider. She’s making really good money, paid through Gregory’s program, but technically, she works for me, I am her employer, but she’s paid through the agency.  She’s living with us again, as well.  It’s working out well.

We plan to add to our little farm soon.  We will be getting more chickens in the next few weeks.  We will also be adding guinea to our brood. Guinea are excellent at keeping away snakes, mice and bugs. Turkeys will also be coming along soon, too.

As soon as we get the pen built, we will be getting a few goats.  Not only for companionship, but Felicity will be able to show them in 4H competition, and also to help with the grass/weed mowing lol.

Felicity is talking about wanting a pig to raise/show.  Not sure if we’re there yet.

So…that’s some updates for now.

Have a great Sunday!

Felicity decided it was time to do a photo shoot with her, since Gregory has already had his “moment in the spotlight”. These were actually taken through the course of three or four days.
So, without further adue, here’s our girl!

Felicity absolutely adores tomatoes!!! She asked if the tomato on the vine was ready to be picked. I told her yes, she can pick it. Little did I know that my saying she could pick it meant she could eat it, too!!!

She loves the chickens! We got five Buff Orpington chicks a week and a half ago. I’ll post separately about them.

Due to Gregory’s autism, he’s always been a little “puzzled” by the camera.  He lets us take photos, and in the last several months, understands us when we tell him to “smile”.  He loves to look at photos on the computer screen, too.

Monday night we were outside in the backyard and Mike had the camera.  Gregory was on the porch with Mike and Mike wanted to take a picture of him.  Well, Gregory “kicked in” and turned it into a full out photo shoot!  He hammed it up just as a non-special needs kiddo would.

Isn’t he absolutely adorable? Blonde hair, blue eyes. What a handsome little guy!

Gregory is doing so well with therapy!! Today, during feeding therapy, he said “lick”!!!  That’s a word they use extensively in feeding therapy.

He’s also starting to touch food items to his mouth, though won’t actually bite them.  But hey, anything is one step closer to him eating solid food and feeding himself, right?

 Don’t you just love his fashionable shoes???

Mike and I have been discussing getting another dog for the family.  We have been strongly leaning toward a Boxer.  But we had decided no new dogs until we make our move with his job later in the fall.

Our poodle, Margo, we got through rescue two years ago.  She apparently had a very bad experience before we got her and she is very skittish with anyone in the family except me. So Margo is “my” dog.  Thus being the reason we want another dog.  One that likes everyone!

Katie (my grown daughter) got this little Maltese mix puppy from someone on FreeCycle about a month ago.  She’s just as cute as she can be, but Katie, as usual, keeps getting dogs when she doesn’t need them. 

Katie called me night before last asking if we wanted to have Bailey (the Maltese mix). I told her no, and just quickly “double checked” with Mike to confirm that no was our answer. (I asked Mike because I knew he kinda liked Bailey). He confirmed no. So we hung up the phone. Done deal, no biggie.

About 10 minutes later Mike started asking me questions about Bailey.  Well, long story short, he decided that we, in fact, would like to have Bailey and add her to our family.  I didn’t really care either way. She’s cute and great with all of us, but as I said, we had been discussing getting a Boxer later down the road.

So, may I introduce the newest addition to our family…

She is +/- 4 months old. Her mother is full blood Maltese, but they had no idea what the father was.  She’s cute as can be, minds really well and loves the kids to death!

Last night was her first night with us. She slept well in her kennel and only cried for a few short minutes when we first put her in there.  Margo is now sleeping in a kennel next to Bailey at night.

For those outside of our family, here’s “big sis”, Margo.

I picked up our Silkie trio this morning!  Felicity wanted to name them. Their names (from top to bottom in this photo) are: Becky, Bonnie and Benny.

I’ve never been around Silkies before, but the make the neatest noises. Becky is the largest and is covered in her new soft feathers, though they are still on the thin side.  Bonnie and Benny have skin showing (yes, their skin is black) but they are feathering in nicely.

As soon as I put them in their coop, they started scratching around. They haven’t even explored their entire coop yet, they have been busy in the back part, which is the coop.  The front 2/3 is the run.  We sill have to put the lattice top on the run.  Can’t leave it open because of hawks.  We will finish that up this weekend.

Here’s the almost finished coop we built. We decided, since bantams are small, to keep it short, and make a combination coop/tractor.  It has all the luxuries of a regular coop, with the ease of movement of a chicken tractor.

We created a track on the front of the coop end, so in winter, we can slide a “wall” with a door cutout over the front, to keep it warmer in the coop.  The roof portion over the back of the coop is on hinges and opens for ease of collecting eggs.  The top lattice will work much the same way over the run.

The windows will be finished with wood around them and will have attached shutters that will open and close, depending on the needs and weather. The nest boxes are along this back wall.

One more shot of the Silkies!

They are quite adorable and sweet!  Bonnie will fall asleep in your lap while she’s being petted!

We have another coop like this to build and then we will be getting our Old English Game Creles from a friend of ours.  This should happen within a week to a week and a half!

Have a great Saturday!

We’re just loving living in the country!