Here we are

Saturday morning and I thought I'd sleep in. LMAO I really must stop thinking. It is 7:15 a.m. Daddy and Mister left with some friends, Brian and Tristan, to go to the Pee Wee races. Max was pretty darned excited cuz Tristan was going. Had on his Mater hat and his water bottle on a string. He was good to go. Of course that was 1 hour after he got up which means there was a lot of whining at Daddy for different items. Laying in bed wide awake, just waiting for them to leave so I could lay in silence and feel the cool sheets. NOT! Missa started "Daddy Daddy"

So much for sleeping in, but Mister was happy, I got the laundry started, coffee on and here I am blogging before I go up to get my Missa. We are off to the grocery.

Later this afternoon, after naps, we are going to go see the new Disney movie, Wall-E http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/walle/ I'm looking forward to it. Don't know how long we will make it in the movie, but we are going to try. ;o)

Update on Missa's tooth: It's all fine! Didn't damage the nerve or push up into the adult tooth. They did xrays. She was awesome as usual. Dr. said they won't grind it down it could do more damage that way. That with her normal eating, it will wear down. So let's all just pray that her next adventure isn't anything worse than the dislocated toe or the broken tooth.

Have a great weekend everyone,
Love
Gin

Can you hear me now?

I often wonder what it felt like to my nephews who grew up with a brother who has Downs. As an adult, we sometimes don't put ourselves in their shoes because we are too busy with the daily tasks. Now that I have two on the spectrum and a "normal" little girl to follow up my trio, I try really hard to give them all their "special" time. I've said it from the beginning. . . Missa will be talking for Mister and doing Bobo's homework.

The link below is from the weekly Autism Speaks newsletter.

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/ownwords/intheirownwords_fasano.php

Nothing but A Lot

Doesn't seem to be anything going on, but there's still so much happening.

"Oreng Juce Oreng Juce" that seems to be all I'm hearing today. Oh and lets not forget the screaming "mine mine mine".

Missa has a dentist appointment this morning to see about her chipped (broken) front tooth. Jeff is going to stay with Mister who is 6 days into the potty training. He's doing good. Still only 1 poo poo potty tho. The rest have been accidents. ;o(

Husband is exhausted from getting up at 3:30 a.m. to be to work by 5. He says another 1.5 months. EEK! Since I've lost the weight and I'm eating right, I seem to have much more energy which causes a problem when Husband wants to go to sleep at 8:30. Kids go down between 8 and 8:30. Poor Jeff, he's a night owl and can't figure out why we want to go to bed at 8:30. lol

Tomorrow Husband is going to take Mister to the Pee-Wee off road races. Dirt bikes and quads. I'm sure they'll have a great time. I was thinking about going until Missa started sleeping in til 7:30. I think I'll take advantage of that time to stay in bed. ;o)

Well that probably about it besides our basic Chaos. Getting excited about my trip to Cleveland, thinking about San Diego, still have to get shirts for the kids (for the reunion).

One last thing: This weekend is a big weekend for some very close family members. My thoughts, prayers and love are with you all this weekend. Wish I could be with you guys. See you all soon. Love Gin

Potty Training - Day 4

I'm so proud of my boy. I just got off the phone with his Nana. She said no accidents today. She said she forgot for about an hour and a half and thought "Oh no". She checked him and he didn't pee. He went to the potty and did great. A bit later, she forgot again and Mister said "Nana, I go potty". She gave him a half a snickers for that one! Woo hoo!

OMGosh! I may only have a 1 diaper household soon. ;o) I'm feeling the load starting to lift. (Literally) LMAO Wish me luck!

Oh ~ My sister, Carol, has taken in her 1st grandson, Nathan, and his Mommy, Chelsea. They are in need. She's having to start over again in a new state, no job, no permanent home for Nathan and more importantly, only a few garbage bags full of belongings. If anyone has some Boys 3T summer clothes they'd like to part with ~ we have a taker. They live in Cleveland. If you can handle shipping, email me for her address. If not, let me know and I'll take care of it. Even if it is just an outfit or two. They are looking for some outside toys also. Thanks in advance to anyone who may be able to help.

Mommy bliss . . .

We got Mister on day 3 of potty training. He's doing really well actually. Saturday was frustrating (for mom), but only 1 accident yesterday and today. ;o) We told him if he did poo poo potty that we'd go to McDonald's and get an ice cream cone. HUGE treat for a little boy who can't have real ice cream. He wants to go play too. SO, daddy and I were chearing him on. We haven't been out for ice cream in 6 months since we started watching our figures. Anyway, Mister finally did his business and we are going for ICE CREAM.

Missa fell over the weekend and smacked her face on the tile. Oh yeah, anyone surprised? She chipped her front tooth pretty bad. It's all good except for the chip. I'm thinking we'll have to get it smoothed out if that tooth is going to be around for awhile. OR, she'll fall next month and take out the whole tooth. UGH! That kid!

Jeff, well, it's summer! Can't get him to do ANYTHING. Just wants to sit in his room, tv, music, computer. He's so unmotivated. I think he may be up a few lbs. Since he's with me almost full time now, I'm able to watch his diet and get him to eat. We should weigh him and see the progress after the summer. ;o)

Husband is almost done with the pavers. They are looking pretty nice. I can't wait. However, when the pavers disappear in the backyard, that means the squirrels won't have a home. That's bad, but I can't make a home for everyone.

Me, let's see, what did I do this weekend. . . (see above)

Food Sensivity Test

This sounds like a very thorough test that is very equivalent to what we did. I wish I would have found this before I spent $450 per person.

http://www.foodallergytest.com/foodAllergy.html

Check out the "Symptoms" link. The whole website is pretty darned informative. It is also covered by Medicare.

It's nice to know that our food and drug industry are confident in what they supply to the general public. I wonder if their families ingest the crap they sell.

http://www.foodallergytest.com/foodAllergy.html

Cabinets - Done - Check!

Two blogs in one day. OOOOOOOH!

Ok, anyway, here you go. I only could find one pic with the old cabinets. Don't know what happened to my house pics. Weird. So - you get Urkel. ;o)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Why is there never a lull?

Ok, here's my list:

1. Apply for Long Term Care (State) for Mister

2. Get Jeff an appointment at the Melmed Center http://www.melmedcenter.com/

3. Wait for cabinets to be complete (almost done)

4. Potty training Mister this weekend

5. Daddy hopefully getting more pavers done so we can be done with it.

6. July 8th, Me, Jeff, and Missa going to Cleveland for my family reunion. YEAH! Pic is some of my cousins. Most of the girls and only 2 of the guys. We actually have 22 girl and 17 boy cousins.

7. July 12th Family Reunion - Trivanovich Family! We are like the Osmonds with Metal and Serbian music. LOL http://www.sarenaorchestra.com/ This is my Aunts and cousin's orchestra page.

8. July 24-27 Family weekend to San Diego, CA.

9. July 29th, My surgery date: Reconstructing entire pelvic floor muscles. Out of work 4 to 6 weeks. HELP HELP! Daddy is going to need some evening help.

10. Before we know it, school starts August 12th.

Kitchen - Not as bad as I thought

Well, we are in day 2 of the cabinets being resurfaced. My frig is in the eat-in area of my kitchen and the microwave is on the floor behind the table, and there is not one stitch of anything in there, but all in all, it hasn't been so bad.

I thought for sure the kids would just be all over it, but they've pretty much left the kitchen alone. It sure does help that we went to Chili's last night for dinner and then straight out to the pool when we got home.

Today will be exciting for me. It will actually start to take shape and have some "new" feel to it. I wish I had a couple more $10,000s to finish everything right away. lol New bathroom cabinetry, rip this carpet out and put in hardwood floors, and get rid of that whitewashed banister the whole way up the stairs and across the loft. EWH! YUCK!

I won't post the gorie details, but will post before and after pics when he's all done. Hopefully tomorrow!

Love to all, have a spectacular day!
Gina

Missy's Swim Test

Well, she did it. See for yourself. I'm so happy we decided to put the kids in this swim program. They both are great swimmers. I think we are going to keep Missy in some sort of swim program. She LOVES the water and she has really good form.

Hair Cut Chopper Day for the Vokouns

We had a nice morning! We ate lots of food, as usual, and then ventured off to Sprouts for some shopping of the snacks, supplements, and wheat free BEER. Mister and Missy love to go shopping. And I can honestly say, they are soooo much better behaved then other kids. LOL Most of the times, I think "OMG, my kids are just a ball of chaos". Then I actually experience someone elses and my kids are damn near angels.

After shopping we went to Cool Cuts. They are SOOOO good with the kids. My kids love to go there. They have lots of toys and movies, and VIDEO GAMES. It's really cute. So anyways, they got their hairs cut and had a great time.

We tried some new gluten free french toast sticks. EWWWH! Not good. Mister scarfed them down but Miss wasn't too sure. lol I'm better off trying to make my own out of the wheat free bread I make. If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

After their scrumptuous lunch! NOT! Off for a nap they went. I managed to get lots of work done today. Jeff got some chinese food (NO MSG) and is looking forward to seeing his girlfriend for a movie tonight. ;o)

IT IS A GLORIOUS DAY!

Let's see, what else do I have to be so darned happy about. . .

Miss started back to swim last night after her adventures in dislocated toes. She's awesome. I'm going to video tonight. She is swimming with clothes on today. This next week is her last week. I'm sure Miss Becky will test her out by Wednesday.

Wednesday, Home Depot will start installing our new "resurfaced" kitchen cabinets. YEAH! I'm so excited I can't stand it. 3 days and they should be all done. The only yucky part is I have to take EVERYTHING out of all the kitchen cabinets until they are done. Where the heck do you put all this stuff?

Mike is in the process of laying pavers for under the trailer. This project has been ongoing for about a month now. Two more major projects in the future: Replacing and resurfacing our upstairs patio and restructuring our pool area (larger patio, outdoor fireplace, waterfall and wall to section off the side yard). Ok, we'll be at it for awhile. ;o)

Here we go again

OK, is it chocolate and white cake? or black and vanilla cake? Does someone have an answer to this question that seems to come up every month at the office. See we have birthday celebration each month and everyone congregates in the kitchen, eats cake, drinks milk, and talks about stupid things that don't require much thought.

It is the most spectacular break we have all month. Yummy cake and conversation with no thought! PERFECT! ;o)

As you can all see, even tho I'm watching my girlish figure (32 lbs. down), I've partaken of two pieces today. I did, however, choose two small pieces.

YUUUUMMMMMMYYYYY! Both very good, but the chocolate wins in my book!

Have a great day all!
Gina

What a day. . .

Did you ever notice that your children get sick on the nights when you decide to go to bed REALLY late. Well little Miss started yesterday off with a drippy, annoying little nose. All day, wipe wipe wipe, boogers boogers boogers. Then she started the coughing like that drainage was just being a pain in the butt. Actually, in the throat. Poor Baby!

Then around 11ish when I was ear plugged and all cozy in my nice warm bed - "whaaaaaaa"! Mike says: "Gina, Sissy's crying, did you hear her?" Felt like saying "Nope, didn't hear a thing", but of course that would never happen. So up I went. Poor Baby, I couldn't get her to stop. I had her lay in bed with me for a bit, but that wasn't working. I came downstairs to fish her a dose of some Tylenol Cold. It wasn't 2 seconds into that kid's mouth and she started SCREAMING. I picked her up to comfort her and WHOOOSH! All down the back of me, all over the carpet, all over my cedar chest with the padded cloth cushion on the top. Oh it wasn't pretty. Of course I had turned down the monitor so that we wouldn't disturb Daddy, so he heard NOTHING.

I cleaned myself up, put Sis in bed with dad and proceeded upstairs to clean up curdled milk and pizza! (Nik, may not be poop, but we got the gross factor) So in the end, Daddy slept upstairs in Sis's room and she finally fell asleep in bed with me around 1:45 a.m. repeating "mama, mama, mama" over and over again.

4:45 a.m. came WAY TOO EARLY! Yikes, where's my Hills Bros. I think I drank two pots today. She napped from 8 to noon. Good for her. I had Mister of course. He went down, she woke up. NICE! Would I have expected anything different? NO!

It wasn't 15 minutes into our youngest child's awakeness, when she fell to the kitchen floor like she was dying. Ok, for those of you who don't know, "she's all about the drama"! I thought what the heck? I picked her up to comfort her yet again, still remembering the last time I did that just 12 hours earlier. She's saying over and over "ouwhee, ouwhee". I felt the whole way down her legs, feet and when I got to her right foot, she started screaming bloody murder. I'm sure my neighbors were thinking I was removing her limbs. There it was, a tiny right foot, 5th toe sticking straight out in the wrong direction. Awh, poor baby! Ok, first thing that went thru my head, she broke her toe, doctor would tape it. However, it is in the wrong place. Of course the doctors office said "call back at 1:30, after lunch, and they'll get you in". It was 12:45 p.m.

Off we went to Pediatric Urgent Care. Those people at Cornerstone are AWESOME! This is the second time Sis paid them a visit. First time was when Max dropped the V-Tech ball on her face.

So they xrayed, determined it was a dislocated tiny little toe, popped it back in, taped her up and off we went. She fell asleep in her carseat on the way home around 3ish. I put her in bed and she slept til 6:30. By the time dad got home from work at almost 9, you wouldn't even have known we had the day we did.

Now all kidlets are tucked away in their cozy beds, Jeff is chatting with his girlfriend, Husband is watching some NASCAR program, and you know what I'm doing. ;o)

I just can't wait til tomorrow! "It's not where we are going, but how we get there" -Gina

What fun . . .

My boy, he's so amazing! Sometimes I just can't believe how well he's actually doing. We usually have one step forward and two steps back, but lately he's trudging along.

This a.m. I was rushing around getting both babies up and ready to head out for work. This is the time when me and Mister have some one on one time. Sister is still sleeping, Bobo is dead to the world (we don't ever see him in the morning) and daddy is already off to work. I was packing my lunch and Mister was playing with the farm animal matching thing on the frig. (I know you guys know what I'm talking about) "You made a match, look what you've found, you made a match, make a -pig- sound (oink oink)". Anyway, lately it's been his mission to find all the parts. Head and butt of the horse, pig, sheep, duck, etc. Well, we have all parts except the butts of the pink pig and the blue sheep. LMAO I'm laughing just thinking about this. We've also been working on "W" questions, who what where why. Not me asking the questions, because that's normal, but Mister asking the questions. So he says to me "Mommy, where are da butts?" I said "I don't know buddy". He looks at me with such concern and he says "How dey goin to walk?" With a flip of his concerned hands.

I'm sure most of you are thinking, "ok, she's losing it", but for those of you who know and really understand what we've been working with, him even having a conversation with me is huge, but to have reflection in his voice is HYSTERICAL.

I had a funny conversation with my son and he got the funniness.

NO MILK, NO WHEAT, NO EGGS, NO CHEESE, NO CANOLA, NO OATS, NO RYE, NO CHILI PEPPER, NO PRESERVATIVES, NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS AND FLAVORS!

My Mister is just the funniest kids ever! ;o) (Love you snickerdoodle ~Mom)