Coleman's First Birthday

Well I can't believe my baby is one. We have had so much happen in the past year that it seems like it was the longest year ever, but at the same time, it feels like Coleman has always been part of our family. One thing is for certain, he is growing too fast!! Coleman is such a sweet little baby, and we all love him to pieces.

We had an Atlanta Braves themed birthday party, and Russ was just as excited about all of the party details as I was :)

The invitations:

The birthday boy...

Cade pulled up to the party in style!

Proud dad...

Courtney the cake artisian... (whew, thanks for taking care of that part of it for me girl!)

Grandma and Grandpa were even able to come!

We had hotdogs, peanuts, cracker jacks, and popcorn!

I called the Braves' office and asked them if they would send me pocket schedules for the kids' favor bags...
Party people!

At last, the cake...

A little something to remember such a wonderful day!

My trip to Italy, Holland, and back again

There’s a well known poem in the world of families with special needs called “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Kingsly. It’s a poem about how being pregnant is like planning a wonderful vacation to Italy. You plan for months and months and can’t wait to get there. When your plane finally lands, you find out that you are not in Italy, you’re in Holland, and you can‘t leave. Everything is different that what you imagined and planned for. You are disappointed that your dream Italian vacation will never really be yours, but you come to realize that Holland is beautiful too. It’s very different from Italy, but it is beautiful.

The story of our family could be compared to this, except that we did land in Italy at first. A beautiful, healthy baby was born. I held him and it was everything I dreamed it would be. It was like I was finally sitting in that gondola taking in the amazing scenery and experience that I had been waiting for. Things quickly changed.

Suddenly the bottom of our gondala fell out right from underneath us! We had a diagnosis; conductive bilateral moderate hearing loss. The shock overcame me. I started sinking. I realized that if I didn’t start swimming, I would drown. I did what I could to swim to the shore, but I was exhausted, weak, and a very poor swimmer. Prayer, faith, friends and family pulled me to safety when I couldn’t do any more on my own.

Once I was at shore, I realized that I wasn’t in Italy anymore. I was in Holland. Everyone spoke a different language, and I didn’t know where to go or how to get there. It was a very lonely and overwhelming feeling. Some incredible people were placed in my family’s lives: special education teachers from Jordan School District and Utah School for the Deaf and Blind. I would say that they were our tour guides. We met some wonderful families who also unexpectedly found themselves in Holland, and we learned many life lessons from their experiences. Just as Emily Kingsly describes in her poem, we realized the beauty of Holland. Tulips. Windmills. Rembrants. We grew accustomed to the new territory, and we embraced it.

Although we did love Holland, everyone we knew was coming and going from Italy. They were all constantly talking about how incredible it was and showing us pictures. I couldn’t help but think from time to time about how I was supposed to be in Italy.

One day, we were told that our time in Holland might come to an end. Coleman passed his hearing test at the beginning of August. Over the next two weeks, he passed two more tests. Without any medical explanation, his hearing is now completely in the normal range for his right ear, and he only has a mild loss for high pitches on his left. He stopped wearing his hearing aids (hooray!!) and seems to be doing just fine without them. We packed our bags and took the next flight back to Italy with tears in our eyes and smiles on our faces!

Now we’re back in Italy, and Italy is amazing. Coleman is consistently saying a few words now, which puts a smile on my face every day. I can read to him and sing to him and know that he heard me. I can leave the room for a second without worrying that $2500 worth of hearing aids are being slobbered to death or dropped down the heat registers. So many things that I worried about are suddenly gone, and I love it. I’m taking in all of the incredible sights and sounds of this wonderful place.

I do miss Holland. I will be starting school next week so that I can one day work with kids with special needs. Maybe I can even be a tour guide there one day. This vacation has opened my eyes to a whole new world. I will be forever grateful that, by the Grace of God, I was able to experience both Holland and Italy. Holland is a place I will always love and never forget.

Idaho

Me and the boys made a quick trip to Idaho last week. The 24 hours that we were there were jam-packed with tire swing rides, lawn mower rides, enormous side walk chalk exhibits, water fights, fishing, waterskiing, and hangin' out with the fam. We had a great time.

One of the most memorable moments of the trip had to be this... Cory's first attempt at barefoot skiing. This picture was taken moments before the best face-plant I have ever seen. Awesome effort Cory!!!

Water Fight!

We had to leave our Jordanelle camping trip a little early because it was starting to rain. Russ decided to prove to us that a little rain can't spoil our party, so he broke out the super soakers and a 5 gallon bucket. He taught Cade how to properly shoot a water gun at his little brother... Coleman was on the inside of the glass door, so he enjoyed getting shot at as much as the shooters enjoyed deploying their weapons.

Jordanelle

We took the boys to Jordanelle a few weeks ago. We only stayed for one night, but we still had enough time to enjoy a campfire, fresh air, the stars, and time with the kiddos.

Caught with his pants down!! Those shorts are a little too big...

The matchbox cars always seem to find a way to make the trip...

One of Cade's favorite parts of the trip was our map of the campground. He carried it around all evening and kept telling us all about the roads on the map...

My Favorite Super Hero...

My favorite super-hero is a pantless, fireman/fighting tiger. He can scale any wall, topple any tower, and defeat even the strongest of discipline techniques.

Don't let the smile fool you. Danger is {or should be} his middle name.

What Can He Hear?

Lots of people have asked me just how much Coleman can hear without his hearing aids. Here's a good, basic video of hearing loss simulation. Coleman's loss is in the mild-moderate range, which means that a few of the higher pitches are just a mild loss, while most others are moderate.

We are very lucky that in Coleman's case, he has nearly normal hearing with the aids. Many people don't understand though that while hearing aids amplify the sound of normal conversation, they amplify all of the background noise (the fan, the radio, the humming of the fridge, the a/c, etc) also. This is why we have a deaf education specialist come to our home every other week to teach him listening skills, and to teach me and Russ teaching skills. This is also why it's important for everyone to look directly at him and to speak up when talking to him.

So there you have it! Deaf Education Fred Flinstone style!

C-Man at 10 Months

Coleman is 10 months old (well, almost 11, but I'm slow at this stuff). Here's his 10 month picture. He wouldn't stay put long enough for me to push the button, so here's a picture of his escape attempt. I love the tongue out of the mouth grin... he's doing this about 90% of the time that he's awake lately.
Coleman is the easy-going member of the family. He's just content to watch everybody and doesn't complain or fuss. Here's a perfect example... Cade was giving me a run for my money, and I was busy disciplining/cleaning up/making him happy while Coleman was left in his high chair after he finished lunch for too long... way past naptime. Poor buddy.

Coleman is crawling all over the place now...

and figuring out how to get into trouble!!

More things about Coleman this month...

He is babbling mama, baba, and dada, and saying dada and uh-oh with meaning.

Coleman mimicks my signs, but signs dog with meaning.

Coleman will try to sing the chorus of his favorite song... "If all of the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops" by singing "ah ah ah ah!!"

He figured out how to blow a whistle. Cade and Coleman love to take their whistles and blow them at each other as loud as he can.... uhhhh, love it.

Coleman's hearing tests are all pointing to a conductive loss (the bones in his inner ear are most likely malformed), which is good because it means that chances that the hearing loss will worsen are very unlikely.

Coleman's hearing aids have now been broken 4 times. It's an impossible and never ending battle to keep them in. His audiologist tells me that it should start to get easier any time now, so we're hanging in there.

Coleman's EI teacher says that he is making great progress, and she expects that he will pass his upcoming development test with "no delays". I'm so proud of him!

Kennecott

We have talked about going to tour the copper mine by our house ever since we moved here. This week the tours were free, so we finally made the 5 minute drive up there. It was amazing!! Cade was in Heaven. In the museum, he ran from display to display (all of the displays were models of the mine lined with construction trucks) saying, "wow!" the whole time.

Hobbler Half Marathon

I ran my first post-Coleman half a week ago. It was a great race. Maria and Mandi ran with me, and since they are super-speedy, I had to work hard to keep up! The last half I did was in September 09, and my time was 2 hrs 20 mins. My goal this time around was to finish in under 2 hours, and my time was 1 hr 59 mins and 30 secs. I was really excited to meet my goal.

Russ and Cade got to ride in a hot air balloon while they waited for me at the finish line...

Here's my fast friends! We all did awesome and I'm very proud of us! Maria even won some headphones for her rockin imitation of Katy Perry. What can I say.. we had a good time :)

4th of July

We had a lot of fun this year on the 4th. We went to my aunts' anual BBQ/fireworks show on Saturday, then on Monday we had our own BBQ with Dall and Court. Dall provided a stellar fireworks display of his own that night. Cade loved the sparklers, and Coleman just loved to be there... as always.
Cade was refusing to be a part of the picture.

He wouldn't put his blanket down all night.

Cade was in heaven... Dallin let him throw snap pops from the back of his jeep. He snuggled up with Court all night.

God Bless America... and Seersucker

Thanks to my text book hookups from my aunt being a clothing design professor, I've been working on trying to design some of my own children's clothing patterns lately. Last week, seersucker was on sale at Joann's (oh, happy day... I love love love seersucker). So I came up with some matching outfits for the kiddos. Cade was not having posing in a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it that 1. he wore the outfit, and 2. it was cute.

The ladies over at eighteen25 inspired me here, and I came up with these little embroidered t-shirts for the boys to wear with their shorts to the fireworks. Cade still doesn't care what he wears (as long as it doesn't restrict his movement, he's good!), so I'm getting away with the cheese while I can... and I'm loving it.

Camping

Russ took Cade to the Father/Son Campout a few weeks ago and the two of them had a lot of fun, so we decided it was time to give a family campout a shot. We bought a tent and set it up in our back yard. Cade was sooo excited. He ran around in the tent saying, "dis my houff mommy!" (This my house mommy). When it was time to take it down, Cade was broken-hearted; he wanted to sleep in it so bad. We compromised by setting up his play tent on his bed. He kept the tent up and slept in it all week.

We went camping at Rockport State Park this weekend. We used up every square inch of our car packing all of the gear we needed for 18 hours. The boys did great. We stayed up late with the kids by the fire. Coleman went to bed without a peep.

Cade's favorite part of camping was the campfire. He sat still in his chair for two hours.... probably a record for him! I kept asking him if he wanted to go to sleep, and he said, "no, me want to watch the fire." He counted the stars too (he made it to seven... several times before giving up).

Cade finally told me around midnight that he wanted to "west my eyes wight ere" (rest my eyes right here), and he fell asleep in his chair.

Cade also had fun watching a squirell pop in and out of his hole. He chased birds, threw rocks, and tried to run away many many times. It was exhausting but fun. I'm sure we'll have many more camping trips ahead of us.