Growing Grace...Update

It's just amazing watching Grace grow, learn, and become more capable. I mean, seriously, who can resist saying hello to a little blondie with blue eyes when they KNOW there's gonna be a ..."HI!" right back at them!! Ah I just melt every time she does it! And not only that, but she's got two different waves! If you use your fingers to wave at her, then that's what she'll do. If you do the whole hand, "I'm a princess" wave, then so will she!!! It looks more like she's spinning a pizza on her hand, but who cares!!

Her tootsies are obviously growing too. We went to Payless to try and find better shoes for me (I lost my sneakers and only had sandals) and she is now a 3 1/2 shoe size!!! WOW!! I can't believe that pretty soon, I'll be digging in the storage garage for her size 4 shoes!! AHH!! Where has the time gone!!

Oh, I probably didn't tell about this. She had her OT over a while ago, and Grace was supposed to show all of her naughty habits she has when eating...smearing fruit bars like lotion, squeezing bananas in her hands, throwing cheese off the table, and slamming crackers on the tray till the crumble. Well shucks. She was PERFECT! She even FED HERSELF with a SPOON!! Granted, most of it got on her cheek but holy smokes, she did it! And even yesterday, when I "tested" her again to see if she was just pretending to eat normally, she fed herself an entire plate of macaroni and cheese!! What in the world is going on? I mean, I had to help her "ssscccccooooooooopppppp" the noodles, but she did everything else. I couldn't believe it. And even still, she'll eat the fruit bar like you should...one bite at a time WITHOUT crumbling it in your fingers. Gosh. It just seems like a new thing every day with her!

Today we had a meeting with Grace's Coordinator for her services. We clicked pretty quick, and she's an awesome person!! She lives on a 1 acre farm in RIGBY (Which is where the house is), she's Mormon, she's SO SWEET, and she LOVES Grace. When we move she is going to fight to remain Grace's coordinator (it would usually change with different cities). But I just love her so much. She's getting paperwork for me for Shriners (in Utah) and said "no problem" she will be accepted, and they have the vouchers for gas. And she's going to look into hippotherapy (horse riding) and also get us an appt for a doctor that she highly recommends, and will take patients that were accepted by medicaid but don't have it quite yet. Then she brought us 8 ears of corn because of her 1 acre garden!!! She said we could come over to her house anytime and have dinner, and go see her "petting zoo." She's got goats, chickens, pigs and all sorts of things, and we can raid her garden whenever we want!!! So we are pretty much waiting on the Katie Beckett Medicaid. But hopefully we will have that soon.

I guess that's pretty much it for us here. We will be heading to Montana on Thursday for our "Labor Day Vaca" so you probably won't hear from me, especially since that's her birthday weekend!!! Or, there might be an entry, since I'll want to share as soon as possible about her wonderful day!!

Amanda

Utah!

I love that Utah is only about 4 hours away. How nice it is to just decide to go on a mini vaca and end up there in 4 such a short time! We were there this weekend, and all was well. We are now back and getting prepared for our next trip to Montana for the Labor Day weekend, and even more exciting...Grace's 2nd BIRTHDAY!!! Woo WHOO!!! I'm so excited for that, and just can't wait for it to get here! But I can wait, because my little one is growing up way too fast!

Oh, exciting news...as you can see, first, I am typing a short account. So obviously, Grace is here with me at the library and already bored, so it will be a quick account. Anyways...

Grace walked by herself!!! I mean, she wasn't prompted or anything!! I was standing facing the kitchen, as was Brad, and she just up and decided to wak over to him all of her own choice!! I was so surprised that I think we startled her with how happy we were!! Any day now, she'll be walking!

Amanda

Walking Talking Swimming Eating... and spots?

I can't believe the changes in Grace. I think my California friends wouldn't even be able to recognize Grace with how well she's doing!! She's learned some new words...Hi, water, all done, and these words are actually spoken rather than signed. I mean, she stills signs them, but speaks them now too! And her walking has just skyrocketed!!! She is now VERY willing to walk from myself to Brad, and has started walking from objects (like the couch or chair) to us without being prompted! It's still super short spurts before she falls to the floor, but she's now able to stop herself most of the time and bend to a squat, and then get to the floor! She can also go from her knees to a stand, but she either needs a lot of help balancing while doing it, or she needs our help lifting her up while she positions her legs. But what amazing things she's doing!! She walks pretty much 95% of the time with us when we go places (while holding our finger/hand) because we want her to see that this will be her main way of transportation!

She LOVES going swimming!!! When we ask her if she wants to go swim, she repeats "wa-ter" over and over again, and as we walk to the pool, she gets all giddy and starts trying to speed up to get there faster! And she doesn't care about the water temperature either!! She just gets right into her floaty. She's actually started showing a HUGE interest in NOT being in the floaty! She will try to climb out. So we hold her outside of it a lot, but it's hard because she can't put her head under the water...yet the couple of times I've tried it with her, she does ok. She doesn't freak out, but there was the one time she breathed in...so we won't try that anymore. And the spa is called "bubbles" and yes, she says it! We ask her if she wants to go in the bubbles, and she looks right over to the spa and starts repeating "bubbles!" She loves going in there too, but when it's too hot, we just sit on the ledge and kick at the bubbles!

Grace is having some issues with eating still...well, actually, we spoon feed her still because of these issues. So this Thursday an OT is coming out to monitor a feeding time, and we are going to feed her an assortment of textures and see what she does. This will be fun...just kidding. The fruit bars will normally get rubbed on her arms, face and hair like lotion (yes, she knows how to "help" lotion herself up after baths), and anything liquid, like pudding, gets rubbed in her hands like she's washing her hands with soap (yes, she can do that too!!). Anything hard, like crackers, gets spread all over her tray with a throw of her arm, and cheese is usually squeezed in her hands. So long story short, the OT will come see what she can do. But like she said, she can't work miracles!

I do believe that's all for now. Her birthday is coming up so quickly and I can't believe she's going to be 2!! We are going to celebrate up in Montana with the family, so that will be nice. I hope she can refrain from getting sick....She's got this weird rash going on. I actually don't know if it's a rash. It's spots that look like pimples all over her body. But they aren't chicken pocks. I'm REALLY hoping she's not sick, seeing how her Katie Beckett Medicaid isn't ready yet...so fingers crossed that she will get over this quickly, and that maybe it was just a skin irritation from the chlorine in the pool or something.

Oh...we found out that she can do horseback riding therapy with speech therapy, so we are HOPING that her medicaid will cover the cost. That can be weekly, but it will be a drive. But it's definitely worth it!! And the place that does it supposedly accepts 2 year olds, so we'll have to see about that.

Ok, I better be done for now!

Amanda

To My Followers

I'm so sorry to all you out there that followed me for my food storage, dehydrating, canning and other information!! It's just been so crazy getting settled down and the apartment is so small that I don't have room to do any of my exciting things! But I will say that we've eaten a lot of Dinner in a Jar meals as well as am mainly cooking with food storage, and it's been going pretty well. I think the only complaint I've had so far is that I left my white flour open in it's #10 can for too long and it got a little old. So the cookies I made with it are edible, but they aren't my favorite. I also baked these said cookies with homemade dried eggs and I think the next time I do it, I will water down the eggs first and then add them.

Hmm...so for the most part cooking with food storage hasn't been too much of an issue. It's tough not having meat...well, we have chicken and elk, but a nice slab of steak would be GREAT. But we can't grocery shop except for the fresh things like fruits and veggies, so we are basically food storage 99% of the time. We've got our butter stored in the freezer along with the cheese, so we don't have to shop for that for a while. The bread has been bought from the outlet store, which costs us 88 cents instead of $4, but I can make bread now that I have the recipe for my "quick mix" so that's going to save us 88 cents a loaf. I think the only problem I have with food storage cooking is that all my recipe books are still in storage, and it's hard to think up tons of different recipes!! But here's some meals I've cooked so far.

Couscous with mixed vegetables and mushrooms.... The mixed vegetables were dehydrated by yours truely, as were the mushrooms. I warmed up 1 1/2 cups water on the stove with chicken bouillon, and added 1 cup of couscous. Oops...I forgot to tell you about the veggies. I just soak those in boiling water (which comes out of our faucet!!) and then add them once I add the couscous (same with the mushrooms). Then it just sits there and expands and tada! Dinner!

Rice and chicken Dinner in a jar. The only problem with this is that the recipe asked for too much salt, and so other than that, it was good. And the chicken was self preserved (canned) and so it broke apart REALLY easily, so I think that fresh chicken would be better for this. But for our situation, it was alright.

Chicken soup with Vegetables. Pretty much like the couscous recipe. Chicken bouillon in water till it disappears, then canned chicken, mixed veggies and noodles. This one was pretty good once I spiced it up :)

We also had my self made/canned chicken soup. No noodles, but it was AWESOME. Brad said it was pretty spicy, so next time I might add less chili powder.

Biscuits and gravy...this one didn't turn out, but it was all operator error! My head was in the clouds while I was rolling out the biscuits, and instead of 1/2 inch thick they were...like 1/8th inch thick, so they were solid as rocks. But we just let the gravy soak for a bit, and they were edible.

I can't think of any others right now...oh, except for my cabbage and kelbasa soup, but that's not really food storage (except the meat in the freezer).

Ta ta for now. I hope that I don't loose too many people, because once we move to the new house (if we get it which I HOPE WE DO!!) then I will be canning/baking/storing up a LOT. And I will also be adding quilting to my list of expertise...if you can call it that...and I will be back to sewing clothes for Grace and I. I will also be adding dutch oven cooking too! Oh, and you can't forget gardening. This will be the best garden I imagine, seeing as it's about 4 times the size of our one in California!!

Amanda

The house!

Well, we haven't heard anything yet about the house. Actually, the papers haven't even been submitted to the bank yet because the seller is being a bit slow. But I have pictures!!

The front of the house :) The three large windows are the garage, the three small windows to the left of the door is the kitchen, and the three on the right of the door is the office (which will be Grace's "homeschool" room. There is a pasture to the left of the house, which will be the garden, and a gate to the right of the house that leads you into the backyard/pasture.
The beautiful kitchen!!! Pretty much everything I have wanted! The pantry...which is hard to see, is behind a door a bit but you can see that it's open. To the left of the bananas.

Here's the living room :) The front door is the one with the glass beside it, then the coat closet, then the homeschool room, bathroom, and Grace's room is next to that. The wall you see with the pictures is where her room is opposite.
There you see the dining room in the distance...
and here it is with the door on the right leading outside.
The backyard that we will "grass" next year.
The horse pasture with a tack room/round pen on the left and the 3 stall horse barn on the right.
Downstairs...The place by the window is where my quilting frame will go :)

This is the game area. The bed will be gone.
And the opening of the downstairs basement. TONS OF ROOM!!

Ok once again she's crying so I better go before they throw us out of the library!!

Amanda

WE FOUND A HOUSE!!!!!

We found a house!!! Of course there was another offer put on it WHILE we were looking at it, but we put in a counter offer $5000 above the asking price, and we're paying cash so I hope it turns out. It's 5 bed, 3 bath, 2.88 acres WITH A 3 STALL HORSE BARN AND ROUND PEN!!! An absolutely beautiful home, beautiful HUGE kitchen, AWESOME room down in the basement for our food storage, mud room/laundry room, and it's just gorgeous. It's got a side pasture that's about 10 yards by 4 yards, and it's all fenced with nice plastic fencing (the expensive stuff). Then in the back there's a big backyard then goes right into pasture. The round pen is on the left and the stalls with a bit of walking room is on the right. So we'll put up a fence between it to block the horse from getting into the yard, and the one pasture in the front will all be garden!! I think I'll train the horse to drag a cultivator so we don't have to do it with a hoe. And there's a private well/septic, and HOA irrigation. Oh it's just beautiful!! I really hope we get it, and will hear in a few days if the bank accepts our offer. The only downfall is it's a short sale, which usually takes a few months to deal with rather than a quick sale with just a normal house on the market. I can't wait to move in though, and hope we can before the snow comes. We hope, if they accept our offer, that everything will close by October 1st, that way we can move in before the snow does. We will probably wait to get the horse until next year (after the snow) because we aren't going to have any time to ride it while it's pouring snow! It's in Rigby, so just 15 minutes from BYU Idaho!!

Ok, so imagine with me if you will. You walk up the stairs to my door. Glass oval in the door, two glass sections beside the door on either side. You walk in, and right to your left is the door into the kitchen. But you don't go that way. You take a step or two in and turn to your right, which is where you will find Grace's room on your left, the bathroom in the center, and Grace's homeschool room. Turn completely around, (so the front door is at your left now) and you are facing the ENORMOUS living room. Walk into the living room and take a seat at the bar, and check out my awesome kitchen with granite countertops!! I could dance in that kitchen and not hit the counters. Then the dining room is big too, and has a beautiful view of the backyard (well, once the backyard is beautiful it will be a nice view!) Get off the seat and walk to your right, and you can either go directly right to the stairs taking you to the basement (wood stairs...well, wood flooring all throughout except the bedrooms), next to the stairs is our BEAUTIFUL BEDROOM with a whirlpool tub, then to your left is a slight hallway taking you to the mudroom/laundry room, garage (3 car, two facing one way, and one kittycorner to that), and a closet. Head downstairs and you've got an enormous family room!! I know for sure that in the back of the family room I will put a quilt square frame so I can finally start quilting, but I don't know what else will go in there. Then there a bedroom size portion with a closet (but it's NOT a bedroom) that will be our "game area", and then two more bedrooms to the left of that with a bathroom in the middle! One for Kailyn, one for Ryan...Elder Hildreth, once he gets off his mission!!

Well, I hope you could understand that as I can see it in my mind. If not...sorry!! Pictures will definitely come if we get the house!!!

Amanda

House Hunting

Just a super quick note as Grace is at the next computer banging away on the keyboard...we went house searching yesterday for 6 hours...11 houses...and only 2 (maybe) were on they "think about it" pile. Today we are going to see 11 more...or maybe more. One will be in an equestrian estates area, so horses are allowed and it will be nice since it's 5 bed 2 bath. We'll see!! I am being optimistic...I want to move into a house before the snow moves in on us!!!

Amanda

Shew, I'm so Sorry it's been so long!

Gosh, it's just CRAZY not having internet in our apartment, and seeing as I come her mainly with Grace (the library) I don't have the necessary time to update the blog!! But, here goes...seeing as it's just Brad and I today!!

Grace is getting SIX teeth in!!! I didn't even know until yesterday when I was brushing her teeth!!! 2 top back 2nd molars, 1 bottom 2nd molar, 2 top front teeth and 1 bottom front tooth!! She's been CRAZY drooling!!

A couple of days ago we came upon a therapy place that does PT, OT, and speech and went to get information, and if the doctor approves (once we get a doctor) then she can have double the amount of therapy and it will be covered by her Katie Beckett Medicaid!! (That's special needs medicaid). So I'm pretty excited about that. It's called "The Speech and Language Clinic Rehabilitation Center". It either costs or doesn't, but I was so excited when they told me insurance would cover. And they either do clinic or house visits, so that's great too. They are on the new system where there's just ONE person working with Grace, and if necessary, she's told by other people what to do for her. So for example, PT will work with Grace. Then if I think she needs some speech help, the Speech therapist will work ith PT to train her on what to do. I think it's pretty rediculous if you ask me. I don't want PT to work on speech, and I wouldn't want a speech therapist trying to do PT!! But with this place, if I ask for it, they will do one on one with EACH PERSON!!! So I feel SO blessed that I found that place.


Today, we will be going to Rigby to look at a house that is pretty promising. It's got land for Kailyn's horse, and looks pretty decent sized with a basement, so I'm excited. I didn't really want a house with a basement, but now that we've looked at enough with them, I'm really stoked about getting a house and basement!! It's amazing the temperature change, and our food storage will definitely be safe down there. We've seen quite a few houses that were pretty promising, but there were enough things wrong with them that we said no. Like one was pretty near perfect. We were feeling really good, liked it all, and had an AMAZING food storage room. But then my eye caught a water damage spot on the ceiling...and then when I was looking on the ground, I caught black on the wall, so when I bent down to see it more, I saw the cement was pretty wet, and the wall had mold. So the sprinkler water from outside had seeped into the cement, and up the wall. So obviously, a no. Then there was a house with land and all that you would need for a horse (tack room, LARGE lean to with 2 GIANT stalls and another partial barn with 2 more LARGE stalls, and then a hay barn, and it had an AMAZING riding area but was littered with rocks. But...the house was a manufactured home with dog pee carpets, bad paint job, and exterior wasn't very well managed. And...no basement, which means no food storage room, and the room were SMALL. House hunting is a big job!!

There's a family history center down the way, so I'm going to go to that sometime today or tomorrow. I'm excited to get back into my geneaology. And the Temple has a TON of walk in services so I can get my names done without having to have an appt!! So Brad and I will go do a ton of those some time this week or so.

What's next? I've decided to go back to school. I have to meet with the Bishop to get my ecclesiastical endorsement, and then pay the fee and sent my transcripts to BYUI, but after that, and hoping I get accepted, I will start in Jan. I'm not going to overburden myself, just one or two classes maybe, but I am going to get started. And then, when Grace turns three, she will qualify for state preschool, so I can bump up my schedule once I know hers. So I'm pretty excited. And I put in a job app for the library working part time, so I hope I get that!! It's just 10 hours a week. That's nice. I get to reshelve books and wander the library which is what I LOVE to do! And it will give me a break from Grace, and Brad more time one on one with her.

I guess that's pretty much it here...I better head off now so I can look at some more houses....I hope the one we see today is "the one." But we'll just ahve to wait and see with a pesimistic view...I always get myself worked up with optimism, so we'll go the other way now!

Amanda

Oh an Update

I guess I should let everyone know we ARE still alive! Brad finally got here on Thursday with the rest of the stuff...and our TINY apartment is SOOOO small that we look like the biggest Hoarders EVER. We didn't even try to deal with any of it; we packed and headed out on a quick jaunt to the mountains for the weekend. Much needed, but I am feeling the slight tingle of cabin fever since I know what's waiting at home. I'd rather just get it done than have it sit there waiting.

Grace has been enjoying herself up here. We went and did some logging yesterday, and Grace got to watch mommy carry dead trees and "up and over" a HUGE log we were going to use for firewood in the winter. That this was MASSIVE. And we let her play in the creek but all she did was stick her hands in, and even that was too cold for her! This was her first time EVER riding in the pickup cab without being on Mommy's lap, so that was an experience I loved seeing. She LOVED standing up and looking out the back window at Daddy on the 4-wheeler. And oh my gosh...the cows! She absolutely loves seeing cows, and mooing at them, so that was so cute to see as well!

While we've been up here we've seen a fox and porcupine. The porcupine was just adorable. It was on the side of the road at about 11 pm while we were driving up, and we flased the high beams at it and watched him waddle around. And when Brad got out to see if he could round it up, that thing waddled away so fast!!! And as we drove off he looked back and was gone, just that fast into the sagebrush. Silly guy. The fox we saw was obviously a baby, seeing as it was only the size of a small pup. But that little guy ran across the road and almost became hawk food!

Grace's princess party went well that we were invited to. It was kinda sad because it was mainly bigger kids that were there, so she didn't have anyone to play with, and the librarian read 3 books which is asking WAY too much from Grace at this point! But that's ok. We ate some cookies, made a crown, and got a couple pictures, so all was well.

I think that's pretty much it. We will be looking at houses this coming week, which will be nice because these paper walls give NO privacy, and the cramped quarters makes family life a bit less tolerable! High school starts soon for Kailyn "YES!" and I'm just so excited for that!! Long summers are hard on the entire family.

Alright, till next time.

Amanda

Keeping Busy

Shew, we've definitely kept busy. More out of adventure than anything else! A new place means investigating!!! Today we went to reading time at the library, which was really singing time with one book at the end which I LOVED! Except for this one boy that pummeled Grace and totally upset her. But..she got over it...obviously, I have yet to get over it! We also went to the Cemetery a couple days ago to find some relatives, but that thing was HUGE! Seriously, I drove in thinking, "oh this will be easy." Then I look to the left and there's a bridge going over an aqueduct, and taking you to another section the same size. Then you drive forward, and you realize your at the top of the cemetery, and that it goes down a hill, and then around the hill, and wow...it's huge. So we'll try that again another day when there's someone there to help us!

We also went to Smith's grocers, but wow, those prices...so I'm gonna do a search for coupons because here, they allow double up on coupons!! Extreme couponing here I come!!

I don't have much more time...Grace is getting wiggly. But I will say something for all my food storage followers out there...eating food storage is SO REWARDING!! To know I'm eating things I've dehydrated, or worked to get stored is just so amazing. I'm so happy I am feeding my family basically from the storage...except for those days when DQ just sounds TOO good!

Ok...she's done :) She just growled at me, so I better be heading off. Down to the kids section so she can crawl all over the dragon rug...

Silly girl! One more month till she's 2 YEARS OLD!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!


Amanda

Oh My Goodness

I feel like I'm never able to post anymore. Having to rely on the library for my internet needs is NO fun!! I will definitely have to get service into our apartment so I can update daily, because that's how fast things are going here!!

Grace got a big girls bed today!! She did NOT like sleeping in it, but once she fell asleep in her pack-and-play, I put her in her big bed and she did fine :) I'm so HAPPY!!!

Grace had her evaluation today with the infant toddler program. That went well and they will be deciding who her PT will be, and what we should focus on first for therapy. So I'm excited about that too!!

We will start helping out in the soup kitchen...well, as much as I can get Kailyn to do it!! Once Brad gets here it will be a lot easier because the three of us can switch off watching her at the apartment while the other two go, so that will be great a great service opportunity!!

Kailyn made a friend, which is fabulous!! They went to the mall today, so I'm glad she was finally able to do that!

This week my honey will be coming!! I'm so excited because I miss him, and his support, and I just want to show him everything this place has to offer!!!


Well, we are off to go get more books for Grace. She absolutely LOVES the kids area because they have a GIANT rug with a dragon on it, and it's so big she can crawl around and have her own space.

So, off we go...

Amanda