Christmas 2008

As you can see Joe had a very good time Christmas morning. The last picture is actually from the 24th. He crashed in his little chair before I could put him down for his nap. Very sweet.

Christmas time has been very entertaining with a two year old. I am happy to report that the tree stayed upright for the entire season and no ornaments were broken. Of course this year I invested in shatter proof ornaments and nothing on the tree was breakable. My glass ornaments are going to be on vacation for the next few years so that they'll survive. We worked this year on the one finger theory when touching the tree. This had some very funny stories to go along with it. The first night the tree was being decorated was the hardest. Joe was very excited and kept grabbing everything. Ed finally handed him one of the old bells that we hung on the tree which kept Joe busy for a while. When the tree was almost finished Joe lost interest in his bell and attempted to hang it himself, which required a bit of assistance. He then proceeded to grab a gold ball and try to yank it off the tree. This is when I stepped in and explained the one finger theory to the little man. He was very cooperative and gladly released the ball to touch it with only one finger. Smiling up at me with that angelic face I thought to myself this is going to be easy.

Yeah...right.

He moved to the other side of the tree and grabbed another ornament with both hands and began yanking with all of his two year old might. I exclaimed one finger in what might have been a bit of shrill alarm. Joe stopped yanking, still holding the ornament with both hands I could see the wheels in his brain turning as he mulled over my declaration. The light bulb clicked on and he let go of the ornament walked back to the original victim of his attack and proudly touched it with one finger while smiling up at me. This continued for the rest of the night with either his father or myself stating one finger and Joe returning to the original ball and touching it with just one finger only to grab another ornament a minute later.

After a couple of days he finally started touching everything with one finger when we were watching and when we weren't well the the tree had to fend for itself. All in all he was very good and never really posed any danger to himself or the tree.

Christmas morning Joe helped to open his gifts. We used a little bit of subterfuge by exclaiming that there were balls or cars in each package so he ripped away until he discovered the trick and let daddy finish. He was thrilled with everything he got and it was funny to watch him play with everything after wards. He could'nt decide what to play with so he played with everything at once. Quite the challenge but Joe is pretty talented.

Our new bathroom is almost done. I will be painting soon and then the next project begins.
Must go get lunch ready for my hungry crew.

Love you all and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Nikki

Christmas tree hunt 2008

Enjoy the pictures I have to run get dinner started. Love ya Nikki

Weather and Renovations

So, for those of you who might've heard about our area on the news, we are fine and our power is currently intact. Even if we do lose it, we heat with our woodstove so we will be warm and cozy in the candlelight.

Joe had his first oops that actually involved a little blood last night. He was getting off one of the table chairs and put his leg through the back while the other leg went were he wanted. The unfortunate outcome was the chair turned over and gave him a split lip( very small) and a fat lip(very big). He recovered quickly and was very pleased when mommy decided he could have pudding for dinner since his lip was sore. We have decided to sell the table and chairs and get a more solid set that Joe can get off of with out putting feet were they do not belong. He doesn't even seem to notice it this morning as he is running around the house playing with everything, looking out the window and wondering why it looks so funny outside.

Our contractor started work on the upstairs bathroom/closet/laundry room. Yeah I know, those of you who have seen our upstairs are probably scratching your heads wondering how we are going to fit any thing else upstairs. The contractor, Bruce, removed the closets from both rooms, leaving a temporary hole between the rooms. Then he framed a wall that runs between the front and back dormer, putting doors on the wall for each room. The ends of the room will become closets for each room with a half bath and the washer and dryer units. I can also fit all sorts of shelves in for storage and a dresser or two to conserve space in the soon to be very tiny bedrooms. When the project is finished we will be moving Joe upstairs. After baby #2 is a year old they will share a bedroom since all we do is sleep in our bedrooms and we spend almost all our time down stairs. I think IKEA will probably become my favorite catalog for all their organizational stuff. Toy storage has become my next nesting project. Of course I can't really start anything until we get the kitchen - family room done. So I have to plan everything out and wait. Slightly frustrating.

Other then that we have nothing much going on here. Oh wait, I forgot we are also looking at getting a wind turbine (More to come...)

Alright love you all, Nikki

Two whole years old

I can hardly believe it has been two years since our little man came along. I think back to those first few weeks and can hardly keep from crying. (Of course that may be the whole pregnancy hormonal thing kicking in.) I remember the day I was discharged from the hospital I could barely breathe as I thought of coming home without Joe. Driving up to the hospital twice a day to visit, calling the nurse at midnight to find out if he had lost any weight - they weighed him at the beginning of the night shift. One of the doctors telling me he loved the fact that Joe seemed to defy every nurse in the NICU by ignoring all their dire warnings, they all told us little boys are slower to progress then girls and will lose weight at first and won't eat on their own. Not our boy he started eating the first day. He couldn't finish the whole thing on his own but he made it very clear he would not be needing that NG tube for long. He ripped it out every chance he got, much to his nurses chagrin. That should of been my warning sign for what was to come. Now he pretty much tries to climb everything. We have to run to keep up with him as he flys from one end of the house to the other trying to scale the walls almost everyday. No seriously, he puts the toes of one foot up on my baseboard and reaches up with the opposite hand feeling for anything that will give him a little of a handle. Good thing he doesn't know how thin our walls are and that with a little pressure he could punch his little hand through.

Well I am rambling so I will just say, Joe had a fabulous time on Sunday. We had a small party, just grandparents, Ed and Elsie and Auntie Andrea and Great Grandma Me'Me'. He refused to open a single present. Even when I tore a small piece and tried to interest him in assisting with all sorts of ploys. He stood in front of me signing open and pointing to me. So being the obedient mommy I complied and handed him his present after I finished removing the pesky paper from them. He loved everything but is particularly in love with the monster bowling from Oma, the snake from Auntie Amy and family and the chair Grandma Elsie got him. Of course the mini piano from mom and dad has been well used. Anyhow, hope you all enjoy the pictures and are having a great holiday season so far. We are getting ready for a big storm over the next two days. I hope it is only snow but they are saying we may get the ice instead. Yuck.
Any how Love ya, Nikki

Thanksgiving

Joe helping mom cook dinner on thanksgiving day. The rest of the door is waiting to be glued back on it became loose after being opened and closed several million times by one energetic little boy.

Couple weeks ago we had some snow. As you can see from the look on Joe's face the verdict is still out on whether or not we like this white stuff.

No I did not put the bowl on the boys head, it was his idea and as you can see Jasper finds it a little disturbing.



We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving day here. Ed and Elsie came down for dinner. Joe had a blast running around entertaining his grandparents. He was quite fond of showing off his climbing abilities. Every time they turned around he was half way up some piece of furniture he didn't belong on. He really is amazing when it comes to scaling things that we think he can't possibly get up. Yeah right. As long as my little man has a toe hold and a place to get a bit of a grip with his fingers then he is on his way up.

Well I have to get going, bath time.
Love ya all Nikki

How's it going folks

Howdy everyone? We are doing well, keeping busy with the usual chores. OK so I am not quite doing as many chores as I would like but hopefully the whole first trimester morning sickness thing will be over in a week or two. We are waiting for our contractor to let us know when he'll be coming to put the new bathroom in upstairs. Yeah no more traipsing up and down the stairs in the middle of the night. And even better we're putting the washer and dryer in the upstairs bathroom as well - No more hauling clothes up and down the stairs ! With any luck this project will be starting after thanksgiving and be done quickly. Then it is on to the next one... the kitchen. I just hope we can get all this stuff done before I deliver the next baby. My goal is no construction for a couple of years once the new baby is here. Well let me clarify. No indoor construction. Well it's time for me to get Joe to sleep.
Love ya, Nicole

Happy Halloween

As you can see Joe had a great time trick or treating. He was a little unsure at first about walking up to strange doors and letting them put anything in his bucket but after the second house he decided this was a great time to be had by one and all and that we should do this more often. Everyone thought our chicken little was the cutest. Of course we agreed. Hope everyone else had a fabulous holiday. I will try and write more this week.
Love you all Nikki

Pictures

Joe getting ready for a wedding of some close friends.

More halloween pictures to come.

Yes we had snow already.

Joe helping mom carve the pumpkin, by help I mean I took the seeds and guts out and he put them back in.

The boys having fun playing in the leaves.

Meet Magic the newest critter at LansingHollow Farm.

Dad's shoes are pretty big but don't I look cute in them. Mom was a bit tweeked that she didn't get the camera in time to video me walking in them. He did an amazing job cruising around the house in dad's size 11's.
We are all doing well, for those of you we haven't told yet sorry you have to hear it from the blog but I can't keep anything straight any more, Any how I am pregnant. Due June 10th, although that will probably change with the next ultrasound I have. Other then that Ed is working like a mad man. Joe is practicing for his two's, haven't decided whether they are going to be terrible or not. I am pretty much sleeping most of the time.
I will try and post more often. Love ya all, Nikki

We are not moving, heard some interesting things about the new neighbors we would be moving in next to and decided it is better to stick with the great ones we have here. We are now looking into getting some more work done on the house. Kitchen mostly but we also are going to put a bathroom upstairs as well.

Joe is doing well although he has had quite the haircut. I started out to trim it but after a few unfortunate movements and snips the only option left was to do a buzz cut. He didn't mind the clippers but it still took two of us and about a half an hour.

It's almost time for Joe's group so I will have to try and write more later... here are a couple pics of the little man.

Oh, and by the way...Oma's visit !

Silly me ! I almost forgot the best part of August, Oma was with us so we could get stuff done. Yay Oma ! Thanks again! Make sure you scroll down-I put a new video on that's classic !

Love ya Nikki

What's up at Lansing Hollow Farm

Hi everyone, sorry for the dry spell. We have been tearing the house apart and staging it for potential buyers. It took us a while to get the new office area and all the computer stuff up and running but we are back on track now. We still have some painting to do but for the most part we have everything iportant done.

Home stuff...

Ed, with a little help from me ripped up the old bathroom floor and put a new one down. We took out the old wall board and replaced it. We had a new pedestal sink installed and now I just have to fix the wall paper border and paint the door trim. It looks so much nicer. Joe's room is the same, although we are going to be taking the crib apart and setting up a bed for him soon. The living room just needs a few paint touch ups and I painted the stairway, YUCK. The wide hallway between the living room and kitchen has been staged as an office and the porch is being used as a dining room. Kitchen cabinets need a quick coat of paint. Laundry room needs the most TLC, planning on attacking that on Sunday.

Joe stuff...

Joe is doing great. He sees his teacher three times a week and his speech therapist twice a week. Next week he is starting a play group that meets every week. He is starting to learn the sign language which is very exciting since this is the first effort he has made to communicate with us. He is so funny, when he gets excited about something he sees that he wants to talk to me about his little hands start doing every sign he knows and a few that are just plain made up and then he looks at me as if to say did you understand that? He now knows and uses the sign for eat, drink and more, he is beginning to understand change for his diaper and we are working on thank you and help as well. Oh and his favorite, all done. He is also using a few simple sounds for some of the animals, he calls Jasper, Ja Ja, he is even more thrilled when we call the dog that way. Tonight he wanted to sit in the driver seat of the truck and pretend to drive so he walked over to the door and pointed while saying "up". He has been saying up for a couple of weeks. After "driving" for a while he turned to me and said "Down", (first time). The N was barely there and he said it pretty quick but I was very excited none the less and made a pretty big deal about the word down. My son thinks I am fun but a little crazy I'm sure.

Despite his busy schedule with teachers we manage to get ourselves out to the barn everyday to visit the goats, horses and chickens. Joe is very much in love with his critters and takes them all apples that have fallen off the tree next to the house. Of course they are not always appreciative of his efforts since tonight he has started throwing them in the water tank. The three horses spent 20 minutes trying to get one apple before they gave up and walked away. Well all but Dancer, she waited until I fished it out for her. Of course a few more apples went in the tank and the horses all tried in desperation to get them before they went in but Jasper actually jumped up and bit their noses from the opposite side of the fence if they tried to take an apple directly from Joe. So with me on one side and Jasper on the other Joe giggled as his horses bobbed for apples.

Well it is getting late here and we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.

Love you all, Nikki

Joe's new favorite

New Lansing Hollow farm site

New driveway, the house site is actually over to the right and not in the picture. Can you say snow plow.
This will be our new view. Yeah mountains. Yes the pasture is part of the property. The horses don't know it but they are in for a treat.
Not sure why this one came out mini but it is the clearing that is by the creek. We are going to build a barbeque and a gazebo etc. etc. etc. in this area for entertaining.
And here is the gorgeous creek that runs in the hollow behind that wonderful clearing.

So I got the call this morning that our offer has been accepted. Of course everything hinges on the sale of our current home so all good thoughts towards that end are highly appreciated.

I will post pics of Joe when he falls asleep. I have to go upstairs for that.

Love you all Nikki

Change of plans

The property that I posted pictures of is not going to be ours. To much money would of gone into the septic system. So we are still looking. There is a beautiful place in Medusa five minutes from us. We are waiting to get info on the septic system that is installed? before we make an offer. I am also going to check into what the costs would be to make changes to this house so we have a clear idea of options. Personally I favor the property in Medusa. It has a great creek running through it and nice pastures for hay.

Joe had his core evaluation and they are lining up a teacher and speech therapist for him. We should be getting started with all that in the next couple of weeks.

I better get going, Ed needs to get some stuff done and Joe fell asleep early tonight.

Love you all, Nikki

New property?

Potential new driveway of property we are looking at. This view is looking towards the road.
This is as you are driving from the road about mid driveway on the left. It was a stream at one time until some beavers built a damn. We want to clean it up and make it into a nice pond.

This is at the property line, the pond to be is out of sight on the right.

We are going back out tonight with a neighbor who does land clearing, ponds and foundation work to get his opinion.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Love ya Nikki

Happy Birthday to a whole lot of folks!

July is a busy birthday month. So I am going to send a blanket happy B-day to everyone and best wishes for your special day.

Joe's intervention program sent out a person to collect info and get Joe enrolled. Her name is Kelly and she is a very nice lady whom Joe was very interested in. He was very helpful in taking her pens and playing with them. Our next move is to wait for the actual evaluation to take place. I should be hearing from them by the end of next week. Joe is doing well, we keep encouraging him to play with his puzzle box. He gets better everyday. He loves his books even if he doesn't always wait for me to finish reading them before he wanders off to get another toy. All in all we are looking forward to getting started so we can get some real communication skills started.

As some of you may know we have decided to start looking for property. This house is not set up to deal with Joe very well so we have decided to buy property and put a modular on it. I am hoping that the piece we are seeing tomorrow will be a good fit. We have both been out to see it but the owner was unavailable to show us the actual property lines so we will find out tomorrow exactly were they lie. The next move will be asking a neighbor of ours who does land clearing and ponds to come take a look at it. The area to the left of the driveway was a stream that was damned up by beavers. The beavers are gone but Ed wants to make it into a large pond. It would be great for fishing. I will get back to you all with the news there when we have more to share.

Work is about the same for both Ed and I, necessary. We are pretty much just maintaining the lawn and gardens as best we can. The lawn looks way better then the gardens right now but maybe I will get some time to catch up.

Our road is getting resurfaced, Yeah and Boo. Scratching your heads again, I am glad my poor vehicles will not have to bump along over shoddy patch work but shiver to think how much faster the local idiot is going to be flying past the house. I guess you just have to take the good with the bad.

Joe seems to be stirring from his nap, so farewell, so long auf wiederzehn.....

Nikki

Joe's Dr appt.

Some of you already know that Joe had an appointment on Monday with his developmental pediatrician. This appointment was one that I scheduled because I was concerned with his lack of language and even regression in some cases and certain behaviors that he was displaying.

Joe has a diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified. Alright I know I have just caused more then a few of you to scratch your heads. Some of you because this terminology is bizarre bordering on terrifying others because Ed e-mailed you about autism. Well, you are all right it is scary and in a way it is autism. But please keep in mind it is only scary because for the most part all of us are not familiar with it, Joe is going to be just fine. Autism is now considered to be a disorder that is really a wide spectrum and all people who are autistic do not have the same symptoms. There is high functioning autism at one end and full blown autism(patient does not communicate with the world in any way.) Joe is in the middle of this. He does not attempt to speak to us or point at objects to make his needs known to us. For example when he has dropped something and cannot retrieve it himself his brain does not connect the fact that mom and dad always provide what he needs. So he does not get one of us to help him by coming to get us and pointing at what he wants, he simply screams in frustration. He also is not good with eye contact and occasionally flaps his hands. He will sit and stare on occasion retreating into his own world (not very often). These behaviors are all the pervasive developmental disorder, but the good news is he also has not otherwise specified. (This is a good thing) These are the normal interactions, when he plays puzzle with me, when he brings me brown bear to read to him, when he looks up and makes eye contact and smiles, when he laughs at the critters and claps his hands, When he listens to daddy play music and helps strum the guitar while daddy makes the chords, etc.etc.etc. . OK so now you are all asking what the heck happens now, well we are waiting for a letter or phone call from the intervention program that will include language therapy along with some behavior modification I imagine. I will know more when I hear from these folks and promise to keep you all up to date with the blog as we get started on our new adventure.

It has taken Ed and I a couple of days to digest everything even though I had a tiny voice in the back of my head saying wait a second didn't you learn about something like this in nursing school. But I didn't like that voice very well so I ignored it until Monday when I had to face the reality of life. Well reality is I can't wait to get started so Joe and I will be more able to communicate with each other. Fact of the matter is the same day we were in the office there was a four year old with the same diagnosis whose parents told us he had been in the same boat as Joe but now he speaks in full sentences and no one would ever know about his PDD,NOS. It's always nice to see that light at the end of the tunnel when you are just starting down it.

We appreciate all the well wishes that have voiced by so many of you. Thanks for your thoughts of well being as well as prayers.

Love Nikki and Ed

Picture time

Great grandmas birthday party. May 2008.
Fun with dogs.
More fun with dogs
Can I see?
Worn out.

Grandpa and Joe and thunderstorms

Grandpa Lansing and Joe enjoying a literary classic 'Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?'. So this was taken last Saturday when Ed and Elsie came down for lunch and a visit. Then Joe, Elsie and I went to the local craft show at the town library. Cute but it was very hot so we really enjoyed the grape snow cones more then anything else. Joe was very curious about the whole ice thing. He liked it in small amounts but was not willing to endure brain freeze so if I got a little to much in his mouth, out it came. Joe had his first look at alpacas, not really interested in them. I know his father was very happy about that.

We had a quiet father's day. The next day, Monday was a little more exciting. The weather report had said rain and thunderstorms. It was peaceful until about 6pm when I noticed the wind was picking up so I ran out to put the pony and goats in. Well just after I shut the goats in it started to pour rain/hail side ways. So I decided to wait it out in the barn. As I stood there watching out the door the maple tree ten feet away from me split in half and fell right next to our chicken coupe. It missed the horse fence by one inch. I took some pictures and will try to get them on the computer today.

So today, Ed stayed home to clean up the mess so we could get in and out of the barn without difficulty. Our tree guy is coming over to see if the rest of the tree is stable or not. I am hoping it will be OK but this is wishful thinking. We will probably have to take the rest of the tree down very soon so that it does not fall on the barn.

Hope everyone else is doing well and that your trees are happier then ours.

Love ya Nikki