Please excuse the picture. The walls and door are not warped. I was trying to do a panoramic shot.

Almost finished product

Just have to finish up with maybe some bins for the twin size sheets, that we have a ton of.

From top to bottom: before, during, after

Online window shopping/idea hunting

I've been going through multiple websites to help out get things organized around the house. One of the banes of this house is the hall linen closet. It's not the size so much as the door is super narrow, 17", while the rest is 26"x26".

Currently looks like this, on a good day, with a big space at the top that's not being utilized.

Awhile ago, I called up some random closet organizing company for free advice, and they said typically shelves in a closet like this should be 12"-14" deep and spaced about 12" - 14" apart in height.

An online design website, gave me a design of something like this. I don't know that I'd do a mix of wood & the ventilated type shelves. I kind of like the idea of the ventilated/wire shelves and maybe shelf dividers(like these).

Shelf dividers

Closet design

Eta: Thanks to my brother, I was able to get this custom design below.

Blog worth following or bookmarking

Came across this blog yesterday,  I Heart Organizing. Has lots of good info, even a post on setting up/organizing a play area. What impresses me the most, is the gal who writes the blog has 3 little boys--which I know firsthand don't like to clean or they undo things pretty fast.

Good times and miracles

So, it didn't finish it up all exactly like the pattern, but got it all done in a short afternoon and Brent loves it. I had issues with the circles for the ends so I skipped those. What I may end up doing next time is cut out 4 circles, and sew 2 pieces with right sides together with small opening, turn right side out, stitch the opening closed and then hand-sew on to the ball.

Anyway, Drew just turned 5!

Can't believe he's going to be in kindergarten in the fall. We just  picked up his registration packet this morning. Having a birthday party with a small group of friends and some cousins on Saturday. Spent a lot of time today cleaning up for that, so in theory there will be less to do before Saturday morning. We're all cake/cupcake'd out from celebrating on Sunday, so he's decided on lemon bars. Tom's mom isn't too thrilled about the no cake, but seriously, it's our house and cake leftovers lasts like a week here. He just started up karate classes, and after a couple classes says he'd rather not go. Which is odd. I take him and he loves it. Typical 5 year old: doesn't know what he wants/likes.

Collin just switched classes at school a couple weeks ago. Can't remember off the top of my head if I mentioned that or not. His teacher went on early maternity leave, and in the meantime he was picking up some behaviors from some of the younger kids in the class. It's pretty good now. Only one incident, but with an amended IEP behavior plan I think he'll be fine.

Got a phone call about our meeting with the county last week. Kept praying & praying about it. Even had friends and family too. Well, during the meeting, after about 5 minutes into it, I got the distinct feeling like this is not going well, or how we want. Sure enough, by the end they were recommending a trial period of 3 months for the therapy company we're having problems with to get their act together, and if we were still have issues in 3 months we could switch. So, one of the first things we had talked about was swapping out staff. Almost a week goes by, and reality's setting in about it going to be a long 3 months--we were committed to documenting everything that went wrong or was questionable for our next meeting in 3 months. I still was thinking to myself, we got this in the bag. We switch staff, there is no way in heck that Collin would adjust to new staff & be able to work on his goals. So, the upper supervisor calls me and informs me that apparently we have the "popular time slot"(ie. after school) and they are understaffed(didn't say it specifically, but it's because everyone's leaving to the company we're trying to switch to) so would we be okay with either reducing hours by 2/3 and just wait for it to be filled or put in a request for a vendor change(and the county would be okay with it). So of course we say switch. I had no problem. It's exactly what we wanted in the first place. What a miracle!!!

Speaking of which, how I managed to get the kids to mostly behave themselves so I could listen to 85% of a 2 hour funeral this afternoon is beyond me. The last 30 minutes were the hardest. I brought our iPod with us to occupy mostly Collin, but also for him to work on turn taking. The battery completely dies with 30 minutes left. Thankfully, we took a few walks in the halls, since I was smart enough to sit in the foyer, and came back for some coloring with pen on scratch paper and eating Japanese rice crackers that thankfully were still in the diaper bag. For those who used to be in our stake, the service was for Kurt Weaver from Cypress 1st ward.

Another sort of miracle, if you will. I managed to somehow get my belly button infected for the first time ever in my life. How does this happen? I don't touch my belly button unless I'm washing in the shower. After a day and a half of it, I took myself to the doctor's office. I got some steriod/cream/antibiotic all rolled into one. It's too bad the doctor was right that the cream burns a lot, but it works.

In other news, we just got a new vacuum. We are having not so good luck with vacuums. We're on our 3rd in  11.5 years. Did my research, and ended up with a canister style vacuum that's rated very well for carpet & non-carpeted floor all with in our price range of not going over $300. It's got the HEPA filter Tom wanted, and the bag in it that I wanted. I really love it. I got it Monday night, and tried it out all Tuesday. Does better vacuuming than our uprights have. I can get up to wall and furniture edges with no attachments on. I can clean under 98% of our furniture without having to move the furniture. So far, only not liking the color, but I can live with it.

New Project

Awhile back, one of the kids(I've got my hunches who) decided to cut right in the center of one of the pentagon shapes in the fabric ball (that I put in my January 29th post).

Since I can't find the original online pattern I used, I came across this free one, which in my opinion, should be able to sew up faster & the shapes are easier to work with.

Here's the link I'm using to make a new fabric ball: http://www.purlbee.com/fabric-beach-balls/

Ramblings

Had our meeting Thursday. It's been decided that we're on a 3 month trial period with the therapy company we don't like. If they can't get their act together in that time-frame, then we can change providers with the county's approval. I hate all these hoops they make us jump through.

Other news: I started using a free app recommended to me by a younger sister, called MyFitnessPal. It mostly tracks calories and even has a cool barcode scanner on it. You can also track workouts in it, and it will figure out how many calories you burn for cardio. It gives me a daily calorie allotment based off my current weight, my goal and my activity level. It also has a weight tracker on it. I input mine daily because that's just a habit of mine, for better or worse. Anyway, since last Thursday I've lost 5 lbs. Unless I pulled out some sort of miracle--I'll know in about 5-10 minutes while I look up nutrition info online, I'm likely to need to workout tonight for going to a Chinese New Year fundraiser dinner. Was really hoping Brent would still be sick tonight so I could get out of it, but it didn't work out that way. :( Don't think we'll be going next year, as we recently found out how much Tom's mom paid per each of us--and she doesn't really have that kind of money to be throwing around.

Today I've been doing some much needed purging in the living room. It's a constant battle with kids. Just today alone, we've already donated 2 big bags & a diaper box full of books and thrown away a full trash bag! I'm playing around with rearranging furniture too. Months ago, I decided to measure our room, since we have some funky wall spaces due to doorways into the living room, the big sliding door to the backyard, the fireplace & the bay window that drives me nuts that it's not lower and able to use as seating or storage like I've seen. Here's how it is tonight.

I moved the shelf on the right(with the red & black can at the top) over  from across the room for a corner bookcase look. I'd like to replace the other two bookshelves with the Billy bookcase from Ikea--a 31.5" & probably the 15.75" wide. I'll figure out something different for the shoes, since we have a LOT of books in the boys' room too.

Hard to see it, but we moved a shorter white bookshelf(with doors) next to the toy shelfing thing on the left of the picture. I also moved our pictures I got for the boys of 3 temples(Newport Beach, Los Angeles, and San Diego). Ivy has one too--Kona Hawaii, but that's in her own room.

What I still need to tweak is a smaller couch so it will fit in the space between the two doorways. Thinking of this: Klippan from Ikea(my favorite store!) since it will fit without us having to constantly push the edges to get thru like we do now. Plus, still long enough for when we have overnight visiting family.

Also need to figure out computer desk area so the desk is narrower but still with storage--including for the all-in-one fax/printer/copier, and move the two short file cabinets so they're stacked on each other and by the other file cabinets by the fireplace. I also need to figure out DVD case storage if I want to have all the discs in their cases or exclusively use one of those big cd/dvd books/holders, as well as storage for the cds we have since so much of music is digital these days.

Random

Really loving how overall my hair is growing out nicely these past 3.5 months. It's definitely changing too, from wavy to more twisted curls. Guess this Curly Girl method thing is working out pretty well.

This is what it was like after my cut in October:

And here's what it's like today(chin-length bangs were pulled back & braided since sometimes they still have a mind of their own):

Latest happenings

We are in the process of trying to switch therapy companies for Collin. Hopefully, I will hear back soon when the meeting will be this month. I typed up my complaints/justifications and there was about a page and a half of problems/issues I have with our current company. I will copy & paste most of it here.

Some quick lingo definitions:

Fade out-when they want to reduce services slowly to eventually none(reduce Collin's hours & up mine because the state wants the parents to run the show so they don't have to pay for services) because they feel like the child doesn't need help anymore or making tons of progress. Collin's not there yet.

Flex-staffing: when a therapist is unable to make it, the company checks for any available therapist to make up the hours, even if they haven't worked with Collin before.

Stimming: not sure how to describe this, it's like being obsessed-usually involves lots of intense focus, with sensory input & shutting everything else out.

Echolalia: condition where phrases and words are said over and over again--this can go on for over 10 minutes at a time.

Mastered: acquired a skill and can do that skill in any setting.

"This has nothing to do with the fade out. My husband and I have been talking about switching since before Christmas.

• Turnover rate: 3+ sets of therapists and parent trainers in past year and a half due to school, quitting, leaving company, etc. That's less than 6 months with any therapy team. I understand that the staff goes to school and is rotated thru, but that’s too many changes. Collin gets upset when anyone comes over to our house, therapy company or not.

• Cancellation policy is a double-standard. We try to give as early notification as possible, whereas there have been multiple times where we are called less than an hour before session because of therapists cancelling

•We’ve had property damage by Collin during therapy sessions and no one seems to care or even notify us if we weren’t in the same room. We have pictures of when he made a hole in the wall during a therapy session, and nobody said anything to us about it even though he was supposed to be supervised.

• Behaviors not being addressed or are being encouraged: throwing all his books on the floor from his bedroom bookshelf any time he’s in there and mad, his running off to his room to escape cleaning up or being asked to do something that is non-preferred, stimming off window (earned after session on Friday 1/27, which is just reinforcing the behavior),stimming off repeating phrases that it near impossible to get him to stop(these phrases are being reinfornced), defiance (near 3 months, never addressed). When I recently asked about these behaviors, I was told, “Kids like Collin, you can’t tell if a new behavior is going to come & go on its own or if it’s permanent”

• Flex-staffing:  One time 1 of the therapists was out for 2 weeks. Company knew at least a month beforehand, and couldn’t find anybody to cover even with that much advanced notice. They claim they have it, but we’re never offered it. Other times we’ve called to reschedule & they never get back to us or say they don’t have anyone even if we offer different timeframe. We bend over backwards to make up session or accommodate time changes.

• Until late November, we were in the dark about his goals. Yes, the binder is at our house, but it should be discussed regularly what he’s working on and how he’s doing with his goals. They were only made known to us when fade out was first discussed. Currently, no goals are being discussed after sessions.

• Therapist not giving full supervision when needed. On 1/20, Collin almost flooded bathroom[sink was over ¾ full when mom went to go check] since therapist was not supervising hand washing—Collin left on water whole time, despite mom telling therapist to turn off the water. Also, see above regarding property damage.

• Saying skills are mastered & he can’t do them without therapists—among other things, shoe tying and supposedly pronouns(Collin says “Can I ride my back”? instead of “your” back)

• Too dependent on prompts—a lot of things are being model prompted every time by therapists. He is regressing back to finger pointing instead of using his words, and his echolalia has increased in the past two months.

• No strategies to deal with anger other than have him identify he’s mad/upset, and asking for person (if applicable) to leave him alone/give him space. It’s just not cutting it.

• Being asked in November about if we were willing to consider fading out. Our answer was a firm no. Yet, the first opportunity of therapy once we were back from Christmas vacation, it was the first thing mentioned to us. If they are so anxious to get rid of us, this only seals our previously made decision about switching companies.

• Training of the new therapist assigned to us. She was told by the supervisor that any video on YouTube via their smartphone was okay when Collin earns music on his schedule. I feel it would be better for us to be asked first what they are planning on using. The first music I overheard obviously had a video with it, something about a bikini. When is that appropriate for 2 young boys (brother was in the room at the same time)? I’ve since mostly corrected this myself by telling the therapist it’s not appropriate.

• Because we’ve been with company for so long, I feel like they’ve become too comfortable around us and slacking off. Ie. the less than 1 hour notification of changes, not addressing behaviors. When we first started working with them, we’d get calls ahead of time if supervisor or others from the office would be joining the therapy session. Normally it’s not a problem, but it got to the point where we were never notified, and it’d make Collin anxious (already was because of so many staff changes) and us too. We weren’t able to prime Collin about it first. This was recently corrected, but only for about a week. Collin really does not like our current team as well. He gets very angry and resentful when they come."