12 days later

I promise once school lets in I'll be posting more often. :) since I last posted we received a second gracious anonymous letter filled with more grocery and gas gift cards!! Whoever is sending these we are beyond grateful! Until Tim gets his finacial aid refund in October we have no income, save Gavin and Gabes disability which doesn't cover much, though we are for once thankful for cerebral palsy. 

The boys are all doing fantastic! Ethan's birthday is Thursday and we have his pre-k meeting tonight to meet his teacher and other parents, which is a rarity for Tim and I. All you special needs parents out there know what it's like. It's so hard to get out of the house to run to the store let alone to go socialize, alone, without the kids. A reliable babysitter for a special needs child is far and few between, let alone two year old special needs twins and a three year old to boot! :) thankfully my aunt Cathy is brave enough to step in when we reeeeally need her. You're a trooper! 

Xavier started class today. He's finally in second grade! How crazy. I remember he was Ethan's age when we met. A tiny little guy of 3 toddling around eating "magazines" (aka kid cuisines because Tim as a single dad, or my husband does not cook,) and playing Mario on Tim's old NES Nintendo. :)  He is growing into such an awesome young man.

I cannot believe my baby, my first born, is starting prek in a week. It is a sad and exciting time in our house. Tim and I still debate on homeschooling the boys long term k-12, but we think maybe a semester or two of prek for Ethan at this age isn't so bad. He already tests way above his age, 52 months at his last occupational therapy evaluation, but he needs a few playmates to socialize with that are his age and typical kids. He had his brothers but they have limitations.

Gavin and Gabe are doing excellent. :) saying new words and suprising us everyday. Gavin is really working at sitting on unassisted and is stringing 2, sometimes 3 words together now. Gabe talks more than if not just as well as Ethan who's 3. I just sit back and listen to them explain things to each other and am astonished and what intelligent little beings they are. The twins have surpassed all expectations Tim and I ever had for them when we got the diagnosis of periventricular leukomalacia in both of them and then the subsequent diagnosis of cerebral palsy. The only way to go from here is up! 

On the house and our urban homesteading adventures; I have officially cut our electric bill down from $150 to $75! We switched to all compact flouresent bulbs and line dry 95% of our clothing and linens, besides our king size comforter. 

The garden is still doing fantastic. Right now I have 6 tomatoes, 3 peppers, green beans, beets, carrots, romaine, corn, squash, zucchini, cabbage, peas, spinach, kale, arugula, Swiss chard, pumpkins; big and little, and sunflowers all doing fantastic still! I hope we can extend our growing season into the first frost because all the seedlings are doing fantastic! 

Sorry we went AWOL

It has been a very busy month of us. Gavin went to the second opinion eye doctor and we got glasses! Ethan starts his first year of pre-k on August 25th. Tim has decided not to go back to work and is now a full time college studen who also starts school August 25th. Gavin and Gabe turned 2 August 2nd and Gavin has his testical/intestinal hernia repair also on August 25th. Ethan turns 3 on August 21st! 

It has been a crazy month or preparation, doctors appointments, therapy, and college orientation, all while I help them all prepare. My fulltime job as a stay at home mom, full time special needs caretaker, and wife has gone into overdrive! 

Today we had a pleasent suprise though, a very welcome blessing. When I went to check the mail today we had a small envelope with no return address that was holding a small card a very large and generous amount of gift cards for food and gas. Whoever the sender may be we are extremely thankful and blessed you thought of our family during this transition in our life. I was having a little trouble trying to meal plan for the month, for our family of 6, with only $280. The plan won't change but we can now have extras like pickles on our sandwiches and French fries with our hot dogs! And the gas money is a godsend. I was worried about how we were going to make it to Gavin's surgery and how Tim was going to make it to his first few weeks of classes. Thank you again. You have helped us more then words can say! 

Also thank you to all our family who have helped us with time, money, babysitting, and food while we have been trying to change our life path. The next two years are going to be a challenge, not only parenting four children, two with special needs, but with the transition to being a family only living off the boys social security disability so their dad can better our future. 

Thank you in advance for putting up with my neurotic over analyzing and panic stricken conversations about money and child rearing special needs children on a very, very incredibly tight budget.