Happy Halloween

 

I bring you The Williams Family Fire Department (and their trusty dalmatian too!)

So it was a windy, cold, and rainy day...but we still squeezed in a lot of Halloween fun! We started with a Grandparent luncheon at our house. Then we all headed over to the town Halloween party. The winds were SO strong that our firemen couldn't even wear their hats:( We only stayed for a little while due to the weather, but the kids won first place in the costume contest for their age group!

After naps we headed over to my mom's house for pizza and to help hand out candy. The weather had actually improved a little (well, still cold, but less windy and only drizzling) so we decided to go back to our street and trick or treat a little. The kids were wonderful all day and were in awe at the wagon transformation! Even Allie seemed to have a great time!

We were worried about our cardboard contraption given the weather, but the duct tape held up pretty well! Enjoy the pictures...

The funniest  thing were Allie’s ears blowing in the wind!

 

   SO WINDY!!!

 

 

Here is the whole crew! The Williams Fire Department, Cousin Aubrey (the Princess), Cousin Natalie (The Princess’s Pea), Friend Aiden Lightyear, and Friend Carson the Clown! Oh yes, and Cara is holding Grandma’s very old baby doll!

 

A great day with family and friends…

Ahhhh...Friday!

Ooo! I'm just loving all of the guesses about our Halloween costumes! The caterpillar idea would have been genius! The wagon could be SO easily transformed into the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I could have dressed the kids up as the food that the caterpillar ate. Maybe next year? And Thomas...love that idea too! But that's not it either! I'll give you a clue...the triplets will all be the same thing and Allie will be dressed as their trusty friend.....hmmmm....

Our town has a party planned at the park in the afternoon with a costume parade/contest. We are planning on going, but also getting a nap in too! Skipping naps on Halloween would not be a good plan. I know, we could go as four screaming, whining, slobbering monsters!?!

I have invited the Granparents over for a Halloween luncheon tomorrow and the kids are SO excited! Nothing makes them more excited than the promise of a Grandma/Grandpa visit! The weather sounds a little iffy and I'm imagining paint dripping from all sides of the wagon and wind blowing everything in all directions! It is sure to be an adventure!

Almost the Weekend!

Phew! I'm telling you, my stay at home mommy days are exhausting! And today I wasn't even much of a stay at home mom! We had Brady's PT session this morning (the last one for a while), haircuts for all 4 kids at 10:45 (luckily I have a wonderful angel who comes to our house to cut the kids' hair

), lunch, naps (during which time I did more work on the Halloween wagon transformation and got my hair cut & colored), home just in time to make dinner, baths, a little play, then bed! I'm so blessed to have the help of my mom-in-law and my mom 3 days a week, not sure how I woudl fit it all in without their help.

Yes, my baby-boo got her haircut today. She was starting to look a little homely, with long straggly hair behind her ears. Now she lucks just-plain-cute again! She smiled, giggled, and babbled throughout (of course!). The big birthday is one week from tomorrow!

Brady Boy

It's a late post tonight. I've been at my mom's working on transforming the kids' wagon into a ________? You'll just have to wait until Halloween! Let's just say my back hurts and I'm covered in paint:)

I had Brady's Annual Review meeting today to discuss his Early Intervention Services. At this point last year he was evaluated in several areas and qualified for physical therapy due to his extreme motor delays at the time. Fast forward 12 months...he has "tested out" in many areas, but his PT, service coordinator, and I all feel he still needs some sort of services. Because his delay is due to a spinal injury as a result of cancer, we need to make sure that he is continuing to make progress. After all, any signs of weakness or regression could indicate a more serious problem. So, Brady will continue physical therapy, but only 1 time a month for an hour. I'm so proud of all he has done. It's AMAZING to see how far he has come. The first time I brought him to meet his new PT Linda, I remember him standing, very wobbly, in the middle of the room. He was just learning to stand on his own and could cruise. I went back and checked the date, it was April 30th...that is only 6 month ago! Just 6 months! Now Brady walks, Brady runs, Brady climbs, Brady jumps, Brady rides a trike...Brady is considered to have most of the physical skills of a typical boy his age. For any of you out there who doubt the mighty power of prayer, the power of God...just go back and read about where Brady was and how far he has come! It is truly miraculous!!!

Another piece of the Brady puzzle is his social and emotional development. When we first had testing done last year, Brady also qualified for services in this area due to his extreme reservations about being around new people. He had pretty severe separation anxiety and took a VERY long time to warm up to new people. At the time, we didn't pursue help in this area because our plates were pretty full with the medical stuff. Fast forward 12 months...Brady has been through so much. His little world has expanded too! He has been able to bond with new people and experience many new things. However we are still seeing a lot of reluctance to participate in social situations outside of the home. A lot of this comes from Brady's very stubborn personality, and I think this is a learned mechanism for him to control his world. Matt and I are starting to see a lot of defiance at home too, not being naughty really, just VERY stubborn, digging his heels in, refusing to comply to some requests. So, if you put all of these things together, we are somewhat concerned about his ability to adjust to things like preschool, which is only 10 months away! We are going to look into these concerns and do some testing to see if Brady might benefit from help in these areas.

I hope I'm not painting an undesirable picture of who Brady is. He is a delightful, loving, silly, intelligent, energetic boy. We just need to make sure we are helping him work through some of his weaker areas so that he can be a happy participant in all areas of his life:)

Tomorrow is our last Thursday PT visit before we move to once a month:( I'm so proud of Brady, am looking forward to not driving 4 hours a week, but will miss our time with Linda. She's awesome and we will miss seeing her two times a week!

Although we didn't have a big family outing today, it still seems as though things are so busy around here. Brady and I went to PT this morning and I had my MOPS meeting tonight. I'm so glad for that group of women. It is such a blessing to go and relax two nights a month with women who are in the same stage of life as me. We talk, laugh, eat...all things I love to do:)

Tomorrow is Brady's annual review meeting for his Early Intervention Services. I can't believe he has been in PT for a year! He had started PT before we found out he had cancer. It was a frustrating time because he wasn't making progress and was very resistant to doing PT activities. Little did we know what was going on!

Halloween this weekend! I can't wait to share our costume idea with all of you, but you will have to wait!

ZOO!

The Williams family was on another adventure today! This time we went to Buffalo Zoo with Grandma Sandy and our honorary Grammas, Lynn and Niki! My children all adore these ladies, so it made for a great day!

After a brief stop for gas and a "car sick cleanup" we were off:( We didn't bring the wagon again (sniffle sniffle) and the kids did a great job. It was a pretty unique situation as we were one adult per child, talk about a breeze! I generally pushed Allie in the stroller while the big kids matched up with a Gramma and checked out the animals. And yes Mom, all day I was thinking, if only my momma were here, it would be a perfect Grandma day! Our family is just so blessed to have so many amazing women in our lives...

The kids really liked the animals and I think they learned a lot! It's neat this year to hear them comment about things and to ask questions. My favorite part of the day was on our way out when the kids came across a fire hydrant. Well, it might have been their favorite exhibit! They walked around that thing, talked about it, and Cara exclaimed, "Look mommy! It wearing a hat!"

Enjoy the pictures!

Waiting for the sea lion…

Ooo! There he is!

The animals looked even more beautiful against the fall colors…

Allie’s new hat…LOVE IT!

Grandma Sandy and Brady

Gramma Niki and the gang!

Gramma Lynn and the gang…

And Grandma Sandy:)

Here it is! THE fire hydrant….OOOOOooooo!!

And as we were leaving, Brady decided to pose like a little GQ man!

Fun in the Leaves!

So Brady boy would still not use his hand this morning, not at all. It looked a swollen still, but not terrible. We figured we would wait it out a little more and try and encourage him to use it without really “knowing” it. So I went and got 3 kids’ rakes and we went outside for some fun this afternoon. Seeing the kids run and jump and play was amazing! They LOVED the big pile daddy made and thought their new rakes were too cool. And Brady boy…he played in the leaves, raked the leaves, and wrestled in the leaves. Hmmmm….what to make of that boy and his injury. I genuinely think he hurt it, but not to the degree that he wanted us all to believe. Anyway, enjoy some pictures of leafy fun in our yard!

Letchworth Day

Today was our day to celebrate family and fall at Letchworth State Park. This has been a yearly tradition my whole life and a day I look forward too all year. Enter 4 toddlers…still a day I look forward to, but the amount of work and mishaps seem to be multiplied by 10!

The first half of the day went fairly smoothly. No car sickness for Allie since she fell asleep (woo hoo!). We had a great lunch and played outside. “Auntie Robin” planned a bunch of games to celebrate our friend Aiden’s birthday. The kids had a great time searching for treasures in the leaves, playing pin the eye on the monster, playing feed the monster, and pumpkin bowling!

Some great time playing Eli’s favorite game he calls “FUMBLE!” Basically, he just runs with the football, drops it, yells FUMBLE, then chases the ball again.

The kids loving playing and snuggling with Uncle Andy.

Great times with cousins…

Last year she was in my belly! This year she’s a 23 pound cutie!

Even a family picture!

Things started getting a little hairy when nap time rolled around, and the kids weren’t able to nap. Oh the joys of 3 grouchy 2 year olds (and a baby!) So we packed up the kids, minus the baby prone to car sickness, and took a drive through the park. Sometime before we did this Brady stumbled and scraped his hand on a wall. He was really upset about it, but it only looked like a little scratch. He has this “thing” about Band-Aids, he really hates them. I think it is because whenever he wakes up from anesthesia, he has an IV, which gets removed, then they put a band aid on it. So, the boy doesn’t like them. I ended up putting one on anyway because I wanted to keep it clean. He carried on and on and on….So we loaded into the car, they all fell asleep, and got a quick 30-minute nap.

Unfortunately, Brady woke up as miserable as he had fallen asleep. He also was favoring his hand and acting like it really hurt. I noticed it was a little swollen and thought he would get over it. A few hours later he was still carrying on. It’s tough with Brady. He is stubborn, he has a temper, he holds a grudge, he can act really upset about nothing much at all. So we waited him out and by 7pm he was still a mess. We packed up and came home. We were trying to decide whether or not to take him to the ER for an XRAY. We ended up putting him to bed thinking maybe being overtired was contributing to things. We will see how he is in the morning.

The first half of the day gets an A+ and the second half just reminds me that it is hard to have small children, really hard!