it's been a while... along while

Hello Blog!

I know I have very much neglected you and I'm sorry I totally never mean to but I just haven't been in the mood to write or when I am I start typing a long lovely post only to get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink and find it completely erased ><. What has happened in the past oh say like 2 years I have ignored you? Quite a lot actually. We have moved to a better place and better schools. We've made serveral family trips one inculding Legoland which has stolen Alex's heart as #1 atraction to visit in California. We got to see our cousins from Finland for the 1st time in 5 or 6 years. We've joined a gym! Made some new friends and most importantly improved our lives. Anways I hope to focus on you more with all these changes in our lives so that I have something to come back to and enjoy those times agian. Anyways I leave you with our most recent sheenangians the tatoo story!

So one day while vegging out on the computer mindlessly surfing for who knows what now. Alex walks up to me and says, "Hey mom, look I got a tatoo" I turn around and he lifts his shirt to reveal a smiley face drawn across his chest. Apparently I didn't react as he anticipated ( I think he was looking for a, "Wow that's so Awesome!!!"). My reaction was more of a "why'd you do that?" not mad just trying to be as benign about this as possible. He then covered and himself and ran away. I sighed and look at his brother who had a very large "tramp stamp" smiley face on his back.....I think I have a future artist in the making. Here are the pics:

Alright I know I'm a blog bum but I have tried very hard to write a few blogs in the past only to almost finish them and have them completely erased when I got up to get a drink, because a little computer game obessed kindergardener has closed everything to play diabolo ( not sure if I spelt that right ><). Anyways here an update on what up in the Joos household these days.

Alex has become very independent he now walk by himself to the playground, he can change out the Landry by himself (still doesn't fold it tho....sigh), and makes his own sandwiches yay! His current favorite books are ones about a dog going to school and an alligator named Alphie who likes cookies. I now have to race him to get him to take a shower or bath and brush his teeth at night or it's a Hugh argument...grrrr. He's total momma's boy till dad gets home then I'm chopped liver cause dad does fun stuff like building computers and mowing the lawn. He also already has a girlfriend at school named Alexis and he's gotten a ring and a few cards from her telling him to come visit at her house. I have a feeling this girl is the 1st of many more to come....

Vincent has learned to to say yeahhhhh and is much more perceptive then he used to be. He puts himself to bed on time every night and gives himself a shower. I've been trying to get him to brush his own teeth and it's coming along nicely he really really likes his new toothbrush. Every afternoon break he gets at school he gets to play with his brother Alex and I hear they are actually nice to each other at school....who would of thought? It's been a long time since we've seen any aggressive behavior from him at home and he's usually in a good mood these days. Most the time he spend chilling out in the backyard working on his tan. His dad is trying to build a swing set so he has more to do out there. Vincents favorite shows to watch are Veggie Tales and Wallace and Grommit.

John has been working hard lately at both home and work. He built a new computer and is working on a swing set. We also are trying to file all our documents from over the years a major pain in the ass, but at least it's gets everything out of boxes. I learned how to knit and forgot.... sorry Brooke. I'm also thinking of learning to sew it's a useful trade. And we've been going through all the junk in our house trying to get rid of anything totally useless.... we have lots useless junk :( well that's the update for now we lost our camera so as soon as I get a new one I'll put up a post about our new pastime bowling! TTFN

Ale'x birthday Party.

This year we had our 1st "friends" birthday party for Alex since he was turning the big 5. It was really fun and a lot of work, but we pulled it off thanks to some help from our friends Brooke and Brandi. Also I actually got pictures of it! Well Brooke got pictures of it and was kind enough to share them with me ( thanks Brooke).



Here's Penny getting ready to hit the pinata

This is the little brother of a baseball friend

Candy started pouring at this point





And here's Alex showing off some of his goodies

Vincent enjoying his candy.

Vincent getting ready for the sneak attack on the candles...




...and there he goes



Things went better on Alex's 2nd attempt to blow out the candles

Then it was on to the presents

Note how attentive the other kids are for presents



And when everyone went home it eas time to jam

All and all it was a pretty good party, but I'm really glad it's over. We had lots of fun now to think of ways to top it for next year.

Hoa picnic

here are those long a waited HOA family picnic pictures:

Here's Vincent going down his favorite ride of the day the giant water slide. It was pretty cold this day so I give props to the kiddo I couldn't have done it.

This is his buddy/ hero of the day Trina she helped me find Vincent when he was missing and helped him figure out the water slide.

Alex on the warm and dry bounce house.

Vincent before he found out about the water slide.

Oh nooooo the slide blew over :(

He likes jumping :)

Vincent

An amusing part about having an Autistic child is you never know what's going to happen from day to day. I can spend the whole day cleaning up mess while having Vincent grunt at me and Alex running around copying him. While I'm ready to pull my hair out and cry in the corner. Some days are awesome Vincent actually says something to me, remembers to throw his trash away and destroys very little. And there are days that are extremely frustrating to deal with but some funny story comes from it and I just have to laugh about it later. This is one of those stories.


For Easter my in-laws came out to visit. The weather has been so nice lately John and his dad went outside to play catch, so we all went out to watch. Vincent was being Vincent and Alex was running around pretending to mow the lawn when all of a sudden Vincent runs inside the house I get up to go after him , because he's not aloud in the house alone, and that's when he slams the door shut and locks it .


This has happened before and usually there's an unlocked window we hop through. We checked all the windows and they are all locked( even the tiny shower window.) So we have to get Vincent to come to the door and unlock it, but why would he do that when all the things he's not aloud to do he can cause there's no one to stop him. We start yelling:

"VINCENT, VINCENT, UNLOCK THE DOOR."

He just stares at us goes into John's mom's purse and pulls out the gum lays on the floor and scoots around it for a while. We continue to try to get his attention to no avail. Eventually he rolls himself in a blanket and goes and lays in the landury room for 20 minutes. Completely ignoring us. I'm about to go nuts and so I put on my angry mom voice and yell:

" VINCENT! GET UP! GET UP RIGHT NOW!"

He hears me! Starts stamping his feet and walks over to the dining room table, slumps down in
a chair and starts staring out the window at me . He does this for about 10 minutes. So I do what any practical mother would do in situation like this I start bribing him:

" Vincent I'll give you more gum, if you open the door.Vincent you want some candy? Vincent
come here your not in trouble, just open the door."

He's not fooled. So I pick up a piece of side walk chalk and write his name on the sliding glass door hoping he will see it and get excited and come over nope doesn't fool the kid. So Finally we decide to do something really fun and exciting to lure him outside. What do we do? We bring out the big guns. That's right The Bounce House. We blow it up right on the patio directly in front of the door, put Alex in it and start jumping around it making a big to do about how much fun we're having. He stands up amused and does his I'm really excited scream and runs to the door.....and starts jumping up and down in front of it... then John and I walk over and say:

" Come outside Vincent we're having so much fun."

He continues to jump up and down. Then we pull on the door and show him we can't open it and ask if he can. He pull on the door just like we did ( leaving the lock in place)and then continues jumping up and down. Grrrrrr...So then I start hitting where the lock would be with my hand like I was trying to unlock it from the outside, hoping he copies me and unlocks the door....he does copy me but limp wristed so the door doesn't get unlocked, and continues to jump up and down. John and I continue to try and coax Vincent into unlocking the door switching off pulling on the door, asking him to unlock the door, and pretending to hit the lock from he outside.....we do this for about a half hour. We are ready to give up and annoyed to no end. I sit in a chair and John starts looking for a good rock to break a window with so we're not stuck in the backyard
all night.
During this time Jon's dad had gone up to the door and starting trying the exact same methods we we're using and low and behold Vincent opens the door! It's a miracle! We spent over an hour locked outside and took all the coaxing, bribing, yelling we could muster but it still wasn't enough to get him to open the freaking door nope it took the power of grandparents to get him to do it. The all powerful beings that tell your parents what to do and never yell at you. Well lesson learned. Te first thing we did was unlocked a window that will remain for always the unlocked window, cause I can't call people up that live 6 hours away every time I get locked out which after how much fun Vincent had for that extremely long hour will probably be occurring more frequently. And for now I'm just happy to be back inside :)

Vincent therapy update

On thursay this week Vincent had a really good day as far as therapy. He counted to 6 on his own the 1st time ever counting, and he mimicked exact facial expressions! (This was really cool to watch he kept looking in the speech therapist's mouth to find out where her voice came from, then trying to make the same face as she was.)He has also been pronoucning the sound of different vowels he can do G, D, M, N, and B. Vincent's also coming along with his computerized device.... but unforunatly he mostly likes to tell you he wants mom to stop making him use it ><... also on a side note I'm really really excited he has begone to keep his pooh contained in the toilet it has been a month since I had to buy clean up wipes. Which makes me a very happy mommy. He just floods the bathroom instead, but with a choice between poop and toilet water I'll take the toilet water. Today we went to the "annual" Spring party in our neighborhood and had a blast soon to some are the pictures, I'm just too lazy to put them on myself. I figure that's what I have the smart computer husband for. TTFN

California vacation part 2

Okay, so here are the the beach pictures I promised There aren't as many because we didn't spent that much time there it was kinda cold, but that didn't stop Vincent from wanting to jump in the water and go for a swim, I had to hold his hand the whole time so he wouldn't.

They started out just enjoying playing in the sand like good little boys.

But eventually the call of the ocean was too great.

It was just too cold to swim. So we went for walk on the pier and checked out some of the shops around Newport.

It was a fun short trip next time maybe it will be warmer and we can stay at the beach all day!