Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall

Happy Fall! It has been way too long since I have been around the blogging world and once again for the same reasons....LIFE.  I realized today that summer is over and fall is here and I ask myself, "where did it go?".... What have we been up to this summer? To be honest, this summer was a hard one for me.  I love to fill my summer with lots of activities that are focused on water and/or sand. I love to have my toes in the sand, soaking up lots of sun rays. Well, I barely made a dent on my summer bucket list.... For the most part, I was what you call a hermit.  It is exhausting getting 3 littles out of the house; add in sand, bathing suits, clothes, food etc....and I would be on my death bed when we got home.  We made the best of it though and I just kept reminding myself that there will be plenty more summers when the kids are older and we are able to do more, and not to wish this time away.

We started off the summer getting family pictures taken since we keep having kids and our pictures are outdated.  Getting pictures of 3 boys five and under is quite a chore...let me just tell you...Children/family photographers are saints!

 

Photographer: Sarah Rogers with Sully and Willis Photography

Since we took the boys to Disney World over Easter break, we decided to not go on a summer vacation this year. We did however go on a mini vacation to visit our family in GA, for the 4th of July. We also visited the Atlanta Aquarium while we were there.

Cousins

The boys enjoyed swimming almost everyday and Zachary learned how to swim this summer and Lukas wasn't far behind.

No, Lukas can't swim alone..he has a bubble on his back

Lukas is finally potty trained (woo hoo), and I am loving this 1 less in diapers thing. We got Zachary into modeling, which he loves to do since he is a total ham. 

My lil Gap model

Love this cutie

Gavin got his first haircut at 7 months old. This is a record since the other boys were way over one years old before a first haircut. When you have to put your child's hair in a ponytail for him to be able to see....its time!

He started physical therapy and occupational therapy... so with those two and seeing his early interventionist we have a total of 3 therapy sessions a week! He is doing great at sitting up but he still not crawling. He just rolls like crazy to get where he wants to go.  I know they say, "he will do it when he is ready", but it's still very frustrating to see the months pass by and your baby not doing what others his age are. This is a constant battle with me but I try to look at the bigger picture. He will stand....if you put him into that position, but hey! I am going to celebrate any accomplishment.

Look at me!

He is still a chunker and is gaining weight like crazy. He's in the 50 percentile on a typical chart. Still 100% nursing and will not drink from a bottle which makes for a very tired mama! This is a huge goal that we are working towards with OT. We are not trying for a bottle anymore though because he is almost 10 months and soon he will need to drink from a cup. He is a little slower on eating food and has a hard time swallowing it.... but still working so hard and getting better everyday. His OT brought us a new spoon to try and viola! Who would have thought... The spoon was all it took for him to start eating/swallowing better.

This is a Maroon Spoon from The Equipment Shop

 We are so proud of our little G... He is such an outgoing, lovable, little social butterfly, who loves attention.

Eating his puffs

This summer, Curtis and I decided to start some DIY projects... this was our way of spending quality time together and also would benefit me on the side (lol).  So we decided to build our very own rustic farmhouse table. After several mistakes, a few bad arguments and very close to a separation, we finished this beautiful table!  

I was shocked at how good it actually turned out. The finish took me forever since I am so indecisive, but I am so pleased with it.  I will be posting here soon, an entire page about the table and what we did, for all of you who would like to know.

My baby is in kindergarten :(

School started a few weeks ago and my sweet Zachary started kindergarten....he loves it, except for the getting up at 6:30am part. As much as I like the break, I miss him like crazy.  When I went to kindergarten, we went for a half day. He is gone from 7-3! This is something I am going to have to get use to.

Lukas started going to preschool again two mornings a week and verdict is still out on if he likes it or not.  With two year olds...one day they like something and the next they hate it. So Gavin and I have some time alone those two mornings.

This past weekend we had Gavin dedicated over in GA with out family. My mom and dad came from NJ so that my dad could do the dedication which was really nice.  Its hard doing life without any family close by so we jumped at the opportunity to have most of us together.  We are so grateful for our family and friends that were able to be there with us.

My daddy, praying over Gavin

We had the dedication at a park in the woods

New "Diet"

The newest thing that our family has started is a new, healthy, clean way of eating.  We have always eaten fairly healthy but some medical concerns and conditions that Gavin may have in the future has turned me turn into a researching food freak.  Apparently children with Down syndrome have a harder time eating and digesting certain foods, than some would.  Those certain foods are in our everyday diet.  A lot of health conditions can be helped or even resolved just from changing what you put into your body.  Before he understands that I am feeding him something different than the rest of us, I need to change the way I eat and slowly incorporate it into our everyday meals.   I will talk more about this later in another post and go into it a bit further but at this current time we are going to be doing a detox....detoxing from processed foods and sugar.  Sugar is a hard thing to give up here at the house. It's seriously like crack and this was probably the worst time to eliminate it (Halloween right after the corner).   I will be putting Gavin on the GAPS diet once he gets better at eating. This diet is pretty crazy and strict but I want to help him in any way that I can, and this seems to be what has helped a lot of kids with DS.  I hate calling it a "diet" because we won't actually be dieting...we will be changing our way of life.  If you are interested in finding out more, or would like some yummy whole food recipes, be on the lookout for my next post.

Brothers being silly

This is our last time eating at Five Guys :(

Gavin loves his brothers

Well, that's it for now....I hope you all had a fabulous summer, and enjoy the cooler weather coming in.