Oh Christmas Tree ...

Friday afternoon, after paying bills and taking care of errands, we stopped at the mall to go get a picture with Santa. It took a few tries and different positions, but we finally got a picture that wasn't too bad! Sofia originally started off by standing on the side of Santa, but she was standing a bit awkwardly so as not to get too close. We ended up having her stand behind him and his chair. I have no idea what AJ was doing with his hands, but he does it often.

 Please excuse the flash spot. I couldn't take a picture of the picture without it showing up.

Later that night, Sofia and AJ went over to our cousin's house to spend the night. Well, Sofia did. AJ ended up coming home in the middle of the night. Saturday afternoon, we decided to go out to get our Christmas tree. This is our first year having a real tree, and I really wanted to take the kids out, and give my husband a bit of Holiday fun. He grew up only having artificial trees in NYC, so he's never had the fun and joy of hunting down the perfect tree, then cutting it down yourself. I grew up with the forest in my backyard. He grew up with apartments and stores in his backyard, drugs in the street. So, this was definitely a new experience for him.

We went to a tree farm about half an hour away (40 minutes if you miss the exit like I did. Oops.) and got the run down of how it works there. They provided the handsaw, and a sled so the kids could ride on that instead of walking in the snow. There were tons of different kinds of trees, different sizes, different shapes. We walked around, and around, and jumped between 346,672,891,450 different trees. Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch, but there were so many different trees! It was hard to settle on just one. We found the perfect one, but then I found one that was even more perfect, and another, and another! The kids decided the first tree was the best, so we went back and hubby cut it down for us.

Fun in the sled and snow while hunting for that perfect tree!

This is it! This is our tree!

After it was cut down, the people who own the tree farm baled it up and secured it to our car for free. While they were doing that, the kids and I went in the garage and enjoyed cookies and hot cocoa. The place we went to takes pictures of you with your tree then posts them on the wall the next year. So, when we return next year, we'll look for ours! Once we had our fill of cookies and warm drinks, we headed back to the car to leave. It was at that point that Anthony and I realized neither one of us paid. I ran back out, paid them (only $20 per tree, no matter how big!), and gave a tip for baling, securing, and us almost driving off. Oops!

We drove to Walmart after to get a tree stand, and some tinsel. When we got home, Hubs and I had the joy of setting it up in the stand. Turns out, the stand we bought was too big for the tree. Hubs took it back and ended up finding the one in the basement that the previous renters left behind. It fit perfectly. After a bit of string and a metal wire rack thingy drilled into the wall, we were able to secure it to make sure it stood perfectly. Then hubby put the lights on the tree. We didn't decorate until Sunday, however. After it was all done, I was able to snap a few pics of the kids with the tree.

I had to buy another garland because the one we had wasn't big enough! I'm still searching for our special ornaments, so once those are found and put up, then we will put the tinsel on.

I love our tree. The black and white ornaments give it a simple, yet beautiful look. The scent isn't as strong as I wanted it to be, but it smells amazing. The cat hasn't tried to climb in it (yet), but he does enjoy laying underneath it.

Do you celebrate Christmas? If not, what holiday do you celebrate? If so, do you have your tree up yet?






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5 Days of No School

I've been out of. On November 14th, I had my wisdom teeth pulled, and it totally threw me off. I thought I scheduled the appointment for a day that Gianna didn't have school, but it turns out she was supposed to. I didn't send her because I didn't realize until it was too late. I wouldn't have been able to send her anyway, because no one would have been home to get her off of her bus.

I've missed appointments because I have been so thrown off with my days. I STILL need to call to set up a new therapist for AJ. I need to reschedule a ton of appointments. I need to reorganize my entire house. I need to figure out what to do with the Christmas tree this year. I need to continue to go through my clothes to put aside those that don't fit me any more. So much that needs to be done.

But first, I need to get through this Thanksgiving break. AJ came home from school today unhappy. I'm not sure why, he said nothing happened. I suspect he's upset that there's no school for the next 5 days. He has a love/hate relationship with school. His teacher is fantastic, he has friends, but he struggles with being overwhelmed. He starts his work and feels like he can't do it. It frustrates him. Mrs. R is awesome, and encourages him to take breaks when he needs to- go sit on the rug, get a drink of water, etc. Little things so that he can escape the work momentarily, then get right back on task. She tells me these breaks have been happening more and more as the school year goes on. It started off as once a day, but now it's more like once per subject she was telling me. I am concerned, but I have faith his teacher is doing all she can to help him. The school psychologist tells me they can't do another eval on him, but without that, requesting an IEP or 504 is pointless. We've been denied twice before because his "behavior doesn't affect his learning" while at school.

I keep saying it, but when we see a new therapist, I sure hope they can help more than his current one. I can't take this much longer. When he came home, he was upset and picked fights nonstop with Gianna. Snatching the tablet out of her hands, taking toys from her, pretending he was going to share the blanket with her then saying "NOT!" and laughing in her face. Gianna adores him, and loves to sit with him and play with him, but it breaks my heart to see him act so mean and bully her like this. I keep trying to tell him that one day, he's going to really regret it. It doesn't seem to phase him in the least.

I don't know if I mentioned it previously, but 2 months ago, we added Seroquel to his medications. We started at half a pill (12.5 mg) every day after school, and just bumped it up to a whole pill after school, and an extra half as needed for agitation and outbursts. I've not yet felt the need to give him that extra as needed, but have no qualms in doing so if I must. I have a feeling that I will need to at least once during this break.

Speaking of break, I am not going to enjoy this break if this behavior continues. I've decided that I'm going to start implementing chores as punishments. This will accomplish two things. One, my house will be clean pretty quickly, and two, it will keep the kids busy. With any luck, one or two additional things will come from it- One, my children will discover they actually like cleaning, so they'll do it willingly, more often. And/or two, they'll hate cleaning so much that they'll be extra kind to each other, and work extra hard to get along. Hey, I can dream, right?!





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