So I really, really, really had every intention of keeping up with this blog a little more steadily this week.

oh. well.

It’s actually been a much more quiet week than the previous two…but my brain is still swirling around with Soma RPM excitement and Children’s Ministry responsibilities.  Not enough brain cells left over to form coherent sentences, don’t ‘cha know.

So here’s what’s up…

• My Mom and I have been working hard to complete the prerequisites for the Level 1 Soma RPM Training that we hope to attend this fall.  We watched the training DVD, which was amazing.   Now we need to videotape ourselves doing a lesson with Noah.  Once that’s completed, we’ll send our application and videotapes in and wait and hope that we get in.  Our goal is to have everything in the mail by this Saturday.
• We leave next Monday for a five day trip to Kansas City to visit Doug’s family.  I can’t wait.  The boys are excited too…they keep asking when we’re leaving.  It’s going to be so wonderful to see everyone and just hang out.
• Nothing new on the home-selling front.  We continue to have a good number of looky-loos, but so far, not one single offer.  In an interesting development, our next door neighbor placed his house on the market.  The list price on his home is $215,000 higher than ours.  Bless his heart…he’s such a nice man.  I’m thinking that someone needs to knock on his door and tell him that it’s 2009 and not 2006.
• Anybody else out there watch “So You Think You Can Dance”?  I see those hands.  Who’s your favorite?  I’m waffling between Evan and Ude.  I’m still waiting for my favorite routine to emerge this season. (My favorite last year was “Bleeding Love” (how dysfunctional are those song lyrics, anyway?)…a lyrical hip-hop routine choreographed by Napolean and Tabitha.  I love, love, love their routines.)  I’m beyond thrilled that we get a fall season of SYTYCD this year…I just love it.  And there ya have it folks…proof that I need to get a life.

Well, I really need to get moving.  I’ve got a lesson to do with Noah and a Target run to make.

Ya’ll have a great day today…

Today is our 17th wedding anniversary.

We had a “date day” yesterday.  My parents kept the boys for the afternoon and evening.  We went to see “Up”…had a great dinner at carnivore heaven (Texas de Brazil) and capped the night with a trip to Ikea.  It was wonderful.

So “Up” had me bawling in the first 10 minutes.  I won’t give it away if you haven’t seen it yet…but it’s just. beautiful.  (Some scary scenes for the young’ins though…you might want to screen it first before you take them.  I won’t be showing this one to my boys just yet.)

anywho…

I wrote this post on our anniversary last year, and I can’t think of anything that I would rather say today.  It holds true today just as much…perhaps even more…then it did when I wrote it one year ago.

Here’s the part that I would like to repeat…

…I was musing about our wedding day…

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.

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I don’t remember thinking too much about the future at that point. I suppose if you had asked me that morning, I would have told you that we would start having children in a few years…I would stay home with them and home school…and we would be active in our church. I thought that Doug would work at Disney as a musician forever. We even joked about when he would “age out” of a theme park gig and become one of the old guys playing in the jazz combo at the Grand Floridian. We pictured how I would take the kids to the lobby to listen to their Daddy play saxophone.

If you had told me that day…

That I would become a pastor’s wife…

That we would struggle for years with infertility…not having our first child until after our 8th wedding anniversary…

That we would have a child who has severe autism…

Well…

I would have laughed hysterically at the first revelation and asked you if you were high.

The second two revelations would have frightened me to death. If those things had been revealed to me on our wedding day, I would have probably decided that our married lives would be characterized by sadness and heartache…and likely not very happy.

Thanks be to God…I would have made an incredibly erroneous assumption.

Yes…we have been through some intense periods of heartache and trial. But God has helped us…and our marriage is stronger, happier and more fun than it has ever been.

God’s Word is Sure and True. The counsel that we have received from it has rescued us and given us hope time and time again.

There were no guarantees of “happy” times when we made our vows 16 (now 17!) years ago. There are no guarantees still…we’re well aware that trials of life are normal…and that we may well face some intense times of testing in the future.

I cannot fathom walking the road ahead of me with anyone else.

Would I do it all again…knowing what I know now…trials and heartache included?

a thousand times yes.

And to Doug…

I love you. love you. love you. Thank you for being the greatest husband on the planet and for putting up with this lunatic chick who is just. freakin. crazy. And for sticking when so many others would have walked. Have I told you today that I love you?

This week is flying by.

I find myself completely preoccupied with Noah’s Soma RPM lessons (which are going really well and Noah is loving it) and suddenly…a new thing…

Isaac’s potty training.

Yep…at the ripe old age of 4 years, 10 months, we are FINALLY getting the pee pee in the potty.

This has been a long and frustrating 2 year battle.  It started when Isaac was 2 1/2 and began to show interest in and readiness for the big boy potty.  All excited and thinking that my days of diapers were coming to an end, I ran out to the store to purchase a fancy little potty chair and training pants.  Since Isaac has always been all into music, I chose a little potty that made music when the wee-wee hit the target.

I took the potty chair home…placed it in the restroom next to Isaac’s room and proudly presented it to him with great fanfare.  Isaac was happy and excited about it and I figured that it would be a slam dunk.

After talking up the singing potty chair for a few days, I decided to give it a try.  I loaded Isaac up with watered down apple juice and stuck him on the potty.

He sat there happily, and after a few minutes…started to tinkle.

Then…IT started.

The music.

Suddenly…the happy and proud look turned to a look of horror.   And the screaming commenced.

The little singing potty chair had both terrorized and traumatized my son.

And he never went near it again.

I decided to give the whole potty training thing a rest, thinking that he would quickly get over his horrifying time on the musical chair.

I thought incorrectly.  My child knows how to hold a grudge.  And he became convinced that if he ever piddled in any toilet, anywhere, anytime, that those toilets would sing to him as well.  And he was having none of it.

So…after two years of trying again…and failing…and waiting some more…we’ve finally got a big boy in Thomas the Tank underwear.

It’s a bit time consuming now…he still wants one of us in the bathroom with him (I suppose to guard against the evil singing toilet) and I imagine that we need to stay close to home for a few days to reinforce everything.  But whatever it takes, I’ll do.  I am SO ready for this trial of parenting to be over.

So that’s what’s up in my strange little world today.

What’s going on in yours?

Anybody else?

I cannot believe how busy I’ve been lately.  This summer has been C-R-A-Z-Y.

This week I’ve been on the fast train to loony as it was the week of our Quarterly Prep Day for Children’s Ministry.   I’m the shopping chick for said Prep Day.  If I planned way ahead and started shopping three weeks ago, I wouldn’t have had to flip out and lose my mind this week.  But I didn’t and so I did and it’s my own stupid fault.

anywho…

In the middle of all the glue sticks and fabric paint, I’ve been spending a good deal of time studying the Soma RPM Training Conference.  I purchased the DVD at the Halo Clinic and it has been an incredibly helpful resource.  Soma is AMAZING.  There are clips of her working with some pretty severe children, and the difference that she makes within just a few days is astounding.  I’m trying to absorb all that I can while working with Noah daily.

We have an opportunity to have Noah work with Soma this November when she comes to Florida to speak at the National Autism Association Conference.  I’ve put in my request for a time slot…hopefully it will work out.  It would be wonderful to have a little “boost” from Soma after we’ve been working with Noah for a few months.

Noah is quite proud of his work with Erika at the Halo Clinic.  Last night, Doug and I were watching the DVD of his sessions there.  When it came time to turn it off, Doug hit stop.  Noah jumped up and ran over turned it back on.  This went back and forth for about 5 minutes, Noah laughing the whole time.

hmmm….what else is going on?…

oh. yeah.

Our house continues to sit on the market.  We’ve had three showings in the past week, but not a peep back from one of ‘em.

We’ve not have one single offer.

Not even a bad one.  (Although I suppose that I should be grateful, because a low-ball offer would really, really REALLY irritate me.)  So…nothing new to report there.

Well…that’s all I’ve got for now.

I hope that ya’ll have a great weekend…

Okay, so we went to Disneyworld last Saturday.

It was a fabulous day.  Great fun was had by all.

As I walked around Epcot with Michelle, I suddenly realized that I had not visited Disney since December.  Weird.  When Doug was working at Disney full-time, we averaged 1 visit per month.

anywho…

After about an hour in the park, it began to dawn on me that the previously sky-high prices on food and souvenirs have now rocketed to somewhere around the level of the third heaven.  Doug purchased a little Figment rubber ball and a plastic Figment figurine for the boys and…even with a 35% discount…paid $6 for what really amounted to two dollar store toys.

yeesh.

So when dinner time rolled around, we decided to duck into the China pavilion and grab a quick bite at the counter service restaurant there.

big. mistake.

I walked up to the register to order my…um…”food”.

The picture of the vegetarian stir-fry looked really pretty and appetizing.  Tofu…while not my favorite…doesn’t bother me a bit and if cooked properly, can actually taste pretty good.  The Tofu in the picture looked yummy and well-prepared and the veggies looked crisp and fresh.

I paid my $7.99 for the plate of veggies and white rice, and walked to the counter to receive my…um…”meal”.

What was presented to me by the friendly and cute little exchange student from China looked NOTHING like the picture.

wanna see?

oh, of course you do.

(And I must tell you in the interest of full disclosure that what you are about to see is pretty disgusting.)

You can check it out here.

When Doug saw my plate, he gave me the most hilarious look and said, “Now that looks disgusting.”

oh. my.

So, in the end, I ate about .03 worth of rice and .02 worth of mushrooms.

Disney owes me $7.94.