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328:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today I am thankful for the 1/2 hour I spent at Target after dropping the boys off at school and before I went back for work. I'm thankful for the 1.5 hours I had after school to run an errand at WalMart and browse a bit before I had to get them from school! I'm thankful for that time and know that the time is fleeting, for starting next week my hours increase and there will be no more "me" time. I'm thankful that my hours are increasing next week, the money is always welcome and it will be so nice to be in the classroom a bit more. I'm thankful for a school that puts effort into giveaways. Ryan won a backpack (with speakers in it to play with his MP3 player - he hasn't taken it off since we got home - LOL!) today and I received another free meal ticket from Baja Fresh today from eating there last Friday.

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327:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today I am thankful for Adrian. Not only has she become such a great friend in the - what? 4 years that she has been seeing Matthew, but that she is so good with him. That he LOVES seeing her and that she makes learning so much fun for him!
I am super thankful for his other 2 therapists, Miss Lee and Miss Lynnette, for the same thing pretty much goes there too. We won't be seeing either of them this week. Lynnette has been seeing him since he was 1.5 or 2 and we've had Miss Lee for coming on 3 years too, I think! He loves them all so much!

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326:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Sunday starts a week of things I'm thankful for post and daily photos!
Today I am thankful for my husband, who stayed home with the boys (not to mention did some house cleaning and laundry while I was gone!) while I took in a morning viewing of New Moon with the girls! LOVED it and can't wait until June when Eclipse comes out.

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325:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Quiet day at home. Daddy had to work all day (extra Christmas money!:). I had gone shopping yesterday and picked up this cute Santa cup for you. I got out all the Christmas movies today and you were in Santa heaven! We had fun that night at Peter Piper Pizza at a birthday party for Maliyah!

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324:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

MT with Miss Lee today! She's going back home to Korea for over a month so this is your last session with her until after the new year! You were sitting in her lap at the end of the session and it turned into a great photo... despite the fact you are about to yawn right after it, tired little boy!

The other cool thing that happened today was I won the raffle at school for the HOPE club! Free food from Baja Fresh! Yum! Ryan and I went there and brought some food home for dinner that night!

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323:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Miss Lynnette (OT) brought over these super cute wooden leaves for you to craft today! You did such a great job with cutting out the paper, mod-podgeing it down and then tying ribbons on it! Turned out so cute and it's hanging inside our front door now!

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322:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

I remembered yesterday that you were Student of the Week this week and school and that we hadn't done your poster over the weekend! LOL! So you, Ryan and Mommy worked on it last night and you proudly took it to school today!

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321:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Ryan helped you with your homework tonight. You had to do a spelling page and one page of bell work that you hadn't finished this morning. You both actually worked well together this afternoon.

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320:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Miss Adrian brought PlayDoh today for your Speech Therapy session and you ended up making a Spongebob together! *giggle*

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319:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today I took photos of Miss L in downtown Chandler! I love how they turned out!

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318:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today was Grandma's 70th birthday! We took her and Grandpa out to breakfast at Old Country Buffet! Yum!

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317:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Ryan's Egyptian mask. They are displaying all of them in the library at school, so I went in and took a photo of it today. He said that the rings around the eyes were a sign of power for the males - so his has them! :)

They had a fundraiser at school for the HOPE club this morning and brought in Jamba Juice, so Ryan & I had one! Yum!

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316:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Miss Lynnette brought this cute turkey for you to make today in OT. You had a blast making it! Then you tied the shoe puzzle a couple of times and played the apple game a couple of times!
You had a bracelet in your backpack today after school and I asked you where it came from. You told me "prize", so I asked you if it was from the Box Tops. You answered "yes". It's so nice to be able to ask you questions about school and have you actually answer me!

Jo Dee Messina's Music Room Series Tour

This is a link to a Fox 10 interview that Jo Dee did the morning of the concert. They talk a little about the concert and she sings her newest song...

Jo Dee Messina's Music Room Series Tour

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315:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Veteran's Day, so no school today! We had 2 make-up therapy sessions today instead. Miss Lee came 1st and then Miss Adrian in the afternoon. Miss Lee brought out the Christmas songs for MT, so Matthew was in heaven for that. Miss Adrian brought the Don't Break the Ice game for Matthew and her 24-70 2.8 lens for Mommy to play with for the hour (LOVE it!)! Needless to say - we were both quite happy! LOL!

Ryan had me take some photos of his newest Lego's creation! Built from scratch - no pattern! Pretty good, Huh? He then spent most of the rest of the day knee deep in Legos.

Tonight we're going to take our favorite veteran - Daddy - out for dinner at Applebee's!

I spent a good part (most) of today getting things caught up again. Still have laundry and house cleaning to do, but at this point I figure it can wait until the weekend - ROFL! Got things caught up for the postcard I'll be designing for an astists' group, mailed off the wedding DVD's yesterday, returned e-mails today, got caught up on POTD (hate when I get that far behind posting), did the checkbook. Didn't walk this morning, should have, but didn't. Nice cooler day here today and had the candles burning and windows open for most of it. Cloudy now though...

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314:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Playdate day! Matthew sweet little friend came over for a bit after school! They played in the treehouse for awhile, had a snack and watched a bit of a movie!

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313:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Ryan made his mask today. They are doing a Egyptian study and are going to make Egyptian masks out of them. I was able to take a few minutes to go downstairs and take a few photos of him while they were doing it!

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312:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today was spent taking all the rock out of the backyard, at least as much as we could. Less of a smorgasbord for the pup.

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311:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

We had a really hard time getting Matthew to take his medicine last night. And this morning. He threw it back up. So I called the doc's office and begged them to exchange it for something else. Amoxicillin is not happening. After a small, slightly heated discussion with the nurse who 1st told me he was 7 and we needed to make him take it, he wasn't special needs ("He's not autistic", she said to me), to which I corrected her. Guess she didn't read down in his chart very far. So they filled it with cephalosporin instead. it's still a struggle to get him to take it (can you say Mommy - "Cheerleader Extrodinaire!"), but he's taking it and getting better.

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310:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

What to title this one?

Oh- No, he didn't!!!!!
Ooops he did it again....

Take your pick.

Yep - 1 year later, another rock later - this one larger than last years, and another surgery later, Smokey is as good as new again.
Hopefully.
We're callin' him the million dollar dog.

We also came home from school early today. Matthew didn't look too good and he felt a little warm when I saw him at lunch. But, having taken him home twice in the last week and having nothing else go wrong, I let him be. Only to pass him and Miss Taylor in the hall on the way to the nurses office 15 minutes later. He got sick at the lunch table.
Ugh.
So - I took him home and got him a doc's appointment for that afternoon. He had the beginnings of an ear infection in each ear and she said that his left lung sounded "thick". The beginnings of pneumonia. So we than spent 1.5 hours at WalMart waiting for his prescription. Smokey had to wait until Michael got off work to be picked up and they still beat us home!

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309:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Concert Day! You worked towards the tickets as your goal again today and YES! You made it to 12 stars again! Woot! yes - we would have kept you home if you hadn't have made it, but we're so glad you did.
The concert was awesome! It was the 1st time either you or Ryan had been to one. It was a pretty small concert and was driven by the audience. She stopped inbetween songs and answered questions from the audience and then took requests for the next songs. Matthew danced in the aisles some, which didn't seem to be bothering anyone (at least we hope!). We left before the encores, since it was already pretty late.

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308:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today we left school before 11am. You didn't look good at all and I didn't want a repeat of last Friday. But, once again, as we are walking to the car, you get better and better. Last night, Daddy brought home a voucher for 4 free tickets to go see jo Dee Messina in concert at the Mesa Arts Center. You were working towards them as your goal today. The concert is tomorrow and we needed to go pick up the tickets, so I drove us down there when we left school. And of course I took some photos!
You never did get sick that day. Stinker. You are definately tired though...

Can you see us?????

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307:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

They have started a new rewards type system with you at school and today was the 1st day. You earned 12 stars for good behavior and you chose to bring home a #88 Little E paddle ball.

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306:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Mondays are ST with Miss Adrian!
She brought the KerPlunk game for the 2 of you to play again! So fun!

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305:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

We went to the park this afternoon for awhile. It was pretty nice today - but a little bit warm. Warm enough for Matthew to need a bit of refreshment while we were there!

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304:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Halloween! A very busy day indeed! We had the DSNetwork Buddy Walk at ASU in the morning and then trick or treating that night! The BW went great and we had alot of fun! Ryan dressed up as Indiana Jones and Matthew as Captain America this year! Both looked great! We had some friends come over to T'orT' with us and they brought home soooooo much candy!

So - Buddy Walk first. Matthew wanted to have his face painted after we checked in. It's the first time he's ever let them paint on his face! Hands yes - but face? Not until now. Needless to say, he wanted it all wiped off about 1 minute after she finished! LOL!

We got there way too early and ended up walking around the float staging area while we waiting to start the parade. Matthew ended up talking his way into a coffin on one float, into the firetruck (with the nice firemen letting him put on a helmet) and into a horse drawn carrige (where, of course, he played Santa Clause! LOL!).

Then we walked the parade.

This is a view from the bridge of the area after we got done.

Then it was onto the rest of the stuff! Straight to the bouncies first. The ASU girls softball team was there. Matthew charmed them and sweet talked one of them into going into the obsticle course bouncy with him!

Ryan proved to have quite the arm on him at the Football-in -the-hole throw...

Matthew insisted on having his photo taken with this chicken - LOL! Too cute!

Then on to Halloween!

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303:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Matthew ended up sick at school today. He threw up once there and was perking up by the time we left school. By the time we got home, he was back to himself, of course. So glad he's not sick, but I totally don't get it! He missed most of his holiday parties at school last year too - but he was definately sick then. When Ryan got home, we carved their pumpkins. Ryan made a wolf howling and Matthew a smiley face - both turned out great! Ryan did everything but gut the pumpkin - I had to do that for him. And Matthew needed help carving this time - I think he was a bit tired - kept sawing in one spot and didn't move it - LOL! He even scooped out one scoop of guts with his own hand - more than his brother did - LOL!

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302:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Miss Lynnette (OT) came today. I had a meeting (IEP for Matthew) at school that ran pretty long, so Grandma was here to stay with the boys and here to help with the Halloween treats Miss Lynnette brought to do. You made crescent roll Ghosts, Mummy cream cheese celery sticks and Mummy toes (crescent wrapped little hot dogs). Matthew even took a few bites of the Ghost he's holding!

Matthew's been having some issues at school - not listening, not lining up. I've been jumping in more and more helping when I see them in the hallways, trying to help. But it's stressing me out more and more, with my kids to watch and then watching out for him. And I think he's choosing not to listen to his aide, since I'm there and doing more. So we had a meeting with his school team to try to iron things out some. They're going to try a few things to see if it will get him back on the right track again. I hope so. I can't pin it down, but it's just not him. He's also had a cold the last 2 weeks, which doesn't help any. Waking up at night once to twice. I haven't been going on my walks all this week, for I know he's going to wake up at 5:30 or 6 or 6:30 and that I'm going to have to get him back to sleep for a bit. We're also going to change his goals on his IEP a bit to add some math in. So- hopefully things will change some for him in the next few weeks.

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301:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Today we made Halloween cookies after school. Here Ryan is helping Matthew with his homework (reading a tory tonight) - something that he has been doing for the last few nights. Matthew is loving having his big brother help him!

Here's the cookies. You can totally tell which ones Matthew decorated! He PILED on the sprinkles! And, then, in true Matthew fashion - he didn't want to eat one of those - he wanted a simpler one! LOL!

We played out back for a bit that night and Ryan was being goofy! He wanted me to take a photo of him jumping so I did - turned out cute! Funny too with Bella right there looking at him! LOL!

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300:365, originally uploaded by Rynonut Mom.

Not a very exciting photo for the 300th, but I had put up our Halloween decorations over a week ago and hadn't taken a photo of it yet. Not too much else going on here today.

The weather is changing today and tomorrow - supposed to drop 20 degrees from 85 to 65!