We're alive I promise!

I have most definitely been slacking. It is not from a lack of stuff to write about but more from lack of time, and energy. Now it seems there is so much to write about I just feel overwhelmed, so instead I just will give an overall update on the goings on at our house.

Dallin is a machine. How he handles us, work, being young men's president, and bike riding I will never know. But he does it. A couple of weeks ago we went to Logan and stayed with our really close friends the Coburn family. Dallin did a relay with Todd in a triathlon and they ended up taking first. It was really fun to watch the whole thing and great for the kids to see Dallin get a medal. Lately we have really tried hard to get the kids to most of his races they love watching him and we get to spend more time with him. I also keep finding myself looking at him these days and thinking about how much I love him, how I can't imagine a better friend and partner. He is so good to us, and we love him so much.

Porter just graduated from Pingree and is now on summer break. The last day at Pingree was a little weird for me. I got pretty emotional. I just kept thinking back on everything that lead us there and where he is now because of it, and I am just so full of gratitude. I am grateful for the school, the program and the tremendous support we have had so we can go. What a gift it has been. Summer is not Porter's favorite thing but I have noticed that this year he has really had a good attitude about it. He hasn't been negative. He has been in a lot of trouble, but he is not shutting down and melting down which is huge progress. I need to spend more time remembering that, then just being frustrated with him. Unfortunately Porter and Bennett's autistic needs are different and often what one is needing is causing more problems to the other. It can be tiring for me, but this is a great learning time for Porter. As a family we all do things to support him with his needs and it is important for him to learn to do that with Bennett as well. He could not be more excited for first grade. We had an appointment yesterday at our local elementary school. He spent some time with the principal while I filed out papers with the secretary. They both took us around the school and I was able to really talk with the principal. I know it will be a great place for him. He has become really pretty cute about his autism. He knows he has autism and we talk about it. We talk about how it effects him. Where he may have to work harder than others, why sometimes the other kids don't understand him. He is aware that the kids at pingree have autism and we talk a lot about how even the kids at school can have different challenges with their autism. We have been talking a lot about Bennett's autism and remembering that things can be slower for him because it is harder for him to gain a skill. What has been cute is that Porter is really proud of his autism. He likes to tell people and he loves having kids asking him questions about it. It makes me feel like maybe we are doing something right.

Nickelle is into a lot of trouble these days. She does this when she needs attention. Which makes sense. The boys are both home which demands so much more of my time, and it also means she has to be that much more responsible. She has good days and bad but overall she is our sweet girl just trying to let me know she needs more time with me. Every night I read with the girls in their room at bedtime and we talk and giggle and I try to let them just talk to me about what is going on with them. I have come to really love this time and we have a lot of fun. She is also excited for school and it will be great for her to make more friends at school. She is growing up so much and she has become one of my favorite people to talk to everyday, because she loves to talk.

Bennett is struggling a little with Porter being home. All our structure has come undone because the routine has changed which is hard. He also has to deal with the noise level being a lot higher which can be hard for him. Overall though I feel like I am holding it together as best I can and we have been able to have some fun. We have found some great new tricks for him. The kid is amazing at puzzles. He can do 50 piece puzzles. I am going to buy a 100 piece next and see if he can do it, I am sure he can. This really calms him. We have also found some great ear plugs which have worked miracles at church. I have also found an app on the phone that makes white noise and he will wear ear phones when we go to the store and that seems to help a little. It depends on the day.

A short time ago we found out that Bennett has been accepted to Pingree. We decided to go ahead and send him there. I think it will be a great move for him, but I am nervous. He has never had to do intense therapy, but I think this will be just what he needs. The emotion of this decision really threw me. After we decided I felt so sad I just couldn't tell people he was going. I have just let myself take it a day at a time and when I have felt good about it I share it. If we haven't told you yet, sorry that was not intentional, now that it has been awhile since we have made the decision I keep forgetting to let people know. I am heartbroken that he won't be going to the preschool that his sister went to, and that he won't be going with his cousins. I am sad that when it comes down to it, he is autistic. I felt this with Porter. In the beginning I was sad but I had so much work to do. After things really fell into place and we got things going, and it started to slow down, that was when the sadness really caught up to me. The sadness has caught up to me. I find myself tearing up at random times, and I can feel myself being a little more self protective than normal. I can be sitting with a group of women and the conversation can suddenly be hard for me. I usually take a quick min and leave and then come back. Nothing wrong is being said or anything like that I just am hurting for my son. He will spend his life being autistic and my heart is breaking for him. Other times I can be perfectly fine but the grief seems to be a little unpredictable right now, so I can see myself being cautious. This will pass and the sensitivity will not be as strong, but this is just a piece of grief and you take it as it comes. I do feel bad though when the kids catch me crying. I try to remind myself that it is ok for them to see that, and I am always good about talking about why I am crying. I reassure them I am fine and that we are all going to be alright, I just feel a little sad and I just need to cry about it and then I can be happy about it again. The reason I am so open and honest about it with them is because as they grow they will feel this, and they will need to know how to handle it. I want them to see me express it, feel it, and then move forward. I never want them to feel ashamed or that they should hide those feelings, but I want them to know there is a way to move past them and heal. They seem to respond well to it and don't seem shaken up or anything by it. I making it sound like I have been sad a lot lately and really I haven't, I think of it as waves. The tide will come in with the emotions and I feel it for awhile but I know it will calm and settle. Sometimes I can predict and see the waves coming and other times they can really catch me off guard, but it is a part of our life and we have learned to accept it, and no longer fear it. We just remind each other that it will settle and we will heal a little more. All in all I can't believe the progress I have made through the years. I truly have learned how to let myself feel the grief but not let it take over. So I am also grateful for progress.

Our little Brinley has really come out of her shell and has become quite the social butterfly. She HAS to do what the big kids are doing and I never would have thought this but she has become our quirkiest child. Which is quite the accomplishment because my kids are pretty darn quirky. Her speech is slowly coming along. Her therapist seems more concerned about it than I am. But I just keep thinking that Brinley has always done things slowly and at her pace. We are really not seeing anything else that is concerning and I know she will continue to grow. She is talking but none of it makes sense and it is really hard to understand most words. She has been stuck on the same sound for a couple months now which is why I think the therapist is a little concerned about it, she should be moving past it, but the "p" sound has been really hard for her. She says "g" instead of "p". She has also become pretty good at throwing a fit. So we ignore it and then she moves on. All in all she is a typical 2 year old.

I am hanging in there. Summer can be really taxing on me, but we have done a good job trying to balance that out with some fun this year and it helps. I love having the kids here, but it has become harder and harder to manage 2 autistic kids when they are both struggling. A lot of that is just that in the school year I am not having as many straight hours in a day with both home, so it is different when they are here. I am catching up with some things around the house and not getting to half the things I planned out for myself, but I am proud of what I have accomplished. I feel like I am constantly learning something new which is great. I have read lots of fun books and have had fun making my own jewelry. I have learned a lot about bike racing and have watched A TON of it this summer. But I have found it to be really exciting and I do want to know if my favorite riders did well. More than anything though I have loved having time with Dallin. We go on a walk in the evening and just talk. I love it. He has spent more hours than he would ever want to admit watching my movies. They mostly consist of movies from classic literature. Because it is summer we have been able to do more fun activities and that has been a lot of fun. Whenever I have a stressful moment in the day I call him and he will laugh so hard that I will be laughing too. When I get off the phone I am much nicer to the kids about the naughty thing they just did because Dallin had me laughing first.

We just spent last week at youth conference together and I cannot say enough how fun that was. We had a great time and it was a deeply spiritual experience for me. I learned a lot about teenagers and I love the little stinkers. I learned how to be better at asking questions. Such as when a girl asks me if she can walk down to the camp next to us and say hi to a friend for five minutes, I need to have her clarify. Is this is a boyfriend or a girlfriend? That way when a guy shows up walking her back and hugging her I won't feel like such a moron for not knowing what she was doing. I also learned that just like toddlers you have to stand over them and say things like, now pick up the dish and put it away and clean your tent please. Don't sit down we are not done. Either my kids we were over were a little lazy or else they are all that way, but I think when it was time to take down camp they were a little disappointed in how much "actual work" I made sure they did. But they were so much fun. One boy we struggled a little bit with. He had a hard time being with the "family" (it was a Book of Mormon trek so we were the parents and they were the kids, for those of you who that makes no sense to, I am sorry I can't think of an easier way to explain it). For most activities they wanted us in our families and then we had time back at camp that was teaching time. He had a hard time with this. The funny thing about it was he was incredibly respectful to me, and was always making sure I was doing alright. If I asked him to stay he would. It was a lot harder when his friends showed up and I could see the internal battle of what he should do, if he looked over at me to see what I was thinking, I didn't have to say anything every time he would say no. I learned that he must love and respect his mother a lot. His parents are divorced and I am not sure how involved his Dad is, but he is a great kid, I just hope he won't get lost with the friends he has. This other boy though I struggled big time with. All these leaders when they found out he was going to be in our family kept telling us what a great kid he was. (I should clarify again, instead of the families being broken up within the ward they did it throughout the stake, you maybe were only were with one other kid in your ward. Again for those of you who have no clue what I am saying basically instead of it being with the kids they normally see at church to being with kids who attend at different times and in different buildings) We got up there and he didn't even try to be obedient. It made me So frustrated because of all I was told, I knew he should have been more than he was. Unfortunately a lot of those leaders ended up just as frustrated as we were and I think that we all think a little lower of him because of it. It was so frustrating. We would "talk" with him about it and he would say he would do better and then at the first opportunity he would take off. It was funny though I overheard him talking the first day to a girl in our ward and she was asking about his family. He said he hated his family. She asked who his parents were and he said Dallin and Season. She started freaking out and she was going on and on about how much she loves us and how all the kids in our ward were hoping they would be in our family. He just kept saying "really?". I thought it was funny because he had spent 0 time with us but yet he was judging us. What it had to do with more than anything was that he was not friends with any of the kids in our family. After that talk though he would just watch as all these kids from our ward and how they would react to us and he would look so confused. We had some good laughs about it. They reenacted so many scenes from the Book of Mormon and I cannot begin to describe how powerful that was. We had so many incredible leaders put their time and soul into this. All the "actors" did amazing. They really got into their parts and more than anything we all had one goal and that was to strengthen testimonies and help them have experiencse that help to recognize God's love for them. I could go on and on, so that means I should stop. In fact if you have even made it to the end of this, you should pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you are awesome for making it through this painfully long post. I will try and do better at keeping updates going.

Love to all,
Season