Where has the time gone?

Wow. It has been SO long since I've updated everyone! The last time I posted, Emilie Cate was one year old and Camryn was just out of Kindergarten. Clearly, blogging is not a regular hobby of mine. I wish I could find the time to update more, but hey, life happens. I guess I mainly blog so I can share these times with my children when they are older, and to update friends and family that do not live nearby.

Where do I start? So much has happened! Camryn completed first grade and is now a second grader. She is thriving in school and doing so well. I cannot believe the progress she has made just in the amount of time since I last posted. She is doing so well with speech therapy that her therapist is having trouble finding things to work on. She has been doing great with occupational therapy (probably our biggest delay right now) and just loves her new "teachers" at our new therapy clinic. She can read and write very well, and is really only struggling with math at the moment in school. She loves school and seems happy to go each day. Her current favorite thing to do is play on her iPad that she got for her 7th birthday. I cannot believe she is already 7. She had a Disney Frozen themed birthday party in which she invited the characters Anna and Elsa to come to. They showed up and Camryn had the time of her life. She got to sing Frozen songs, make snow, and have "princess lessons." It was the cutest thing ever. Her eyes just lit up. I pretty much cried watching her sing with them. She is doing much better with her social skills and we are currently working on how to play games appropriately with others, sharing, etc. She's just doing great all around, and we couldn't be more proud. I can't wait to see where she is in another year's time. Here are some pictures of our sweet girl that you may have missed!

 

 

Emilie Cate is now TWO years old! (And yes, they are sometimes terrible! Ha Ha!) She is talking in full sentences and asking questions, and just getting so big! She LOVES watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Her favorites are Mickey, Minnie, and Donald Duck. She also loves watching the older Mickey cartoons on her phone while relaxing in bed or on the couch. That's the life, right? She is learning to share with her sister and is becoming very independent. She just learned to wash her hands by herself and we hope to start potty training soon. She's also learning to brush her teeth. She's starting to develop a love for reading and books, which I am so excited about. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. It seems like just yesterday she was born. Here are some recent pictures of Em!

 

 

 

And last, but not least.....we have a NEW family member to announce! Welcome to the world, Grayson Shaun Mouser! We finally got our sweet baby BOY!!! He is perfection. I never thought I'd get the chance to be a mommy to a sweet baby boy, and yet here he is. God knows what we need exactly when we need it. I hope to do another post soon on my pregnancy with him and his birth. But, for now, I will share some pictures and call it a night, as I have to tuck the girls into bed. <3

 



 



Better late than never!

Hi everyone! So, I'm a little late on updating. But only by a few months. ;)  Lots of things have happened in the past few months! So bear with me while I ramble on about all of the great things that have happened since February. :)

Emilie Cate turned ONE!!! Sixteen months old to be exact. She is now an energetic, sweet (& sometimes ornery), playful little toddler! She has six teeth and is eating table foods. We are almost free from the "ba-ba" (bottle) and mostly using sippy cups. We still use a pacifier, or "foo-foo" as we call it, at naptime and bedtime. She is starting to try to sing and can say several words like "up", "sit", "help", "yeah", "rock", "bite bite", "foo foo", "look", and "ball". She also says "boom boom" when checking your heartbeat with a stethoscope. :) She is super smart and always getting into something. She is also a climber, and we have found her on top of various places throughout the house! She definitely keeps us on our toes! Here are a few photos from the past few months. :)



 

Camryn has grown in so many ways as well! She is now six years old and a kindergarten graduate! I still can't believe it when I have to say her age. I seriously feel like she was just born. Time truly does fly when you have children. I always got annoyed when people would say that to me, but now I realize it's true. Camryn is enjoying being out of school for the summer. She has been keeping busy, though, with her therapy, and we have also joined swim lessons and musikgarten classes. Both of the girls also love to attend story time at the library. I'm thankful for their love of reading at such a young age. We are on the go a lot of the time, but also have a couple of days where we can just play and relax at home without therapy or classes. She has greatly improved in all areas of her development just in the past few months. Her speech is coming along great, and she is able to answer more questions and use the correct pronouns most of the time. Her physical therapy has helped tremendously, as she is now able to use our swing set and has learned to throw/catch a ball successfully. She is also learning things like hopscotch, hitting a ball with a bat, and learning to stay on her feet more when walking (she is a toe walker). Some other VERY exciting news is that we are pretty much completely potty trained!!! She has been going potty independently and has very few accidents. HOORAY!!

The next update....PETS!!! So, for those of you who know Camryn, should know that she has always been terrified of all animals. Dogs, birds, cats, squirrels, you name it....This has always been her number one fear. So, one day a few weeks ago Camryn says to me "Mommy, I want a kitty." At first thought I blew it off because I thought it was just a random thought or maybe she had watched a video with a cat in it. She continued to talk about it most of the day. She even asked her Daddy for a kitty when he got home from work. She told me she would help take care of it and she wanted it to live at our house. I began to wonder if she could really handle one, so we talked about it and agreed to just let her look at one to see how she reacted. We met with a lady who was giving away free kittens at her home, and Camryn instantly held the cat, carried it, and petted it. I think my mouth almost dropped to the floor! I wanted to cry. The kitten she held was a black & white male with the prettiest blue eyes. We had already decided to get a female, so I didn't go there expecting to fall in love with him. We left and thought about it for a while, and ended up returning that afternoon to adopt him. :) Camryn named him Oreo, the name of her favorite cookie. He is such a sweet kitten and is so snuggly. The lady we adopted him from as well as a few other people told us "If you're going to get a kitten, you might as well get two. They're happier and keep each other busy." So we decided to search for a play mate for Oreo. We found another lady near our town who had a litter of orange kittens. We asked her to meet us with the three females, and chose the kitten that seemed to best fit our family. She instantly took to us and was the calmest of the bunch. We brought her home and named her Lila. :) She is the more feisty kitten but still snuggly at naptime and bedtime. They are so cute together and bonded instantly. Camryn has done so well with them. She doesn't enjoy being chased, but has learned not to run if she doesn't want them to. Ha! I am so glad we took this opportunity to bring pets into her life so she can learn responsibility and also many social skills from caring for them. She also decided we needed some fish, but they don't seem to be as exciting. ;)

 

 

Well, that's our update for now! I will try to be better about posting more, though I can't guarantee. ;)

~Caitlin

Just a little update!

Hi all! Just stopping in for the first time in a while to give an update on the kids.  They are growing so fast! I really can't believe how fast time flies. I never believed anyone who told me time flies faster the older you get... until I had kids. It's definitely true and makes me so sad at times! I am so glad to see them healthy and growing though.

Where to start...Camryn is progressing in ways that we never imagined this year! She is reading beginner level books completely BY HERSELF. That's right, I am one proud mama. :) She is doing great in school and has made a lot of friends. She is learning to add, tell time, and identify coins. Her stimming behaviors are very minimal now, and she can focus for longer periods of time. She has lost two teeth! (She thinks she's so grown!) She hates to share with her sister (Or anyone, really), but what five-year-old doesn't? She loves all things Hello Kitty and is obsessed with watching Youtube videos on "Egg Surprises." These are little plastic eggs filled with candy, stickers, and toys. She spends her time in her room watching these videos or playing with her doctor kits. She loves to give Mommy, Daddy, & Emi check-ups! She is participating in a lot more pretend play lately. She is also socializing with people spontaneously and doing wonderful! She will say "excuse me" when walking past people, and greets people without prompting. Her teachers tell me she walks to the classroom every morning, stopping at the door and yelling "Hello everyone!!" while waving her hand with fingers closed, like Miss America. Ha Ha!

 

I bet you're waiting to hear about our sweet little squishy baby, Emilie Cate. She is growing up super fast as well. She will be one next week and I seriously can't handle it! I tear up everytime I think about it. It feels like yesterday I saw her sweet little face, with her lip stuck out, and heard her little cry for the first time. She is still pretty experienced in the sad lip, as you can see below:

 

She is starting to take her first steps, and loves to clap for herself! She is imitating more sounds and can say a few little words like "Mama", "Da-Da", "Ball", "Bye Bye", and "Ba-Ba" (bottle). She has also learned to say "Ma-Ma" and "Poppa", in which they are very excited! She has the most tender heart and does not like to be told "no." She FINALLY has started to eat solid foods like yogurt melts, puff, and other fast-dissolving baby snacks. She knows how to play patty-cake and loves to eat all things that are non-edible. Nap time is her worst enemy. She is full of smiles and cries. I think if her little cheeks could be kissed off, they would've been gone long ago!

Well, that's it for now! I will be back to update after Emilie's first birthday party next weekend. It's going to be lots of fun! And a little sad for Mommy. Thanks for reading, y'all! God Bless!

 



 



 

My Babies are Growing Up!!!

I just felt the need to share the progress on my kiddos. After all, what else do I have to talk about? ;) They are growing so fast and while I've known this, for some reason it just really hit me the past couple of days. I just want time to slow down! They are only little once and it really is flying by.

Camryn is doing so well in Kindergarten. She is passing every reading and math test and has learned about 40 sight words so far. She is reading beginner books and is in the more advanced math class at school. I am so proud of her academic progress, among other areas.

She is improving socially as well. Her teachers tell me she is conversing and interacting with her peers more often and initiating conversations and play. I also was able to get her into a social skills group during school every week. This is such a relief to me, as social skills are our main concern right now. She is such a happy child, and always has been. I know that social skills will come easy for her once she learns the basics.

She is still loving gymnastics and dance, and has been attending Church as much as she can.  She is a busy girl and never seems to tire out! I wish I had half of her energy! :) She lost her first tooth last night, and was so excited about the tooth fairy coming! She actually woke up crying this morning because she couldn't find the pouch we hid under her pillow, but it had accidentally fallen in the floor. Ha Ha! I got it for her and she opened it to find $5 from the tooth fairy. Her tears quickly stopped and she smiled ear to ear! Her toothless grin is so cute!

Moving on to our drama queen....Yes, you heard me. Emilie Cate is getting so big as well! She is full of emotion, I can tell you that. Don't get me wrong, we love her with all of our hearts. But as others have told me "It's always the second child..." HA HA!! Seriously though, she is such a sweetheart and is learning all kinds of new things!

She is now doing a little "army crawl" and occasionally pushes up onto her hands and knees, only to come back down on her belly. She is getting pretty fast at her army crawl now, and wiggles across the floor to get what she wants. And things she doesn't need, like every tiny piece of fuzz or crumb that's barely visible to the human eye. Ha! She is getting into everything! We are having to baby proof so much more with Emilie because everything goes straight to her mouth, whereas Camryn never put anything into her mouth as a baby. She is definitely keeping us busy! She can now pick up speed in her walker to a run and will lift her feet to glide across the floor, ha ha! She is a mess.

She has started progressing in her language skills. She can say "Ma-Ma" for me, "Da-Da" for Evan, and "Ba-Ba" for her bottle. She learned to wave bye-bye and I swear I heard her say it when she waved the other day! She is full of smiles and tears. They can alternate within seconds. :) She knows what she wants, and lets you know when and how she wants it. She has a pretty good temper on her too! I'd say she gets it from her father, while my mom says she gets it from me. Ha! Right.... ;)

This whole blogging thing is fairly new to me, so I haven't posted regularly like I would like to eventually. I'm still learning all of the basics and mainly just trying to find the time to post, so please bear with me! I will try to do a post on Halloween soon. :)  Thanks for reading! God Bless!

Emilie Cate Mouser

So I just realized that I never posted a blog entry about our sweet Emilie Cate's pregnancy & birth. I figured it was about time...you know, since she is 7 months old now. ;)

Evan and I decided to expand our family the summer of 2012. Well, to be honest, I was ready long before that. :) The first month we began trying to conceive was the month we found out we were expecting! I was shocked how fast it was, and didn't even think I was pregnant. I took a test more or less to confirm that I wasn't, and to our surprise a second pink line popped up immediately. :)  It was so surprising and exciting!

My pregnancy with Emilie was fairly normal, although I did have some scary moments in the beginning. We were afraid that we had lost her, but an early ultrasound revealed that she was just fine. I had pretty severe morning sickness with Emilie, and had to be put on Zofran for relief. But after that subsided, it was pretty uneventful. I felt her move around a lot earlier than with Camryn. I craved grilled cheese sandwiches and apple juice every day, and ate it most days! haha!

I made it to 39 weeks with Emilie when they induced us for our repeat C-section. I can't believe I made it that far, because she was so big. Or rather, I was so big, and miserable. But we made it! I was so glad to know she made it to full term, after Camryn was born premature.

We welcomed Emilie Cate Mouser into our lives on February 27, 2013 at 8:37 a.m. She weighed 9 lbs 1/4 oz. and was 20.5 inches long. She cried and stuck her little lip out the second she came out of my belly! She was perfectly healthy, and we were so thankful.

Emilie has been such a blessing to our lives. While not the easiest baby, she brings so much joy and happiness to our family. I will admit, the first few weeks were a little traumatizing to Mommy and Daddy with the colic and sleepless nights, but she is so worth all of the hard work.

Today, she is a happy, healthy 7-month-old infant who loves her big sister and is always attached to Mommy. She still uses her sad little lip to get her way and most of the time it works. She is trying to crawl and has already discovered our kitchen cabinets! Time for us to babyproof the house again. :)

She is my happy little blue-eyed princess that occasionally has little mood swings. I love her so much!

Emilie is whining and has just walked towards the bedroom in her walker for naptime, so that's my cue. :)

Slowly But Surely...

Just wanted to give a little update on Camryn since it's been a while since I've posted! She is progressing in ways that I thought we may never see. It is amazing what time, practice, and patience can accomplish.  She is so smart and funny!

Right now, I can officially say we are potty trained!!! You have no idea how good it feels to be able to say that.  We have struggled with this skill since two years old and I wasn't sure when or if she would ever be able to do this.  We are still working on #2 but are well on our way. :)  I am so proud of her!

Her fine motor development is coming right along too. She can write her name and almost every letter of the alphabet, as well as numbers 1-10. She is still struggling with using scissors and using the correct grasp (pencil) rather than holding things with a fist grasp. We are starting some occupational therapy exercises at home to work on these things and have a binder full of material to start with her this weekend.

Her speech has progressed so much in the past few months that even some of the therapists have said she's like a completely different child. :) She is starting to speak mainly in sentences and can now answer yes/no questions. She is pretty consistent with answering "what" and "where" questions as well. Right now, we are working on reducing her echolalia (repeating the other person's words or something she has heard) and using pronouns, such as "My" and "Your" correctly. Those are so hard for little ones, so I can't complain about the time it's taking to learn.  We are also trying to work on greeting others and introducing herself. She has done great with this and we have seen her introduce herself to both children and adults lately. A hard concept we are working on now is First/Then. She has trouble with the concept of time and often acts out if she can't get something immediately. We are working on using a first/then chart to teach her that some things have to come before others. It's funny how easily she goes along with something because it's on paper rather than Mommy just telling her to. ;)

As far as behavioral issues, she has been getting excellent reports from school! We try to use a reward system at home for her to work toward getting something she wants by completing tasks appropriately. I've attached a photo below of some of the materials we are currently using with her.  The ziplocs contain candles that we let her pick out from Yankee Candle to smell whenever she likes. One of her major stimming behaviors is smelling her hands and other objects. We use these as a way for her to fulfill this need when at home or other places rather than doing it inappropriately.

We also use these visual schedules for our bathroom routines. (The potty one continues on the back):

And that's about it! That's all that I can think of anyway....I'm sure there is tons more that I'm leaving out. :) But to summarize - She is doing so great with school and therapy right now. We have seen tremendous progress just in the past few months and can't wait to see what's in store for her this year!

If you know of any moms that may find these resources useful for their child(ren), feel free to share!

Thanks for Reading!
Caitlin

Camryn's Story

It's time.  I've decided to finally tell Camryn's story. You see, our sweet Camryn has Autism. And for the first time, I'm not worried about what anyone will think. Because I've come to realize that Autism does not define my Camryn. She is her own little unique person; a smart, funny, beautiful little girl. So here goes!

Camryn hit all of the normal milestones as an infant. She babbled, rolled over, crawled, sat up, and walked within normal ranges of time. She even developed speech on time, and started to make two word phrases around age two.

But at age 2 1/2 I began to notice certain things about Camryn. She stopped developing speech, and began displaying odd behaviors, some of which I had experienced in working with Autistic children at WKU during my senior year internship.  Something wasn't right. I could feel it in my gut, but pushed it aside. After all, nothing could be wrong with my child. What parent wants to believe that?

A few more months went by, and the odd behaviors increased while other skills didn't progress. Maybe I wasn't just "being paranoid" like my family and friends told me. Even our doctor didn't feel anything was out of the ordinary. But I knew. Deep down I knew that Camryn had Autism. I just couldn't bring myself to accept it just yet.

I enrolled Camryn into the KSI program at the county preschool program at age 3 and they confirmed her delays. Yet, no one wanted to help me in getting her diagnosed. She was "normal" they said, even though we had pages and pages that discussed various delays. I later learned they would have to fund therapy if they gave or lead to a diagnosis. How could you deny a child getting help for fear of funding services? This I will never understand.

I finally got the approval to have Camryn tested by a local psychologist at age 4. *Insert angels singing* By this time, I was so mad and ready to receive the diagnosis, so my sweet girl could get the services she deserved. I was tired of not being listened to or helped. I wasn't just imagining things and she wasn't "just a late bloomer." Something was wrong with my daughter and I needed help.  The appointment seemed to take forever, with various tests and observations. Finally, he took us into a room and we sat down. "Your daughter has Autism Spectrum Disorder."  It's hard to explain how those words hit me. I wanted to break down and cry, but there was also such a relief to finally receive a diagnosis.  I guess it's hard to know this feeling unless you have actually experienced it with your child.  I held it together, not wanting Camryn to see me upset.

 The previous 2 years had been so hard. Knowing something was wrong with my child, but not receiving help.  I had started to sink into a deep depression, between dealing with the death of my lifelong best friend Emily and trying to find Camryn help/accept something was wrong.  Now I finally had a diagnosis to help us move forward.

Fast forward to today.  Camryn is enrolled in a state-wide grant to help her receive the services she needs.  She is functioning at the three year old level for speech. (only two years behind!) She is delayed in social skills but will hopefully be receiving services to address that very soon. (Why I'm currently planning an IEP meeting) She is very high functioning. And academically ahead of her peers in school.

In the past three years we've dealt with picky eating, texture issues, sensory problems, complete meltdowns, extreme fears, behavioral issues, and repetitive behaviors.  But the joy and happiness she brings to our lives overrides all of this. Every single bit.  She is the smartest, funniest, wittiest little girl. She loves music, singing, and dancing. She recently started "gymaskits" (gymnastics) and loves it. She loves her baby sister and helps Mommy take care of her. :) 

 

Camryn doesn't realize that she has autism and is different from other children. Or maybe she does and just can't communicate it to us. But I feel confident that she knows how much she is loved by her family and friends. We will never give up on her.