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How do you want to be remembered?

Prompted by plinky

I want to be remembered for my love and devotion to God. For my sacrifice of luxury to give others their basic needs. To never let material things get in the way of doing God's will. I want to leave my children a legacy- a legacy that will leave them wanting more of God and being Godly men. I want to be remembered for my ability to care for those I normally would have ignored. I want to be remembered for being a good mom and wife.

How do you want to be remembered?


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He does a lot of this!

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Little piggy

Mattox had a stuffy nose and was sounding like a piggy. He also snorts when he gets upset. Love it!

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Welcome Mattox Isaiah

December 7th 2010
7lbs 11oz and 19.5 inches
Welcome Mattox Isaiah!



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A rainy day

Rainy days are amazing. Riverside doesn't have them very often but when we do it simply reminds me of how God washes away our sins and we can start again with a brand new day. Rain drops representing our sins and the bright sun that dries them up being God. I don't often do everything I am supposed to- I try as hard as I can and often fall short. I am constantly looking for Him in every day moments and that's when I tend to remember I am not doing enough. God is good, so here's to a beautiful rainy day!

A memorable video

Another sad day

Today was the funeral of Ryan Bonaminio. We salute you and paid our respects to you as your family, friends, and co-workers said good bye to you today. A classmate from Ramona High School class of 2000 was killed by a man who should have never been let back into society. A perfect example of how our justice system fails all the time. Unfortunately, it was at the cost of someone's life....over 8,000 people from all over came to pay their respects. Officer Ryan Bonaminio, you will never be forgotten.

Journal Entry: being the mom of a sensory child

As some of you are aware, back in February we had some concerns about our son and his development. He wasn't really talking anymore, when at one point he had been learning new words. We went to the Inland Regional Center in which they did a telephone interview and then felt it warranted to send some people out to assess him. They came out and assessed him and the results they gave us sounded sooooo bad! As a parent, the last thing you want to hear is that your child is not perfect and that he needs special attention. They did decide after the assessment that we move forward in having teachers come to our house to work with his specific needs and to try and bring him back up to speed on his language and cognitive development.

For those that follow my Facebook have been seeing some if his improvements, but this is the first blog I've actually written about it in depth because for a while it is extremely difficult to deal with. The amount of time they originally were working with him was 1 day a week for 2 hours. The occupational therapist that worked with him decided that it would be in his best interest to increase his hours to give him more exposure as she had pretty definitively knew that he had what was called a Sensory Processing Disorder.

So, you're probably wondering... what is a Sensory Processing Disorder? I asked them the same question when they told me this is what he had. They have not been able to tell us yet that he is eliminated from Autism but when they assess him before he turns 3 we will be able to have an answer on this. For now, we've been working on his Sensory Processing problems. My son specifically is under-responsive to tactile responses. When we tickle his neck lightly he wouldn't feel it and he has a hard time discriminating between textures. In a bucket full of pinto beans if we hide a toy, he would not be able to find it unless he saw it first with his eyes. Or in a bubble bath if we hid a toy under the water he would not know it was there until he saw it. To combat this problem, we have to overexpose him to textures and activities that will help his neurotransmitters become more sensitive and be able to discriminate between the objects.

In addition, he also has a proprioceptive dysfunction. This really refers to movement in general to put in basic terms. He is under-responsive to this system as well. For him specifically, he has problems with postural stability. Items like swings or a rocking horse he absolutely hates. We have been slowly working with sitting in the swing without it being hung up and for the first time since February he sat in the swing actually hung up but without moving. As soon as we started moving it, he wanted out, but progress is progress! With his dysfunction, his brain has a hard time processing what his body feels and what it sees. Things like elevators scare him, because his eyes are telling his brain that he isn't moving but his body is telling him that he is moving and so his brain is not able to process this type of movement. So, exposing him to the swing and other items like this will help his brain process this better.

His language is behind just a bit now but with all the other developments progressing his language as well is developing and he can say 4 word sentences now (when he wants to). Part of his personality is very independent, so he is not a good on demand performer. He has to feel like he has come up with this idea on his own. He says now over 200 different words and just yesterday for the first time vocalized that he wanted something. He asked for a "sticky" which is a lollipop so we had to search around the house trying to find one!

Nothing changes your life more than dealing with a child that has special needs. We've had to change everything we do with him. To making sure he gives us eye contact if he doesn't tell us what he wants before we give that item to him. To reading more, to introducing tactile items into everyday life, to types of extra cold or tart drinks, etc. We keep pretty busy both being working parents and involved in ministry at our church.

Seeing your child progress in this disorder gives me a joy that I wish I could explain to other parents. It's so much different than just seeing your child smile at you, or walk for the first time, it's a greater joy even beyond that! I hope that explains what we've been through the last couple of months and we have 3 more months to go with these teachers so we are looking forward to finding out if he will need to be enrolled in specific preschool or if he has progressed enough to not worry about needing anything special.

I will keep you posted on the progress as he turns 3!

13 weeks

Today starts the beginning of week 13 being pregnant with baby #2. My husband swears I am having a girl simply because of my cravings, and I hope to have a girl but I guess we'll know in a few short weeks.

I feel great still except for exhaustion, which I know is to be expected taking care of a toddler and myself.

We had a busy weekend. Saturday I photographed Paul & Sylvia (pictures to come later) celebrate 25 years of marriage. They decided to renew their vows in Carlsbad, CA. Sunday we went to church, BBQ'd some carne asada, Andrew baptized one of our youth group kids, Jerry, and we went swimming and enjoyed the rest of our day relaxing. We had a busy and good weekend. Wish I had more exciting stuff to talk about lol!

It's been too long...

But I figured I should at least start blogging again since we are pregnant with baby #2 now. We've had a rough beginning in this pregnancy with not knowing whether or not his baby would still around. Ended up in the ER already with spotting and turns out everything seems to be healthy now.

I am excited to welcome this little baby, no matter a girl or boy we are excited even though it was a surprise. I am hoping for a girl this time, and Andrew of course is hoping for a boy. We're still trying to figure out names that we like. I just can't wait til I actually start looking pregnant!

I am currently 11 weeks pregnant and feeling very good overall. I have nothing but exhaustion to complain about in this pregnancy. No morning sickness, no food aversions, nothing except the axhuastion which is to be expected with a toddler running around my house taking what little energy I have to play with him.

Here is a picture of me 8 weeks pregnant:

Kristen. Jeremy Engagement

Barely getting to processing an Engagement Session for Kristen & Jeremy. We went to Corona Del Mar, it was fairly humid and we climbed some rock to get some of the shots, but I think they turned out really great!!

Fitzpatrick Belly Session

Had the opportunity to do my best friend Becca's maternity photos, and we had a lot of fun! I am also hosting a baby shower for her this weekend, and I have had such a fun time watching her belly grow and now she's almost ready to have her first baby Jeremiah. Can't wait to see this little cutie. Here are some previews of the photos I was able to snap:

Welcome to home ownership...

As no surprise moving has been crazy. We've still got many boxes that are going to remain unpacked until we can complete some projects. We have removed some sheets off the windows and replaced them with curtains. One of the weirdest things about our house is the window frames, they are no conducive to blinds... so we've resulted to curtains. Our windows seem to be the oddest size EVER, so until we can afford custom blinds we're dealing with the curtains.

Our backyard and front yard are taking some major transformations as I have spent this whole last weekend weeding out the front yard (and not getting very far) and heavily soaking our grass and plants as they have gone for too long without water and I do not want them to die. We have an over abundance of hibiscus trees that the previous owners planted that have made it through the lack of water and are still blooming so next thing on my list of weeding those planters and pruning them back since they are way out of control. Here's our list of weird things that have come up since we moved in:

1. Our washer pipes need to be snaked because apparently our washer pipe leaks when it hits the rinse cycle. My father in law was able to jerry rig the pipes to make it work for the time being but it seems as though the pipes are blocked.
2. We have a switch in the living room that we have no idea what it does...
3. Our stove had a leak so we have been without a working stove (thank goodness for a crock pot and microwave) and our home warranty will be covering a brand new stove within the next 2 weeks it should be ready.
4. Our thermostat is all WRONG, why does the A/C never turn off? It seems like it is not reading it right. Luckily our house stays pretty cool, so we don't even need to turn on the A/C until like 4pm. We use our house fan once it cools off that thing is a Godsend

So among this list, very minimal. We can still function, dinner can be a challenge... but all in all God has been gracious to us and I can be nothing but a thankful woman for what he has provided us! On an up note, I have met one of our next door neighbors and they know a lot about our property and the previous owners, and they are lovely. Hope all our other neighbors are as nice :)

Moving day

Right now, my cute son is taking his nap. My husband is at our house finishing up some concrete work and I am sitting here writing this blog. We have our new carpet in and the touching up has been completed on the paint. Now, it's packing time. I spent most of this morning packing up my kitchen. I still have a little more packing to do, but it seems like this move day has been a long time coming.

Seems as though God's timing was perfect for us on this house. We just pray we can continue to be good steward's of the money God has been providing us to make the improvements that we needed. Tomorrow will be a very different day, especially since tomorrow will be the first night we spend in our new house. No Doubt the day will be long but we look forward to being able to actually BE in our house and not have to listen to our neighbors having sex and running upstairs from us. I have no doubt that our new place will have new sets of noises, but the sex thing... that is one of the many downsides of living in a downstairs apartment and one I am happily saying good bye to.

Also, I have been planning a baby shower for my best friend Becca. She is due in September, and she has so graciously offered to watching Hezekiah during the morning until his nap time so we can get all the furniture out without worrying about him getting in the way. This baby shower, I am hoping will be a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing all the pieces of this shower coming together... including an extra special fondant cake I am hopefully having specially made for the shower by a friend of a friend of a friend... cakesbyjeanine.com. This will be one of the first events I will be able to have at our house so I am extremely excited to be able to do that FINALLY!

Anyway, onto moving day tomorrow!

It's been a little while

It's been really hard to blog these last couple of weeks between trying to pack, paint and to get our house ready, work, church, and now this week is VBS. Well, we pretty much have all our rooms painted now. We ran into a small hiccup with the addition to our house, and we're not even sure how the city allowed that room to be permitted because the roof and side of the addition is not up to code. We are taking it to the city to see if they would be willing to put up some money to help us fix the mistakes the city let pass. Anyway, it doesn't effect us moving in. With most of the house almost finished we can schedule the carpet installation and hopefully be soon moving in. We are so ready to be out of the apartments. That's pretty much it for now. More to come later.

Elena & Brian- Preview

I had a wedding at Laguna Beach this last Sunday, I have been doing some post production on these photos with lots more to do still. I am working on texture layering to give some of them some more artistic feeling to the photos. This was a very informal wedding, and I was happy to be able to be a part of this gorgeous couples wedding. It was one of the shortest weddings I have ever shot, and the sunset was quite a challenge, I was switching quite frequently to flash and no flash to get a variety of looks for the photos. Also, mastering my manual settings was quite a doozy since depending on which way my camera was faced changed my settings, either way I had a great time with this couple.

Fire

We weren't officially in the news, but yes we did make headlines because last night lighting struck our apartment complex catching on fire. It was the building directly next to us, were sitting around getting ready for dinner, we had the windows open and we heard what sounded like a bomb going off outside our door. My heart was pumping and hands were shaking, never have hard anything like it. We ran outside to make sure it wasn't our building, and sure enough the fire dept happened to be across the street at Andulka park putting out a fire from lighting striking there, and saw the smoke from the complex. We had 6 fire trucks here, and it was chaos for a little bit, but either way everyone got out safe...and the fire was out within 30 minutes causing over $100,000 worth of damage. Here's the link to the new article:
PE.com

And a picture of the fire dept putting out the fire:

Can you say renovation?

We have been very busy working on the house, we've had to arrange someone to watch Hezekiah almost all of the days since it's just not safe nor would we be able to get anything done on the house with him being there. It's been long weekends, and Andrew and Eric have been spending most nights after work on the house as well. We have had to do a lot of prep work on the walls since a lot of the walls had wallpaper. We thought only 2 rooms had wallpaper but it seems there was quite a bit more in the other rooms. We have 4 bedrooms and 1 bathroom now textured with what is called Knock Down, makes the walls looks more professionally done than the normal flat walls which shows every little hole and gash. Now, it's onto 1 bathroom, living room, laundry room, office, and kitchen to be done and then we will be ready to paint the walls within the next week or so. We have some more minor things to do, but all in all we seems to be progressing quite a bit and CANNOT wait to actually be living in the house and out of the apartment. Here are some pictures of the work being done within the last couple of days.

More photos...

Had some fun this afternoon with my camera some more... Hezekiah and Andrew were my models today. Photography is so much fun, and I just love natural lighting and how it shades the face and lights others. I think I am really going to have fun doing this sunset wedding in Laguna Beach next month. Anyway, these were m favorites from today: