Wordless Wednesday: Flowers

(You know its spring when the dandelions come out)

Franklin Goose promotion

Franklin Goose, a children's online store, is having an awesome promo right now. But hurry it ends on March 31st! Right now for each product review you give they will give you $5. Its amazing the products they have an how fast the credits build up. I found out about this on Tuesday, and did $90 worth of reviews in just a couple hours. I was so excited that I placed an order that night. Over the last few days I've gone through their site more thoroughly and found more products that I've used/tried (and they've been adding more things) and have been able to review enough to get $35 more credits, but I believe I'm done now can't find anything else lol.
Like most people when I heard about this I thought, "No way, too good to be true." But I decided what could it hurt its all free, you can even use your credits to pay for shipping (all shipping up to 25lbs is only $5). I placed my order Tuesday night, and almost everything I ordered was backordered except for 1 thing(which is now backordered lol), but when I woke up this morning I saw an email from them, a TRACKING NUMBER! I was so excited, I've been following threads on both JustMommies and DiaperSwappers and seen that people were getting tracking numbers and actually getting the items but I thought that it would be a while if I did. I'm so excited, only one of my items is shipping but thats ok, it will be a present for Kieran :P

My first order (with my original $90) was;
1 - Thirsties DuoWrap Diaper Cover
Color: Storm
Size: Size Two $12.50

1 - GroBaby Shell
Color: Blackberry $16.95

1 - Bum Genius Organic One Size
Color: Moonbeam SNAP $19.95

1 - Bum Genius Organic One Size
Color: Clementine SNAP $19.95

1 - Boon fluid toddler cup
Color: Pink/Translucent 365 $5.99

1 - Boon Odd Ducks
Color: Slim-Blue/Green/White 952 $5.99

1 - bum Genius Hemp Babies Diaper Doubler
Size: Large $3.00



The GroBaby shell is what shipped, so happy to have another one of those.

Franklin Goose has cloth diapers, children's safety items, stuff for the nursery, children's gear and even household items. Many people have been wondering why they are doing this, and this is what they said on their facebook page;

Many people have asked why were are doing this. The answer is simple. We believe in our site. When we consider all the ways to let people know, we prefer to spend $500,000 on giving money to the people who need it in a creative way rather than to an ad agency for a series of magazine ads.

What they said makes since, with how many mommies, online diapering and organic communities, and even freebie sites posting this all over, I think their company is getting more exposure then any add in a magazine would get them. I know I will be shopping here again(for Seamus' birthday especially)

So hurry up to Franklin Goose and do some reviews!

Just as a forewarning they are backlogged right now, taking 3-4days for credit to show up on your account, but they've said as long as your review is done by the 31st(and on the 31st I believe) you will get the credit. You can even "bank" your credit and save it for a year and get an extra 20% for doing so!

Check out my Scrapblog

I've been doing lots of digiscrapping(reason why I haven't been keeping tabs on this blog) and I just created my first template and I'm sharing it with everyone.

Take a look here.

Aloha Friday #3 (March 19th, 2010)

Been Months since I've posted one of these!





In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.

What do you do on YOUR birthday? Go out with friends and family, stay home like any other day, or do something fun with the kids?

I will be; first taking the kids to the doctor at 10am, Seamus has a med check and Kieran a weight check, then paying bills, then having some friends and family over for a Chicken BBQ and a Cake Seamus and I will bake in the afternoon. At around 8:30-9pm we are going out and my brother is watching the kids(Though they will be asleep, or should be in Kieran's case).

Head over to An Island Life for more Aloha Friday!!

This is for the 19th of March, blog says 18th cause I'm in pacific time and its only 11:15pm here lol so not quite the 19th yet but close

So proud

For Christmas I bought Seamus some dry erase cards to practice his letters and alphabet with. We tried them and it failed so I put them away for a later time. Well today(Wed.) I took them out, 3 at a time, and showed him how to do it. After a couple times of me holding his hand and the maker he figured out how to follow the lines and figured v's and a's out, and even wrote an a on regular paper for me. He was very excited and would go trade his 3 cards for 3 more and try. Hes a little heavy on the marker though so he squiggles and scribbles a lot but its progress for him.

He's still not doing well on his letters though. A couple hours later I told him to get the Apple card again and asked him what letter A started with and he said "g" >.<

Birthday Party Planning

Its bitter sweet that I'm planning Kieran's first birthday. I've been slowly getting supplies for the last month, but it hit me today(her 11mo birthday) that she's actually going to be 1 in a month. This last year has gone faster then I ever thought it could. With my Nana dying so soon after Kieran was born, my mom living with us from March - July 2009, hubby's hours being so scarce we were applying for unemployment(they thankfully went back up soon after he got approved and we never got a check), to the h1n1 that Seamus had and we got some down graded version of it. Looking at her makes me want to cry, I want my tiny baby back, not that she's very big but still.
Her birthday is going to be on a Thursday so we are having her party on Saturday the 10th of April. Right now we still are not 100% sure on where it will be, I send out her invites just saying that her party will be at our house, but its possible, weather depending, that we can have it at a local park. Her them is mostly a Bold and Bright Color theme, with cupcakes and tea party thrown in. I was having just a cupcake-tea party theme before I realized how many girls were having that theme for their first birthday, and even slightly changing it up I found out a lot are doing similar colors(her primary are Bright Pink and Bright Green). Seamus' first birthday was so much easier, being in the summer I just did a Hawaiian theme and no one else I know(IRL or online) was doing it. So far it looks like it will be us, my mom and 1 brother (other is an iffy, with his marriage going up and down) and possibly my friend and her son(he will be 10.5mo then), but I've invited more just waiting to hear if anymore will come. I'm hoping to make a veggie tray like I did for Seamus, have some macaroni salad(though I wont eat it), peanut-butter sandwiches for the kids, cucumber sandwiches and tuna sandwiches and drinks. There's still a few more things that I'm not sure about but slowly figuring it out.

Here is her invite


(Pictures taken w/ a Canon T1i, Digiscrap kit, "Party Time," by Pure Creativity Designs, I did the layout, fonts from Fonts For Peas)

Seamus

Seamus has had some behavior and developmental issues since he was born. His gross and fine motor skills have improved greatly over the last 3½years but his behavior hasn't (and his speech was doing well but started to decline the last few months.) We've been working with our pedi for years to try to figure out what was going on.

He was born with Torticollis ("twisting of the neck") which resulted in Plagiocephally. Neither of the 2 would have cause him to be as delayed in the fine and gross motor areas, so we did lots of testing, blood work, CT scans (which showed nothing but Macrocephally). He was in OT from 3months old till 15months(we moved out of state for a couple months) and PT from around 8months till 15months. It was hard seeing him suffer through the therapies but they helped and now instead of being 3-6+ months behind developmentally like he was he is only at most 3mo in some categories.

Onto his behavior, he's always been more of a "I want to be by myself" kind of kid. When he was a baby he never wanted us to play with him, throwing fits or just not playing if we tried, if we left him alone he'd have a ball. Even to this day 75% of the time he prefers to play alone. We also cannot initiate things, like games, or counting, or play time, he has to do it or he will have nothing to do with you or what you're trying to do. I've been trying for over a year to get him to count past 10, and he wont, heck he wont even count to 10 if you ask him(but when he's playing alone he'll do it just fine) same with the alphabet, he wont say it if you provoke him but alone I've herd him say almost the whole thing (even lmnop in the the correct order). He's also very picky about things and how they have to be or all hell will break loose...speaking of that his temper its bad and so are this tantrums. One day Kieran's Early Headstart FC was here and she wasn't talking to Seamus and he threw a block at her so I put him in his room(he hadn't had quiet time yet so I said he needed it then) and for well over 45mintues he screamed....because he wanted the block (or FC was timing him till she left). He has to sleep with his light on, I've tried using a night light(taking it out of our room) and he freaked, tried a small lamp, freak out again, but at the same time he freaks out about the sun being too bright or flashes from camera's. Seamus is also overly friendly...scarily so, he'll talk to anyone and go with anyone without any fears and he's always been this way. On the topic of other people, hes not aware of others bubbles, touching people (hands, feet, face, etc.) even strangers, even when they tell him no. He's also horrid with listening, we could tell him to do something more then 6 times before he finally does it, or not to do something. Punishments have also been bad, we've tried spanking(I know...) it works for a little then he goes back to the naughty behavior. We've tried time outs that's a major fail, he just yell's and screams and then when its over he goes right back to being naughty sometimes even more so. I moved on to taking a toy away...resulted in major breakdown fits, so at this point we've had to put him in his room "grounding" him for 10-15minutes(depending on what he did) it seems to work some of the time.There's other "odd" quirks he has but right now I focused on some of the main ones.

Seamus' pedi referred him to a psychologist for counseling and to get the ADOS test done. The ADOS test is to test for Autism, something that we've brought up to our pedi since Seamus was about 15 months old but she said they couldn't do anything till he was 3. We've herd from a couple different people that they think he's high functioning Autistic(without us saying anything). Seamus has gone to one counselor's meeting, last week, and she said just by watching him(she had a sandbox) she saw some things that made her think possible Autism, and then when we told her about what he does she said that its a strong possibility. We are trying to get his ADOS test set up but the psychologist that does the test is busy(works for the hospital too) so its hard to get a hold of him, but the counselor we see is in his practice so hopefully she will mention something.

So right now its looking like he has Autism. I'm not trying to "label" my son, but I'm trying to figure this all out and learn how to be a better parent for him and actually be able to teach him right because right now I'm at a loss and so stressed with him I can barley handle him.