Happy birthday to my big boy!

It is so hard to believe that six years have come and gone. He is such a good boy and I can't wait to see what the next year brings.
Happy birthday, Ethan!! We love you very much!

Houston, we have a problem.

Ethan had a friend sleep over last night and I got them all ready for bed. I was in my bedroom and hear the toilet upstairs flush, at least that is what I thought it was. I figured someone must have gotten up to go potty and went back to bed.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I was out at the grocery store and Greg was home with the boys. Ethan had gone upstairs to go to the bathroom and told Greg that the floor was wet in the bathroom and he fell. Greg really didn't think much of it and thought there was probably a little puddle from where someone spilled water from washing their hands. He went up to check and the entire bathroom floor was filled with water. It was leaking into the carpet in the hallway and into Ryan's room. He got the carpet cleaner out and tried to suck as much water up as he could. He put some towels down to try and soak up the excess. He figured out that something (gasket? something) broke in the toilet tank and the tank must have been overflowing with water all night. Can't wait to see the water bill but we thought we thought that was the extent of it.

We head back downstairs and Greg stepped in a puddle of water on the carpet in the hallway just before walking into our bedroom. Huh? How the heck did this get here? Look up to the ceiling and there are no visible water marks and we couldn't figure out where the water was coming from. Ok, maybe it was just a spill but that was wishful thinking. Greg explores some more and sure enough, the ceiling in the laundry room which is just next to the water spot, is water marked. And it is gross. This spot is yellow, like dark yellow. I am freaking out at this point because none of the other water spots on the ceiling are yellow. Just this one spot and of course it is the biggest spot at about 3-4 feet long. So we are assuming the water is leaking from the bathroom, onto the ceiling of the first floor and down through that common wall. We get as much of this water soaked up and get another fan to try to air it out to dry.

We will have some work ahead of us but I am just hoping it is no more then a little paint. That I can handle.

Very exciting news!!

For over a year now, we have been paying for Ryan to receive private speech & occupational therapy. Luckily we do receive some coverage through our insurance company for OT but we only get 20 sessions a year. Speech has been completely paid for by us as our insurance company will only pay if there is an Autism diagnosis. We have been paying about $400 a month for over a year for Ryan to go to these therapies. Seeing how much Ryan has come this year has been well worth every penny but we have definitely been feeling the pinch of having that money gone every month. We were getting very worried that if something didn't change by the time our 20 OT sessions were up, that we would have to cut speech or OT and we really, really didn't want to do that. He needs both so badly but there was no way we would be able to afford to pay out of pocket for both.

Our prayers were answered today. Ryan was approved for funding through the county. This means the county will pay for ALL of his therapies. ALL! We are beyond ecstatic about this because paying for all of these therapies is obviously, quite expensive. I went in expecting them to pay a portion so when he told me they would be paid in full, I about started crying and leaped up and hugged the man. But, I contained myself.

We are so excited for Ryan because he can continue to make headway with these therapies. We feel so incredibly blessed to have these funds available to us.

Ethan's bowling party

We had Ethan's birthday party a little early this year. With his birthday falling on spring break, I was worried that some of his friends would be going away so we had it a couple of weeks early. He had so much fun! Here are some pics from the day:

So sad...

Today was supposed to be Ryan's first field trip with his class. I had arranged for my mom to come down during naptime so that I could take Ethan, Ella & Si to meet Ryan's class at COSI. Around 10pm, I hear Ry coughing & gagging and knew it couldn't be good. Sure enough, he had gotten sick and was running a low fever. My poor baby. I got him all cleaned up and brought him down to our room where he tossed and turned all night. Neither of us got much sleep.
This morning, he is much better but not well enough to go on his field trip. I had to break the news to Ethan and while he took it much better then I thought, he was still sad. Nothing a little Wii time with mommy couldn't handle though.
I still can't decide who was more disappointed though. Ethan or me. I was so looking forward to getting out of the house and doing something really fun with all of the kids. Ryan's teacher told me they are planning another field trip to the zoo so I am hoping I can bribe my mom to come out again then.
Now, we just have to hope Ethan (or Greg or I for that matter) get it. We have Ethan's birthday party at the bowling alley on Sunday so I am hoping we all stay healthy!