Okay so I have done it again.... I keep falling off the wagon when it comes to the family blog!

Needless to say I promise to set a reminder for myself to catch everyone up on what is going on in the Black house!

Currently we are working with Gibson's teacher to get Gibson setup for next school year. We are working on getting him in the half day pre-k program as well as continuing with the special education class that he is currently in. He will be at school all day at least 4 days a week, possibly 5 days a week. Secondly we are getting Chad all setup for his first school year! He will follow the same program that Gibson has been on for the past two years. We are anxious for him to get started because we have seen such growth out of Gibson since he got into school.

On the subject of Chad he just finished a study that we were a part of through the Oklahoma Autism Network called Connected Kids. It was amazing because I was able to learn tons of techniques to work with him on at home that are all related to ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) therapy which is the therapy that research shows works best for children of any degree on the spectrum of Autism. We are so happy that Chad is finally progressing in his speech both in receptive and expressive language.

Gibson is also doing really well. He has made SO much progress in the last year it is like a completely different child. He has been on ritalin for about a year now and we have seen huge changes in his behavior. We still have a lot to work on but we are finally getting much better results. He is doing great in school and is ahead of his age in a lot of educational areas. He is already doing almost everything he should learn in pre-k and even a few things taught in kindergarten. We may be behind in social and emotional skills, but we make up for it in knowledge. He is like a little sponge. Right now his favorite thing is you tube videos in foreign languages. His favorite seems to be Trotro, a little donkey cartoon, which he watches in French. It makes for an interesting conversation when he suddenly says something in French and you have no clue what just came out of his mouth. This is an every day occurrence in our home.

As for Gerod and I, no major changes except that we are doing the Insanity workout program and it is one of the hardest things I have ever done!! Its just crazy. Hopefully we will get some great results and be able to post our changes in about another 55 days! :)

Hope all is going well in the lives of our friends and family.

Where have we been?

I have not blogged in... well almost a year. Time has really just escaped me and we have SO much going on all the time making it really hard to get on here and post.

In the time since I have last posted we have had a lot of changes. In September Gibson celebrated his 4th birthday! I cant believe he is 4 and will be 5 in only 5 short months. My baby is about to be a "little kid", not even a toddler anymore.
Later in September Chad was also diagnosed with high-functioning Autism. It was a diagnosis I knew was coming, but was still hard to hear. I know that both of my boys have lots of struggles ahead of them, but I also know we were given these two amazingly Autistic boys for a very special reason! We may not know it yet, but we will one day.
Gerod celebrated his 30th... yes you heard right... 30th birthday! Old man! We had a GREAT party with all of our friends and we were able to celebrate Gerod and how wonderful we all think he is. It was a great night! So excited to see what 30 brings for this amazing man of mine.
We celebrated our first Christmas without my grandpas. It was very different than past years, but we tried to make it as normal as possible. We were able to remember things about them and how amazing it was to have had them with us as long we did.
Gerod and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. Amazing how time flies! It seems like just yesterday we were heading to the chapel to get married! He is such a great husband and amazing Daddy. I couldn't have asked for anyone better!
On Valentines Day Gerod and I celebrated 10 years since our very first date! Again, I am awestruck at how quickly time passes us by. I look forward to MANY more years to come.

And that brings me to today... no special day or anything... just the day I saw someone post about people who stop blogging and I thought... I need to start doing that again. What a wonderful outlet for my feelings as well as a great way to document the things our little family goes through.
I know we have many things in store for the years to come and I cant wait to get back into blogging to keep track of ALL the things we do as a family.

Here are our recent family pics by a friend of mine: Neely Jacobson.

LOVE THEM ALL!!