old Madeline pics

The bottom two pics are of Madeline around 18 months to 2 years. The top one is off Gabrielle. They each have their own look, but I see a lot of Madeline in Gabrielle. You?

from one extreme to the other

Gabrielle has always loved to make messes, look below. That happened in 5 minutes while on a LLL call. Now look at what she has been doing! Cleaning! And one cute pic of her in Dobbie's crate.

Cute Pic

This is Gabrielle's new fav thing to do. She runs into the laundry room where I keep the learning tower and stands there screaming until I drag it out. 

on being a volunteer

I just finished making signs for my LLL yard sale tomorrow, my second of the year. Being a LLL leader is not easy, especially in my area. I am a lone leader which means it is just me. In fact, I am the only LLL leader for at least 200 miles in any direction. I get calls from Utah, Arizona,  New Mexico, and from a large area in Colorado. Weeks might go by without a call, other times I had had several a day for a period, this week I have had 4. I hold one meeting a month. A couple years ago I was doing two a month because my meetings were so large 16-18 moms at each one! This last year I have struggled with low attendance but it might be picking up again. This last Monday I had 11 moms attend, 6 of which had never come before. 

I try to do one fundraiser a year, the last two years it has been garage sales. My first one this year only made $120.00, that is barely enough to cover my fees to LLL! Yes, I have to pay to volunteer. I pay to be a leader, the group pays fees to LLLI, and then I have to pay group fees to the state LLL. As I non-profit I have to file taxes yearly, keep records, etc... All of this I do all by myself. This type of volunteer work has proven to be very time consuming, between preparing for meeting, setting up, making snack, bringing the lending library, advertising the meeting, handling the phone calls, keeping records, community outreach, making flyers, faxing them to places in town, etc... It feels like a job at times! I've been a leader for 3.5 years now. I do enjoy it, it is rewarding, and I'm good at it. Eventually I will sit for the IBCLC exam. I keep my RN license current, and every year I am a LLL leader I get credit for 500 hours of doing breastfeeding support.  I need 3500 to sit for the exam so I still have a while to go!

Therapy dates

They suck. Really, really suck. The first day is October 29 so we'll be spending Halloween in Denver. It's one of my favorite holiday and Madeline loves trick or treating in our little subdivision and I enjoy handing out candy. That session goes to November 14th, with 4 parent only meetings sprinkles in there. We have a break, and then return December 8th through the 18th, with 2 parent only meetings in there. This is my favorite part, the therapy is a different time every single day, the times range from 9am to 4pm, on some days she will have therapy at 11 then I have a parent only meeting at 1pm. Of course all the Saturday sessions are late in the day so if Ryan comes up, it limits what we can do. 

This just blows our entire holiday season right out of the water. I always host Thanksgiving, I love to. I spent weeks preparing for the dinner, I *could* still do it, but I'll be rushed trying to find everything. The very last day December 18, I have a parent meeting at 4pm so we wouldn't even be able to drive home until the 19th. I love X-Mas, I go all out decorating, Ryan hangs lights, we have a huge Lionel train table now that we wanted to set up. 

I have no idea how I am going to handle to parent only meetings. Some are at the end of the week so Ryan could come up early, others are in the middle of the week, they are sprinkled close enough together during the first session that it's going to be hard (almost impossible) to pull off with just Ryan's help. I might have to ask my mom to come up to help a couple times, Ican't imagine that she will be overjoyed to do this....

our new living room

Monday

Today feels like a typical Monday. It's not even 3:30 and I've been drained for hours. I had a intake call with the Star Center in Denver this am. It went well, they are going to do another evaluation, we'll talk more about it once we get there, which I'm pleased about. We are looking at about 4 weeks up there. Two and a half weeks, then a 3-4 week break, and then back for another 1.5 weeks. This is just therapy time so I'm sure we'll have more time up there since we don't want to travel across the state and then start OT the next day! There is a townhouse that a woman at the center rents to out of town families for $85.00 a night, I'm hoping we'll be able to get it or else it will living in a hotel for all that time. 

Did I mention we were replacing the floors in our house? Right now. Yeah, it's been fun. Ryan is actually doing a great job considering that he has no idea what he is doing!  I am also putting together a garage sale for my LLL group this weekend. I leave for Maine next Tuesday, a vacations sounds perfect right now!