With Lachoneus and Tiberias both in the EDIS program I have someone from EDIS coming to my house twice a week! There are two different women helping Lachoneus and two different women helping Tiberias. Once a week someone comes for each boy...but on different days of the week.

We have just started so I don't know what it will be like every week for Luke's meeting. But I imagine for Ty's it will be just as it was this morning...Sheri came and asked me how Ty is doing. She played with him on the floor to see what he can do and how he is progressing. She asked what we have done with him to help him in the last week and gave us some more exercise ideas.

So I imagine with Luke it will be the same, but not for his physical strengths and weaknesses. Since his problem is socializing and mental problem solving it will be different from Ty's. They will test how he is doing to socialize with them and answer questions etc

My life is focused on my children right now. I have made a schedule to help both of my children. This is the schedule:
6:30-8:30a Kids watch tv and hang out while I get my computer/internet time, shower and get ready for the day.
8:30a-8:45 Tiberias stretch and Tummy Time
8:45-9:30 Luke's Lesson
9:30-10 Clean the livingroom
10:00-10:20 Tiberias stretch and Tummy Time
10:20-11:00 Lachoneus Art/Craft Time
Educational/Imaginative play with Mommy
11:00-11:30a Outside time (park, walk or backyard)
11:30-11:45 Tiberias stretch and Tummy Time
12:10-12:30p Books/Calm down time
12:30-2:30 Nap Time

Lachoneus has a lot to work on. The subjects I am teaching him in his lessons are Pronouns, Action words(example: the boy is running. You are swinging, etc), Music/Dance time (he needs to start learning songs and rhymes. And I think he should learn to dance too), Letters/numbers, colors and shapes.

My goals for Lachoneus are to teach him to

• Not put stuff in his mouth. And close his mouth more. He still drools way too much.
• Say his name when asked
• Understand directions such as "in, on, out off, etc"
• Accurately respond to the question "Do you need to go potty?"
• Use a fork and a spoon to eat
• Hold a pencil with his fingers while holding the paper still to draw
• Draw shapes when asked
• Ask for "more please"
• Address his friends and familiar adults
• Learn the concept of 1 and more than 1
• Play pretend

This is a lot of stuff. I plan to achieve all of these goals in the next year.

And for Tiberias I have made two charts. One to keep track of how long his tummy time is and how many minutes per day he is getting. The second chart is to keep track of which stretches I am doing with him daily. This will also help when his EDIS consultants come to see how he is doing. (Having worked a few years in daycare has taught how to be organized when caring for children)

Before I got pregnant with Tiberias I weighed 145lbs. After he was born my goal was to get back down to that same weight. But breastfeeding, hiking, and cutting back on my milk intake has seriously blessed me! I am down to 129 at bed time each night. 126 every morning.
None of my jeans (even the size 6 I just bought) fit me. They are all bigger than I would like them to be. So most days I am wearing baggy pants...lol.

Sterling just started seriously cutting back his food less than a week ago. He is eating every two hours a day but eating 100 calorie meals/snacks. He eats one big meal a day where he can allow himself to get full. He did great the first 4 or 5 days! Now he is finding it a real struggle! But I am proud of him and he is losing weight already.

The Lazenbys have just moved to Budoia. They were living two streets away from us and we loved that. But they have moved to a bigger place with a huge yard and fields next to them. Mari is going to have a third daughter in April. Her due date is April 23.
She refuses to let us throw her a baby shower so we are going to take her out to lunch in April while the husbands watch the kids. We'll let her pick who she wants to invite to the lunch and we'll have a girl's date out. We just won't tell her that we're bringing gifts for her. She doesn't want gifts or attention...lol.

Anyway, they moved all their stuff from the one home to the other Saturday morning with the help of ward members, including my husband. Sunday was Stake Conference in Venice...I guess the Lazenbys stayed in their empty house in Ceolini because they were not yet allowed in the new place.
Monday morning Dewayn and Mari (with the help of some friends) finished cleaning the "old" house for the inspection. I watched their kids Sarah and Sam (Anna was at school). Sterling made homemade pasta...a whole delicious lunch. The Lazenbys and their friends came over for a lunch break and then finished moving out of the one house and had the inspection. At 4pm they picked up their kids. I was really glad to help but it wore me out.


Sterling is learning to be romantic with me! He surprised me a few nights ago with news of a romantic getaway (with the kids) he had secretly planned! He was not sure if I would rather he tell me a few days before the trip or a few weeks. So he played it safe. "A Second Honeymoon" is what he called it. On the 21st of this month we are going on a week long vacation to Genova and some places near there. It is a beautiful sea side getaway! We will be hiking, swimming, going to a large Aquarium and more. I am so excited!!! I love my husband!!!

I did decide it would be more awesome if he were to surprise me with the news just a few days before the trip...if he ever does anything like this again. I'm sure he will. :)

The strangest thing happened. Just over a week ago Sterling remembered an exgirlfriend and decided to tell me about her. He told me about Michelle for about 15 minutes as we were out driving in the car! He talked about some other exgirlfriends too. I didn't feel jealous.
He said she was really flirty and dated one guy after another. No long relationships. I thought "That sounds like me when I was in high school." He said they only dated each other like a month and she was still hooked on some other guy when she was dating Sterling.

Anyway, a week after this conversation we were at Stake Conference in Venice. And who in the world did we run into? Michelle! She married an Army man and is now Michelle Naylor.
She has been living in Vicenza longer than we've been living here. Somehow we have gone to a few Stake things she and her family have been at and we didn't know the other was there.

Meeting her on Sunday I was a little jealous. She is very pretty and thin. I don't like Sterling running into exgirlfriends.
But how weird is it that he would think of her just a week before randomly running into her?!

We met her husband, sort of. And everyone (except myself) decided we have to all get together for dinner. So I was suppose to befriend her on facebook.

So I did find her and friend her on facebook. I took a look at a few of her pictures. Sterling had said when he saw her Sunday he did not recognize her! She recognized him.
And when I was looking at her pictures I could see why. Every picture she had made her look like a different person. Short hair, long hair, brown, blonde, dark. Even her face looked different in each picture.

Sterling wanted to look at her profile pictures but I didn't let him. Yes, I am a little jealous. But I'm allowed to be. Sterling and I don't fight about anything. We love being together and we love doing nice things for each other. But we seem to never argue and this makes of us kind of boring. I don't want to be boring to Sterling. So I have to be something other than happy and easy going all the time. So, the way I see it this is a good thing that I'm a little jealous.
Sure, I'll agree to do a meal with these people once. I probably won't want to become annual vacation friends with them. But I'll be friendly and try to get over my jealousy.

We love our life. We think our marriage relationship is perfect. And we love the future we have together.

Letter to Mom

Hey Mom,
So it seems a lot had changed in the last two weeks!
1. I have realized I have lost a lot of weight. I don't feel any different than I did 5 months ago and I don't see a huge change. But I do notice the fat under my chin is gone and that my legs/thighs are thinner. I have been buying new jeans lately because none of my pants were fitting me. So I bought a pair and they were too big. So I started buying size 8's and they were still too big. So I bought a pair of 6's, crossing my fingers that I am thin enough to fit in them. And it turns out they are even a bit large on me. So maybe I'm a size 5 jean? Anyway, I'll just have to wear my big pants because I can't go buying more now after buying all those. Luckily most of them were clearance and were $4-$8.

How did I lose the weight? Breastfeeding, hiking, cutting back my milk and sugar cereal intake and refraining from having ice cream in the house.

2. I have always really disliked the fact that Sterling's motivation to eat less and lose weight depends on me. I have tried to eat less and eat better so that he will but it's so hard. However, at the moment it is a great thing. Since I am currently thin he is motivated to lose weight too. He is eating a lot less now and staying away from high calories. Yay!

3. We have finally decided what to do about Luke's education. We wanted to put in him in the Italian school at age 3. But his communication and connecting with people (kids, adults, friends, family, etc) is not so good, nor his speech, I'm not sure that would be a good idea.
We decided we'd have to get a second car for Luke to go to school this year and we are not willing to do that. So I have decided to start home schooling Luke now.

We have him in the EDIS program. They evaluated him and pointed out to us what he is doing and what he is not. What is normal for his age and what is not. I have a whole list of things I am going to work on with him. From eating food with utensils to answering questions to drawing a circle.

It's funny how both my kids need extra teaching and time at the same time. Tiberias with his physical therapy and Luke with his learning. I am not even thinking about painting the living room yet because I have to give all my time and attention to the kids.

So that is what is new with us.
Love, Tiffany