Valentine's Day has a special meaning for me...I vividly remember the last Valentine's Day I celebrated before I met Tom (described here), and it's amazing to see how different our lives are from then!

Here's what we did for Valentine's Day this year...BTW, I don't think I've ever gone out on Valentine's Day, but I've heard it's hard to get a table at a restaurant.  Much easier to stay home and cook a nice meal.


Dominik's hair didn't get combed, coming right out of the bath to the dinner table (he was making mud pies while I was making dinner).  In what may become a new tradition, we had dessert first.  The gas grill was out of fuel so I broiled the tri-tip in the oven, and it took longer than it normally takes on the grill, so the meat wasn't done when we were ready to eat.  On the spur of the moment, we had dessert first:  strawberry tarts I made that afternoon, with whipped cream on top (Konrad doesn't like whipped cream...I hope he noticed that I served him his dessert without him having to tell me that he doesn't like whipped cream).  As Lukas said, "second dessert" could be after the meal.

Second dessert is, of course, chocolate!

Warning:  this video contains graphic evidence of parental bragging.  Turn up the sound and proceed at your own risk...

(Natalie had never seen these cards before I showed them to her for this video.)

...and this is the first time Lukas gets to do this!


I have to say that I am much more comfortable with him learning to mow with an electric lawn mower...less power than a gas mower.  And it's easier for him to learn on electric since it doesn't have to get a pull every time he forgets and lets go of the power on the handle.

Can you tell that I'm still struggling to catch up from being away for a week last month?  Yes, the blog hasn't seen much of us, but we're still here, chugging along.

Natalie's been doing great in school, academically.  Her teacher pulled me aside after class to show how Natalie exceeded the state standards for four different tests:  spelling, reading nonsense words, reading high-frequency words, and reading random letters.  This is the same teacher who, at Natalie's IEP last autumn, said Natalie was "untestable."  Of course I didn't remind her of the previous statement...although it was burning in my mind as she said she always knew Natalie could perform like this.

Behaviorally, there are still a lot of ups and downs.  Some days or weeks, Natalie does GREAT and the notes from the aide make me think that she could be there without an aide.  And then other days or weeks (like the past few days) show that she really needs an aide:  she's highly distracted, using echolalia and self-talk a lot and cannot stay on task without someone right with her.  Not that I think she'll be without an aide anytime soon, but the good days are soooo good!

Potty wise, she's still using the toilet for #1 but not #2.  I'd say she's close to being where she was last summer before school started.  We still use the alarm because it's so wonderful to not have the worry in between taking her on a schedule.  She even used the toilet at a friend's house during the Super Bowl, which is a HUGE achievement, to use the toilet away from home.  No, I don't have pictures of our fun time at the Super Bowl party because I forgot the camera...  But we had a blast!

Anyway, keep going Natalie!  And thanks for your prayers that we all stay healthy this month.  February has notoriously been a very sick month for The Happy Ones, so we're praying for a change of tradition.

...I need to post about Konrad, too!

Dominik went out in the front yard to play the other day and wanted me to open the garage (where the toys and the trikes are).  The way he asks is by pointing and babbling.  I asked him to say "please."  He didn't want to (he does know how to sign "please".)  It was obvious that he knew what I wanted, and after a while it got to be comical...and then Konrad opened the garage door and all was better.

It's been a good week, getting back into our schedule after such a fabulous trip last week.  And I am thrilled to report that Natalie is finally back to using the toilet without protesting.  She isn't all the way back to where she was before school started, but we have made so much progress this week that I can't help but be overjoyed on the topic of potty training...more joy than I've had in a long time on this subject!

The alarm that senses when she's wet is definitely making a BIG difference.  She hears and feels the alarm, stops peeing, then we can take her to the toilet and she pees on the toilet.  Today she peed twice while dry, so no alarm sounded!  This week I started putting the alarm on her during her afternoon nap/quiet time.  Sometimes she sleeps and sometimes she doesn't sleep during this time, and it's a huge block of time to work with her on potty training...since she's not using the toilet yet at school, I need every moment at home to be consistent.  If she doesn't have to go pee during nap time, I'll be happy if she sleeps!  So she's hooked up to the alarm from the time she gets home from school at noon until she gets dressed for bed at night, about 6:45 p.m.  It's finally working!  And Tom and I are so much less stressed this time around, trying to anticipate when she needs to go and constantly worried that she's had an accident...there's none of that!

We are determined to be consistent this time.  Even if there's some backsliding, we'll work to find the reason while we keep encouraging her to keep going.  Just to document our reward system, she gets a chocolate chip if she's dry, and a sticker if she pees on the toilet.  Tom does a potty dance (a new thing for us!) when she goes, and she gets to wear her Belle dress when she goes #2 on the toilet.

Here she's showing off the fish sticker she received for using the toilet before nap time.  Go Natalie!

When we learned that one of my aged aunts was declining quickly, Tom suggested I attend the funeral in Pennsylvania and take Lukas with me!  Then my brother Julian, who lives outside DC, suggested we stay with him and drive up to the funeral together (I always forget how close everything is back east)...Virginia to Pennsylvania via Delaware, all in a few hours.  So it worked out that when Aunt Miriam did pass on, everything at home was calm enough that Lukas and I could go.  Aunt Chris came to watch the three younger kids one day, and our sitter Sarah watched the kids on parts of three days, so Tom only had to take parts of two days off from work.  It was wonderful how everything worked out to make this a successful trip.
















Lukas was excited to see my cousin Rachel and Cal there from Iowa.  We last saw them on our trip across country in 2010.



Lukas' favorite part of this museum was the gems and minerals...he is definitely Tom's son!  We saw the Hope Diamond, and many other huge examples of diamonds and minerals.  Here he is with a huge piece of quartz.





Lukas is posing with our tour guide, Ryan, on the star that marks the center of Washington, DC.








Friday, our last day of sightseeing, we went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  They didn't let us take pictures on the tour, but after the tour there's an area to take pictures (and spend money).  Here we see that Lukas' height is equal to about $1.3 million in $100 bills.  He asked me, "Is that how much I'm worth?"  No, you're priceless, Lukas!

After hopping on the tour bus again, we stopped at a fun restaurant near the White House and called home while we waited for our meal.  We actually called home several times a day, and Tom did research on things we should see at the places we were going to visit.

We visited the White House visitor's center (not enough lead time to visit the actual White House), and then we stopped in at the National Archives to see the actual documents of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights (no photos allowed) before stopping at the National Gallery of Art. We had been to the Spy Museum, where photographs were not allowed, and the Bureau of Engraving and National Archives, where photographs are now allowed, so I asked the security guard as we checked in, "Are we allowed to take pictures?"  He said, "NO, you are not!  You are allowed to take photographs, but you MAY NOT take any pictures!"  Lukas can't stop laughing.












Tom snapped this picture of us coming out of the airport after we arrived home.  We were so happy to be home!

Whew!  It was a wonderful trip and we had a fabulous time.  I think Lukas grew a lot and learned a lot and I hope will remember a lot of what we saw.  I loved sharing my favorite city with him.  But we are so happy to be home.  I know Tom and the other kids missed us...a week is a long time in the life of a child.  Dominik preferred Tom when I tried to snuggle with him, Natalie kept saying, "you're back!" when I snuggled with her this morning.  And Konrad gives me nice big hugs spontaneously (more than usual).  Oh, yeah, Tom missed us too!

It's good to be home.