Jared's Wedding

On April 24th Jay's baby brother, Jared, got married. The wedding was up in L.A. so we were able to attend the ceremony and all. The wedding was beautiful. The weather was cold. Here are some of pics we took with our camera from that fabulous day.

Jared and my new sister in law Raelene.
The Teerlink Family: (left to right) Carlos, Gaving, Julie, Taylor, Craig (my FIL), Raelene, Jared, Liz (MIL), Bentley, Jessica, Justin, Jay, Kaden, Me and Annabelle. This was taken outside of the LA Temple right after they got married.

Jay with Annabelle

The happy couple right before the reception started.

Their wedding cake.

The only downsides for us was Kaden had a few autistic meltdowns over that day and that night Annabelle fell out of bed and bit her lip, bad. The funniest thing was watching Gavin and Taylor start to wrestle right in the middle of the reception. We Teerlink's all cheered them on while the photographer took some pictures. Sadly Jared and Raelene's honeymoon to mexico was slightly canceled due to the swine flu so they ended up here in San Diego for a day as part of their cruise. Kaden and Annabelle got to visit with them and now Kaden can't stop asking for Uncle Jared and Aunt Rae (Raelene told him to call her that). Even Annabelle who never goes to anyone readily (and I mean anyone) went to them the moment they came into the house. My kids wouldn't leave them be the entire time they were here visiting with us. It was good to see them and visit with them, even though it was their honeymoon. So Congrats to Jared and Raelene!

Wedding Continued

Here are some more pics from the wedding.

Jessica, Jared (the groom), Jay, Julie
Here is Kaden with his cousin Bently. The last time they were around each other Kaden tried to throw toys at her head. This time they happily played together. Kaden got the nickname "lady bug boy" from her. He is facinated with Lady Bugs.

Kaden with his cousins

Bently dancing with Grandpa.

Gavin, Grandpa, Annabelle, Grandma, Taylor, Bently, Kaden

This is the Grandparents and Grandkids.

Small Update

So much has happened to us over the last 2 weeks and I've just not had the time to update it all. So sometime this week I'll atemt a massive update, but for now we're just very focused on finishing up with Kaden's IEP testing with the school since we're in the final phases of that this week. So far all good news on that end.....

Another Step Closer

We are another step closer to Kaden getting the help he needs.  Today went from being a normal day to suddenly my phone ringing off the hook with appointments for Kaden to be tested at the school he will go to!  This is a huge step forward for us.  We feel so blessed with how fast things are now going for him.  After these few tests we should be ready for him to enter school and get the help he needs that way.  And on top of all of this we are now about to begin his in home therapy ABA sometime next month!  We truly feel very lucky that all of this is finally falling into place.  For us, it has been a year of filling out paper work and doing test after test for him to see what help he needs and to set up the specialized help for him.  So now we are finally in the final stretch!

A quiet birthday

Yesterday I had a quiet birthday celebration.  Jay had been gone so much that he basically had nothing special planned.  Luckily we have some amazing friends that offered to watch the kids so we could go out on a date.  We went and saw "Knowing" and then had a nice dinner.  He got me a shirt that we both find to be very funny and I get to pick some books off of amazon as part of my brithday.  On our way home he bought me a ice cream cake.  Over all it was a very simple birthday.

TOO HOT

So suddenly over the last few days San Diego got hit with a heat wave. And it feels like I'm back in Utah in the middle of JULY!!!! Yesterday I was running all over the house setting up all of our ac units so that we could stay cool and comfortable. Today, we cleaned the kids pool and now Kaden is happily playing in the water keeping cool. Annabelle is asleep for a nap so she'll be out there joining him soon. I'll post pictures from today later, when it isn't over 100. Back to staying cool.....

Hurray for Kaden!

Today we put on the movie "Testaments" at the request of Kaden. He loves that movie so much. Well while I was making lunch he came running into the kitchen saying "Oh no, Jesus got hurt." and then about 5 minutes later he came in again saying "Jesus okay, Jesus all better!". I couldn't help but be proud of him for understanding what was going on in the movie. He loves this movie and so to see his understanding of exactly what was going on was just amazing.
Even 6 months ago he didn't have this level of comprihension and understanding. He loves to tell me what a movie is about of what noises he hears. He asks about church and learning about Jesus. He loves to learn and his vocab is increasing as the weeks are going by. While we are still in limbo with speech due to waiting on his IEP from the school we have been working with him on our own to do what we can to teach him and encourage him to talk. He is saying so much more than I thought I would hear at this time last year. He is starting to actually really improve.