A is for April - Part Two

Now that May is almost done, I figure I ought to finish my posts about April. : )

We celebrated Easter at church, and then we went to Aunt Mary's for a wonderful family lunch and Easter egg hunt! Here are some pictures:

A is for April (Part 1)

A is for April... awfully action-packed April! It certainly was a good month overall, but you can tell it was a frantic one if it's taken until May for me to post about it! I'm going to divvy up the month into two entries.

(I'll start with an A: a is for apology, as in an apology for not being particularly witty with this entry. I've just got to get 'er done, as the rednecks say...)

Without further ado, here we go!

A is for around the house...
Here's some pics of Luke kicking it at home. He's still a lover of letters and numbers. These pictures are of some letters he got for Christmas. Below you'll see two of his greatest loves: letters and messes. : )

Another recent favorite around our house: Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Oh how he loves Clifford, Emily Elizabeth, and the theme song. And the iPod game. He is captivated by Clifford and in love, I think, with Emily. : )

Finally - and you know this warms my English-teaching heart - Luke is loving to read. He loves his books, and he loves e-books on the iPod. It makes me thrilled to see this!

A is for Autism Awareness Month
April was a special month for another reason: it was Autism Awareness Month. How amazing to see the things the Lord has in store... I know that last April, I had no idea that this month would be so important in our household twelve months later. We kicked off the month at Joe's Crab Shack. On April 1, they donated 10% of proceeds to Autism Speaks. We were joined by Honey, Grand, Aunt Jackie, Uncle Johnny, Granny, and Jackie's parents, Bill and Alice. Like a putz, I did not get a picture of the whole group, but here's one of Luke. You can see his Uncle Johnny trying to get into the frame, too. (Can you believe that he's a dad now? More on that in A is for April, Part 2.)

On April 30, we closed Autism Awareness Month with a fundraising carnival at Luke's school. He had a great time, though we weren't there too long. He was enamored with the duck pond, I think because Miss Ellen, his favorite teacher, was there. We love Miss Ellen and are so thankful for the care and dedication she has for Luke! He loves his school, and we love them for the incredible work they do to help kids with ASDs.

A is for Audra and Brent's Reception (and Pete and Donna's 40th Anniversary)
On the 23rd, we headed to East Texas for the wedding reception for Brent (Jeremy's nephew) and Audra. It was a beautiful night for a number of reasons - Brent and Audra celebrated their marriage, and Jeremy's parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary! Congratulations to everyone - it was so much fun, and Luke had a blast on the dance floor!

Here are Pete and Donna dancing an anniversary dance.

Here's a family photo - I feel like all I ever show you are pictures of Luke. Here's proof we all exist. Naturally, we can't get a good one of all three of us, but oh well. : ) 

Luke is doing the chicken dance with Dad's help. He got the biggest kick out of it, and I think it motivated him later to bust a move to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Again - I was so proud. : )

Though it isn't the best picture, here are Brent and Audra dancing their first dance with Brent's daughter Halle joining in. Not a dry eye in the house!

Finally, here's my dancing machine. If this picture does not melt your heart, then you are made of stone. How sweet is this little guy?

Phew! Another post is coming with pictures from Easter, the arrival of Baby John David, and a few other updates. I hope all of you are doing well! Take care, and have a great week!

March Madness 2011: Nature Bracket III, Part Deux

Since I wrote the first post on this year’s NCAA tourney, the following craptacular events have transpired:


1. Blogger, the website I use for this blog, has been working against me. I post things. Then, given my careful eye for detail, I go back into my post to proofread and revise. At this point, the malevolent Blogger formatting demons wreak havoc on what I’ve done, changing alignments, removing hyperlinks, and even re-ordering paragraphs. Bizarre s—t.
2. I tried to navigate the labyrinth that is health care claims and payments. Fail.
3. I attempted to schedule an appointment to get Luke’s passport for our cruise this summer. This required seven phone calls. For real. Finally got it nailed down, but for real… why so difficult?
4. The printer didn’t work. That isn’t all that catastrophic, but it was an annoyance in that, “C’mon, really? What else can go wrong?” kind of way. And by the way: I strongly recommend you NEVER ask that question. Life will provide you with an answer, such as…
5. There’s a claim filed to my insurance for a three-week long hospital stay for Luke. Do you recall blog entries about Luke's agonized three-week stay in the hospital in January? I don’t either. I’m confident we won’t be financially responsible for it, but it’s just something else to keep an eye on.
6. And, the cherry on top of the poo sundae: today, some broad in New York went to several Banks of America in posing as me – using, I might add, a Texas driver’s license with my address on it and my social security number – trying to get cash. She failed, but if you’ve experienced identity theft before, you know that I have spent hours and will continue to spend hours investigating, changing accounts, filing a police report, etc.

March Madness 2011: Nature Blog III

This marks my third year of creating the Nature Bracket for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. For those of you new to this, here’s the skinny: each year, I make two brackets. In one, I make “informed” guesses about how teams will fare in the tournament. I base these picks on personal biases, teams’ histories (mark it – Kansas will choke at some point), and gut feelings. But the second… well, unlike some girls who make picks based on favorite colors or cutest mascots, I choose victors based on this premise: if the mascots were to actually battle in nature, who would win? It’s like that Spike show Deadliest Warrior except with college mascots. I have no idea why it started – just another output from that fount of randomness that is my brain. But for whatever reason, it’s provided great enjoyment for friends, family, and even me.

Given that this is my third time around, I’ve learned there are obstacles to preparing this blog:

Marvelous March

Hello all! This past Saturday was my birthday... believe me, I don't think I ever dreamed that part of my 33rd birthday celebration would include Sesame Street Live, but it did! :) We had a great time seeing Elmo's Healthy Heroes. You may not know this, but all you need to be a healthy hero is to eat healthy foods, get plenty of rest, exercise, and have good hygiene. I think I'm maybe batting .250 on any given day... probably need to work on that. Ha! Anyway, here are the Sesame Street characters in all their splendor...

Flying-By February

It's been almost a month since my last post... oops. = \ The distance between blog posts is always a great indication of how busy things are in the Roberts household. Even though I had FIVE unexpected days off of work due to the snow and ice (or maybe because of those five days and the household craziness that ensued), I still never got to post. Oh well, better late than never!

There are new years, and there are NEW YEARS...

January is almost over. (Seriously – where did it go?) I cannot believe it. It’s been a whirlwind of a month for two main reasons: Luke started at a new school, and Jeremy resigned from PepsiCo to start working on his own. I am really, really proud of Jeremy for this choice. Since August, he had been travelling a lot, and his new role will give him more flexibility to help with Luke’s new school schedule.

Why, you may be wondering, is Luke going to a new school? Well, I guess it’s time for me to write the blog post that’s been coming for about three months.* Many of you know this, but some may not. In October, Luke was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, PDD-NOS. Though certainly his consistent ear fluid and resultant inconsistent hearing likely contributed to his delayed speech, months of appointments and evaluations led us to the conclusion that Luke’s failure to speak, inability to imitate, easy distractibility, infrequent eye contact, and minimal socialization with his peers weren’t just innocuous indications that he was a late bloomer; they were signs that Luke was born with autism. AutismSpeaks.org states that one out of 110 children and one out of 70 boys is born with autism. I assure you, we never thought we’d be one of the “ones”… but we are.