Is it a wake or awake?

As many of you know matt's dad passed away suddenly this summer. He was only 63, its crazy. I miss him.Well his birthday is tomorrow and so the whole bell clan is getting together on wed to celebrate his life and tell some stories. I am excited. It was hard to get to know him because he was such a private person, very private. In fact at his funeral I felt like I really learned more about him with the stories that were told than I did in the whole 6 1/2 years I have known him.

So we are all supposed to come up with a story to say about him and I am having the hardest time. I mean I can think of a few instances when we had family activities but nothing grounbreaking. This is actually something that plagues me, I have the worst memory. Matt can remember conversations, details, etc that I have no idea about. Is it bad that I don't remember a lot about him? I mean I was supposed to have 20-30 more years to get to know him so I didn't feel any kind of rush to find out about his childhood, job, etc. I feel like I took him for granted. With that being said I am just going to go with what I have and rely on others i.e. his actual children to get some good memories. Then I am going to write them down! I will inevitably forget them if I don't. So, I am looking forward to wednesday it will be sad, I know I will cry but it will be good to think about him again.

what are the odds?

Look at my amazing sister, and her cute little boy isaiah. She is beautiful inside and out. She has had so many health problems all relating to her digestive system. For years she tried so many different things but nothing worked. She could not go out to eat or rather just eat because everything made her sick. In turn she learned to cook with alternative foods. She is an amazing cook and so she has developed a cook book. You can buy it at the greensmoothiegirl.com, or rather her blog, there is a link on the website. Now I titled this "what are the odds" because this is the girl who when we were growing up thought that 2 3/4 cup of flour meant that you add 1 1/2 c you know like adding 3/4 c two times--true story. But it just goes to show that anyone can cook if you take the time to learn. She is all gluten free right now and will probably be writing a gluten free book as well. I am most looking forward to that one. She uses alternative to sugar, wheat, butter, etc. Now she is, obviously, a mother so her recipes aren't that intense and time consuming. I just wanted everyone to know how proud I am of her she takes risks and tries so many different things I never would have the guts to do. Good Job Des!

Training to be a Yogi!

Okay so I am not really a yogi, nor do I profess to be really good at it. But I will say that since my back has been really bugging as of late I have picked it up once again. Just a good 20-30 min a day has made all the difference. After I had ez my back was really bothering me, like I am sitting there nursing him and it was like searing pain in my back. I finally went and had acupunture and chiropratic services done but they would only alleviate the problem. I finally had an MRI done and I have a bulging disc in my vertebrae that is pinching 2 nerves. Now it really sounds worse than it is. I don't have to take any pain medication or really do anything except for stay in shape. But sometimes, like 2 months ago, I overdid it with something-I don't really know what it was-but the pain came back. Well after doing yoga and going back to the chiroprator I can say now that I am in the clear. I am so grateful that this really is my only health problem compare to so many who have so many worse things to deal with. So if you really want to know my opinion on yoga it works miracles!

*****Side note****I found this picture when I googled yoga and all I can say is what the crap?

I'm sorry mommy

Okay so anyone ever feel inadequate as a mom? and no this is not me fishing for compliments, I know that I don't totally suck all the time its just one of those days you know? Brighton came home from school all ornery or maybe it was just me vacumning the house as soon as he got home-he gets all crazy when the vacumn is on I think it overstimulates his senses just another lovely byproduct of sensory integration- so he is teasing ezra constantly. Then he gets on the spiderman costume and becomes the crime fighting superheroe that is only kicking or hitting me or ez. AAAHH!! Okay so now would be a good time to insert where I really need to work on-PATIENCE. I guess we all need a little more patience but after he hit ez for the last time I literally wrestled the costume off of him and took him upstairs for a timeout only too see what took him so long to go to the bathroom. A full toilet of toilet paper with pee on top of it. So yea I don't get the logic with toilet paper before the pee, but whatever like I was really so concerned with that. So I totally spanked him. Wow, do I feel guilty or what. Not that I am totally against spanking but I am against it when you are out of control and I know I was at that point. But I didn't stop there I make him clean out the toilet the whole time I am yelling at him about not touching the toilet paper unless it is needed. Then I tell him I don't want to see him right then and make him go in his room because this is where reasoning finally came into play and I knew I needed to calm down. We ended this whole episode with me holding bri while he is still bawling saying "I'm sorry mommy" over and over. I know I handled this situation inappropriately and I think now if I only would have just played with him it probably would have turned out a lot better. But once again its just one of those days.

I hate it when...

Okay so at the mall today buying some much needed hair products--poor matt no hair paste makes for some very poofy hair for him. Then I am asking about the on sale products for me, of course, then comes over another way too pushy sales lady that is not even listening to me for what I am asking for. Case in point

me- hey out of these on sale products what will give me definition to my almost always frizzy curls?

saleslady-Oh well here is the best-some obvious gushing-product its not on sale but it is outright the best!

me-okay-pick up product-but keep looking-meanwhile ask a few more questions. She is still recommending items that are not on sale. How can I make this more clear to her? Oh right blatantly do not get the products she recommended.

sl-oh well these products almost never go on sale

me-thanks for the tip but all I really need is some stuff for my husband

sl-oh well you can sign up for are preferred customers program that right now is only 9.95 instead of 19.95 a month-blah blah blah(my kids are going crazy at this point)

me-cut her off, thanks but this is not something I really need. Can I just get the things that I have right now?

sl-of course(all sweet and syrupy that makes me want pull her too perfect hair) but if you got the preferred customer right now blah blah blah. while ringing me up of course because she can tell at this point I am losing my patience.

me-well I don't ever shop here so this is not something I really need. HA! Take that I will never go there again! Unless of course they have what I need on sale.

On the bright side here is a way cute pic of bri on his first day of preschool.

I kinda broke the sink..but fixed it at the same time!

Okay so along with all of the million things my husband has to do, I have been pestering to fix our upstairs bathroom sink for I swear a year. Of course its on the bottom of the list and him being the super busy manly man that he is never got around to it. So in cleaning the bathroom a few days ago I could not get the stupid thing clean, because it takes forever to drain so it gets super dirty really fast. AAHHH!!! I wanted to scream, seriously this house makes me want to scream sometimes. So in my mindless rage(cleaning rage that is) I grabbed matts tools and grabbed one them (do not ask me what it was, maybe it was some kind of wrench) and broke the stopper off and proceeded to clean and gag while cleaning out all the gunk stopping it from draining. Yuck! I then calmly put back the stopper(it still kind of works). Wow it got a little heated there. So there is my story of breaking the sink but really I fixed it.

gotta love diets and movies...

Okay so I am not good at diets, never have been. When I try to limit the food thats all I can think about and it consumes way too much of my time. But, this diet is not for me, it is for my little guy Bri. Our DAN(defeat autism now) doctor said he was 50/50 on for bri to be on a gluten/casein/soy free diet. Now what is gluten, anything made with wheat, casein is any dairy or whey product. So now I think what can we eat? Fruits, veggies, meat, corn, rice, nuts and oatmeal--just make sure that its not processed with wheat which most are. Well I have been going back and forth on this limiting what foods a kid can eat can be tricky, especially ones that are good for you such as 100% whole wheat are super important in a normal kid they provide essential b vitamins that are hard to get from anything else. Although, bri is on a ton of supplements to cover all the things that he would be missing. But I have come to the conclusion if I don't do this I am not doing everything in my power to help brighton. So here I am putting a deadline, we are going totally GFCF and soy free as of october. I can do this, I know I can. Okay maybe I am little nervous here. But this might make the difference between him being able to be pulled off the spectrum or it might not but either way I am going to try. So wish me luck!

On another note, kind of related to food but not at all related to what I was talking about before I got to go see a great movie with my mother-in law beth yesterday. I loved it, thanks beth for going with me! Since I love to cook, this movie made me want to start cooking some amazing french recipe but back to life and reality I do not have the time or the money to do so. But watching this movie was almost as good. I definetely recommend it.