Our Brody is a busy boy

Brody is starting full-time Kindergarten in August. His first day of school is Wednesday August 10th! We found out the school will be Jordan Elementary (pictured above with a cool picture of their school mascot - I guess they are the Jordan Jaguars). The school has a great program and highly trained staff for kids with autism. It is a little farther away from our house than we thought but there are only a few schools in the district with a program that will meet Brody's needs. I guess it just means a longer bus ride!

We got an augmentative communication device a few months ago (pictured above). We are finally getting me trained on to know how to program and he will eventually learn to use it in order to 'talk' for him. I was initially really excited, like the device could finally help me know how to communicate with Brody and for him to communicate with us but after the training and seeing how Brody is on the device it will take some time but then I am confident it will be a wonderful new advancement for him

Brody has been going to an afternoon summer camp at a therapy center. It is the same place he gets his other therapies. He goes on field trips twice a week. He has been having a lot of fun going to jambo park, museums, libraries and splash parks. The hab providers he works with are so nice and friendly to us and to Brody. They are all so excited to see him.

Brody has been taking swim lesson now for about a month, maybe a month and half. I cannot remember the exact day he started. With him, the way he communicates - or lack thereof - as well as short attention span meant we had to take him to a place that was capable of teaching children with special needs. So there is a great place called Swim Kids, USA. It is a little pricy for 30 minutes a week but I feel it is worth every penny. Brody LOVES the water but he has no fear and that is a big danger around water and pool, pond or anything he can drown in. He just passed the beginner level and moving right along into intermediate. His teacher, Mirabell is strict and does not tolerate not being safe or not listening. Thus, she is the perfect instructor for Brody. So he does not know how to swim yet but he is doing great.

Brody has been a busy boy this summer and will continue to be busy from now on with school and all the therapies. Though I will miss having him home, I know it is important that he does all of this because it all helps him improve and function better.

In the meantime we will cherish Brody's time at home and the time we have with him!

We have found a home

So after several months of looking on the Internet for homes and then seeing dozens of homes these past couple months, Jake and I have finally found a home we love that (unless there are some unseen hurdles) in about 30 days will finally be ours.

It is pretty cute (as you can see above). It fits our lifestyle really well. Even a extra room to make an office. Also there is an Arizona Room that will be the perfect playroom. Therefore, in this new house the boy's rooms will just be there rooms they sleep in. No more eating in their bedrooms, no more coloring in their rooms, no more puzzles and no more toys everywhere around the house. Well I am sure they will try to bring toys everywhere but at least in this house there will be a designated area for toys. It is only about a mile or two away from where we live now which is nice cause we like this area.

What is even better with this home is that we are buying it after the real estate bubble that occurred a few years ago. We bought our first home in 2006 and it was during the bubble. Needless to say because of the bad mortgages being sold at that time and how inflated the price of the home was, we didn't have that house for long. Just for an idea how bad the bubble made the price of a home back then - this home we are going to buy is going to have a mortgage payment of almost $900 less than the home we bought in 2006 and the actual price of the home is almost $140,000 less than our old home.

I am happy this home will be affordable and that we can make it a nice home for our family. Of the almost 8 years we've been married we have only had about 6 months that we had a place to call our own. Now we will hopefully be moved and semi-settled before Brody starts kindergarten.

Not only those positives but also when it comes time for someone to kick us out of this house we are in, we won't be homeless!!