Back in the saddle

Its been a while since I've posted. Strangely, I feel like I have a million things to blog about, but somehow, its not seeming to find its way from my brain to my fingers. Plus I've been feeling just a little overwhelmed lately, and not really interested in laying that all out in a blog, so its a little difficult to get my mind in a place to write about interesting things.

But here goes.

Let's see, when we last met, I was talking about Travis's food sensitivity, and his ability to distinguish between granola bars. So, for a food update: 2 weeks ago, his speech/food therapist got him to eat bananas with peanut butter; last week, apples and peanut butter. He's since been eating apples on a somewhat regular basis...although we've taken a slide backward in the last couple days since he's been sick. This whole food thing is a terribly slow process. Wow. Who would have thought I'd be so excited about getting the kid to eat a gummy bear, for pete's sake.

I've started getting Travis working on his Christmas list. The first thing we did was sit down and talk about what Christmas is all about, and why we celebrate. Then we talked about being able to make other people happy, from buying gifts for people we love to helping out others less fortunate. Travis is a pretty thoughtful kid, so this stuff resonates with him. So then we get to making out his own list, and its like pulling teeth. He can't think of anything he really wants. We looked through an entire kids toy magazine and there was barely anything he truly cared about. Its kind of heartwarming, actually, to see him developing into a primarily unmaterialistic kid. That's something that is pretty important to me.

Highlights (and lowlights) of the last week: many of us battling illness -- slight fever for Sophie and me, stronger one for Travis, runny noses and sore throats all the way around. Ben in Indy for a technology conference this week. Had a gorgeous weekend last weekend and did some tailgating, Ben went to ND game. Pics below:

Noah posing for the camera

Travis playing kick the can

The family (minus Sophie)

Ahh, there she is.