Life is busy as usual. We are finally starting to get some new doors installed on the house. Besides the family, Peter is busy with his calling, school and work. We love to have him as much as we can get him, but it is not as much as we want. I am busy with the kids and with Butterfly life. It is good to be busy though. There really is is joy in hard work. Tanner is such a cutie. He is 8 months old already. I can't imagine life without him in our family. He is so happy all the time. He is scooting around a little bit now but not really crawling. He has also learned to sit up for long periods of time. He loves food more than anything. He wants anything that we eat. I realized that he is now the same age Eden was when I got pregnant with him. Wow, I can't believe I was ready that fast.

I just loved how he looked in these jammies.

Our kids love it when Daddy comes home. They run to the door and squeal with delight. Eden is talking up a storm. She loved Daddy but I think she is a Mommy's girl. She loves to cuddle and lets me do her hair. She loves pink and purple. We had a lunch date on saturday with my sister and her daughter. She had a good time with just the girls. She is pretty well behaved most of the time so I actually enjoy taking her out and about with me. We had our annual sweethearts ball last week with the ward. The youth hosted it and served a nice dinner with skits to follow and then a dance. It was a blast. I think it is the best date night of the year. That was pretty much all we did for our valentines day. The kids also exchanged valentines with the Dickinson cousins and like getting candy.
Tender moment with Daddy. I love it when Dallin is so tired that he is cuddly. He fall asleep a couple of minutes after I took this picture. He has been such a handful lately. After we started the diet change, his behaviors have been so much worse. I guess it is like a detox period. I have been going crazy the last two weeks with him. Church is impossible and going anywhere is hard. Even his teachers at school have noticed. He is now going to start going to his preschool 4 days a week instead of 2. I just hope that we are doing the right things for him. His talking on the other hand is still progressing really well. The other day he brought something to me and said "whats this?". That may not seem like much but that is the first question he has ever asked me. Today I was in my room and I heard Dallin yelling "Mommy, where are you?" I couldn't believe my ears. Yes, that is a four word sentence and a question! Peter has also started taking Dallin running each morning. They usually run about a mile. Dallin really needs to stimulate his sensory system more. I am hoping that it will help him get his wiggles out and he will be able to manage himself better for the rest of the day. Dallins 2 favorite things are running and Daddy so he thinks it is great.

We had a birthday party for my parents a few days ago. We had the whole family over to our house. They are both 60 now. Crazy. Last week was a big roller coaster for me. On Monday we went to Dallin's doctor to get some test results for food allergies. Sure enough he is intolerant of gluten(wheat, oats, etc), all dairy, soy, peanuts, almonds, and garlic. Wow, that really throws a wrench in things. This kind of diet change has a great reputation for helping with autism so we are going for it. I am also fed up with the early intervention program. I think Dallin benefits from it, but he is only getting about 3 hours of help each week. I found out that autistic kids really need 30 to 40 hours a week of therapy. So for the first half of the week I was so overwhelmed that I was dizzy and couldn't really comprehend all that. Then I visited a woman in the ward who deals with food allergies too and showed me what to feed Dallin and some great resources. Then I went to the library and started researching what I can do to help Dallin more. Obviously I will need to do this special therapy (it is called applied behavior analysis) on my own. I didn't know that for me becoming a mom meant that I would have to be a nutritionist and and autism expert. So I have rolled up my sleeves and gotten to work. The more I learn and figure things out the easier it seems things will be. I don't really have time to feel sorry for myself so it is a labor of love. I see great things for Dallin's future, but feel that it is very very important to give him all the intervention that he needs while he is young.