Long time, no blog!

It's been nearly a MONTH since I last blogged.. eeek.. but here I am, with the promise I made to myself still (mostly) intact of blogging regularly!

So, what's the go in the Barlow/Druery household? We've had a busy-ish month. Nothing amazingly exciting. Doctor appointments for the kids, school holidays and scrapping.

We will start with Lachie's latest appointments. He saw his paediatrician two weeks ago, and he had mentioned at the previous appointment a month earlier that he was concerned about Lachie's growth (or lack of) and wanted me to bring in his baby book with his growth records in it. Luckily I still have it, and took that in. He said that while he wouldn't expect Lachie to be tall (I am only 5' 2" and Keith is an average 5' 9"), he is still quite small for his age and ordered a blood test to rule out thyroid or celiac issues. He also wanted an xray to check his bone maturity to see if there was an issue there. So back to the paediatrician yesterday (Talk about bleeding us dry moneywise! But what can you do??). All of his blood tests came back perfect, so nothing to worry about there. The bone maturity xray came back in his favour!! He is 10 years old, with the bone age of a 9 year old! So he actually has wonderful bone maturity, and that is also a GOOD thing, because it will give him extra time to grow! Dr Brown said that he will probably hit puberty a little later than most boys, but that is where the extra growth will come into play. So, he's not going to be a giant, but he should grow to a good average height! I mean, his height doesn't bother us one little bit. But in "general", it will make it easier for him in the long run, without the teasing about how little he is. I'm just waiting for that big spurt he's going to have soon. I just know he'll shoot up :) So then I also mentioned a concern I have had after doing some reading up about his ADHD and Auditory Processing Disorder and finding that a common link to these two disorders is Dyslexia! And then after reading up about that, ALOT of the symptoms are so him its not funny. His paediatrician can't diagnose dyslexia. He has to be evaluated by an Educational Psychologist. It's going to be expensive to get done, but there is no price on my childs wellbeing and education! If getting a positive diagnosis on dyslexia gets him where he needs to be, I don't care what we have to spend to get him there. They often say a mothers gut instinct never fails.. and I believe it. I suspected the ADHD well before he was diagnosed officially with it. It was just waiting to get all the testing done and being referred to the paediatrician. He's on a new medication, which I'm not sure is working for him. We're going to give it another month and if it is showing no overly positive signs of working, then we will trial another medication. There is one rare side effect of the next medication that I'm not keen on at all. It IS rare, but can happen (obviously), and that is negative, dark thoughts. His paediatrician has said that if we do try him on this med, and he shows ANY sign of negative thoughts, he is to be stopped on it immediately. This doctor is wonderful and really takes the time to listen and talk things through.

I have to help Lachie get his school project finished in time for school on monday. He has to do a project on an Australian Bushranger, and has total free creative license to do what he wants with the project! He has decided he wants to do a Bushranger Boardgame, and have spaces that say things like "Caught robbing a bank in "so and so".. move back 3 spaces" and "Evaded police.. move forward 2 spaces". In the middle will be a stack of "Fact Cards", and when someone lands on a fact card spot, they get to pick up a card and learn an interesting fact on the bushranger. HOPEFULLY it will turn out the way we have it in our minds. It's just working out how to decorate the board and put it all together to look awesome. And I need to put some crackers up Lachie's bum to get him motivated to help!

In scrappy news, I'm now a part of Mellow Butterfly's CT (Michelle Batton)! I'm only very new, and it is a little daunting, because everyone else seems to know each other quite well. I'm sure I'll get to know them well over time, but darn sometimes my shyness gets in the way!

SO I can now reveal one of the layouts I have done using Mellow Butterfly products! I have one more, but that one has to wait until tomorrow :)

This layout was made with Michelle Batton's portion of the Autumn Harvest Collab (Part 2) available exclusively at FaithSisters.com .. it also consists of elements from Autumn Whisper by Pineapple Plantation Designs.

I have also done a few more personal layouts as well.

This is probably one of my absolute favourites at the moment. Its of my youngest daughter at 7 months old. The kit used is "Happy" by Ziggle Designs at Scrap Orchard. It was alot of fun to work with! The template is by Designs By Sine, also at Scrap Orchard :)

This is ANOTHER of my all time favourites at the moment. It was a template challenge done at Scrap Orchard (where else?? LOL) and the template is again by Designs by Sine. The kit I used for this layout was "Boy oh Boy".. a collab kit by Polka Dot Plum and Matahati Designs, found (AGAIN!!).. at Scrap Orchard. The journalling tab is a blog freebie from Lindsay Jane Designs.

Again, using "Boy oh Boy", is this layout of my youngest, who decided that sitting on the dog would be a fun thing to do.. Jaffa had other thoughts on that idea, and promptly tipped him off her back LOL He wasn't hurt, and if you looked at the layout closer, you can actually see he is laughing! The wordart is from Elegant Wordart by Bethany.

So there you go, I think that has me all caught up at the moment. I will be back tomorrow to show off my other layout with Mellow Butterfly products!