A NEW YEAR IS HERE!

The founder of CARD, Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh was named by Fox News as an American Hero of 2011. Here is a short video that was posted by Fox. She is at the head CARD office near Los Angeles, CA.

CARD video:



Well, Happy New Year to everyone! We hope your holiday season has been peaceful (joking, a little), joyful, and totally awesome!! We have had a great time here in Austin for the holidays. It was a great Christmas for our family. Although we missed being with extended family, like we have always done, we really enjoyed it being just the 4 of us this year. Andrew and Kylie had a ball and really loved every bit of Christmas Day!! It was very relaxing and we just took our time enjoying the day!

Here is a photo album of our holidays here; the quality isn't great, but it will give you an idea of some things we did, such as a breakfast with Santa at Kylie's school, going to a light display one evening, in which the kids LOVED, and Christmas Day.




As we reflect on our year of 2011, we can't help but think of so many things we are thankful for this past year. Here is a few things we thought of; well, 12 things; to look for 2012, but also because there are 12 months in a year. . . . right??

12. A year of aggressive assessments (and treatments) for Andrew!

11. So thankful that we found River's Edge Christian Academy in February 2011; a Christian co-op that really changed Andrew's perception of school from negative to positive and gave him the confidence he needed to succeed!

10. We are so thankful that Andrew has responded so well to a gluten free, casein free (dairy), soy free diet which has really improved so many of his symptoms. We are thankful that it really isn't as hard as everyone thinks it is!! If you know someone with autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and I could go on and on, you should encourage them to try the diet! One at a time is helpful!!

9. We are so thankful that Doug's mom, Julie, survived a terrible motor vehicle accident in April and has done well after suffering some broken bones and doing some rehabilitation.

8. We are so thankful for every milestone that Kylie meets and to see the development she makes each day. She is a funny, funny girl and provides hours of entertainment (if you have time!!)

7. We few so grateful that we were able to attend the 2011 Spring Autism Research Institute Conference in Atlanta that really did change our lives (and Andrew's!)

6. We are so very thankful for Humana insurance and the contract that they agreed upon with CARD (Andrew's ABA therapy here in Austin). This is what allowed us to make this move.

5. We are thankful for CARD and all the folks associated with them to help Andrew.

4. We are grateful for the easy transition that our kids (and we) have had to Austin, including schools for both kids, church, the house, the city, and the missing of our family and friends.

3. Having all of our family come for visits to Austin has been wonderful!! Still waiting on Doug's sister and family and Kristin's brother and wife. Then, it is time for our friends to visit, too!!

2. Going to Kristin's brother's wedding in August was great! We really struggled with what to do, since it was right in the middle of our move. . . . but we wouldn't change our decision for anything and so happy we went! It was so much fun!

1. Of course, we are so thankful for how far Andrew has come this year! It really is amazing when you look at all of it! We look forward to continued RECOVERY IN 2012!!


For those that are really excited about the Yeager's first Christmas in Austin, here are some short videos of the kids on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! Enjoy!


christmas 1
christmas 2
christmas 3
christmas 4
christmas 5
christmas 6
christmas 7
christmas 8

FALL HAS LEFT AND THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!

So, here we are, already in December!  Where has the time gone???!  It's been a busy 6 weeks or so since my last post!  Right after my last post, we had a great time on Halloween!  The school has a big Halloween festival or carnival every year and that was a lot of fun.  We decided to dress up as a family as "The Incredibles".  We had fun doing that!  Andrew is really into movies, and does like the Incredibles.  Halloween in our neighborhood is a really big deal.  The streets were filled with people.  Since it was our first year, we decided to all go around as a family, so we weren't here too much to pass out candy.  If we were, I think we would have had 300-400 trick or treaters.  It felt like a big street party and we can say it was something we have never seen before.  Andrew had a blast, even though he doesn't get to eat any of the candy.  Kylie was a little cranky and  hungry; probably will enjoy it more next year!

Shortly after that, my mom and her husband, Mike came for their first visit to Austin.  It was also Kylie's 2nd birthday weekend!  We had a great time and it was nice to see more family!  They also were able to join Andrew for lunch at school and see what his therapy was all about, as the therapists worked with him here at the house.

Kylie got her first bike for her birthday!  She fits on it great, but still not quite sure what to do with the pedals.  She prefers to be pushed along. . . .

 After they left, it was time to think about Thanksgiving!  And, with that, we got more visitors!  Kevin, Doug's brother, came for a visit, along with Doug's parents.  It was great spending our first Thanksgiving in Austin with family.  We had a great time for the long weekend and were sad to see them go!

 Uncle Kevin was very good at helping Kylie with her coloring.  That seemed to be a nice past time for both of them.

Wow!  That is some sibling smooching right there!  And yes, Andrew's Indian hat does say "Morning Child"

Then, here we are in December, decorating the house, doing fun activities around Austin, and enjoying the season.  We are looking forward to the activities here in Austin over the next 3 weeks.  It will just be the 4 of us this year.  We will be coming east in June, so we need to save our trip dollars for that trip!  It will be nice, though, and this way, Santa knows where to find us!! :-)

Andrew is doing well with everything.  He seems to have spurts where he is doing outstanding and we are so encouraged by his progressed.  Then, he will have a run of some rough days, probably dependent partly on how is is feeling (runny nose really seems to affect him a lot), the weather and any fronts moving in, lack of sleep, etc.  We just stay the course and know that in the end, things will be much better.  He really gets into ALL holidays, so it's been fun seeing his excitement about the different holidays, starting with Halloween.  We will be increasing his ABA hours over his Christmas break to the recommended 30/week.  Since we aren't going anywhere, we figured we might as well take advantage of that time.  

As we reflect upon the last few months that we have been here, wrapping up 2011, we can't help but be so very thankful for all that God has blessed us with!  Our support network, including YOU, our friends and family.  We are so very thankful for all that we have and for our ability to be in a great place for Andrew and our family.  We have continued to be given reminders of how this was the right decision for our family.  We do miss our friends and family in Knoxville.  We have made some friends, but realize, it's hard to establish deep friendships with families right now; we are at a time of our lives that it is just really busy for all of us, due to our kids.  It will happen, it will just take a little bit.  Luckily, we are busy enough, we don't have much time to think about it much!!  

Thanks again for all your support.

We hope that the holiday season is a special time for you and your family.

Our house all lit up for the season!

Fall in Austin

Well, I didn't want to bore people with our lives, so I wanted to give it a few weeks before updating.  But, I have had a few complaints for not updating, too.  So, sorry to those who are checking this blog daily.  I plan to try to update a few times a month unless something crazy fun is going on!  It's been a busy month, starting with the birthday bash to going to a pumpkin patch, fall festivals, more visitors, and our follow up with Andrew's doctor by phone.  This weekend is the big fall festival at Andrew's school and it is a huge event for the community and a big fundraiser for the school.  It should be a fun time!

Andrew's therapy continues to go well and remains busy with school and the therapy hours.  He knows his routine and doesn't complain a bit about it.  He has become AMAZING when it comes to taking pills, as he has quite a few supplements that he takes.  Again, all without a bit of complaining.  Some of these pills are HUGE and he just swallows them up without water.  They seem to really be helping, though!  We had our phone follow up this week with his doctor in NY.  We found out some lab results and found out some areas that need to be tweaked.  He made some changes and additions and suspects that his body has heavy metals (like mercury) that is affecting his cognition.  We will be testing that with a urine test in the next few months.  It really makes sense to us, since he is so high functioning on so many levels, but his cognitive skills are lacking, which really affects his learning.  We also had a consultation with a neuropsychologist today to have his cognition, memory, IQ, etc. tested.  CARD wants to have a baseline of where he is.  They will also test him for dyslexia, as we feel he may struggle with this, also.  His testing for all this is November 8th.  

Kylie is in her preschool program, now 4 days a week.  She seems to like it a lot.  It's a half day type thing and then she comes home and naps at home.  We tried having her nap there, but it just wasn't long enough.  She is starting to get into the "mama" role of taking care of her brother!!  Very different than her brother, as she does NOT miss a thing!  I can just say the word "go", and she is ready to "go" and wonders why we aren't leaving!  

Kylie doesn't seem to be afraid of the horse at the fall festival; she rode him, too!

So, we had some fun visitors this past weekend!  Grandpa and GrandJan (Kristin's dad and his wife) were in Austin to visit.  Let's face it, mostly visit the kids!  That was a fun time and we enjoyed their visit.  We went to church, visited a few homes that are for sale in the area, and played with the kids!  We went down and visited the UT campus, too.  It was great having them here and the kids had a blast!
They came to Andrew's school and ate lunch with him and he loved that, too!!

The ultimate "cheese" smile (or look, is a better way to put it)!  But, at least it's a good pic of Grandpa and Grand Jan!

We also got a garden started!  That is something that we really wanted to do, since we spend a lot of money each week in produce.  So, we planted some beets, cauliflower, snap peas, carrots, and several lettuce varieties.  I wish I could say it will be fun for the kids, but Andrew could care less, and Kylie just gets filthy when she goes out to "help water" with her watering can.  Anyway. . . .hope we get some good veggies from it.  

See.. . .they don't look like they have worked very hard on the garden, do they??

Doug is doing well with his work and staying busy with projects for a few companies.  He went to Portland this past week for a few days to meet with the Intel group there that he works for.  


And, as for me. . . . do I miss work??  Yes, I do, but can't imagine how in the world I could do what I do now and work, even part time!  All the pick up early, take to therapy, doctor's appointments, etc. are enough to spin my head 30 times!   I do miss work and helping people.  But, right now, my job is to help my family and my boy.  I like how involved I feel now and how I feel like there is nothing holding us back from helping Andrew.  I definitely had more "me time" when I was working, even if it was my lunch break or driving to and from work. . . .but, I am okay with my new role.  I think the pay off will be worth it!!  

If I worked, this lipstick moment would not have happened??  I told her this was NOT her color!

We have found a church we like and have gotten involved with a small group.  So, we are slowly getting connected here in Austin.  It is just as great as people told us and we really like it here.  


We hope all of you are doing well and thanks for your love and support.

Andrew is a 7 year old!

Well, it's official!  Andrew is now a 7 year old!  His birthday was last Thursday, and we really feel like this may have been the first birthday that he was really into!  He was totally jazzed about his party, his cake (and that it was gluten free and he could eat it and didn't have red dye!), that the cake would be rectangle with white frosting, and that it would be a "Transformer party".  We had it at a gymnastics place, trying to find a place like Tatarus in Knoxville.  They blow up a huge train shaped inflatable and the kids get to run around to the different stations or obstacles!  We invited his class, which worked out great!  It allowed us to meet some of the kids in his class and their parents, too.  About 9 kids came, which was the perfect number!  He had a ball!  The party was on Saturday (right during the Clemson game--yikes!)  but that worked out great, too.  He can now tell you he is 7 years old when asked, which is always a struggle for him to know how old he is now, will be next year, etc.

Kylie had a ball at the party as well.  The gymnastics place was great about allowing her to go out on the equipment supervised by dad!  She had no problem learning how to use the equipment, as you can see by the pictures below!!  You would have thought she was training for the olympics or something.

  

Our first visitors!

We were so excited to have our first visitors to Austin!  Doug's parents, Steve and Julie, came in around September 8th and were gracious enough to drive our other car here for us.  This allowed Kristin and Kylie to fly to Austin instead of driving 17 long hours.  They flew back to Nashville after a great week long stay!   They also helped us with Kylie while we went up to NY for a doctor's appointment for Andrew.  They babysat her while we were gone for 3-4 days.  The doctor we saw was Dr. Ken Bock and is in integrative medicine; this means who uses some traditional medicine, but also some of the biomedical approaches, as well.  He combines the two to have the best results with treating many diseases and problems, not just autism.  But, he is on the fore front of treating autism using biomedical interventions.  It was a great trip and we stayed in Poughkeepsie, with Kristin's aunt and uncle, Phyllis and Mike.  They were so gracious to open their home to the 3 of us for those 3 nights.   We had a great visit and went on a small walk overlooking the Hudson River.  It was a beautiful day!

Paw Paw and MiMi got to go eat lunch with Andrew at his school, Doss Elementary.  They also brought his birthday present with them, which was a Wii game.  He is becoming quite good at the racing games and has come very far!!

Our move to Austin

Well. . . starting a blog is a new thing for us!  But, I think will be a great way to keep everyone informed of how we are doing, Andrew's progress, and keeping up with our family here in Austin!  It's been a whirlwind the last 5 months or so for our family!  


So, the seed was planted less than 6 months ago!  We went to a conference put on by Autism Research Institute in Atlanta.  This was at the end of April/first of May.  At this conference, we learned there was much to be done still to help Andrew!  We learned that diet/nutrition was a key to helping most autistic kids.  We had already begun the gluten free/casein free (that's dairy)/soy free diet in the spring and seen some pretty dramatic changes in Andrew.  Some of these changes were better sleep, a decrease in anxiety, a decrease in tantrums/melt downs, better focus and attention, less hyperactivity, and the list could go on and on.  We also learned that starting some supplements would also be helpful.  Most autistic kids are deficient in some vital nutrients that our bodies naturally make and we take in through our diet.  Some of these kids don't absorb the nutrients they take in due to inflammation in the gut.  So, giving them supplements to correct this has been helpful for most autistic kids.  So, we have slowly been adding supplements to his diet and seen more dramatic changes.  These supplements can be "parent directed" by doing a lot of research, but it's much better to see a physician that knows  autism and can help with these treatments.  The supplements are very safe, things like Vitamin B-12, Vitamin B-6, Magnesium, Calcium, Zinc, Fish oil, Vitamin D, etc.  So, see. . . . nothing crazy here!  Many of these actually help cognition, so check into them for yourself!  (we can't afford to do it for our brains, since we focus on Andrew's brain right now!! LOL)


So, the diet and supplements are a piece of this recovery, but the third piece is why we are here!  So, there is a very well known, large organization that was started close to 30 years ago.  It is called CARD (Center for Autism Related Disorders) and they have offices all over the country and even 1 in New Zealand and Australia.  Many of the offices are in California, since that was where it was founded.  But, we didn't really want to move to California!  There were some up north, as well.  Again, we are wimpy when it comes to cold weather.  Austin has some great things for our family.  For Doug, it is a booming location for start up businesses, like ones he has interest in; for Andrew, of course, the therapy, but also very supportive for the gluten free lifestyle.  It seems to be very family oriented and a great place to raise kids!  What CARD does is ABA therapy; this stands for Applied Behavior Analysis.  Many of us use it every day when raising kids; it's reward based learning.  They help change behaviors and help teach him how to play and communicate appropriately.  They reinforce academics that he is working on in school.  You can learn more about CARD and what they do by going to their website:  www.centerforautism.com
This therapy is very time consuming.  It takes a lot of hours to mold these brains!  So, it's been recommended that he receives 30 hours/week of therapy.  We tried that, but it was too much when school started, and I think because he actually enjoys school, he was sad that he wasn't there as much as the other kids.  So, we backed down to 20 hours/week right now.  So, yes, he is a busy kid.  But, if you know Andrew well, you know that he is excellent and "playing quietly by himself", but this doesn't do much for communication skills, or social skills.  He ends up tuning out the world and that is exactly what he DOES NOT need!  So, by filling almost his entire day with school or therapy, he is forced to interact with people.  And, it's working!!  We are already seeing changes!!


So, this is a summary of WHY we moved and so far, it has been a great decision!!


Because we made the decision to move so quickly, we are renting our house out in Knoxville.  So far, it is working out pretty well.  We also are renting our house here in Austin.  Doug did a great job of house selection for us.  For the particular school we wanted and was recommended, we were fairly limited on house choices.  But, the one we got is great!  It has a pool; it's old and needs some work, but functional!  It's a perfect size for us and in a great area.  It is so convenient to the therapy and to lots of things.  We would be interested in buying this house, but don't think that's an option.  Meanwhile, we will look for houses to buy in this area.  They are scarce; probably because this is a desirable part of town.  We have time!  Most of the houses in this area are older.  Ours is 1968, I think and because it's been a rental for 8 years, it needs some work.

Here is a picture of our house.