Finally!

We had our first appointment with Joseph's new psychiatrist today. We were really struggling to see eye-to-eye with his previous psychiatrist. Every time we questioned something he was doing or recommending he would hold up a medical journal and tell us that he has "read all of these." I guess that is impressive and supposed to mean something to us. Well it was neither impressive nor reassuring. If he did not hold up his reading material, he would ignore us or get defensive. Not the best atmosphere for healing as you can imagine. Anyway we have been trying to get a new psychiatrists for months. This has been a frustrating and fruitless process. Apparently psychiatrists specializing in adolescence is rare and therefore hard to find and of course our insurance only covers a handful. Anyway to make a very long story short we were finally able to find a child psychiatrist that accepted our insurance and that was able to see us in a reasonable amount of time. Enter new psychiatrist...

From the time we walked into the building I felt the difference in this office. The decor was nice, the staff was friendly and there was no weird art on the walls for sale created by the psychiatrists wife/receptionist (I am not kidding). After filling out the necessary paper work we were off tho see the doctor.

We walked into his office and were greeted with a smile, a hand shake and eye-contact, all at the same time. We are off to a wonderful start. He then asked if we used email...oh I am really starting to like this man, and gave us his email address! The eye-contact lasts throughout the whole visit. His manner is pleasant and attentive. He talks to all of us and interacts in a normal humanly fashion. Now the best part, I know I didn't think it could get better either; he actually listened to what we had to say about our own son and what we were concerned about! He agreed with most of what were saying and also wanted to simplify Joseph's meds which we felt were getting out of hand. Then he did the most amazing thing, he actually typed up what we talked about, what we needed to be doing, and the med changes we talked about....and gave us a copy! When we left he was again pleasant and told us we could email him anytime with questions or concerns. WOW!

Ben and I left in a bit of shock and disbelief. The many months of frustration with our old doctor left us sad and upset with Josephs care. The many months of searching for a new doctor left us mad and cynical. In one visit our new psychiatrist erased many of those feelings (don't get me wrong I still think that our old doctor is a quack and probably shouldn't be seeing patients). I am so grateful that we found a new doctor and that he is all the things that our old doctor was not. I think this is someone we can trust as well as someone who can really help Joseph! It is so nice to come away from an appointment feeling hope rather than despair!

Just a bit of "WOW" to brighten your day

I had to show off my budding photographer. Lately Joseph has taken quite a liking to photography. So he decide that for Reflections he would do photography. Reflections is a program that showcases the art of school aged kids centered on a specific theme. This year the theme is "WOW." There are lots of categories to choose from but Joseph wanted to do photography. I did not influence his decision...I promise. Anyway we went looking for "WOW" tonight. He used our point and shoot camera and I just made suggestions. I have been very careful not to tell him what to do or how to do it, but I have given suggestions. So when we got home we were both really excited to get the pictures on the computer to see how they turned out. There were quite a few that were good. But this is a "WOW" photograph. Honestly I was fighting back tears! Now I know that I am a biased judge but this image is amazing. I told Joseph I wished I had taken it, and I was being totally honest. I hope I haven't built it up too much and I hope that it shows well on blogger. So here it is...

"This is Halloween"

I know it's early but I had to share some pictures from our Halloween Party. We had a bunch of friends over for a party last weekend and it was so much fun. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love fall and Halloween. So this year I decided to turn that love into a party.

OH MY HECK...I might have gone a little over board (Shocker). I had been planning this party for over a month. Then the night before we changed everything but the food and the decorations. We decided to make the games a little more interesting and split people up. We put two couples together in rooms throughout our house. Then after 20 minutes we switched rooms/games and were with a different couple. So of course that meant that I had to try to decorate the new rooms that we would be using. Anyway I think that it turned out pretty good. Because we decided the night before to do things this way there were some snags of course, but nothing monumental, overall I think the games went well. The biggest disappointment of the night was the fondue. Apparently fondue does not work well over a long period of time. I think that it was fine at the beginning of the night but by the end it wasn't so great. Oh well lesson learned. It was still tons of fun and so fun to see how creative our friends were with their costumes. Here are some pics...

Some of these pictures do not do the costumes justice!

The Pendletons were pirates, actually Vanessa was a pregnant pirate. Apparently Vanessa had made Matt grow out the beard just for the party. These guys won first prize in our game competition.

The Rushtons were bikers and actually came on a motocycle! Way to own it guys!

The Weights were "Home improvement gone wrong." It was hilarious they had wounds that included blood, wood protuding from toes and nails stuck through fingers...very clever. Crystal won our best costume of the night. I wish I had a better picture!

The Greenwoods were superheroes. These guys may end up being related to us one day; Aaron's brother is dating Ben's sister...small world.

The Burrups were sports fans. Josh had a Y shirt on with a noose around his neck to symbolize the Cougars horrible loose the night before. (Which almost ruined my party because Ben was so upset that they lost...DUH)

The James' were the Milk man and the housewife. So funny. You can't see it but he has lipstick on his shirt.

The Cleggs were Siegfried and Roy, we all got a kick out of the mullet wigs. I thought it was a good look for the cleggs!

And finally we were a gothic prom couple. You can't see them very well but we are both wearing black corsages that I made. Earlier in the evening Ben had a lip ring on and he is wearing an earing that you can't see in the picture. I had on some awesome eyelashes that of course you can't see well in the picture. For those wondering that is my actual senior prom dress. I was so excited that it fit again after 3 babies, I didn't care what I was as long as I wore the dress!

Like I said the pictures don't so the costumes justice. Maybe everyone will get dressed up again and come over so I can get some better pictures...what do you think guys:)

Overheard

Joseph: "Do you want to hear something really bad that pirates do?"
Lillie: "Yes"
Joseph: "They sneak into movies and video tape them, when they are not supposed to"
Ben and I: Silent laughter
Joseph: "Then they try to sell them to Prophets!"
Lillie: Confused
Ben and I: Hysterical muffled laughter