Logan's big day

The big day came and Logan went off to Preschool on Tuesday. He will be going 3 mornings a week. He was so proud and happy with himself. He loved wearing his backpack around (as you can see from the pictures), he loved that he got to take a snack & lunch to school and he just seemed to love everything about it. I am very proud of my big boy! I have also had a really great time with Jack the last few days. We have done all kinds of random things out around town. Today we had a muffin date at Atlanta Bread Company. The kid was so excited to just sit in a booth all alone with Mommy and eat a muffin without Logan bothering him. It actually made me feel kind of bad because he has never really had me to himself. We are definitely going to make the most of our 3 mornings a week together. It has been fun getting to know him in a new way! (as weird as that sounds) I love my Jack Jack and it has been great to see him much happier this week with mama's attention all to himself. So here are lots of cute pictures of our first day...

the busy, busy Greenes

I know I keep saying more pictures soon, but they will have to wait a few more days... just wanted to give a somewhat quick update on our little family...

Jack completed his set of autism evaluations and it will probably be a while before we know anything. He still shows some signs of autism, but not enough to diagnose him. It might be like this for a while until he gets a little bit older and they can either say yes or no for sure. He is defnitely improving in some areas, but he is still very challenging. At this point we have no clue and it wouldn't suprise us either way.

Lots of big changes for Logan. He is sleeping in a regular bed now and we are in the process of turning his room into a big boy room. The new bedroom is his birthday gift from us! It would be a silly birthday gift if he didn't like it, but he loves it! I can't keep him out of his room. Can't belive he is almost 3! He is completely potty trained when we are home, but going out of the house is a completely different story. We will start working on that soon, but one step at a time! And lastly, he is going to preschool! It wasn't really part of the plan to send him yet, but it just kind of hit us that it would be best for both children. At this point we feel it would benefit Logan and Jack, (maybe even Jack the most) for some separate time. They are always in each others business and some days it can be a problem! Logan will get to use up much more energy and have fun at school, while Jack will get some much needed alone time! I can't even imagine what it is going to be like to be able run errands and get things done with only one child again! I am so excited to take him on his first day and I really hope I don't cry. James would be the first to make fun of me.

As a family we have been very busy with church. We are so thankful to have found a place we like so much and is so close. Meeting lots of new people and we are in the process of membership classes. Sundays are great and Wednesday night church with dinner just started up too. For the last few years, we had nothing on our schedules at all besides work and our kids. It has been completely opposite the last few months. One activity after the next!

And I also have to mention our running. Yes, we are still at it. I will update on some races later. Our weeks are full of interval training at the track, long runs, short runs, 5k's, 8k's, runs with the kids, fast runs, slow runs...you name it! Our Disney half marathon is less than 2 weeks away! Me and James cannot wait for our 2 nights away! First time away from kids for even one night since before Logan was born. ( 3 whole years!) We just made our hotel reservations and it will be here so soon! Just weeks after the Disney half, we are signing up for another half marathon at the end of October in Boston, Georgia. We are taking the kids in a jogger along for that one! :) Probably a little slower than usual, but the kids will love it.

So, that should be it for now. I will get to pictures, races and all that fun stuff next! :)

My pretty princess...

I took these over a month ago, but here is my pretty princess Lilly. She would prefer to sit in the mud all day, if we let her. She found a nice puddle of mud thanks to Duncan digging a huge hole that got filled up by a big rain.

Labor Day Kayaking

I'm so behind on pictures from the last month or so, but I managed to make the time to go through a few we took today... kayaking with the boys and a couple just to show how cute Lilly is getting. It has been a really nice Labor Day weekend so far and even though it is still hot out, we have definitely had a slight drop in temperature. It is making me very anxious for fall to get here. It's the best time of year in Tallahassee! :)

New Ideas...

I think I am going to set this blog to private... I don't care who follows it or looks at it as long as we know you in some sort of way. Just don't always like the idea of a complete stranger coming across the blog and looking at our family pictures. For any of you that read this blog without joining go ahead and do that in case you come back one day and it is set to private.


Might start up a completely separate blog just for all things running and training, but just trying to come up with some ideas for names.


Any ideas on a fun name for the new blog?

More summer driveway fun

We aren't huge basketball fans or anything, but the people we bought our house from put in a basketball hoop. Every once in a while we play with it and last month we discovered Duncan is a huge fan of basketball. Crazy dog! Who knew a 150 plus pound dog could jump that high.

Our Baby Jack

This blog isn't usually going to have much "serious" stuff on here. This is a place for pictures of our family and any fun things we do, but I do have a more serious topic before I start updating with all the fun stuff. I went back and forth for a while about if I even wanted to write about this. In the end, I figured I probably should so family and friends could keep baby Jack in their prayers. We really haven't talked about with this with too many people and we don't always remember who we have told.

Since the time Jack was 9 months old (he is about 19 months now) we have had to do evaluations every few months at a place called First Words. It shares an office with FSU's Autism Project. Both are wonderful programs through FSU's college of medicine and are highly recommended by local pediatricians. He had some speech and developmental delays from early on and at around 9 months, we were referred there by his pediatrician. Nothing horrible, but just behind. That was a huge change for us, because Logan was the opposite. He was advanced at everything. It is amazing how two little boys, that are only 15 months apart, can be SO different.

Before an evaluation, I have to fill out pages of questions about how he communicates and socializes. Then at the actual appointment a clinician interacts with him and also watches him play. They have all kinds of things they are looking for. They video tape it all, so they can go back and watch it in detail before giving us a lengthy typed out response. He has not done so well at the evaluations. Our main concern was speech, but recently he started using more words. We were very hopeful at our last appointment that we were going to be done with the whole process. Unfortunately, they called me back later that week and said they want to start the process of screening him for Autism. He is showing some red flags that worry them. I could go in detail and tell you some of the weird things he does or some of the really normal things he does too. Some days me and James will just look at each other and say, this child has to have some sort of problem. Other days, he seems pretty normal... fussier than he should be, but normal. It's just all a little bit up in the air right now, we don't really know if we agree or not. We are just going to trust their opinion and start with the next round of appointments. If there is a problem, it is in our best interest to catch it as early as possible.

So that's where we are... this morning I started scheduling all of our different appointments for middle of September. Honestly, we aren't really worried. We are just more anxious and just want to know, so we can move on. We know he will be fine either way and we can deal with it. He is a healthy little boy and we are thankful for that. Hopefully this is all precautionary and everything turns out fine, but you really never know. We love our little Jack and know lots of other people that do too!