Okay, I've made some blogging decisions:

1. I'm going to make this blog private for family and friends as a place to put pictures and general family news.
2. I've started a new blog called Our Girl Gwyneth at:  http://ourgirlgwyneth.blogspot.com/ which will have a Down syndrome focus.
3. I will most likely merge my blogger and Google+ profiles so I can post blog updates there.

My major goal this month is to focus on simplifying my life.  I have way too many irons in the fire!  After another blogging mom told me this week about a photo of Gwyn that was placed on the Orkut social network, I've decided on my next major step:  a reworking of all the blogs/profiles/photos/etc that are attached to me. It needs to be streamlined to save my time and my sanity, and it needs to be more secure for my own worries as a mom!

I was able to report the "stolen" photo of Gwyn and it was taken off the website.  This time it seemed like a harmless borrowing of her photo (and name), but if someone with malicious intent wanted to get my photos, I've made it very easy.  So my plan involves a big remodeling of this blog where the amount of photos will be limited and also protected by disabling the right-click function. I will be keeping photos that I want to share with family and friends only on private sites (I'm leaning towards Google+ over FB because I already use Picasa). If anyone wants to add me to Google+, I am meganmaulsby @ gmail... This way I can control who gets access to photos of my little ones.

More updates and changes coming soon...

This found me at just the right time!




From http://blog.kanelstrand.com/p/take-simple-living-pledge.html:

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I have posted.  The holidays went by in a whirlwind and now it is 2012! And I'm ready to have a productive blogging year.  I don't really like to make resolutions (because they are doomed to be broken) so I will simply set some goals!

Down Syndrome Awareness goals:
-My general goal is to post more often to the blog and "reblog" my items on other social sites to bring more people here to my central hub!
-I want to volunteer to become a First Call Ambassador or Parent Liaison with the Down Syndrome Association of Atlanta.
-I want to get a local parent networking group organized for the Paulding county/ West Cobb county area.

Family/Home goals:

-Finish, finish, finish the projects we have started in the house!
-Find a way to take a nice long summer trip to Colorado so the kids can spend a lot of time with extended family and friends.
-Get my Craft Room in tip-top, ultra-organized shape.
-Cook more!

ME goals:
-Write more, read more, socialize more, play more, sleep more....
-Find a way to join Reid on a trip to Europe minus the kiddos!
-Make my Etsy store a priority.  Hopefully make some money. :)

But first, I will catch up with some holiday photos, etc, and other Down syndrome tidbits I've been wanting to post.  AND we are headed next week to Colorado for my brother's wedding!!  It will be beautiful. I can't wait to be back there again.
Cheers to the beginning of a great new year!

Sadly, after Halloween last week, Ryker and I both came down with strep along with Gwyneth! But we got better quickly with antibiotics. ;)

On Thursday, Ryker took two little crawling steps forward while I was on the phone to Reid (who was in Paris)! It was very exciting. Later that day he crawled a few more steps and then pushed himself back up to sit! So proud of himself:

Ryker has continued improving his crawling every day since then and now he's moving all over the place!  I can't believe how fast it happens.  Video footage coming soon..... :)








Reid returned from Paris Friday night and my best friend from Colorado came to visit for the weekend! On Saturday we all went into Atlanta to the Botanical Gardens. It was a beautiful fall day!



Gwyn enjoyed the giant leaves that had fallen everywhere. She also loved the model trains that were set up. The Botanical Garden was preparing the whole place for their holiday display. I imagine it would be beautiful to see all the Christmas lights at night!



We also got to experience some tropical plants and tree frogs in the conservatory.





Gwyneth loved this frog statue ;)

I had a very fun time with Renee visiting and I miss her so much already! Can't wait until we go to Colorado next January!

I'm having a little pity party for myself tonight. :( Reid is traveling for work and the kids have been sick all weekend.  Gwyneth was much worse today so I took her to the doc and sure enough: strep again!  Twice this month.  3 times in 2 months.... I feel helpless to protect her!  She was so miserable today.

And we missed all the Halloween activities.  We didn't go to the Fall Festival at the Therapy (Farm) Center on Saturday.  She missed school today.  There was no dressing up in costumes for either kid;  Ryker's first Halloween was non-existent.  I was going to take them trick-or-treating at our Publix grocery store this afternoon, but instead showed up with them to buy Gwyn's antibiotic prescription from the pharmacy and felt pathetic watching all the cute kids running around in costumes while we moped around the medicine aisles.

And tonight I was alone to get the kids in bed, so I opted out of answering the doorbell for trick-or-treaters.  I put a chair in front of the door with a bucket of candy and a sign.  It was actually a great relief to avoid that part of Halloween.  Our dogs go crazy when the doorbell rings, Gwyn's room is right above the entryway, and I would've been very stressed about it.

Not a very optimistic way to end the 31 for 21 blog month!  Sorry!  Okay, I can do better ---> What I have to look forward to this week:
-Gwyn will be feeling better soon with the antibiotic.
-Ryker (fingers crossed!) hasn't caught strep yet.
-Reid comes home Friday.
-Also arriving Friday and riding home from the airport with Reid is my best friend Renee, visiting for the weekend from Colorado!
-A weekend forecast of Sunny and 65 degrees.

:)  Much love to all our fellow T21 families this October!  I have several Down syndrome advocacy tasks on my To Do list for November so I will be blogging again soon!

Poor Gwyneth is sick again, but despite being exhausted from this latest cold, she is still refusing to nap in the afternoons.  But the common cold got the best of her yesterday when she passed out in front of the TV holding her cup of Pedialyte (which I was bribing her to drink all day!):