We had sooooo much fun having the Cottrell family over to our house for an early Easter dinner.  Heidi and Leanne cooked, and I did my best to clean our little house and try to make it bigger....:)  It was quite awesome, and rarely chaotic...even with 6 adults and 6 children!
The next day we all went to Disneyland and had a ton of fun Noah loves Travis!

Crazy boys!
Then we had a wonderful Easter at Midway, and an amazing time performing at Musicalifornia a few days later!

Well, I'm not terribly used to having a relaxed pace of life, so these past couple weeks have been nice and unique.  I am working quite a bit on reading and homework for my 9 units of seminary classes for the MDiv that I am looking toward completing in oh, another 22 months or so.  Loving every minute, except I made the severe mis-step of signing up for two challenging classes directly after the other.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I would hate staying in the classroom for another 4 hours after completing 4 hours of rather rigorous thinking.  So I have been a rather bad student in my second class, as far as paying attention and engaging in the lectures---ah well.

I've been cooking extremely frequently...in our normal chaotic life we aren't home regularly enough to necessitate a lot of cooking.  Yay for being frugal and domestic!

I feel that I'm on the verge of stressful life again, with some cool Musicalifornia performances coming up, but choosing to relish this relaxing time...

Nathaniel is going to be in his school talent show for two nights coming up in a few weeks- he's very excited about singing "Scream" from High School Musical 3.  Daniel made him a special track in his key and everything....

Saw Slumdog Millionare the other night, and was appropriately disturbed.  What a powerful and poignant movie.  I love movies that make us more aware of the world God has put around us, and the need to be His his hands and feet.  Profoundly impacting.

Blessed today.

My cute boys a couple months ago!



Nathaniel in the makeup trailer on location at his first commercial about 3 weeks ago!


From behind the cameras at the shoot...



that's the director in red, showing the kids what to do



The movie star with an attitude at home...



Noah has gotten into Bible Man recently....

I do apologize for allowing so much time to pass between blog entries.  Daniel always bugs me to blog, but life has been so full and....well....I've been too busy processing things to have the energy to write anything down.  But I will attempt to update what has happened in the Semsen life, or at least in my perception of it, in the past 46 days since I last blogged.
In the last 46 days:

...I have switched my grad study from MAPS (Masters in Pastoral Studies) to MDiv (Masters in Divinity).  I am excited about the chance to learn even more about how to be a pastor and educated minister and servant for Christ.  It also puts off my graduation date from this coming May to 2 YEARS from May....but most of you know that is not a bad thing in my mind. Loving it.  Having said that, I am taking a quarter off, to save money and more effectively direct and plan our church's Christmas Musical- so I am welcoming the 10 weeks of no homework.

...We went through a miraculous IEP meeting for Noah (the yearly special ed. meeting with the district that we normally have to go home and hire a lawyer after.)  Turns out the Lord knew in His Providence that moving to Burbank was a good plan.  Not only were the School District people reasonable, they agreed to what we feel we need in order to fade Noah out of Autism 1 on 1 assistance and have him in a regular classroom, unassisted, by next year.  Oh, and Noah is starting regular Kindergarten on MONDAY, with a shadow from our Autism Program, those that work with him daily and are major experts.  Starting in December, we will all meet to assess how he is doing in the classroom, and with progress our shadows will leave the classroom for 20-30 minutes at a time, monthly decreasing unti he is in the Kindergarten class without an aide for the month of June.  This will be very challenging for him, as he just turned 5 last week, but our team feels it is something that will challenge him and enable him to appropriately model his peers.  He is doing so great, but will need to work very hard this year to come up to the level of his peers, especially verbally, and socially.  Oh, and he just started to read, sounding out words with the phonics sounds his therapists taught him last month.
(Halloween is always a bittersweet day for us- and this year will be a celebration.  Noah was diagnosed 3 years ago, and it has been a rough and exciting/discouraging/growing road.  I think I'm starting to breathe again)

...I have been reading some great Christian books that have challenged my views on many things.  I am currently reading a very disturbing book called "Irresistable Revolution: Living as an ordinary radical" with challenges Christ followers to walk as Jesus did, and value the people he valued (poor, sick etc.) and separate from cultural values that we have placed upon Christianity in the past decades and centuries.  This is one of the reasons I am enjoying getting my MDiv so much too- it is amazing to be challenged and growing in the most important relationship and calling my life. 

...I have decided that it is not as simple to be a Christ follower as one might think.

...I have also come to the realization that I am a little bit old.  Also, that I do not have toddlers in the house anymore.  I realized the other day that the amount of time that I have been graduated from college, and that Daniel and I have been together (10 years), is the amount of time that it will take from now for Nathaniel to be entering college.  Yikes.

...I have 2 kids in school, regular school.

...I have come to get satisfaction from cooking dinner (!) and spending an evening with my husband and kids in the home.  Crazy.  Trying to have balance at home.

...I have enjoyed exercising by walking Nathaniel to and from school- totally about 3 miles a day.   I LOVE the trees that line and cover our city, and the millions of squirrels running around- now if we can just get to Fall weather.

...I have auditioned and cast a group of people for our BIG Broadway Style Musical at Midway called "All on a Christmas Day"  I am looking forward to choreographing that first choir number tomorrow.  Excited to work with all the new cast members too!  Congrats to our Kids Choir for being over 75 members this season- exciting!

...Nathaniel has made a best friend at his new school, who has awesome parents that Daniel and I get along with great!  He told me "thank you for making us move to Burbank" yesterday!  Awww...

...I (had to) lead worship by myself for Midways services of 1,300+ a few weeks ago while Daniel was otherwise occupied with a procedure.  Great challenge for me, though I wouldn't want to do it weekly. 

...We started a small group with Melody and Chris that promises to be a great way to grow together in community.

A few current pictures from the last 46 days:

So Noah is in the other room in therapy, and they are working on "WH" Questions-- such as Who, what, where.

So they just asked a few questions:

What do you do when you're happy?  Then they teach him to say "I smile."  They ask him again, and then he hopefully says it on his own.

What do you do when you're hungry?  I eat food.

So they just prompted him to say "I cry" when they asked him "What do you do when you are sad?"

But when they asked him to do it on his own this is what happened,

Therapist:                   "What do you do when you are sad?"
Noah: (clearly)           "I fix my attitude."