Another month passes...

The following is a super random grouping of the last month's activities.

Sweet (and wild) Kate is still on the move.  The thumb in her mouth is a tale tell sign that she's getting tired.  At 16 months, she's increasing her vocabulary everyday.  More recent word additions include "book", "moo", "shoe", "sock", but her favorite continues to be "NO".  She says something that sounds like "iiii uhhhh" which appears to be the equivalent of pointing and saying "this one".

She's an extraordinary eater with a seemingly endless appetite.

I've been really enjoying taking them to new places, particularly museums.  They see so much that we don't notice.  They are certainly on the move!

Kate kept running into the plexiglass this particular day... poor girl.  Kate also has a LOT of personality in nearly all situations.  She did a little dance around this octopus inching closer each time.

 This is Deane posing by the Bison.  He kept telling the bison to "say cheese buffalo".  At the point of this visit in late January, he liked to tell strangers "buffalo drink water".

More silly girl...

Deane continues to be extremely fascinated with dinosaurs so we visited the dinosaur exhibit at the Peoria Arts & Science Museum.  It wasn't particularly geared for little ones - lots of simulators, but it was still fun.

Deane doesn't like brushing his teeth, but he LOVES looking at himself ;)

Pretty much every day in our house involves building a large and elaborate train track system.  It's getting a little out of control.  All house visitors know that they will have to step around or through the daily train and if Deane is awake, you will be recruited to play trains.

 I have been trying to get serious about our homeschool activities and work to prepare Deane for whatever is next in his education.  I save most of the ideas I find here.  We have been having lots of fun and also learning more about what challenges Deane.  Here's a sampling of our activities.

The final result of our sensory bowl!

Finger paint in a bag - works for any age.

Use your hand or a brush.  I would suggest taping the top of a bag that a toddler is using :)

Fine motor pouring activity.  Two cups and a jelly pan.

We just watched Bee Movie yesterday and ended up visiting the Hurstville Interpretive Center today to see their snake exhibit to find they have a living, working bee hive that you can inspect with a magnifying glass.

A couple "Deane-isms" lately...

"I want no please" - which means I don't want to do what you asked.

"Excuse me" - used to get attention or ask someone to go away

"I want to cuddle" - I love this!!!!

Unprompted, albeit from repeated past prompting, he says "Good Morning", "Good Night", and "I love you".

We tried to start listening therapy, but wearing headphones isn't going well.  We have work to do.

We are moving in April sometime...details to follow as the date approaches.

Catching Up

It's been a month since my last post.  It's occurred to me several times that it had been a long time, but I haven't felt compelled to write or craft or report on autism.  I don't like to do things out of obligation (this has only changed in the last year...I never liked to, but I often did things out of obligation) so I'm only now coming back to write some thoughts down.  Sorry for the randomness of topics.

I came into 2012 very positive.  I felt like we, as a family, have learned much in the last year about the irrelevance of "things" and the relevance of so many intangible parts of our lives.  I still have high hopes for this year.  Unfortunately, in just the small community I grew up in, there has been much pain and sadness at the loss of special people.  Theirs is not my story to tell, but I finally feel that my heart is in the right place to recognize God's guidance and direction in these inexplicable tragedies.  I feel my mind turning to prayer upon news of something scary or sad before worry creeps in.  I'm ecstatic about this and feel hungry for more. 

My current mantle
Here's where I found this printable: Source

We have also been doing a bit of school touring as we're planning to move in the coming months to a new district. I am unsure of when we will send Deane to school, but we want to be in the right place when that happens. We have been doing some home school programming. It's been very limited, but positive.  I am starting to see Kate's "smarts" showing up as she picks up details or responds to words I had no idea she knew.  This is exciting and I look forward to learning more about how my two little ones learn best. 

Sweet Kate often depicted by our photos...she is sweet, but...

"Real" Kate who we often refer to as "wild woman" :)

There is some hub bub about a proposed change to the definition of autism by the American Psychiatric Association.  The idea is to consolidate the broad autism spectrum, but the concern is that this will disqualify many from services.  The linked article actually states that up to 85% of all PDD-NOS diagnosed (like Deane) may no longer qualify for diagnosis.  This is only an issue for us if insurance would not recognize his current diagnosis and cover services that we are only now hoping to get covered (maybe I'll tell that story in another post).  We used a small amount of these services last year (ABA) along with our speech and OT and our insurance was raised the maximum amount.  I share this only to create further understanding.  The results of this potential change will be revealed over time, so we shall not fret.

Deane has been lucky enough to participate in a swimming program for special needs kids run by local high school and college students.  There was an article with a few photos of him in the local paper last week.  (Notice, there is one comment on the article.  I couldn't agree more with it. LOL)  It's an awesome opportunity and we are impressed with these great kids (both students and teachers).  This last weekend was their end of session party and Deane "jumped" off the diving board four times.  We're proud parents.

Jumping..

Teachers and students

I have also gotten back involved with the Erika Kate Foundation, helping with marketing.  I took a hiatus after Deane's diagnosis to get a handle on our life, but I feel lucky to be jumping back on board of this amazing organization.  EKF assists families of children with life threatening cardiac illnesses by providing spiritual, emotional and financial support.  Erika Kate also happened to be the daughter of my cousin, Traci, and her husband, Rich.  They co-founded the organization not long after Erika passed in 2006 and today are helping families in several heart centers across the country.  It is particularly special for me to help because Traci has always been a role model for me and throughout her life, she always made time to be a part of my life.  I'm so grateful to have anything to offer EKF.  In a recent email to me, Traci thanked me for helping out and said "I know there will be blessing in it for you, dear one."  The line struck me as something a wise character in a movie would say to someone just beginning a journey.  It felt like it will apply not only to my time with EKF, but my outlook on 2012. 

Blessing for you and your family too!

Christmas preparation

I've done pretty well in keeping the Christmas preparations low key and low stress, but the rest of life has kept us busy.  Perhaps I'll be able to share my diy mercury glass and sweater pillow tutorials after the holiday.  In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of videos I came across in the last 24 hours that were great to put me in the right place this Christmas (sorry if you already saw these through my Facebook page):

I wish you a very merry and blessed Christmas!

12 Days of Christmas Crafts: Christmas Morning Shirts

Do I want my family to look like this on Christmas morning?

These adorable pajamas can be found here.

YES!  I want someday for Chris and I to look like this models and for our whole family to be in coordinated Christmas-y goodness.  In the meantime, my children will be wearing cute jammies that their Grammy so generously bought for them and for us...we'll wear these slightly sarcastic homemade (aka free) PJ shirts on Christmas morning.

I apologize that I couldn't bring myself to iron our pajamas for this picture :)

We have a bit of a "Merry & Bright" theme going on with the pegboard canvas I did and our Christmas cards.  I don't know where this idea came from, but as I was driving home today, it just popped into my head.  This was a 15 minute project and cost me $0 (you would need a couple of basic supplies to do this).

1. I rounded up an undershirt for Chris and an old maternity tank for me.
2. I cut out the words "merry" and "bright" on my Cricut on cardstock.  You could easily choose whatever font you like, print it out and cut it yourself or use a pre-made stencil.  I cut my letters to a 2.5" height.
3. I laid out the letters to my liking and then used stencil adhesive to attach them since I don't trust my ability to hold them in place.

4. I placed a little board, but cardboard would do, in between layers.
5. I used a red Sharpie to trace the letters.  I suggest moving continually while the pen is touching the fabric and using light pressure.  This is the first time I've used Sharpies on clothing so there is a lot of room for improvement. 

In case you're curious, Chris did think this was funny, but I'm not banking on any cute photos of us wearing them Christmas morning.

12 Days of Christmas Crafts: Ornaments

Chris and I have always purchased an ornament from vacation spots, etc.each year, but when Deane was born, I felt we needed the cute animal family ornament with our names printed on them.  It's ironic because (although cute) this is not at all my style.  Last year, I saw this fun idea:

Source

I made an ornament for every year we have been married with a black and white version of a photo, either posed family photo or from a significant event before we had kids.  This year's ornament was our most recent family photo session with Shauna Welch Photography.

I'm skipping the store bought ornament this year and love how personalized my main tree looks with photos of my family on it.  No materials were purchased to make these as I had one extra board left from last year so this project was free to me using previous investments.  I have several more photo ornaments ideas on my Christmas Pinterest board.

12 Days of Christmas Crafts: Chandelier Grennery

This little project was inspired by this photo:

Source

I love real greenery, but I don't have a real greenery budget so I have purchased outdoor wreaths and mantle greenery for 50% off at Hobby Lobby.  BUT when I saw the above photo, I thought surely I could add some real greenery in this way.  Home Depot had small greenery bouquets for $4.50 with mixed greenery. 

 I just wove the pieces in the one direction and then laid another layer of greenery the other direction to cover up the stems as much as possible.

I hung a few ornaments sporadically.

 And here's the view from underneath.

I've never been a huge fan of our light fixtures, but am very excited that $4.50 has transformed our chandelier for Christmas. 

12 Days of Christmas Crafts: Pegboard Canvas

For the last few occasions and holidays I have made very minor alterations to my mantle, but I wanted to do something bigger for Christmas.  My challenge was that the art on the mantle and the ceiling above are large, anything I wanted to put up had to be big. 

Thanksgiving mantle

I thought about a large mirror or canvas, but all of the options I came up with were expensive.  The plan was inexpensive and easy.  Then, I saw a piece of pegboard sitting around and started imaging a vintagey, maybe subway art look....and this is what I came up with:

I purchased a sheet of pegboard from Home Depot for $17.  They only come in 4x8 there ( you can get them smaller elsewhere), but I asked them to cut it to 2 - 4x4s.  I chose a red that is a little rustic, but still Christmas-y.

sorry, blurry - Rustoleum American Accents in Colonial Red

I gave the pegboard one good coat.  I let it dry for approximately 24 hours in the garage.

I downloaded some cute fonts from dafont.com (I LOVE this website!).  For this project I used Legend M54 and Riesling.  I'm happy to email the pdf file if anyone wants to use it.  I'm not very confident in my freehand ability so I used a projector to trace it onto the pegboard.

Laying out the spacing from the projector was definitely the hardest part of this project. I used an almond color crayon to trace it as I was using CeramCoat ivory paint to paint the letters.

 I laid an old sheet under the pegboard on the floor instead of painting it upright and risking that the paint would drip down through the holes or the front of the board.

I painted only one coat using a small brush for the edges and a foam brush to fill.  I was able to place it on the mantle within a few hours of completing it.  Since I aready had the paint, the only cost was the pegboard.  Not bad for $8.50!