Joy's Autism Blog

It’s been so very hot here in the last week. We did get a lovely break today…at one point today I looked at our computer where there is a little box telling the current weather conditions and it said 66*. Ahh perfect lovely 66* air blowing in through my windows. It was awesome.

Yesterday though I looked up where my van tells the temperature when I was running errands and it said 101* and the heat index was way up there to like 115* or something disgusting like that. It was like walking through a bowl of soup.

I try hard not to complain about the weather. I always say forget the weather let’s have a good day anyway…after all you only live once and letting the weather ruin half of your days seems like such a waste. I have to admit though, it was hard for me to be positive when it was just so terribly hot.

During the recent heat wave we went to Sonic happy hour for slushies a little too much, I know this because every time we get in the car lately the kids say “Slushies?!” and randomly through the day a child will ask me “Mom, is it happy hour?”

Sanura has become quite the reader. As she is about to finish up 2nd grade she is really into girly chapter books now. Sanura is so smart and it seems things have come pretty easily to her so I’m happy to see her enjoy reading. It’s so important in building that foundation for learning so I’m glad she’s into it. Her favorites are the Disney Fairy Princess books:

And not coming as a great surprise, this is one of Adrian’s favorites:

And also not at all shocking, these are a couple of Nevaeh’s favorites:

There is also the classic around here that everyone enjoys gathering around:

And these are some of my favorites to read to the kids before bed:

And just as a little side note, it’s much cheaper to order books from Scholastic than to go to the book store or even Walmart or Target! I’ve been trying to remember to turn in those book orders when the schools send home the forms, they always have at least one book that is only $1 in there so even if I just get those it livens up our choices for bedtime stories.

Adrian has always been the kind of guy who gets bored with things pretty quick so it’s nice to have fresh books & toys on hand so I can keep him interested and interacting.

We had a fun Easter. The kids were pretty excited to get their baskets this morning and I have a lot of pictures in my camera to upload but I did upload a few photos last night. We went to my mom’s hosue this afternoon and grilled out with the family. The kids were good and we had a nice visit with family. Here are the few pictures I took last night, more Easter photos coming whenever I can get to uploading the new ones

Nevaeh (she doesn’t really have red eyes ha! Just haven’t fixed it yet, I’ll add that to my list of maybe someday I will have time to mess with my photos more but by then the kids will be grown up!) She just looks so cute in it though so I’m sharing it.

Lincoln is such a ham

And their baskets, each kid got a chocolate bunny, peeps, and jelly beans. Sanura got a chapter book, hair stuff, & flash cards. Adrian got 3 spiderman books. Nevaeh got My Little Pony undies that she loved, a princess tshirt, and some hair stuff. Lincoln got a mesh food thingy that helps babies not choke on their food (man I didn’t do very good explaining that, hopefully ya know what I’m talking about b/c I sure don’t)

I took the time to bathe every child and do up their hair nice and dress them nice and kept them that way for a short time and I did manage to get some pictures of each child so hopefully I’ll have time to get those up soon! I hope everyone had a great Easter! Back to real life and *shudder* tax week!

My Mom helps manage a store and they were getting new name tags. Apparently they ordered some where you would have space on your tag to say something small. My mom did something that I thought was so sweet, she decided that on her name tag she would say “Ask me about autism” I thought that was so awesome. I’m all teary eyed over it

Sanura got into the expanded learning program again this year. I’m so proud of her, she’s doing really well. I have conferences on Thursday for both her and Adrian so I’m sure I will know more about what’s going on at school then.

Nevaeh is doing great with her potty training. We’re still having a little trouble with going #2 in the potty instead of on the carpet but she’s really coming along and there is no way I will be going back to diapers with her.

I think Adrian is really going to enjoy Halloween this year. We went and looked at Halloween stuff at the store last night and Adrian loved everything. He was so excited. Glen put on a mask and Adrian laughed and kind of made a little shreik. They had a candy bowl that when you stick your hand in it a little witch hand comes down on your hand and he LOVES that thing! He gets so tickled every time that hand comes down.

Glen’s mom sent some costumes she made when Glen and his siblings were little so I’m going to get those out and see what will fit the kids. Sanura picked out a bride costume last night though and I think she’s going to be a ghost bride kind of thing. I love Halloween and it’s so fun to watch the kids getting excited for it.

As you can see I’ve changed the look of my site again. I never really cared for the last theme but had to make a change as my last theme wasn’t updated and wasn’t working. I’m glad to have a girly looking site again, just my style.

Sanura has been doing well. We are going to register her on Wednesday to go to bible school classes on Wednesday nights. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it and I like to keep her involved in things so this will be great. It’s pretty close to our house too which is really convenient especially in the winter time. Sanura’s birthday is coming up at the end of the month and I’ve started to shop around for some gifts without much luck. I did get her an origami set and some playing cards with games like goldfish and old maid. I still need to find a couple more things at least. She has a new leap pad so I might get her some books for that. I have to find some age appropriate though, walmart only had kindergarten ones. I looked at cake designs on the web and Sanura decided on these:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/Recipe.aspx?recipeId=37002

http://www.cupcake-creations.com/ladybug-cupcake-decoration.html

I think I’ll do the cake for her family party and the cupcakes for her classmates. I might do caterpillar cupcakes for the boys.

Adrian had a good day at school today. He worked hard and his speech pathologist said that he’s using lots of language. They were playing in the school because it rained today and Adrian bumped his head on the floor. He has a huge knot but he’s acting fine so I’m just keeping an eye on him. My poor guy!

Nevaeh is doing well. She’s saying new words all the time and catches on to things really quickly. We’ve been working on animal sounds and she refuses to say “cow” and will only say “moo” when she sees a cow. It’s adorable. I can’t believe how fast she’s grown, she’s more a toddler than a baby now a days and I’m not sure how that happened.

Same as always for Glen and I. I went back to where I used to work and helped with inventory on Sunday and that was a long day let me tell ya. I’m so glad I get to stay home with my kids. Glen said they missed me while I was gone and I sure missed them! I’m glad it was only one day. Glen’s just plugging away on all of his work, always busy it seems. So am I though so it works out fine.

I went and registered Sanura for school yesterday and payed her school fees, I was glad to get that out of the way. One of the teacher associates who was in her kindergarten class was there and gave Sanura a big hug, she seems like a very nice lady and she seems to genuinely like Sanura which is alway nice.  After school registration Sanura wanted to come home and study, that’s my girl! We try to do a few worksheets and practice reading some words every day so she was excited to get home and do that now that she realizes how soon school is going to start back up.

Adrian is doing pretty good. He loves pulling clothes out of the drawers and closet and changing his clothes several times a day so it seems like I put clothes away about  20 times a day. I remember Sanura going through that stage too. Not many new words recently but he is communicating pretty well with the ones he knows and he’s start to call Glen “dada” a lot lately which Glen loves.

Nevaeh is a little stinker as usual. She’s saying a few new things so that’s really fun. I thought it would hurt me to see Nevaeh start talking because of everything with Adrian but it really hasn’t. I’m just hoping they learn off each other and I know Adrian will come around in his own time and I’m really ok with that.

I have to say my kids are the best kids in the world, they are so well behaved and fun and unique. I’m only a little biased….

Glen and I are doing well, nothing much new with us. I ordered some Space Bags on-line and sorted through all of the kids old clothes and got them all organized. I can’t believe how many newborn clothes I have! I can’t part with them though, maybe when we’re through having kids I will.

Sanura is doing good too. We started giving her an allowance this week for cleaning up. She has to pick up so much after her brother and sister and it really wasn’t fair so we wanted to reward her. She got her first $5 today and she spent it on a wallet to keep her money in. School is only about a month away and I’m done buying school clothes, she just needs shoes and school supplies and maybe some new hair accessories and she’ll be all set. I’ll be kind of glad for school to start back, I think Sanura gets a little bored and I’ve been so busy lately that she’s just not involved in anything right now. We have been studying out of a first grade workbook and she is doing absolutely awesome, we’re almost all the way through it now.

Adrian is doing good. They had a Special Olympics Play Day at his school yesterday and he came home with a new tshirt and little ribbon metal for all his “hard work” it was pretty cute to see his long jump score, and tennis ball throw score. I’m sure he had a great time he loves being physical. Every time we try to go for a walk he tries getting Glen to run. They started a new game where one of them will say run and sign it and then they say stop and everyone stops. It’s helped him to learn the signs for run, walk, and stop so that’s a good thing. Next week is his last week of summer school, it’s bitter sweet, I’m going to be happy to have him home more but worn out for the extra work he makes for me.

After about 14 months of breastfeeding Nevaeh is finally weaned…I think! We are on day three of no mama milk so I can’t imagine her wanting to nurse at this point. She pulled on my shirt a little bit this morning but I ignored it and she toddled off to play. She’s started taking her diaper off constantly so that’s been a joy. I put her down for a nap and she was wearing a little dress and she got her diaper off and “went” in her crib, loads of fun! I love this age though, she wants to be a little grown up so bad already!

Wow, what a week. The last day of school was on Tuesday and it’s been crazy around here. I have a tiny house with 5 kids running around and it’s been raining outside so they’re stuck in here. I’m watching my brother’s 2 boys and then I have my 3. I can’t wait for it to be nice out, it seems like it’s been raining forever.

Next week my brother’s boys and Sanura are going to Bible school in the mornings so that will give me a break and give me time to spend with Adrian and Nevaeh.

Other than that not a whole lot going on. Adrian is picking up on signs like a fish takes to water so we’re utilizing  that and teaching him as many signs as we can.

Sanura is getting  an award today at school, I’m not sure what it’s for yet but we just got a note saying that we’re invited to the award ceremony because she’s getting an award. Glen is going and I think I’m going to stay home. It’s difficult to take all the kids and keep everyone quiet and happy through something like that. Tuesday is the kids last day of school. I can’ t believe it, I’m on the lookout for activities for the kids this summer. Sanura and my two nephews that I’m going to be watching are going to bible school for one week this month and I’ve looked into a bunch of art class options for Sanura for this summer also. I got Sanura a first grade workbook and we’re doing 3 worksheets a day at home and studying the dolche words (sight words all kids should know by the end of 2nd grade) There are 11 lists of dolche words and Sanura is on list 6. She’s so smart.

I’m worried how Adrian is going to handle not going to school this summer. I think he’s really going to miss going. He’s going to have summer school but it’s only a month long so he’ll still have quite a bit of time off. We got Adrian a new video with some signing in it and he loves it and is catching on to several new signs, he’s signed stop, go, potty, and clean. It’s really amazing how fast he catches on to the signs. Adrian also said “all gone” the other day when he finished his juice. He’s doing great, we’re really proud of him.

Nevaeh is doing really good too. Nevaeh’s favorite game is to bring stuff to daddy. She’ll bring him toys and anything else she can find. It’s adorable. Nevaeh can sign more, say more, ball, mama, & uh-oh.  Nevaeh also has her one year check up on Monday so we’ll see how that goes, I’m sure everything is good with her.

Nothing new with Glen and I. Same old stuff. My cousin is getting married this month and I have her wedding shower on Sunday but other than that just playing with kids and cleaning for me.