kirstencan

Little Funnies

The big news this weekend (besides the snow - but that's not news anymore, it just keeps coming) is that Thomas lost his first tooth!

He apparently dropped the tooth, so after a scramble to find it with no success, Princess said to me: "You'll have to fake it."  This is where I wasn't sure exactly what she meant, fake the tooth fairy visit?  fake the tooth? (this from the girl who sobbed and sobbed when she lost a tooth a few months ago and had a slightly tardy tooth fairy visit) - but she only meant we'd have to write him a note.  Which she did:

Dear Toothfairy
[Thomas] lost his tooth (literally, because now we can't find it).
Please give him his moneys anyways.  Please.
His sister, [Princess]

She gave it to Thomas and he stuck it under his pillow.

And he got his moneys.  He showed everyone his tooth plenty, and tried to use it as an excuse to not go to church ("...but I lost my tooth!").  Stinker.

....

In other funnies, my 3yo gameboy addict informed me the other day that he'd saved over my file on Zelda.   Well, he's done that before, but he said "Look Mom, I took off your name and typed in my name!".   And he had.  It kinda floors me that he figured out how to do that...

....

And if you haven't seen the Where the Wild Things Are trailer - go check it out!  I'm sure it's partially because the song is one of my all-time faves, but it looks amazing.  And when I checked out the director's IMDB page, I was even more excited. I think he just might pull this off in a very cool way.

I still make stuff, I swear.

...but it's been busy around here.

The youth at church are involved in a HUGE program which has thrown a wrench in my delicately balanced schedule for the next few months.  Yikes.  The schedule is a sight to behold, let me tell you.

Related to the above, I will be spending a lot of time waiting at rehearsals with them, so I am planning on doing a lot of hand sewing, crochet, playing my DS, or reading.

Related to the above, I really need to find my reading glasses (yeah, again).

BUT... crafty stuff is inevitable, right?  So:

Party Planning is underway for Monkey's 4th birthday in a couple of weeks. I so love planning for birthdays!

As is work on the mandatory 4 birthday shirt.  Here's a sneak peek:


Easter apparel is planned and almost ready.  Princess' dress is designed, fabric bought, and handed over to my mom.  Cuz that's how I roll.  Whatever.

I've been taking lots of photos - I've done three little (very amateur - for friends) photo shoots lately and am still working on my 365 in 2009 project.  Cameras are fun.

And there are always gifts.
I've said it before, but pencil rolls are my go-to gift for the year.  They're getting easier the more I make, too - woot!

This one was for a last-minute party (the invite came the day before!  yikes!).  I stitched up a couple of little blank books to go with it (label + hand-carved stamp on the front).  Reportedly all the girls loved this, so that's good to hear.

Two more, for friends of Monkey who are turning four.  For these, I split a pack of 24 mini Twistables  (I used 10 in each, leaving 4 random colors out) between the two rolls.  Worked out great - and holy cheap.  They have drawing pads to go with.  I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood where birthday gifts are not over-the-top.  Thank goodness.  And my handmade gifts are usually really well-received.

This is a quick baby shower gift - a fleece/flannel baby blanket made with pinks from my stash (bought on sale for just such an occasion).  Princess helped me sew this one as it's all straight lines.

I threw a couple more little pink goodies in with it - because the expectant mom is having a girl after 3 boys.  I don't think she'll mind so much pink.

Oh, and I cleaned my room.  Please applaud now.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

We celebrated the first weekend of Spring (Hooray!) with a trip to the soccer stadium to see an exhibition game of our local Major League Soccer team.  A free exhibition game.

I love fun community stuff like this.

We got there a little late, and left early (and missed the last 2 goals - doh!) but we wanted to stay only as long as the boys were still enjoying it.

It was absolutely perfect weather.  (Today?  Snow.  Again).

Thomas was not a fan of the announcer (loud), and really disliked the 'GOOOOOOAL' yelling when we scored.  But on the whole he really enjoyed being there.  He surprised us with how much fun he was having.  And by actually watching the game.

And we won!

What did you do to celebrate Spring?

Decoupage

Last night I was in charge of a little 15-minute workshop for the Young Women at church to come do in groups.  I chose decoupage. 
This is what we did:

It's a little decoupaged tag for their scriptures.

The girls enjoyed the project, and it was just right for the time limit.

I brought in some decoupaged projects I'd done, to show them more examples.  Because decoupage is fun.  And mod podge?  Smells great.

I brought Princess' birdie gourd, some Christmas ornaments, and this chair that I did a couple of years ago for her room. 

It's just a garage-sale find that we dressed up.  But it's starting to fall apart.

And I think I saw this idea on Martha somewhere... but yesterday I tried dressing up a clip board (to have something else to show the girls).  My kids love clipboards (why?) and I thought I'd make them each a personalized one so they knew which was theirs.

Decoupage definitely works better with smaller pieces, though - this one had a few bubbles/wrinkles.  But Princess loves it anyway, so I guess I'd better make some blue/green ones for the boys!

Sometimes it doesn't take much...

...to make everyone's day.

Like finally buying enough freezer mugs for the whole family.

There was much 'toasting' and 'cheers' and 'scumps' (Sleeping Beauty, anyone?).  Miraculously, no one spilled.

Princess had to make the hobbit joke about pints ("It comes in pints?!").  Oh, and she kept calling the cups 'tankards'.  That girl.

She also fancied up our Pizza Night Table with a pizzeria sign and fancy place cards for everyone.  Even though we nearly always sit in the same spots anyway...

Aaron and I were talking about how nice our last few Saturdays have been.  We still get all of our errands run, but we've been making more time to play as a family.  Saturday is Pizza Night (Friday night is still Game Night, BTW).  We've always been huge pizza-making fans, but last year Aaron discovered the American Pie book and it has changed our pizza making ways SO much for the better.  We're making crazy-good pizza now.  Check it out, that book will change your life, I swear. 

And for the last couple of Saturdays we've watched a movie together as a family before dinner.  This week was 'Howl's Moving Castle' (the kids LOVED it).  Somehow, having a little fun tradition for Saturday afternoons has just made our whole weekend more enjoyable.

Now we'll see how long we keep this up once we have to start working more in the yard/garden.

Re: Autism + Homeschooling

ATTN: Nashville moms!

I saw a few hits coming here from a bulletin board for Nashville moms - where I was mentioned regarding a decision on whether or not to homeschool an autistic 4yo.  First off - welcome and thanks for the compliments - I'm glad if you find my blog helpful in any way.

And since I wanted to comment on something there, but in no way need another login/password to keep track of (and don't live anywhere near Nashville), I'm doing it here, and I hope you find this.

I've talked about the decision to homeschool here.

I've talked about homeschooling specifically Thomas here and here, and how hard it was to decide about kindergarten here.

I've never really talked about WHY we pulled him out.  Which I'm going to do today, because I see that (of course) socializing was brought up on that bulletin board.

I took him OUT of school because of that issue, actually.  More and more, when I'd visit the classroom I'd see behaviors in the other children that I didn't want Thomas copying (and he was).  But the clincher was when I was helping in the classroom and Thomas was getting teased - in a major way.  Not a friendly way.  We've seen friendly teasing, not-so-nice-but-not-really-mean teasing, but in this case the kids were MEAN.  And guess what?  It was right in front of the teacher, and she did nothing.  And it happened again, and she did nothing.

That was his last day of public school.

Kids on the spectrum have statistically higher chances of anxiety and depression.  I was worried about Thomas' emotional health.  Not to mention that there was no trade-off here.  The teacher wasn't very good and Thomas wasn't learning much at school anyway.

Now, don't get me wrong, you can have fabulous situations in public schools for kids with special needs.  Like this one.  We just didn't.  The teacher(s - remember they switched after a month?) didn't really know anything about autism, didn't understand Thomas and didn't set up any kind of behavior plan.  Thomas does have some behavior issues, and nothing was being done about them, so the other kids weren't liking him so well.  Because he looks normal.  So they didn't understand why his behavior was different.

It was just a bad situation.  And from what I've read (this book is really informative) many spectrum kids have similar problems in school.  That being said, the guidance and speech specialists at this school are fabulous and wonderful to work with, and we are still bringing him in for speech.  I just wish his classroom situation could have been better.

Also, school can be brutal for kids with sensory disorders.

No one knows your kid better than you do.  Or they shouldn't, anyway.  I think a lot of people put too much faith in 'the experts' having more knowledge about how to teach your kids (esp. those with special needs) than the parents do.  That's not always true - as long as you do your homework.  And if you have a kid with special needs, that is your responsibility (separate soapbox issue: I've met too many parents of children with autism who don't even know the basics of Autism.  It's frustrating).

And just to update a little more, Thomas is doing great at home.  He's calmer, happier, throwing less tantrums and learning more for sure.  We're happy to have him here.

Enough?  Let me know if you have any more questions.

Have a great weekend!

p.s. If you have a little time today, check out this post and give her some feedback.  The author is taking an issue (not autism - separate concern) to the school and district and could use your input!

33

Happy Birthday to me.

Monkey asked 'How old are you going to be?"

And when I replied, he said "But I don't want you to be a giant!"
because to him, apparently, he still associates getting older with getting taller.  And 33?  would be way tall indeed.

I will be spending the day hanging out, playing some Zelda (when I can get it away from Monkey, who is quickly turning into a gaming junkie), eating Thai for lunch (thanks, Mom!), and going to dinner with Aaron. 

By Ourselves.

I know - awesome. 

Oh, and opening presents! 

3x11

Speech, the Library, etc.

So we were able to get Thomas in for speech at the school, even though we pulled him out  (yay!).  So once a week, we all head down to the school, and the other two hang out with me and read books in the school library while Thomas is working with the SLP.

It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, actually.  It's nice to have an excuse to NOT do anything except read to my youngest.  We were spoiled for a while and had the library to ourselves for a few weeks, but lately we've been overrun by classes - big, loud, classes.  Not as much fun.

What else have we been up to...  Oh, we went to an art museum last week - the kids really enjoyed these cool installations that were there (that I wasn't allowed to photograph).

Princess and I pooled our allowances and bought a DS together.  A pink one.  So, am I a geek if I'm asking for Nintendo games for my 33rd birthday?

And we had an excellent brinner the other night. 

The End.

To the park - just in time

We walked (or ran) to a newly discovered park yesterday.  The weather was dry and cool, but warm enough, although the winds were picking up.

This photo makes me laugh because it's so much like this one (almost 3 years ago!!).  Same location and everything.  Thomas is going his own way once again.  But this time Princess didn't have to tackle him - we just had to talk him down from a neighbor's treehouse.

We looked for signs of Spring.

Once we got to the park, we climbed and climbed.

And pushed each other on this crazy merry-go-round thing.  We played hard.

It was very windy by the time we left - and because we knew Grandma was on her way, we stopped and waited for a ride.

It was just so nice yesterday.  We skipped morning school and chores and just played.  And I'm so glad because we woke up to snow again. 

Play Kitchen

So, a couple of months ago, my 3 year old was asking me when we get our play kitchen back.  That is one of those moments when you take a deep breath and ask "What play kitchen?" knowing full well that you gave it to the thrift store last summer.

"The one we gave away - when do we get it back?"

Oh, great. 

He bawled and bawled.  Poor kid. 

He said he needed it to make his invisible poisons.  Yeah, I don't know either.

The kids had stopped playing with it, I swear!  But really?  He's only three.  Maybe I gave it away a tad early...

Anyway, right after Christmas I kinda went *DOH*!  I should have gotten him one for Christmas!  Oh, man!  That would have been a great idea.

So then the quest was on to get him one - inexpensively.  And I wanted something smaller than the old one.  Our playroom walls are slowly closing in.  I also justified it by figuring that we can give it to my mom for her 'Grandma playroom' when the kids tire of it -and then they'll probably play with it more there anyway.

I looked up lots of ideas on flickr.  And found this cool IKEA hack play kitchen.  Loved it.

Simplified it.

Here it is:

(It's in our living room just for the photo shoot - so gray and cloudy today!)

We started with an IKEA Rast side table.  It's unfinished (but smooth) wood.  My mom gave me this old bowl she had and didn't need.  A friend was kind enough to cut a hole for it to create a sink.

My husband quickly put the table together, installed a little backsplash, some knobs, and a pvc pipe faucet.
And I painted the burners and made a little curtain (on a tension rod). The other pots and things are behind there.
I bought the fabric from Randi*.  It's perfect - matches the playroom, looks kitchen-y, but not too girly.  I also made a little kitchen towel with it.

And the kids love it.  (I LOVE IT, too!) It's quite small, but perfect when they're on their knees.  The cute little pots and pans set and utensil set topped it all off.  Because of course we got rid of all the plastic dishes and food along with the kitchen.

For now they're either cooking rubber snakes and Star Wars figures, or using their imagination.  We may get some felt or wood food later (oh!  Monkey's birthday is coming up...) but I'm not doing all that junky plastic again - it somehow multiplied and scattered over the whole house!

Overall, it was a fast, easy and inexpensive project - and I'm way happy with the results!  **Edited to add - total cost was about $23 + fabric - see comments for details.**

*The fabric is Apples in Aqua from the Metro Market Collection by Robert Kaufman Fabrics