Christmas break fun

Well, I actually found a gingerbread house kit that is dairy free at Sam's club so we built a gingerbread house monday!  The kids had a blast, although Little Guy was more interested in eating all the gumdrops.  It was messy but fun.

Yesterday, we went outside to build a snowman which was super fun of course.

  We are having a good Christmas break and I find it interesting to see the projects that my eldest begins on his own when we are not "doing school".  Today he wrote a song complete with musical notes.  Just pretend notes mind you, he's no Beethoven or anything.  It was really cute though, and I had to hang it up.  This will probably be my last post before Christmas, so Merry Christmas!

Making Candy and Tae Kwon Do update

Well, after two weeks of trying to get my eldest son to talk about WHY he didn't want to go back to his Tae Kwon Do class, we finally got out of him that the outfit was bugging him.  Now this is the first time really that his sensory issues have caused a clothing problem unless you count preferring to sleep in jeans than jammies which I think is just weird.  Anyways, we found out we were tying the belt too tight for him and he was uncomfortable.  Now why he couldn't tell us that two weeks ago don't ask me.  Anyways, he did agree to go back but ONLY if mommy takes it with him, lucky me!  So anyways, I have had two lessons this week, and he seems to be thorally enjoying it.  I on the other hand feel a little silly being the only adult in the class at this time, but oh well.  I was informed that parents are more than welcome to join in and they weren't too hard on me.  I now know front stance, front kick, and down block.  So don't come mug me in the alleys I might just have to kick you!  LOL!

I am happy though, because he needs something extra to occupy his time besides video games.  Plus talk about learning discipline, my little man is the politest most respectful little guy in the class.  He even said, "Nice one, sir." to the instructor after he demonstrated a kick. lol  I think he threw in more "sir"s than was required like he has over-generalized that rule in class but it was super cute.

Okay, yesterday was candy making day in my house.  We made fancy dipped pretzel rods, the fatter pretzel twists and dipped ritz crackers with PB.  My eldest helped with some of the dipping and all of the sprinkling.  In fact, I think he over-sprinkled just a tad!  I should have took pictures to post.  I meant to but I forgot.

Also, I really need to give my eldest more open-ended homeschool projects.  Today was our last day of school before we take a break for Christmas so I decided to go easy on him.  I just told him he could make me a book and could take the whole weekend to do it.  I think he is about done.  I told him it could be about anything Christmas related.  He decided to make a book called "Santa and his Sleigh" and he went to work.  I stapled some pages together with green poster-board for the cover, and told him to go at it.  He made six pages just this afternoon complete with sentences and illustrations.  I was very proud of him.  You see, he has fine motor delays that make writing very time consuming and hard for him, but man when I just let him go at it on his own, he just showed me how much he can shine.  He hates copy work so much that I thought this would be hard for him, but he did awesome!

Haircuts, Tae Kwan do, and the Maccabeats

Well, we started the day off with a totally "fun" haircut for my eldest little guy.  You see usually we go over to Grandma's house and Grandpa holds him while Grandma buzzes his hair off.  We cut it as short as possible so we don't need to do it often.  He has hated haircuts hmmm well his whole life.  Well the past few times he handled them pretty well, so since Grandma is busy this week and with Christmas fast approaching, I talked him into letting me do it this time.  Well talk about flashbacks.  We had a screaming meltdown with him insisting that the hair falling on him hurts and spitting all over my floor because he got some hair in his face.  He was also clawing at his neck and arms to the point where daddy had to hold his arms down while I finished.  And I am sure I missed a few spots.  Um yeah, autism and haircuts are just NOT a good mix.  But we survived and his hair doesn't look too bad lol.  

Another recent thing is that my eldest was taking is taking Tae Kwon Do through the YMCA.  Well, he a couple of weeks ago started refusing to go and we couldn't figure out why.  It is starting to come out that he is having some sensory issues with it.  One thing he brought up today was not liking the uniform  which makes sense since we had only had it a week when he quit wanting to go.  So now I need to figure out if I can find a more sensory friendly martial arts uniform.  I am sure there are probably other sensory issues at play that he is unable to express but I am trying to talk him into giving it another try and maybe brainstorming with his instructor some.

Now you are probably wondering about the Maccabeats being in my title.  Well my littlest guy is obsessed with the video "Candlelight" by the Maccabeats.  To the point where he watches it on the computer over and over and has a meltdown when I turn it off.  I find it quite cute but seriously that song is now stuck in my head.  But seriously my little guy is obsessed with the video and he actually makes sounds trying to sing it and anything that helps him be more verbal is really great, so I am singing it with him and bouncing around trying to get him to try to sing.  It's so awesome to see him really try to sing that I don't mind listening to it over and over and over like twenty times a day.  I guess it has been more like ten today, but still totally stuck in my head.  I tried to get him to watch a few other videos and he likes some okay, but Candlelight is by far his fav. I have found it calms a meltdown within seconds which is awesome. 

Easter Seals and new eating low

Well, today has been an interesting one.  I got a call from Easter Seals, and my little guys referral process is finally going through.  He will be receiving a comprehensive evaluation for autism sometime in the Spring or Summer of next year.  There is a waiting list unfortunately.  But they said the diagnostic scales that they use are not accurate on children under the age of 2 anyways so it should throw him into the right time-frame for that.  I have heard raving reviews from our therapists about Easter Seals so hopefully this works out for us.

The second interesting event of the day has been my little girl's new eating low.  She has SPD and has had eating problems her whole life but today was a low point for sure.  She so far today has consumed a bite of peanut butter, a couple of animal crackers and liquids.  No amount of bribing or threatening will get her to eat today.  I was lucky to get the little bit of pb in her.  She won't starve as we always have pediasure on hand for such days, but it is so frustrating to see her backslide in the eating department.  She was doing so good a few months ago.  I have to believe that she will come out of this and eat more soon, as it has happened with her before.

Time4Learning review

Well, it has been a few months of us using Time4Learning.com as a main curriculum for homeschooling for my eldest little man.  So far, I am highly impressed.  The LA and math sections are very comprehensive and even seem a little advanced for grade levels compared to the books we have anyway.  Basically it uses characters, games, and book-like tutorials online to teach the materials.  My son finds the games very engaging.  The tutorials are a little less "fun" but he seems to learn from them just fine.  Quizzes and tests are integrated into the system and there are also additional worksheets you can print off in just about every section.  The best part about it is the record keeping system.  It records EVERYTHING your kid does on there and their scores.  When you look at the records, you can generate reports in PDF format that you can print or save to your computer.  Plus since I let him work independently some, I can see where he has struggled and repeat lessons with him as needed.

Like I said, I am hugely impressed and I do plan on signing my daughter up next year for kindergarten.  I do still supplement with extra reading materials, science kits, and we use a lot of folder games just because my little guy loves folder games.

For more information on the program please visit www.time4learning.com.

Christmas Fun has begun

Well, Monday we sat up the Christmas tree and decorated.  To be honest, while our pictures made it look all fluffy and wonderful, the day was pretty chaotic.  Whenever we set up the tree, I like to dress the kids up, do their hair and try to get lots of good Christmas pictures.  So I got them all up and started that process.  My husband had worked third shift the night before, so I let him sleep in a bit.  By the time he was up and around and we got started, my littlest guy was starting to get cranky.  We had a horrible time trying to get all three of my kids in a picture without one of the three of them in tears.  Here's one of just him before he got cranky, I should have gotten all three over there at that time, cuz this one turned out so cutie cute!

And here's the other two who were being very photogenic without little guy!

We finally succeeded by giving them pepermint sticks which fit with the Christmas theme anyways.

  Then we started setting up the tree which threw little guy off even more.  Ya see, he hates change, so I had to hold him the whole time my husband and my eldest son put the tree together.  Then I decided to break out the gingerbread people to keep him happy.  Peperidge Farms ginger bread people collection are dairy free FYI.  After the tree was all in place, little guy calmed down and decided to check out some of the stuff.  

He LOVED the tinkerbell musical snowglobe that we had bought my daughter when she was about that age.  Too bad she still loves it too so that caused a few issues.  Also, we had issues with the lights on the tree that took FOREVER to resolve, so I ended up putting little guy to bed anyways.  The other kids, and my neice that I baby sit put up the mini-try on the stage while we were waiting on the big one to be ready.  They loved that, because they got to do pretty much everything by themselves for that one including putting on the ornaments that they made out of craft foam last year.

The other kids had a great time decorating, and when little guy woke up, I let him put on a couple of ornaments I had saved for him. 

Overall as crazy as it was, we all had fun in the end and I actually got some decent pictures in the whole mix of it.  The kids topped the day off with some classic Christmas cartoons on netflix instant play and I think everyone had a good time.