I have been double posting everything I have been posting on this blog at my other blog. Mostly because I haven't wanted to leave behind the great since of community here and because I have so many wonderful comments here that I don't want to leave behind. I have been so blessed to have received so much encouragement here. However, I have decided that it is just too much work and frankly a bit silly to post on both so from now on I will be posting only over here. I will leave this blog here for awhile as I can't bring myself to part with it yet but my hope is that if you have enjoyed reading my blog here you will follow me to my new blog.
Thank you so much!
I am so excited I am just about finished with my Advent calendar for Christian. All I have left to do is attach the ribbon to hang it and put on the velcro that will hold the tins to the calendar. I am waiting for the clear velcro dots that I ordered to arrive and they should be here by Tuesday and then I can fill the tins and hang it. I am very happy with how it turned out. I really wish I had time to make more for gifts. Well, anyways, here are the pictures.
Here is the calendar without the tins. Here it is with the tins set on.
This was so much fun to make. Here is the blog post that inspired me to make this if you want all the directions. Mine is a little different than the instructions but it is close. If you have a half a day or so set aside you could create this still before December or give it as a gift. I hope you enjoy it!
I have been sooo busy around here trying to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is my first year of blogging and so I guess I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to keep up with blogging during the holidays. I apologize for not keeping up so well here lately. I know I am also so far behind on reading the blogs I like to follow and on emailing people back. I am going to try and catch up this weekend though!
I have been working hard on making an advent calender for Christian. I am trying to make one similar to one posted here. So far I have the little tins completed. Here is a picture.
It is A LOT of work but they are turning out really cute. I printed out the labels that came with the tins using a template from Wilton and clipart from Word. I cut out Christmas scrapbook paper circles and inserted them under the lids so they show up around the labels. I also cut out strips of paper and glued them around the tins. Here are a couple of closer pictures.
Sorry it's a little blurry! Here is a picture of all the tins from the side.
This weekend I am hoping to work on the calender part where these all get attached to. It is fun and I wish I had more time because I would love to make a few more of these for gifts. Maybe I will work on some during the year so that I can give them next Christmas.
Besides the calender I also worked on ordering our Christmas cards. This was a process I thought would only take a couple of minutes and ended up taking two hours!!! We had received something in the mail from Compassion that said they were teamed up with Dayspring and that you could order cards with pictures of your Compassion child on the back of the card. The link is here if you are interested. I designed our card and uploaded all the pictures of our family and our Compassion child and went to order the cards and the website locked up. I did this four more times and each time it did the same thing. It didn't save any of it either so each time I had to start completely over. I was so frustrated! After four times I started to think maybe I would try bringing up the website on Internet Explorer instead of Firefox and Yippee it finally worked. Of course by then I had done the whole thing five times. I am just glad I got them ordered though and I can't wait for them to arrive. I am so excited to send one to our little Sulokyhoni in India so that she can see that she was on our Christmas cards too.
Tim has been having some health issues and so he was at the doctor yesterday for bad headaches and a very red eye. He didn't get any answers so I am sad for him about that. His father died of a brain cancer so I always get a little scared when he has a lot of headaches. He has also been having a lot of pain in his foot and is at the podiatrist today for a second time this month. He is double jointed and they believe he may have a nerve pinched in one of his joints. It causes him a lot of pain. Last time he was there they gave him a shot of steroids hoping to lesson some of swelling around the joint. It didn't help him much and today he is supposed to be getting some insoles that hopefully will help some more. I think it is eventually going to end up in surgery which he is not to thrilled about. He is not one for being laid up in bed.
He will be attending a mens Bible study this Friday and Saturday at a friend's church. I am excited for him to go because he doesn't get a lot of time with other christian men. I think he will really enjoy it!
Tyler is doing well. He is enjoying getting ready for the holidays. He has spent a lot of time downloading Christmas music to his I-Pod. He is so into music this year. Thankfully it is all christian music. He is doing well at school. He has completed all 12 of his boxes every day this week which he has been struggling to do at times this year. He has been listening to The Legend of Squanto from Focus on the Family this week which we have done for the last couple of years. We have also been enjoying The Book of Thanksgiving for several years.
It is a great book with recipes, great poems for copy work, and great ideas for Thanksgiving traditions but Tyler really likes the Turkey Day Trivia. Did you know the heaviest turkey was 75 pounds? Can you imagine having to cook that?
Christian is still a little under the weather with a cold and well to be honest quite cranky. He has his sleep all messed up again too and the combination isn't too pretty. He woke up early yesterday after having gone to sleep late. He was so stuffy and cranky all day and then around 4 pm he just feel asleep on the ottoman.
It is sort of dark because I didn't want to use the flash and wake him up. He was so sweet though. It just all caught up with him!
Sorry to write such a long post! I haven't been able to find much time and today I had some so I thought I would get everyone caught up with what we are up to. If you have made it this far down thanks for sticking with me!
Have a great day!
It is the best! I got it for a advent calender I am working on for Christian but now I am a circle cutting fool! I had some leftover Christmas scrapbook paper and Tyler was looking at it yesterday and commented that it would make nice ornaments. I was inspired to make us a new center for December.
I took a green posterboard and cut out a Christmas tree and glued it on to a blue posterboard. I cut some holes with an Exacto knife and put paper bards through the holes. I opened the bards only far enough for them not to pull through the holes and taped them on the back. They need to poke through on the front so that you can hang the ornaments on them.
This is what each bard should look like at the back. This is the front of the poster with the bards in.
I then took me scrap paper and my handy little circle cutter and cut 4 3" circles from each pattern of paper. I glued ribbon on the back of each with the glue gun.
I am going to use half of the ornaments for Christian to match the patterns and to hang them up with the white side of the ornaments showing to play memory. For Tyler I am going to use the other half of the ornaments. I wrote a writing prompt on the back of each of his and will hang them up and let him pick a prompt.
We will store all our ornaments on 3M hooks by the posters.
It only took me about a half hour to make this. The longest part was gluing on the ribbons. You could also put math problems on half of the ornaments and the answers on the other ornaments and have them match them or sight words on half and the matching pictures on the others. I am sure there could be lots of variations. I think it will also be fun just for Christian to play with and put the ornaments on too!
I haven't posted on our workboxes in awhile so as I am filling boxes tonight I thought I would share what will be in Tyler's workboxes tomorrow. Before I get started let me share with you a link for the adorable puppy workbox numbers we are using right now. We got them from Sunflower Schoolhouse.
We are using them to go with our Dog unit study. Honey has a bunch of other great workbox numbers based on themes too.
Tyler has 12 boxes for Monday and rather than fill this post with a bunch of pictures I decided to make a slide show. It will take you from box 1 to 12.
Tim has been off most of this week and therefore we have been off of school for the most part. We did do some school on Monday and Tuesday. Tyler got to do his Veterans Day lapbook which he really enjoyed on Monday. It turned out very nice and was lots of fun for him.
We also started studying and praying for Vietnam this week. This will definitely carry over in to next week because of our short week.
I purchased a unit study for Vietnam because I have been busy with other things and didn't think I would have much time to make up activities for him. I am kind of sad that I did now because looking through it I know I will have to modify and retype it to work for us anyhow. I need to make myself a big sign to remind myself of this before I get lazy and purchase things I am not going to be able to use anyhow. Oh well, I think it will be fun to explore Vietnam next week. Just researching it I came to realize how many preconceived notions I had about Vietnam really aren't very accurate. I really didn't have any idea how beautiful it is there either. I learn so much from homeschooling my kids!
Today we went to Walmart as a family to get some Christmas wrapping paper and a few other things. Tyler got Lucy, our very spoiled dog, a big stocking full of bones and treats. He is excited about giving it to her at Christmas. I also got some little Christmas ornaments and Christmas trivia cards to put in our school treasure chest as rewards. Christian did pretty well despite the amount of people but when he finally decided it was time to go he got very cranky. I guess he had all the noise and crowds he could take.
When we got home from Walmart Tyler and I went grocery shopping. We used two carts because we were also shopping for Thanksgiving. I think it is honestly the best I have seen Tyler behave at the store ever. He pushed one cart behind me the whole time and was very careful to not bump into anyone or anything. He carried on a very nice conversation with our checker. He even pushed one cart out to the car and then when we arrived home he helped unload the car. It always gives me a glimmer of hope for his future when he has days like today.
Tonight as I am sitting here waiting for Christian to fall asleep I am trying to get ahead on some Christmas stuff. Every year for some time now we have had a tradition in our house where I gather all the Christmas books and pick out 25 and wrap them with Christmas paper. We open one book each day starting on December 1 up to Christmas day. They are all picture books and every year I buy a couple new ones and sneak them in too. Tyler likes to guess each book before we open them so it gives him a couple of surprises. They are not all one type of book. Some are serious and some are just silly and fun. Even though my boys are getting older we all really enjoy this tradition. My husband and I still enjoy the beautiful picture books this time of year too. This year our list is:
The last two books are our new ones for this year. They look like wonderful stories and I am sure they will be great additions. I am happy to have them all wrapped and ready to go in December.
Tomorrow I hope to finish up our Christmas card order. We are doing photo cards through Dayspring because they have a great Compassion International design and we can even put a picture of our Compassion child on the back of each card. I got a nice picture of Tyler for the card but I am still struggling to get one of Christian I may just have to go back through recent pictures and find one I like. Here is the one of Tyler though.
He decided to wear the sweater all on his own the day I took the picture so I seized the opportunity.
Well, I think that is about all for now. I hope everyone has a great fall weekend and are enjoying getting ready for the holidays!
Christian, our son with severe autism, is extremely hard to buy gifts for. He needs things that are visually stimulating and don't require a lot of fine motor skills. Durability is also a must as most toys don't make it that long around here. I was excited to find a toy that I think he is going to love and I thought I would share it because I know he isn't the only hard to shop for child out there.
This is the VTech Digital KidiLook Digital Photo Frame. Christian loves to look at pictures but he chews on actual photographs even if they are laminated. Most digital frames would be too delicate for him but this one looks a little more rugged and we have a good history with VTech toys so I am optimistic. It holds about 100 photos which you download from your computer via USB and you only have to shake it to shuffle pictures. I bought one for Christian for less than $25 at amazon. I think he is going to love it. Just thought I would share!
Thanksgiving right? Nope, not for Tyler! For Tyler it is the event he waits for every year with great anticipation. Actually it is close to an obsession. He talks about it for weeks ahead, he plays a game about it, reads about it, and even searches the internet for any new information about it. It is something many Americans and even people around the world view each year. Can you guess what it is?
Tyler LOVES with all his heart the Macy's Parade on Thanksgiving morning. He was so excited to find out that Macy's had posted this years parade lineup and he printed it out and I think he about knows it by heart already.
Two years ago we got him a book on the history of the parade.
Last year we read it together all the way through. He can still remember so much of it. He can tell you when the parade was canceled and why and when certain floats and balloons were introduced.
He also has a board game that he played today with his dad. It is a very simple game but he still loves it a bunch.
We got this several years back so I am not sure it is still available. Maybe on Ebay if you have a parade lover also.
This year I decided we would go with his parade fascination and so we have started a lapbook about it. He is so excited about this. (big mommy points for me!) There is actually a lot of history that coincides with the history of the parade so we will be looking at that. I have also included a map with the parade route which has actually been changed this year so we can work a little with map reading. We will be looking at how the balloons and floats are made too. Did you know they used to release the balloons after the parade? I thought that was interesting. Anyhow, here are a couple of pictures of our cover and what we have done in the inside so far.
Not too much done yet but we will be working on it a bunch next week.
We will be retrieving our Christmas decorations soon and he will be able to proudly display this beautiful snowglobe that his grandparents bought him in 2007. It was the last year that Macy's produced a parade snow globe so it is rather special.
It lights up and plays music while historic scenes of the parade are scrolled on the bottom. I am so glad he has something that means so much to him. I know he can't wait to have it back out again.
I hope someday he can see the parade in person. He loves the whole thing from the bands to the floats to the Broadway performers. I have always enjoyed the parade too but I don't think as much as him. Maybe someday we will go together. That would be very memorable!
Christmas is just right around the corner and we are an advent crazed house. I will get more into that when we get closer. We already saw the little advent calenders where you open the paper door and there is a little chocolate at the grocery store. Tyler loves them and so we get him one each year. They don't work for Christian though because he can't have chocolate. :( The other day I saw something that I think is a great solution. I actually saw two different variations. One is this one from Chasing Cheerios.
I thought it was adorable but then I saw this from Splitcoaststampers and I fell in love. I am sooo making this over the Thanksgiving break. I don't think mine will look exactly like the one pictured as I am not sure if I am quite that talented but I am going to try to create something we can use each year. I can put little treats that he can eat or little things he can play with each day. If you are inspired let me tell you can get the little tins at amazon for only about $15 so it isn't a very expensive venture. Just thought I would share!
Obviously this is a subject near and dear to my heart. Upon watching this I had several thoughts. The first was why is the ratio of autistic kids higher in the military. 1 child in 88 amongst military families versus the 1 in 100 in our nation overall. Hmm? Another thing that struck me is that in the video they are talking to a Colonels wife and she commented they had to clean out their savings. My husband is a Gunnery Sergeant and makes a lot less than a Colonel and I can't even imagine what some of the younger families are faced with financially. The last thing that really stuck with me was that the DOD wouldn't comment on the FOX report. Hello?! Aren't they a part of our government and don't they have a responsibility to those who serve and their families? Makes me mad!!!
I know that lots of nonmilitary families are fighting for the same things and I don't mean to sound like we should be the exception. I think everyone should fight for benefits and services for their children. I just look at how the military handles this and I become greatly concerned at how this would also be handled under a government controlled health care system. I would venture to ask but I am sure they would have "no comment"!
Sorry to vent! Someone emailed me a link to this video and it just ticked me off.
My name is Bronwyn. I am the wife of a Marine and a mom and teacher to two wonderful boys on the autism spectrum. I look forward to sharing our days with our friends and family.
Here is the calendar without the tins.
Here it is with the tins set on.
Sorry it's a little blurry!
Here is a picture of all the tins from the side.
It is sort of dark because I didn't want to use the flash and wake him up. He was so sweet though. It just all caught up with him!
This is what each bard should look like at the back.
This is the front of the poster with the bards in.
