Happy/Busy Halloween

Our Halloween started like any typical morning, but from there it was a busy day.  First, I spent 90 minutes at Rex's school observing him.  I got to sit in on an hour of one on one therapy and then watch him in the classroom for 30 minutes.  It was interesting and helpful to see how he spends his time and needless to say, I am quite proud of his hard work and progress.  Here's a photo through the window of Rex during reading time.

Next Emilia and I headed to the art museum for Wee Wednesday. It's a free program for toddlers and preschoolers and today it was Halloween themed.  There were four stations throughout the museum were spooky books were read in front of a painting and then connected to the painting in some way.  At the end of each station, there was a treat - no candy, but art supplies.  Emilia did well.  She didn't quite have the patience to sit through each book, but she enjoyed herself.  Here she is in the green pants following along with the story.

After the museum we headed home for lunch and a quick nap.  Then we were off again to get Rex from school and on to the ophthalmologist next.  How about that for scary?!  You may remember that our two previous visits to the eye doctor with Rex were pretty awful, but today he surprised us. He shed a few quiet tears and did a little whimpering, but otherwise he sat nicely on Craig's lap and let his eyes be examined.  The good news is that his vision is holding steady and that his left eye is more active than ever before, so the drops have been doing their job.  Up next we are going to try glasses, so wish us luck.  Emilia also had an eye exam and handled it like a champ.  She sat in the chair all by herself and let the doctor do her thing without even so much as a single tear. Her vision is normal.  Wahoo!  Overall, a great visit with great medical news.

We didn't get back home until 5:30 and trick or treating in our township starts at 6:00, so we had a quick dinner, got the kids into their costumes and off they went with their cousins to collect some candy.

Our big pumpkin

Our little pumpkin

Cousin Colton throwing webs

Three cousins trick or treating

And now for the grand finale of our first Halloween as a family of four, I think we are all going to bed hopped up on sugar and chocolate.  It's what I call a perfect ending.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Our Little Rexperimenter

During various evaluations of Rex I have often been asked to describe his personality and I always use these three words: resilient, joyful and curious.  I found his curiosity at its best yesterday when I caught him playing with a spinning top in a way that no one had showed him.  It momentarily took my breath away to see how far his inventiveness, hand-eye-coordination, and play skills have come in just over a year.

My little boy sees the world from a bit of a different angle than most of us and sometimes that makes me smile.

Emilia - Forty-Nine Weeks Home

Yesterday marked forty-nine weeks home for Emilia.  I can hardly believe that in less than a month she will have been home with us for an entire year.  It's impossible to imagine our family without her.

Emilia continues to work on making developmental progress and it seems to come a little easier now.  She is more interested in focused activities and better able to participate.  She is tremendously alert and taking in everything around her.  Her imitation skills are great when she is on board with whatever we are trying to model or teach.

Emilia is still using the sign for "more" and has applied it to various things, like swinging and eating and looking at books.  The sign for music was introduced in speech therapy and she is now beginning to use it independently.  I think she is still a little surprised that something happens each time she signs.  Meanwhile, she keeps babbling and repeating all kinds of sounds.  Her latest fun imitations are sneezes and coughs.

Blurry, but I love this mutual adoration.

Emilia is starting to wave goodbye and to clap her hands.  She is also trying very hard to feed herself with a fork or spoon.  And she has discovered the fun of playing catch.  She likes chasing someone else as much as she enjoys being chased.  She still loves to jump and to climb and has recently figured out that she can move objects to strategic locations to assist her in her upward aspirations.  Emilia is doing a wonderful job these days walking while holding our hands which makes it so much easier when we are out and about.

Marching fearlessly to the beat of her own drummer.

Attachment seems to have made a giant leap forward.  In recent outings we have noticed much less indiscriminate friendliness from Emilia toward strangers.  At home, she makes special stops and trips now to see Craig and me or to give us a hug and/or kiss without any prompting.  Emilia often plays close to us now (when I am cooking she is on the kitchen floor near my legs, for example) and also joins us when we are simply sitting down, talking or watching TV.  It's such a wonderful feeling to have our tiny treasure leaning comfortably and calmly against us while we, too, are relaxing.

Emilia always has a ready smile.

Up next we are looking forward to Emilia's first Halloween.  I am completely biased, but guess who is going to be the cutest pumpkin on the block?

IAC 231 Results

The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 231 which was held on September 18, 2012:

1) Spanish dossier from July 2009 referred a female child aged 3 years and 6 months

2) French dossier from September 2009 referred a male child aged 6 years and 9 months

3) German dossier from December 2009 referred a male child aged 4 years

4) Canadian dossier from January 2010 referred a female child aged 2 years and 1 month with features in health status

5) Spanish dossier from January 2010 referred a female child aged 7 years and 2 months

6) Italian dossier from May 2010 referred a male child aged 5 years and 9 months

7) Italian dossier from July 2010 referred a male child aged 4 years and 3 month with features in health status

8) US dossier from November 2010 referred a male child aged 2 years and 3 months with a family history

9) French dossier from December 2011 referred a female child aged 3 years and 5 months with features in health status

10) French dossier from December 2011 referred sisters aged 11 years and 3 months & 12 years and 6 months

11) Italian dossier from August 2012 referred a male child aged 9 years and 7 months

12) Italian dossier from August 2012 referred a female child aged 10 years and 6 months

13) French dossier from August 2012 referred a male child aged 9 years and 5 months

Apples Abound

As I mentioned a few days ago, I bought a large bag of mixed apples at a local orchard.  I don't know how much it weighed, but it was probably at least 15 pounds for the price of $10.

My purpose with these apples was to make applesauce because both kids enjoy it so.  While I was peeling and coring and slicing apple after apple, I really wished I had a sous chef around here.  Finally the first batch was ready to cook...

... and be turned into this final product.

The next day I made a second batch of applesauce which yielded two more quarts for the freezer and a big bowl for the fridge to eat right away. But I still had five more pounds of apples, so I decided to experiment and make my first ever apple butter.

Here are the apples covered in spices and ready to simmer in the crock pot all day.

This is what they looked like after cooking for about five hours.

And here's the apple butter at the end of the day, stirred smooth with a wire whisk.

I don't think the half jar is going to last too long around here because this stuff turned out to be quite delicious.  I am saving the full jar until Thanksgiving though to serve with our big feast.

In other autumnal happenings, I made pumpkin spice muffins for Rex's teacher-therapists.  I thought they looked quite yummy.

Autumn Greetings

I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.  
- L.M. Montgomery

HallZOOween

Today's gorgeous fall weather well made up for yesterday's dreariness, so we decided to make a spontaneous visit to the zoo.  

The last time we went it was Easter and the kids did not realize that they were surrounded by live animals.  This time, they did better.  Here are Rex and daddy watching the elephants:

A lot of the animals were enjoying a special treat of fresh pumpkin:

The zoo also had trick or treat stations set up along all the main paths, so us humans got to enjoy a few sweets.  Most of our goodies came home with us as the kids aren't into candy (yet)... I call dibs on pixie sticks.

Emilia in a stare-down with a peacock.  Should I have been surprised that the peacock left first?

Just relaxing and taking it all in:

We had a great afternoon at the zoo.  Thanks to Grandpa and Michelle for our annual family membership.