Wheels on the Bus

This little boy rides the bus to school and he loves it!  I was a little worried about sending my little three year old off on his own, but they do a great job taking care of him.  They have built in carseats for the preschoolers so he's safe while he's riding.  He gets so happy waiting for the bus every morning. I'm so happy he loves the bus and preschool.

Forney Transportation Museum

We took advantage of free museum day through the Smithsonian again this year and went to the Forney Transportation Museum.  They had cars, buses, tractors, motorcycles, coaches, bikes, trolleys, and TRAINS. Nathan didn't want to move on after he saw the trains. The trains were massive.  The wheels were as tall of me!  They had the world's largest steam engine  The giant red thing went on the front of a train as a snow plow. There was also a model train set that you could control and Nathan could have played with that all day.  It was the perfect museum for a little boy!

Evelyn at 7 Months

- Squeals and giggles all day long.
- Evy is so tolerant of her brother.  Not sure why, but he thinks he can sit on her while she's crawling. And she is happy to let him.

- She can sit up on her own.  She does it so gracefully too.
- Evy's favorite chew toy: shoes.  I feel like I am constantly putting away shoes.  Otherwise, I find her chomping on them like a little puppy.  Soooooo gross!
- I'm the new beehive advisor and Evy is such a hit with the young women.  Luckily she doesn't have stranger wariness with them.

- Evy will crawl over to our sliding glass door to look outside.  She loves going outside to play.
- In between the 3 years old who throws his food on the floor and a little Evy who wants to eat everything, I am constantly sweeping the floor.  She's pretty good at her pincer grasp though!

- She thinks she is big enough to climb the stairs.  She hasn't gotten farther than the first step, but she keeps going over there to try.
- She's got a pretty good nap schedule, but I wish she would take a 3rd nap.  She's soooo ready for bed when it's bedtime.

- She loves to play with Nathan.  She follows him around and plays with his toys.
- We've tried oats, wheat, chicken, turkey, beef, yams, butternut squash, carrots, but her absolute favorite is yams.
- Evy never used to spit up, but now that we've started solids she's started to.

- Evy loves to see herself in the mirror.
- Her hair is getting so long and it's covering all the bald spots now.
- Since Evy is doing so well with sitting up I've started to let her take baths with her brother.  Nathan thinks its great and Evy is so happy to splash her brother and play with all the bath toys.

- Even though she is driving me a little crazy getting into everything, I do love having her crawl over to see me and give me a huge smile.  She's seriously the cutest little baby.

Preschool

I can hardly believe Nathan is old enough to go to preschool.  I wish he could still get at-home therapy, but it's how the system works to get him therapy.  The thing that helps me be ok with it is that he needs to be around his peers and that he loves it so much!

The best of first day pictures

His class has a unusual set up, but it works great. Nathan is in a small class of 6 students who are all autistic.  They have a special ed teacher, occupational therapist, speech therapist, and psychologist to work with Nathan individually on his goals.  Nathan's class is paired with another class of 10 typically developing kids.  Nathan's class joins them at least for snack and recess, but as Nathan is able to he will join in with the typical classroom for more activities. They have several para-professionals in the typical classroom to help out the special needs kids if they need a little extra support.  In total, there are 9 professionals working in the 2 classrooms.  I'm really happy with the classroom Nathan is in.  From all the research I've done on the effectiveness of preschool classrooms, the ones that mix autistic kids and typically developing kids have the best outcomes.

Preschool open house

They did a great job getting the kids ready for preschool.  First, Nathan's teacher, occupational therapist, and speech therapist all came to our house to meet Nathan and so we could talk about Nathan.  Nathan was so happy meet all of them and was very friendly.  They also had a preschool open house so mom and Nathan could go see the classroom and meet all the staff before preschool actually started.  Nathan was so eager to go see everything.  He colored his snack mat, stood for pictures, and explored the classrooms.  Of course he found the trains right away!

On his first day, Nathan did great.  When I was driving him to preschool, I was talking to him about preschool and he said, "Preschool.  Bus."  I was so happy with him for  making the connection!  He will get to ride the bus to preschool very soon.  Once we got in the building he couldn't wait for me to sign in so he could go into class.  He went right in and didn't even care if I was there.  I said goodbye and had to get him to stop playing for him to say goodbye back.  It was so weird being at home without him.  I really started to miss my little buddy.  But Nathan's preschool teacher, knowing it was probably going to be hard sending him to preschool, sent me some cute pictures and let me know he was having lots of fun at singing time and reading time.

Nathan was happy to see me at pick up.  He would not stop talking about "preschool teacher" afterwards.  He can say all of his teachers names except for his actual preschool teacher, Miss Melissa, but calls her "Aunt Alissa".

He is absolutely loving it! His teachers tell me all the time that he loves singing time.  And he's even made a little friend in his class.  There is another boy in Nathan's class that we see before they open the building to let the kids in.  I've been helping Nathan to go up and say hi to his friend Odin and Odin says hi back.  Well, this last Thursday Nathan ran up to a boy that looked like his friend and said, "Hi Odin," all on his own.

And to be completely honest, mommy is loving preschool too.  Evy gets a completely undisturbed nap and I get so much done.  And Nathan gets in a lot of therapy at preschool.  It's a win-win-win for everyone.

Evelyn at 6 Months

- Evy is so curious.  She loves to look, feel, and taste everything.
- Crawling.  Yes, crawling at 6 months.  And she's fast too.  The other day while I was making lunch Evy crawled around the couch, under the table, into the kitchen, turned around and went back to play by the couch.  And it's pretty much the cutest to watch her scoot and then turn to give you a smile.

- Likes to crawl over to see what her brother is doing.  Those two love each other so much.  It melts my heart.
- Loves serburts.  She laughs so much when you do it.

- She is starting to get stranger awareness.  If your mommy, daddy, or brother you get a huge smile.  If she doesn't know you, she will not even give you a half smile.  She just stares at you.
- She loves to see her daddy.  She'll watch him go around a room and whenever he looks at her she gets the biggest grin on her face.

- Blowing raspberries, usually when she's tired and ready to go to sleep for the night.
- 6 month stats: 16 lbs 15 oz (64th percentile), 26 3/4 inches (80th percentile), and 42 cm head circumference (41st percentile.)

- She's starting to grow out of her 6 month clothes. I'm going to be really sad when she can no longer fit in these jammies.  I just can't stand how cute it is to have her face framed in a hood.
- We pulled out the jumperoo for her and she loves it.  Not sure if she loves the bouncing or the being able to look around at everything more.

- Started eating solids.  The first time she had them it was quite comical.  She would shutter in disgust with every bite.  Now that's she's getting used to eating solids she actually quite likes cereal and will sometimes try to help get the spoon in her mouth.
- She is doing better at sleeping since we started solids.  She was getting up a few times a night before, but now she's maybe getting up once around 5 am.  Hallelujah.

- What do you get for a 6 month old for her 1/2 year birthday?  Bibs for those solids she's starting to eat.  Evy seems to like them.
- Everything Nathan drops, Evy has to put in her mouth.
- Evy's hair is still red and she has such pretty dark blue eyes.  Evidently, red hair and blue eyes are the rarest hair/eye color combo.  Just in case we needed another reason of how special this little girl is.

- With how curious and independent she has been getting, it's so nice when every once in a while I get to snuggle up with this little girl.  It usually happens when she is sleeping these days, but she's also starting to give me squeezes when I pick her up.  I love when she gives me these little baby hugs.  

Rocky Mountain High - Part 5

On our last day we went to see Bear Lake.  We had our lunch right by the lake and Nathan liked to walk out on a rock and scare mom and grandma getting too close to the edge.

My family wanted to go on a short hike to a waterfall and I thought we could probably do a short hike.  How had I forgotten the lesson I learned earlier in the week?  Was I crazy?  We put the kids in the carriers to go on the hike, but about 5 minutes in we knew it was a no go.  Nathan was having another fit in the carrier so I hiked back up the mountain. At least this time we were able to get back a lot sooner.  We played in the car for about 30 minutes until papa and Adrianne were back from the hike.

While we were at the lake, my dad started talking to a park ranger.  He told my dad about a dirt road that had been closed for 3 years, but that had just reopened two weeks earlier.  The park ranger assured us that it was really smooth since it just reopened.  There is only one paved road through the park so we were ready to see something new.  It took us the back way up to the top of the mountain.  There were a lot of glaciers, waterfalls, and even a few lakes.

And then it was time to go home.  After 2 weeks of being away, it was really nice to be home, back to our schedule, and see Brad everyday.  But we sure miss our grandma, papa, aunties, and uncle Byron!

Rocky Mountain High - Part 4

AKA: the best part because Brad was able to join us!  We had really been missing daddy after being away for so long.  We were so glad he was able to switch around his call schedule so he could come on vacation too.  We took him to all our favorite spots in the park, including the friendly chipmunks.  And we even saw a giant moose right by the side of the road!