DIY Magnetic Ornament Advent Calendar for the Fridge

DIY Magnetic Ornament Advent Calendar for the Fridge

Make your own advent calendar with your kids out of easy-to-make salt dough ornaments!  This activity is great to allow kids the chance to help out in the kitchen.  Let them knead and roll out the dough for a great sensory experience.  I used a simple salt dough recipe that I found at the imagination tree (a wonderful site full of great crafts to make at home).  After we rolled and cut our ornaments, I used a straw to make the hole to use for the ribbon. This works really well.  We also chose to divide our dough into 4 equal parts and then used food coloring gel to make the different colors.  Toward the end when we only had a little left of each color, I rolled and lined them up and then used the rolling pin to blend the colors together.  This makes a really nice rainbow effect.

You'll want to bake these in the oven at 200 degrees fahrenheit for about 2 hours.  We chose to color ours with crayons as soon as they were out of the oven to encourage the wax to melt for some fun effects.  They will be warm, but will not burn the fingers.  They will cool quickly so you may have to put them back in the oven to warm up again if you want to be more thorough. 

I used store bought number stickers to put on the front of the ornaments.  I put a small dab of glue under them to encourage them to stay.

And finally I attached magnets to the back so that they could be easily attached to the refridgerator. I used two for the bigger ornaments.  Self-adhesive magnets will work.  Be careful when using Elmer's glue as it could soften the dough again.  Let it dry well before hanging. 

And that's it!  Your own made-at-home advent calendar.

A Funny Little Thing Called Tourette's

This is our son Kaden.  He is child number three, boy number two, and the first in our family that we know of that has Tourette's.  It came as a complete surprise to us.  It was not something we ever considered to be behind some of what we had perceived to be behavioral issues regarding our son.  Up until last summer, we thought he was on the autism spectrum like his older and younger brothers. He was receiving intervention in the school system for autism and was even covered by our insurance for ABA therapy when he was at home.  That is until we went to get a medical diagnosis. 

How were we receiving services without a medical diagnosis?  He was seen by a school psychologist and with a team of specialists at his school they agreed he met the criteria for autism under the DSM-IV (the recognized manual for mental disorders).  Insurance felt that the school evaluation was sufficient to authorize services.  It was pretty nice really.  When you have autism you can be covered for so many more services than with Tourette's.  Had I known this, I would certainly have reconsidered going for a medical diagnosis.  I did it to make certain the insurance would continue to cover him.  Like I said, I had no idea we would come away with a completely different diagnosis.  Vision is always 20/20 in hindsight.

I was also concerned about the frequency of his tics.  He had frequent vocal tics, and was given the affectionate nickname "Squeaker" as he could squeak as many as 20 times a minute on his worse days.  His older brother (with a medical diagnosis of autism) has frequent vocalizations from his stimming as well as arm flapping and so I always attributed Kaden's tics to some sort of stimming.  When I asked Kaden why he made the squeaking noises he said it was because it felt good.  It was enjoyable for him and I therefore figured it was something sensory.  He sometimes had funny motor tics too like pulling on his earlobes before rubbing his nose.  These actions still seemed different from the things his autistic brothers would do.

Kaden had other differences too.  He developed speech more naturally than his brothers and he had only a mild speech delay by preschool.  He was able to talk with his peers, but it was shallow, he did not have the back and forth conversations his peers did.  He was socially awkward and often would play by himself though he seemed interested in what the other children were doing.  He had no idea how to engage with them. He was rigid in his routine and liked to have everything a certain way (like his brothers) but had a wider range of interests than his brothers.  He had a terrible time with transitions, almost worse than the two brothers with autism.  It was often the most difficult to get Kaden on the bus in the morning if he was not ready.  He couldn't seem to concentrate on what he was doing.  I would have to redirect him 4 or 5 times just while he was getting his shoes on.  If you told him to hurry up, he would go slower every time. EVERY time. 

He was the last of the three boys that we sought intervention for.  His two brothers had marked speech delays and were easily identifiable as on the spectrum.  Kaden was the kid that we would look at and ask, "So is he on the spectrum or not?"  He was in that in-between land that no one seemed to know what to do with.  The psychologist in the schools was reluctant to even review his case.  He said it was likely Kaden had symptoms of being on the spectrum because he was around the behaviors of his brothers so frequently.  The schools had to comply with my request, however, so he was evaluated the fall of his first year in preschool.

When I went to the case conference to review the findings, the psychologist seemed almost surprised that his findings were significant.  Everyone felt he would benefit from additional services.  He fit the criterion of DSM-IV, although mildly, and that was enough to get him into speech and allow him to have a personal aide in the classroom when he entered kindergarten.  That was all I really wanted.  To make sure that he would get the help he needed to be successful in school. He was a smart boy, but would get easily lost in a group of other children.

That was our background when we went to our appointment at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.  The Christian Sarkine Autism Treatment Center there is considered THE place to go if you want to diagnose a child with autism.  It was also in network with our Children's Special Healthcare insurance.  It is difficult to find another place to go if you want the testing to be covered by insurance or if you don't have $1500 to spend on a test.  

When we arrived at our appointment I expected them to actually do an evaluation on Kaden, but rather than engage Kaden all of the questioning was directed at me.  After an hour long interview the doctor did talk to Kaden for a few minutes. Afterwards she turned to me and said something I'll never forget.  "A child with autism would never talk as naturally as that." She also said that studies were now showing that siblings of children on the spectrum may exhibit similar behaviors from being exposed to them (i.e. they learn the behaviors).  Remember, at the time, I was sure Kaden had autism.  When she made this statement I felt that everything I had tried to present had been belittled. She was only seeing Kaden on a good day, not a day when you could hear him crying on the other end of a large building over something minor.  A child doesn't learn to be forgetful, rigid in routine, or narrowly interested in a few things.  Then she explained that he had Tourette's Syndrom and refused to acknowledge his other troubles. They were learned of course.  I was nearly in tears when I left the appointment. 

Why was I really upset?  It was because I had been told before that what I was seeing in my children was imagined.  When you have one child with autism, you start seeing everything as autism.  Only in my case I really was seeing autism over again. When I started seeing the signs in my younger son Asa, I was not taken seriously at first. When he failed to start talking on his own, my observations were given much more credibility.  You develop a familiarity with the behaviors even though you cannot adequately describe them.   I knew that Kaden was a little different from his brothers, but I also knew that something was there!

In hindsight, again everything is always better in hindsight, I think the appointment would have gone better if the examiner would have affirmed my experiences and the observations I had made in my son.  I am with him more than anything else.  It would also have been extremely helpful if she would have said that Tourette's is often accompanied by a myriad of behavioral symptoms.  It wasn't until I did my own research at home and read blogs by other mothers of children with Tourette's that the diagnosis started to feel like a fit.

One of the most helpful to me so far is a site by the National Tourette Syndrome Association. One article in particular that caught my eye was "Understanding Behavioral Symptoms in Tourette Syndrome: TS is more than Tics" by Kathleen J, Giordano.  What an eye opener!  I felt such a sense of relief in being able to finally understand my son. She talked about dysinhibition and how children with Tourette's are unable to consistently stop themselves from "expressing behaviors, thoughts, or displaying actions that someone else might be able to control."  One example that comes to mind is when Kaden won second place at the Pinewood Derby with Boy Scouts he said that the smaller trophy was "garbage" and wanted the bigger one! He didn't have the ability to repress this thought as other children might be able to do.  He said exactly what he was thinking!  He later expressed remorse and said the other trophy was good too.  He is a good kid and has great kindness in his heart.  An observer who does not understand Tourette's would initially think him a spoiled brat.  Luckily the scout master found the incident more funny than anything else.  Especially since Kaden ended up winning the "bigger" trophy afterall.  

Other behaviors on her list in the article include oppositional behaviors, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, immature behaviors, executive dysfunction disorder, and many others.  I highly recommend reading the article at www.tsa-usa.org for more information.  I will also try and touch on some of these in future posts as there is a lot here to understand about Tourette Syndrome.

Since learning of his Tourette's, Kaden has lost coverage for therapy at home through our insurance.  There aren't statistically proven therapies for Tourette's as there are for autism.  Worse, it is hard to find a therapist willing to see him in our area. I have requested an appointment to return to Riley Children's Hospital to see a specialist trained in Tourette's, but I have not yet heard back from the hospital and it has been over a month.  This is a typical response time for them.  It is my hope that more evaluation and treatment options will open up for children with autism and Tourette's as they are very limited right now, despite the growing number of children needing these services.  At least the schools are still offering services, nothing has changed there.  I am so thankful for the schools who are often the first responders to our children with needs. 

Preserving Memories

This summer has gone by in a flash.  Only a short time ago we were waiting for the warmer weather to come with the closing of the schools so that we could spend more time in the great outdoors.  While the summer isn't completely gone, the days are growing noticeably shorter, the mornings seem a little cooler, and school is already back in session.

How does it go so quickly?  Last year my youngest son was only learning to crawl, now he has mastered the steps to the slide on the playground. Today my youngest daughter turned 3 years old, and a month ago my two sons Kaleb and Asa had their birthdays graduating them to 9 and 5 years old respectively.  I want to shout at them to slow down, to quit aging so fast.  

One of the things that I like to do to take hold of the moments is to write them down in memory books and paste the pictures into scrapbooks.  Scrapbooking is a fun, beautiful and personal way to capture special moments and memories so that they can be relived over and over again.  When Kaira, my oldest daughter was young, I made and somewhat completed a scrapbook for her.  It is the most embellished of the scrapbooks that I have made.  Kaleb has one that is partially completed, and Kaden has one that is only just started.  We have six children now and I knew that I would never keep up with traditional scrapbooking.  I often spent too long on each of the pages trying to make them perfect and beautiful.

After Kaden was born, I was thinking on this problem.  I was making photo products to sell on eBay at the time and the company that was producing the products for me had just come out with photo books that could be assembled and completed online.  I loved the idea and completed Kaden's photo book in two evenings of work.  Since then I have ordered a photo book for every child to make sure that if something happened to me, they would have at least some moments of their early years documented.

To this date, I had only ordered photo books for the purpose of making them into baby books.  I had not made any others as I had been trying to keep up with all of the new babies.  This year I found myself caught up with all of the baby books (which is so fabulous!) that I thought how nice it would be to make a book about a special event (other than the birth of a baby).  We have had so many great events this year that I had to choose which one I wanted to make a book of. After Kaleb and Asa's Pirate Party last month and with all of the great photos of it that people passed on to me I knew that had to be it. So that is what I made and below you'll find a convenient link to the finished project.  I love using Shuttefly as they frequently offer free codes for the photo books that are valued at up to $25.00.  I paid only $13.99 for this book after shipping.  I added a few extra pages to it and that did bump the price up a little, but it was still very reasonable.   If you have a busy life and schedule but still want to record those special memories, the online photo books are a great solution.

             Click here to view this photo book larger

Indecent Exposure

    Many parents at one time or another have had a child take off their clothes in public.  Usually this results in a moment of embarrassment , then a scramble to restore decency.  We may chuckle at these moments in hindsight, but when you are still in the moment it is not so fun. 

     For me this moment came when I took my son with me to get take-out from the local Taco Bell.  While we were waiting for our order, my son decided to pull his pants and underwear down around his ankles.  I was at first turned away from him and did not see what he was doing.  When I turned around, there was my 7-year old, exposed to the world, or at least the several patrons in the dining area.  He thought it was delightfully funny.  I was beet-red in the face.  

     As adults, we may not realize that we often do this ourselves.  While we are not literally declothing ourselves at Taco Bell, we often declothe ourselves spiritually when we forget to wear our garments of faith.  When we are lacking in faith, we expose ourselves to the elements of temptation.  We start taking the control of our lives away from the Lord.  This can lead us into sin, shame, then a scramble to restore decency.  Remember Abraham when he was still known as Abram?  When he traveled to Egypt  in Genesis chapter 13, he lied to Pharaoh about Sarai being his wife.  He was afraid that if the Pharaoh discovered Sarai was married to Abram, that he would have him killed.  Rather than have faith in God to protect him, Abram told Pharaoh that Sarai was his sister and let him take her as his wife.  As a result, the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household.  While Pharaoh let Sarai go, there is no telling what ramifications this event had on Abram's marriage to Sarai.  Luckily, the Lord is watching out for us even when we make mistakes.  Abram made many mistakes in his life, but the Lord still kept his promises to him.  

     Are there areas in your life that are not clothed by faith?  Is there a decision that you are currently struggling over?  Pray that God will grant you guidance in your decision and courage to have faith in His leading.

"You are all sons of god through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." - Galatians 3:27

Back Into the Fray

Well it certainly has been some time since my last post.  This year has proven to be a very busy one for me and then I found that I was expecting again in June.  I have a tendency to get pretty tired and unmotivated during my first trimester.  It wasn't until this last week that I felt like writing again.  I am about 5 months along now and doing well.  This is my eighth pregnancy and hopefully my sixth that will go full term.  I have had 2 miscarriages before, but they were both before the end of the first trimester.  Everything seems to be going fine so far.  

A lot has changed so far this year.  We were a homeschooling family for the last two years.  I think once you do something like homeschooling it starts becoming part of your identity.  You start thinking of yourself as a "homeschooling mom" or part of a "homeschooling family."  It was never really my intention to homeschool at all costs.  My intention, from the very beginning, was to do what my husband and I thought was best for our family.  For two years that was homeschooling. 

We were going to do a hybrid school this year, where the children went to a school for 2 days a week, and stayed home to work with me for 3 days a week.  I chose this model for a couple of reasons.  One, it was considered public school and absolutely free.  This was appealing as our budget was very tight this year.  Two, it allowed me some time with the new baby and for shopping on the days the older children were at school.  I didn't want to completely leave the homeschooling model, but I realized I needed more time.  

As it turned out, the new school was very demanding.  Coupled with 2 children with autism in the home, an infant, and a third child that has some mild sensory and muscular issues, my home was not conducive to learning.  I was often trying to "teach" with almost constant crying in the background.  I felt I had little time to potty train my toddler or spend time with the baby the second half of the week.  There was also no time to fit in Asa's speech appointments.  One month into the school year I came to the disheartening conclusion that things could not go on as they were.  So now my children are back in the public school (Kaira started out in public school for kindergarten and first grade).  I am now okay with this decision, but it took some readjusting.  I felt like I had failed.  I shouldn't have felt that way, but I did. 

It is not that I feel the public schools are evil.  We were a little concerned about possible negative influences, sure, as both Scott and I were bullied somewhat in our school years.  More than that it was about being involved in their lives and individualizing their education.  I worry that with the large classrooms my children will get lost in the shuffle.  Kaleb entered first grade top in his class.  He is so far ahead, that no one else is at his level.  They put him in a lower level so that he could work with others.  I understand their position, I just hate to see him uninterested in his work because it is too easy.  Kaira has been getting picked on because she likes to answer questions in class.  Being the only pupil in my class at home for awhile, it was second nature to her.  I fear that she may eventually cave to peer pressure and lose that quality.  It is what we must do now, though, and we are adjusting.  We are hoping private school may be an option in the future.

Now I am happy to help them with their schoolwork in the evening and go the teacher conferences when they are scheduled.  In some ways, it can be as busy as homeschooling.  I have 4 lunches to pack at night, 4 children to get on buses in the morning (2 to preschool), 2 times each day to meet kids coming home, and doctors appointments between kids leaving and coming.  I didn't have to worry about these things before.  I do get more time to clean and reflect now in the morning, this has been very welcome.  It is nice to have a break from the behavior issues for just a little while.  I have learned to view this not as selfish, but necessary.  I want to be the best mom I can be for them.  A happier, healthier mom is best.

Thanks for visiting.  I'll try to keep posting to keep you up to date!

Out With the Girls

      It was one of those weeks.  I think you know what I'm talking about.  I'm not talking about the kind that passed by in a vaguely uniform fashion, leaving only a small blip of memorable happenings on the ever-running log of time.  I'm talking about of one those weeks that brings you to the breaking point and back again.  The kind that makes you rethink what the heck you are doing and why on earth you are doing it.
     It's not that anything catastrophic happened.  There wasn't actually any one event that would define this type of a week.  It was all of the small things added together to make one large mess that made the week what it was.  I really believe that everything was the result of a mild stomach bug that was passing through the family, coupled with dreary weather and fluctuating hormones.  That's it. Nothing spectacular.  In a family of seven, however, that can lead to a number of interesting events.  Events such as being struck in the forehead by pencil-point by an angry six year old refusing to do his schoolwork, a bare foot stepping into the cool feeling of urine-soaked carpet (I hope my landlord isn't reading this), two separate occasions of a diaper leaking fluid solids and saturating an entire outfit to the point where the wriggling toddler must be stripped naked and washed before reconstruction can begin, a constipated baby that spits up frequently on your last clean shirt, a four-year old that doesn't feel well and cries the entire day, and feeling like you're behind all day long.
     I wasn't sure at first that I wanted to attend the women's ministry event at the church this Friday evening. I really just wanted to stay home and rest.  Then I started thinking.  A relaxed evening at the church watching a movie WOULD be a rest!  It was informal enough to bring a baby and I could get away from the house for a few hours.  My mom was going to be there and I was really missing her.  I packed up a blanket for the baby to lay on while watching the movie and some pillows for sitting on and away I went.
     The movie was Julie & Julia.  I was not familiar with the story of Julia Child and really didn't know what I was in for.  The premise of the movie is that the main character, Julie, decides to work through Julia Child's cookbook and make every recipe in 365 days.  She blogs about her experiences as she works along.  While her story is being told, they simultaneously tell the story of Julia Child and how she becomes a cook and eventually writes a cookbook.  Both find joy through their process but only after persevering through some difficult moments.

     I could totally relate.  When I was first married, I could not cook at all.  Most of the dishes I made were from meals packaged in boxes or cans.  Spaghetti was the most complicated dish I made and I really wasn't very good at that either.  I found cooking a waste of time and despised the pile of dishes that would be left afterward.  As our family grew and our budget shrank, I began to try to make things from scratch.  I wasn't excited about the idea.  I couldn't fathom spending an hour cooking supper.  They say that necessity is the mother of invention.  In my case that was completely true.  I started paying more attention to cook books and trying new recipes.  I began to make my own bread with a bread maker, then my own rolls from scratch.  Now I make my own pizza crust, bread sticks and all sorts of other items.  What surprised me the most was the day I realized I actually enjoyed cooking.  There was just something about making something delicious out of simple, basic ingredients.  I liked to create!  If I had not been faced with a need to try baking, or the difficult circumstances that ultimately created the need, I would not have found joy in it.
     I was reminded tonight that the "difficult moments"often precede or coincide with the things that bring the greatest joy. My week was full of "difficult moments."  I guess it is no surprise that it was also full of moments of joy. There was the joy of seeing Asa, now feeling better, sing his way throughout the house.  There was the joy of seeing Kaleb reenact his favorite Charlie Brown movie, and of receiving Kaden's specialty spider tickles.  The joy of witnessing Molly's first time rolling over.  The joy of fixing Kaira's hair for ballet class.
     Sometimes, when in the middle of the tough times, it can be difficult to remember that there will be an end.  It can be hard to think that all of that yucky stuff can be worth it.  Sometimes all we can do is just keep running and hope we reach the other side.  The thing to remember is that it IS all worth it.  The trials WILL NOT go on forever.  This life is only a moment on the spectrum of eternity. I write this to encourage myself as well as you. Hang in there and don't quit so that one day we may say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day."

The Sweetest Moment

               

               A few years back I was waiting with other parents from my son’s soccer team as the team was getting their group picture taken.  This wasn’t just any group picture. This was a picture of eight wriggling three and four year-olds.  If you are familiar with a three or four year old then you’ll be able to imagine, at least to some degree, of the chaos that was taking place.

                There were two rows of children.  The first row was seated on a bench while the second row was arranged standing behind the kids in the first.  My son was one of the smaller children and he was placed on the bench in front.

                Just as the photographer would get one child in the correct position, another child would move.  The toddlers fidgeted and squirmed like little jumping beans in their places.  My son, not understanding why he was asked to sit still for so long, decided he’d had enough.  He stood up, leaped into the photographer’s unsuspecting arms and gave her a big hug.  The look of surprise on the photographer’s face was short lived for the other children all thought this looked like great fun and joined in.  The photographer was buried in a mountain of cuddling children.  It took only a few minutes for the hugging mass of children to be relocated back to their places, but the memory was permanently stored in the treasure house of my mind, and my heart. 

                The photographer laughed and said that it was the first time that had happened to her.  Her smile was just a bit brighter when she said it.  Spontaneous group hugs can do that.  Children with autism do not always understand when they shouldn’t do things, or follow the rules as everyone else does.  They usually have their own way of doing things.  While in many ways it can be viewed as a disability or a disorder, I am in agreement with Emily Coleson as she states in her book “Dancing with Max” that autism is “a gift.”  It is not a gift that comes in frilly packaging.  In fact, sometimes just the opposite.  Sometimes my son will do or say things that will make other people stare.  It is in the awkward moments that I wish people could see sweet moments like this one, when we are reminded that there is more to life than busy schedules and protocol.

                This Christmas I have many gifts to be thankful for, and none of them came wrapped under a tree.  The best gifts often come without any wrappings at all, like the gift the world received on the very first Christmas long ago… in the form of a baby sleeping in a lowly manger…out in a stable.  Who would have thought that the world’s savior would come like that? 

                What gifts are you overlooking this Christmas?