Happy birthday America!!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

~ Excerpt from the United States Declaration of Independence


As we celebrate our nation's Independence Day, please take a moment to remember the brave souls who fought (and many died) to establish a nation founded on liberty, as well as the sacrifices of patriots through the years since that time to defend and protect our liberty. May all of us as Americans today "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" and do our part to preserve liberty for the generations to come.

Happy 4th of July!

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Birthday boys!

I know I ask this every year, but seriously, where does the time go?!

Cuddlebug and Bearhug celebrated their 11th birthday last month.

The big 1-1. And they are already acting like they're teenagers, ack. They keep telling me things like "teenagers like (fill in the blank)" and "you don't understand teenage humor." (you mean they've already figured out my sense of humor is more along the lines of a 9-yr-old? haha). To which I remind them that they aren't teenagers. YET. heh.

Anyway, so when we asked them if they wanted to have a party or a nice dinner out (to the restaurant of their choice) they chose dinner. Being that's it's summer and I had taken the day off from work, they were treating it like Christmas morning and weren't too pleased that dh thought they should wait until at least noonish to open presents. Of course, that was partly because one of their presents hadn't arrived yet and we were expecting it in the mail that day (talk about cutting it close, right?).

It did arrive, and I was able to wrap it quickly without them seeing, and then we got the party started :).


I love the cooperative effort here. They are so awesome that way :).

Checking out one present while opening another.

Enjoying their dinner out :).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy birthday Bearhug and Cuddlebug!! Every day that you have been a part of my life has been infinitely better than any day up to that point. I love you both SOO much and am truly blessed to be your mom. xoxo

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The graduates

Cue Alice Cooper, because as of a couple of weeks ago, it's official... school's out.

Two of my babies have graduated from 5th grade, bringing their elementary school days to a close.

I can't believe they are growing up so fast, but I am SO proud of them!





They each earned awards for being on the A/B honor roll all year, and all through elementary school. Awesome job, guys!!

On the last day of school, I took the day off so we could go to their 5th grade graduation, and later that day was Bitty's end-of-year class party.



His class is fairly small (it's a self-contained ASD class) so the teacher let each of the kids get up to read a poem that they've been working on.

Here is Bitty's poem, I love it!

And the drawing (of himself) that he did with it:



After we got home that day, Bitty celebrated the beginning of summer with - what else - Angry Birds :).



He's been getting more creative and building "structures" for the pigs. We put them on a blanket so it wouldn't be so loud when the birds knocked the structures down (dh was taking a nap).



"Level complete!"

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Da Moves

We kept seeing this song on tv...


...and Bitty kept singing it to himself.


Then one day he got curious:

Bitty: Does Elmo got da moves?

me: Yeah

Bitty: Does that mean Elmo can dance?

me: Yeah

Bitty: What is da moves?

me: It means you can dance.

(he stops to ponder that)

Bitty: I don't got da moves.

me: Me either :)

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Angry Birds

Bitty asked me to help him make a slingshot.

Turns out this is what he had in mind:



Yep, we made a slingshot out of old pantyhose, lol. I set up the pigs at the bottom of the stairs for him, and Bitty had the birds lined up behind the slingshot (just like on the game).

He's really into Angry Birds these days... he asks me almost every day, "Do you wike Angry Birds? I wike Angry Birds. Do you wike da bwoo bird? Is da bwoo bird cute?" (note: the correct answer is yes, the blue bird IS cute!)


He has even expressed some interest in the plot line of the game, which I thought was pretty cool:

"Why are da birds angry?"

"Because the pigs stole their eggs."

"Why did da pigs stoled da eggs?"

"Because they like eggs."

"Do angry birds attack pigs?"

"Yep"

"Who do angry pigs attack?"

"That's a good question... birds?"


He recently made this flipnote which I thought was pretty creative (although obviously I'm quite biased!)

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On IEP's, speech, and girls

So last month we had the IEP meetings for Cuddlebug and Bearhug to set up their transition-to-middle-school IEPs. The ASD resource teacher from the middle school was there, which was great because we were able to get a lot of our questions answered as to how things work in middle school, both in general and specific to the autism program. I am feeling a little better about the whole thing now that we have *some* idea of what to expect.

This week there is a field trip for the 5th graders to visit the middle school, and also an informational meeting for parents.

While they will have an open house in the fall, the resource teacher said she is happy to set up a separate time for her students to come when it will be quiet so they can take their time to get familiar with where everything is without the huge crowd. That is AWESOME, and we will definitely be taking her up on that!

One of their electives will be a social skills class, which also includes spending some time tutoring kindergartners at the elementary school which is connected to the middle school. I think that will be a great experience for them (and who knows, may even help them develop a little more patience for their little brother... a mom can hope, right?). The teacher said that both her students and the kindergartners really enjoy it, and it's a great learning experience all around.

And... (drumroll please)... Cuddlebug and Bearhug have now officially "graduated" from speech therapy. :) There are still some articulation issues but it's either things that they physically can't help or they know how to make the right sounds in a therapy environment and it's just a matter of remembering to do it in conversational speech which is something we can work on at home. When I told the boys about that they were pretty happy, poor Cuddlebug seemed really relieved. He seemed to like it more when he was younger but not so much anymore... I felt bad when he told me, "a lot of other kids finished speech a lot sooner than me and 'Bearhug.'" He's never said anything like that before so I didn't realize he was noticing (although I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he notices everything). I just told him it's different for everyone depending on what they're working on, and that's ok. I also told him how proud I am of both of them because I know how hard they have worked in speech as well as at school.

His current resource teacher told us they've been talking to the 5th graders about middle school, and letting them share what they are nervous about and excited about regarding middle school.

On both of their lists (both boys and both nervous and excited about) was "having a girlfriend."

Oh my.

Which reminds me of a recent conversation we had in the car.

Cuddlebug: "We're starting to be interested in girls."

me: ('wha?!?!' on the inside, cool as a cucumber on the outside or at least I think so) "Really?"

Bearhug: "Yeah, or at least the girls are starting to be interested in us."

(Now that I already knew, but I didn't realize that THEY knew it yet)

me: "How do you know?"

Bearhug: "A girl gave me a love letter."

me: (still cool on the outside, crying incoherently about how my baby isn't old enough for this stuff yet on the inside) "A love letter? What did it say?"

Bearhug: (totally nonchalant about the whole thing of course) "It said, 'I love you.'"

me: "Wow... what did you say?"

Bearhug: "I didn't respond."

me: (ok, now I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor girl) "umm... you know she had to be pretty brave to give you that. You don't have to say it back, but you should say *something*"

Bearhug: "Oh, I did say something."

(pause to see if he was going to continue but he didn't)

me: "What did you say?"

Bearhug: "I said, 'Aren't we a little young for that?'"


That's my boy ;).

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Spring Break

This year we stayed home for spring break, and my parents came to visit. We had a ton of fun going somewhere different each day. For the most part, we went to places that were familiar to the boys but we did try out one new place which turned out to be a lot of fun.

We spent a day at the park. We let the boys bring their scooters to ride on the trails, and we also brought bread to feed to the ducks.

Bearhug's typical "camera face" lol

He surprised me by actually smiling for a picture :)

Cuddlebug

Bitty feeding the ducks

I love Bearhug's expression in this one... Cuddlebug and Bitty are into feeding the ducks but Bearhug looks so bored. He managed to find his own fun sooner after, building a dam in the little stream that leads to the lake.

What a face!!

My mom and I

I never get tired of all the green - it's beautiful!

Hanging out at the house later that day. I gave Bitty my old camera a while back because he loves to take pictures, he was having me clear off his memory card so he could take some more.

We heard about a local trampoline playground so we went to check it out. Can I just say - PERFECT sensory activity!! Bitty complained that he didn't want to go (because it was new) and usually it takes him anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to relax and get acclimated when we go somewhere new, so I was afraid it would be time to leave before he even got started, but once he saw the trampolines it was only a few minutes before he decided to join in the fun :).

After that we went to the park (a different one this time).

Bitty loves the swings... (I love his smile in these pictures)

...but he was willing to share :)

It was great to see all three boys playing together. Cuddlebug and Bearhug even took turns pushing their little brother on the swing.

Grandma and Grandpa had a fun time too :)

Love their smiles! The tire swing is perfect for twins, no?

And one day we took a little drive into the mountains to see the waterfalls. It was weird to have to wear coats and pants, but it was cold and rainy that day. And foggy! But the fog cleared up while we were there.

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Flipnotes

I didn't really plan to take a blogging hiatus, it just kind of happened...

I didn't think it had been THAT long, but I came back and blogger has totally changed... ack!

I have some stuff to post about but in the meantime thought I'd share some of the boys' flipnotes :).

Bitty got his own Nintendo DSi for his birthday so he's been eagerly working on his animation techniques, mostly by copying his brothers which drives them crazy (they accused him of "copyright infringement," lol). I keep telling them he will start to do more of his own original stuff once he gets the hang of it (and he has been).

Here's one that makes me smile every time I see it, it's just sooo cute :). This is Bitty's character "Hatdude" dancing. For the record, Hatdude is not a stick figure. According to Bitty, he's a "triangle figure," which makes sense because his arms and legs are triangles, not sticks :). Bitty's username on the flipnote site is "Roblox" so that last part is his signature. (make sure the sound is on, it's great with the music) :).

UPDATE: So Bitty decided to delete his flipnote and he reposted another one but I managed to download the original before he deleted it, so here it is :).


Bearhug has two original series that he created, one is a couple of spiders named S and X. That's him doing the sound effects / music :).



The other is about two characters named Wacko and Weirdo :).



Cuddlebug also has a series called Dino and Allen Dino (although he told me recently that Allen Dino was originally supposed to be Alien Dino but he spelled it wrong and it stuck.

This one features Dino and his friends, and a song about broken glass (don't ask, I have no idea where it came from but I wish it didn't get stuck in my head so easily).



And another one of Cuddlebug's, with stick men. That's him doing the sound effects (and a little help from Bearhug too, lol).

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Pinewood Derby bound

It's almost that time of year again.

A couple of weeks ago, we picked up some supplies for this year's Pinewood Derby cars.

Yesterday, we headed to Home Depot to cut out our car designs.

Bearhug actually got into it and let the guy show him how to use the sanding tool.

Bitty supervised (with M&M's).

Cuddlebug wasn't as hands-on, but he did do some of the sanding and showed me his car when he finished.

Bitty decided he wanted in on the action (and he had a car too, even though he's not old enough for Cub Scouts yet we always buy him a block to make his own car along with his brothers). I wasn't about to let him try the power-sanding tools but he was content with the sandpaper, especially when he saw Bearhug using it.

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IEP season is off to a rough start

Last Friday we had Bitty's IEP meeting. Seems like we just had one (oh wait, we did), although that was just an IEP review to update his placement to one that would be more effective for him. We didn't update any of his goals at the time.

So this was his regular IEP to update goals for the upcoming year.

I have always had mixed feelings about IEP meetings... on the one hand, it tends to be a bit of a reality check on where my kids are developmentally, relative to their peers. Since I don't really have that much experience with children other than my own, it can be easy sometimes to get into the "this is our normal" groove and not really think about it that much until there it is, all spelled out.

The upside though, is that the IEP meeting also generally serves as an opportunity to see just how much progress they have made over the last year. For the most part my boys have always mastered at least most of the their goals by the time the IEP year has passed, and while we might carry over a few that they are still working on, the rest are either replaced with new ones or stretched / expanded to the next level.

Until now.

We reviewed the measurements of how Bitty is doing on his current goals, and my heart sank a bit when I saw he was still struggling with most of them. I mean, I know he's had a challenging year but I guess I wasn't quite mentally prepared for that.

Then we started going through his goals for this year's IEP. I actually felt tears welling up (and I don't cry that easily) when I realized we'd been through several and the only change we'd made so far was to lower his reading level in order to (hopefully) help with his reading comprehension. He is hyperlexic (pretty much taught himself to read at an early age and reads beyond his grade level) but still struggles to answer even the most basic questions about what he's read (who, what, where, why, when), even when given the opportunity to look in the book for the answers. He has a visual chart for the "W" questions that shows what kind of question is being asked, and that helps a little but it still takes a lot of prompting.

So that's how it went. For the most part, his goals for 2nd grade will be the same as they were for 1st grade. The notable exception being his handwriting - he still has issues with pencil grip and hand strength but you really wouldn't know it to see his handwriting, it's quite good. We just need to keep working on it so that as he starts having to write more, his hand won't get tired too fast.

The main reason for his difficulty on the rest of his goals still comes back to the language delays, which impacts pretty much everything. His speech / articulation has improved considerably, and his memory is pretty phenomenal so he can recite entire episodes of his favorite shows. He has a pretty good handle on the typical day-to-day interactions (through much practice, and still with a fair amount of effort). But anything new or out of the routine that requires language (receptive or expressive) is such a challenge for him. And educational learning, by definition, tends to be a lot of new information (with some review of course).

It's really hard to see him struggle so much, but I'm so proud of him because no matter how hard it is, he keeps trying and with a positive attitude. Everyone who works with him comments on what a joy he is to be around (seriously they do, that's not just me being biased!) :).

Next up (later this spring) will be the IEP's for Cuddlebug and Bearhug. The ones that will transition them to middle school (ack!). I'm open to suggestions if there are things you think we should consider or make sure to include.

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