Tuesday

(a photo dump)

A Special Circle

For those of you who may not know, Alexander goes to occupational therapy once a week in addition to his speech and other therapies. Occupational therapy for a child his age involves working toward "age level skills" in drawing, writing, self help skills (to name just a few). His therapist, Miss Cheri, has a big mirror on one side of the room and they use markers to practice drawing on the mirror. Up to this point, the drawing practice has been getting him to imitate lines in specific directions (up, down, across, etc.) and some circles and squiggles. Miss Cheri always makes her circles into smiley faces after they're done, but it's not part of the objectives. And last week, when prompted to draw a circle, Alexander drew this.

Miss Cheri had started cleaning up before she remembered to take a picture, but this was originally a full circle smiley face. Getting Alexander to imitate anything has always been a challenge. But this one he picked up on his own. I'm so proud of my happy boy.

Gala

For those of you who don't know, Kevin and I won tickets to the Big Splash at the Georgia Aquarium, which is a fundraiser event for the Marcus Autism Center. It was this weekend and we had a great time. For some silly reason I didn't bring a camera with me but here we are all dressed up ready to go.

Kevin wasn't feeling well but we both had a better time than we were even expecting to. The food was yummy, the entertainment (Michael Israel) was phenomenal and the spirit of honoring and giving to the autism community was palpable to point of tears (from me). 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to Brenda and Ali for helping me find everything I needed for my "Black Tie Optional" outfit. :-)

And another thank you to my good buddy Nicole over at Moonstone Gifts for creating my new signature autism awareness piece. I attached it to my clutch purse for the event and plan on wearing it every day for at least the rest of April (autism awareness month).

  

After, After, After

I'm officially annoyed with myself that I didn't take a before picture of my living/play room, you know, before. I never think of these things until it's just too late and while I feel like I must have a picture somewhere in all these files of what it looked like the last time I reorganized the toys, I've been hunting for like 10 solid minutes and haven't found one.

*breath*

So.

Here is the after picture.

My father-in-law and I built that whole shelving unit! I must say, I am quite proud of myself. I'm also insanely grateful to Bill for loaning me his drill press, and miter saw, and sander, and nail guns, and air compressor, and spending days over here teaching me and working to make my design happen.

Once again it didn't occur to me to take a picture before I started putting all the boys' stuff on the shelves, but I caught myself halfway and took down what I had already put on the right side for a kind of side-by-side "after" plus "after-after"...

As I was saying, I am very well pleased with the way my project turned out. I'm psyched about my new window seat and excited to use the room for home therapy and preschool for the boys. The paint job was done by me, and not a professional, so I'm going to need to touch up the beige on the walls where the white got away from me, but I may use that as an excuse to paint the room a different color. Like blue. Or yellow. Hmm. We'll see.

Of course, I'll also need to finish organizing things onto the shelves and work to find homes around the house (or out of the house) for the rest of the stuff that doesn't fit in this area.

Like this pile I've only begun to sort through.

You could consider this shot a "before" but it's really still part of the "after." As in after I spent 3-4 weeks building bookcases in the playroom and after I spent the entire evening sorting and organizing that playroom, this is what my dining room looks like.

w00t. *Smile*

My Own Moonstone

This picture is a mock up of the necklace I custom ordered just yesterday from my friend Nicole over at Moonstone Gifts. As you know, I'd been having a little trouble finding a jewelry piece that was just what I wanted and had to resort to a card stock cut out for Autism Awareness Day. But I finally decided on a basic design that I liked and asked Nicole to throw something together for me. Well, I am totally in love with the result! Nicole even checked with me and asked if it would be alright to add this necklace to her store for other customers to order. Of course I said yes, it's too pretty to keep all to myself. So this special piece is now available in her store. And, to top off her fabulousness, Nicole has decreed that "2.00 of every necklace sold will be donated to Amy Brown's familys' team for "Walk Now for Autism Speaks"!" (Yeah, that's our team!) 

I've already been feeling so grateful and overwhelmed with all the support we've been getting from our wonderful family and friends the past few weeks. And this has officially put me over the edge into a sort of giddy weeping. Thank you all for being so wonderful. And thanks again to Nicole and her Moonstone Gifts!

Autism Awareness Day

(If we're friends on facebook, you've already seen these pictures.)

We're lighting it up blue tonight for Autism Speaks. I got blue light bulbs to put in our outside fixtures (crud, I still have to do that!) and I made the boys cute blue Autism Awareness t-shirts to wear today.

And here's a rare picture of me on this blog. I've been hunting for a good Autism Awareness jewelry piece for a couple of weeks but I haven't found the one I want yet. So this morning, in a fit of creative insanity, I dug up a card stock puzzle piece left over from a Silhouette machine venture gone awry, colored it blue and strung it up on a light blue piece of Christmas wrapping ribbon.

Gets the job done. Between that, the ribbon in my hair, and a little sparkly blue eye shadow, I figure people will be more likely to think my outfit is for something instead of just an all blue-on-blue mood. Plus, I can't look too silly when I'm walking with my ridiculously cute boys in their Awareness T's.

I'll try to get a family picture later and a picture of our house lit up blue if I can get my camera to work in the dark. :-)