Can I lend you a hand?

The girls (mine & friends) are eating hands. They were frozen overnight, so they are nice and crunchy. hee-hee! Yesterday they put Kool-aid into latex gloves (thoroughly washed brand new ones), then froze them overnight. They are eating hand-sicles today!


Still sucking their thumbs. LOL!

Gig 'em Aggies!

A few little pictures

Just a few pics from Bethany's 13th birthday shindig on Saturday. More details later. Not to worry about the hippy look. We've had discussions about that movement not being the role model types. Also, my girls might be tired of me saying when I hear "Peace Out" that we like "Peace In," the kind Jesus gives us! The rest of the story later, but for now here are some of our friends ranging from 5 to 15!






P.S. I actually was prepared to teach them a 70's dance but doggonit ran out of time. We talked a lot about how the 70's ran the gamet from hippies to the Hustle.

Are we done yet?

I THINK we are done celebrating Bethany's birthday. We have spent a few weeks preparing for the various celebrations for this passing of age into teenhood and this mama has had little sleep this past week. I just didn't sleep well and/or had things to do into the night and in the mornings. We had a grand time today and I will post pictures later. I crashed on my bed at 5. I remember talking to Phil for a few minutes, then putting on my CPAP mask. The next thing I knew it was 7:50! Oh, my!

I told Bethany she will have to have smaller celebrations for 14 & 15, but we'll do it big again at 16. Of course in 4 months we'll start all over with Natalie's birthday!

I've also been trying to get some aprons made to sell on Etsy. When I am done, I will put a link in my blog.

Look for pictures of today's party coming soon. It was groovy and far out.

Bethany is 13!

Yesterday our baby turned 13. As we sat in the hospital holding our great niece this week, it hardly seemed possible that 13 years had passed since we were the ones sitting in the hospital holding our sweet newborn. So much has happened in thirteen years.

We started Bethany's birthday by having a sleepover with a few friends from our homeschool co-op (who happen to be very good friends). This year's party has been a work in progress. At first Bethany wanted to invite ALL of her friends to her party. She is in middle school and at our co-op is in the Girl Scout group with girls through high school. She wanted to have them over since she was now a teenager. I thought it would be hard to have a party that included kids from age 5 up to age 16, so encouraged her to have 2 parties: a bigger party with activities & goodies for the younger bunch & a teenage party just to hang out with the older girls. That morphed into having a sleepover with just a few of her teenage friends over and we'd send Natalie to one of her friend's houses that night. Then, we added some younger sisters of those girls, so Natalie, of course, would be staying. It would be JUST a slumber party & we'd do her birthday party next weekend. Never wanting to keep things status quo, it turned into some of the girls wanting to celebrate her b-day b/c they'd be out of town next weekend. Sooooooooooooo.......short story long (LOL), we had a semi-birthday-slumber-teenage-tweenage-party on Friday night! We had 6 extra girls plus our 2.

Here are some pics of the fun they had. To see the cute crafts they did, go to my crafting blog at www.chefmamacrafts.blogspot.com

Let's get this party started! Bethany watches as Annie & Natalie act natural. Um, I mean act like drama queens. Oh, that is natural! LOL!

A beautiful bunch of young ladies. We've watched them grow up from little girls to these lovely teens/tweens. And one large mama in the back!

Make a wish! Unlike her mom & sister, Bethany can blow out candles in one breath. We only had 10 candles, but this is the first time EVER she has blown out candles. She will not eat cake if candles have been in it (she says she can taste the wax), so we put them in a different mini-cake and let her blow them out. I'll have to blog about why you should never make mini-angel food cakes another time.

Bethany had us all laughing because she opens presents SO SLOWLY. I told everyone NOW they know why we are always late to co-op!
The sunglasses were on her wish list, so sister Natalie picked those out for her. The hat, well, we have no clue why she had that on. It's JULY in Texas!

Someone mentioned how thin someone was, which made me tell them I was so thin that a dress I wore in 8th grade is nearly too tight for Natalie (age 10, exactly the right weight/height for a 10 year old). We brought in a box of dresses & the fun began. Who knew big girls would still play dress up! They got a kick out of some of the styles! Natalie models this dress my mom (Mammaw) made for me when I was about 13.

I actually wore this dress. She looks stunning, but says it is itchy and the "stays" in the side kept poking her! Later she danced for us in this dress and gave us all a good giggle.
The moment Mom had been waiting for: movie is in, sleeping bags are all laid out, and there is hope that they will be snoozing soon. Believe it or not, only 3 girls were still awake at 2 a.m., and I think they went to bed soon after that.

I hope all the girls had as much fun as I had watching them. No arguments, even between sisters (now THAT is a miracle! ha, ha!). They giggled and danced and crafted and watched Bethany's homemade movies. They even got up and fed themselves in the morning! Maybe having kids get older is a good thing after all!

Our family gathering was later in the day and I will blog about that later.

You know there's a "Tween" in the house when...

Our older child, Bethany, is nearly 13. It's hard to believe that. She is our daughter with Asperger Syndrome, a mild autism, so she doesn't always, or more accurately, doesn't OFTEN, act her age. She thinks intellectually like a child her age, but socially, she is more likely to play with marbles than My Space, and for that, I am very thankful! In spite of the social delays, I have to say there are some sure signs that there is a soon to be teen in the house:

• She uses the word "like" about every 3rd or 4th word of a sentence
• She cries if you look at her the wrong way or change anything

For those of you who have or used to have teens, what were some signs that you know you have a soon to be teen in the house? I'd love to see your input!

Isn't She Lovely?

Sing it with me:
Isn't she lovely? Isn't she beau-ti-fu-ul? Isn't she lovely? Made for love.

Bethany went to another Girl Scout outing on Saturday. Her group went to the Paul Mitchell Studio for a "Glamour Girls" event. They each had their hair done and a bit of make-up added. To get an idea of how Bethany looks day to day, here's a quick shot I took of her the other day. By the way, this is a fake posed shot for my crafty blog with a silly story to go with it.

Now here are the "after" shots.

We wanted to get Natalie's age group into this event (on a different day) but it was full and had something crazy like 100 on the waiting list. She had been a bit pouty about it for weeks, but was so sick with an ear infection last week that I think she was thrilled just to be able to talk to friends and be outside on Saturday. Still, I had her give me a good pouty face for the picture!

Now I need to go to a glamour girls salon & see what they can do with my mop of hair. Right now I just need jeans to get dry so I can put another load in & go to bed!

World Autism Awareness Day

Today is World Autism Awareness Day. This month is Autism Awareness Month. Today 67 children will be diagnosed with autism. This hour, the parents of 3 children will receive this news. 1 in 150 children are diagnosed with autism. Stats say 1 in 94 boys are diagnosed.

Why do I write of such things? Why does this interest me? Because of a beautiful 12 year old child in my house with autism. We are among the fortunate ones. Our child has the highest functioning form of autism, Asperger Syndrome. She can speak very well. She now communicates "almost normally."

Others have more severe stories. Many have a child who was developing normally and speaking at 18 months. Then they gradually lost their child to this hideous condition. The child stopped speaking, stopped making eye contact, stopped laughing, and withdrew into a private world full with a mixture of screaming and silence. The child started rocking incessantly and banging his head on the wall. The child they knew at 18 months no longer exists at 24 months.

Much has been done to help find ways to help these kids in recent years. Some have seen success with dietary changes or removal of mercury in the bloodstream. Others have used a behavioral approach to help the child be content and better able to communicate his or her needs.

We have used a program called LIFE. No, it's not an acronym for anything. It's what we do. From the time we realized SOMETHING was going on with Bethany, we focused on dealing with the symptoms. We didn't know we were doing it, but we worked on it. We continually had her learn to look at us when she talks. We taught her how to answer questions (at age 5 she often could not answer a "yes/no" question, and no way could she answer the "wh" questions). We lived life as normally as possible. By homeschooling, we could have our own "Special Ed" classroom: the WORLD!

Bethany still doesn't like crowds. She still has trouble expressing feelings sometimes. And she is SO LITERAL. She actually loves to use "play on words" but she will also then tell you that she's "just using the expression" and doesn't "really mean" the literal use. She makes us laugh a lot!

If you'd like to read more about World Autism Awareness Day, you can visit this website:
Autsim Awareness