31 for 21: Day 16 Twist n’ Write Pencil

So with Avery starting kindergarten we are working hard on her writing skills. And we have come along way but we still have a long ways to go..but today I am on cloud nine!!!! 
We have been dotting letters and numbers for her to trace. There has really been no attempt to write anything on her own besides her name. The only thing she could really write on her own really good was her name..and even with the dotting letters it has been hard for her to trace.  Look at the picture for example..she isn't right on the dots. I don’t think it is matching up for her visually!

Avery’s OT therapist brought this pencil that she found at a teacher store..and we were just going to try it and see how it worked!!!! It gives her more control for her smaller hands.. The shape helps the child hold the pencil correctly, and the size helps lessen the death grip that some have on pencils.

OH MY WORD!!!!!  This pencil is A-h-Ma-Z-I-N-G!!!!!!!! She wrote words on her own…the first two words in the following picture the therapist just called out each letter and she wrote it from her memory (mouse and night)..and then she thought she would see how she did with a visual cue so she wrote the word out first then had Avery copy it..

Brielle had to come home and bust my bubble a little and tell me that the only word that she could really read was cat…but I don’t care..I can see the other ones:)
This picture looks like her therapist has her hand on Avery’s hand helping her but she really doesn't ..I promise!! Anyways..guess what I had to do then…Go online and find me that pencil and I ordered her some!!!!  I ordered them from here and some refill pencil lead from here If anyone else wants to look up this pencil it is called a twist n’ write pencil…


Two pointers that we are going to change from the suggestion of our OT therapist…
*To help her keep her letters contained…draw individual squares. and have her place one letter in each square..visual box..it works great!!!  I've showed you that before with Avery’s name..how well she controlled it once we drew boxes and had her place one letter in each box..
*Don’t do dots for them to trace. Use a highlighter and have them trace or copy what ever they need to from that instead. All of the dots are not good visually..and it makes sense..go back up and look at the picture of how she traced the word with the dots..and then look at the picture of the pencil..in the corner of the picture you will see some numbers highlighted and she traced over them with pencil..look at how well she traces the highlighted ones compared to the dotted ones! Point made! Another suggestion for tracing was to write the word out in highlighter and then copy it on a copier and it will be lighter gray for her to trace too…
I found a YouTube video of someone showing how to write with this pencil..Check it out!!

31 for 21: Day 2 Buddy Walk Video

So what are all of you locals doing this Saturday??? We would love,love, LOVE to have you come out and walk with us at our Buddy Walk…It is a free fun Family Event for Everyone! NEXT SATURDAY..as in this coming SATURDAY....October 6th, Registration is 1:00 - 2:00pm, walk begins at 2:30pm..Its at the SC School for the Deaf and Blind..It looks like it is going to be a beautiful day out...I was going to do a fun army theme this year but ran out of time so we will plan on that for next year..but please come join Avery’s Army…friends, teachers, therapists, family..everyone!!!  Avery would really love it if u came!!! This is a day to celebrate all individuals with that extra special chromosome!!!
Here is a video from our last years walk..you can see us a couple of different times along with Avery..

31 for 21: Day 1 John Langdon Down

October is Down syndrome awareness month! I am going to try really hard to blog for this month..don’t hold it to me if I miss a day though
To get you started, I thought I would share an article about the person Down syndrome is named after, John Langdon Down. Enjoy the read!
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/349075/Philanthropist-who-gave-dignity-to-those-abused-by-society-and-his-name-Down

31 for 21: Day 31 Happy Halloween

I have survived blogging for 31 days! Wow didn’t think I could do it. I blogged every day bc it was Down Syndrome awareness month. And this super cute girl is why. To raise awareness for my super cute daughter and all the other super cute individuals that happen to be blessed with down syndrome too!!
 
There were some posts that were all about Down Syndrome and then a lot of them that were not bc down syndrome is only a small part of us and we don’t focus on it on a daily basis. 
We enjoyed a quite Sunday at home carving pumpkins and spending time together. I always enjoy carving pumpkins with the girls.  We also made up some spider suckers for the girls classes…the girls really enjoyed making them..
First we must clean them out. The fun part putting your hands in the ooey gooey mush!!! Destiny had to help Avery put her hand in that mush. She didn’t want to at first.

Ooh whats all this????

Can u tell which one doesn’t like to get her hands in the mush??? {hint: the one with the spoon} She started of with plastic bags over her hands while she was holding onto the spoon but realized that wasn’t working so she took them off!

Pure Joy!!!

Destiny with Jayla making her put her hand in the pumpkin too!!! She didn’t mind it to much.

Brielle helping Jianna put her hand in the pumpkin. She hated it and she started to scream.

This year we found our patterns online and after they picked out which one that they wanted to carve we printed it off and taped it on there pumpkins so they can poke it on there on pumpkins.

Jared working on Avery’s pumpkin. We found a Curious George template on line so  of course I had to print it off and use it..good thing I wasn’t carving it bc I would of threw in the towel right away. It was kind of a process and took all day pretty much!! 

Half way done!!!!

She likes her pumpkin so far!!!!:)

We kind of just watched and took pictures after we did the messy part!!! ha! {here is actually a good picture of her  right eye if u are looking at the picture turning in like I was talking about in a different post

Carving them out.




Happy Halloween Everyone!!! Hope you all have a safe fun Halloween. 
Come back in a couple of days to see pictures of Mary Poppins, a beautiful bride, a cute kitty, and thing 1 and thing 2 {from Dr. Seuss}

31 for 21: Day 30 Pumpkin Patch

We thought it would be fun to go and try to find a pumpkin patch this year…but my oh my I think I will stick to buying them at Wal-Mart..{so much cheaper and you get a bigger pumpkin}  but here are some pictures from there…

We went on a hayride…{ it was pretty disappointing to me bc I had just went on a field trip with Avery and went on a hayride there and it was so much better..but the girls all thought it was fun so I guess that’s alright then…;)}

It was a rescue farm so It was kind of neat listening to how they got there animals..Apparently this are misfit donkeys…they kind of look like regular donkeys to me

A wild pig that they have rescued..The pig comes over to him and lays down and then they rub his back with a rake..haha!!  Avery was pretty impressed with the pig though..she liked her and as we were  Avery says bye bye pig

If u were brave enough you could have the lama smell your hair or your breath…Ya none of us were brave enough…ha!


Bounce Rodeo…lol

I just need to add that these things are so ridiculously dumb!!!  You cant even move on them..I got on with Avery and we only hopped one little step…

Hay Bale maze…not impressed at all…but the babies liked it…lol

Rock maze

Riding the horse..yeeehaw!!!  Go dolly!!;)

THe girls with there perfect pumpkins that they picked out…Avery already had one from her field trip and I wasn’t buying any for the babies…too cheap I guess.. bc they were soooo expensive there!!!

Next time we will try out a different place!!! 

31 for 21: Day 29

I bought this dress for Destiny for Easter one year and just couldn’t bear to give it up…Little did I know at the time that it would get passed down to four more girls…;) and so far it just happened to fit Brielle and Avery at Easter time so they have worn it then too…BUT with the twins its obviously not possible bc I don’t have two…and It wouldn’t fit them at Easter time either bc they fit it now…so I had to take pictures with this dress on anyways so I can have one of each of my girls in this dress..{sorry about the quality of the pictures in the first two I had to scan them in} It sure is neat to see at what ages they wore them and it just so happens that there hair is all similar…pulled up in a half pony tail…lol!!
Destiny @ 18 months                                    Brielle @ 27 months

Avery @ 25 months                                               Jianna @ 22 months

Jayla @ 22 months

31 for 21: Day 28

The Beatitudes of the Exceptional Child by Andre Masse C.S.E.
Blessed are you who take time to listen to difficult speech for you help us to know that if we persevere we can be understood.
Blessed are you who walk with us in public places and ignore the stares of strangers for in your companionship we find havens of relaxation.

Blessed are you who never bid us to "hurry up" and more blessed you who do not snatch our tasks from our hands to do them for us, for often we need time more than help.

Blessed are you who stand beside us as we enter new and untried ventures for our failures will be outweighed by the times when we surprise ourselves and you.
Blessed are you who ask for our help for our greatest need is to be needed.
Blessed are you who help us with the graciousness of Christ Who did not bruise the reed and quench the flax for often we need help we cannot ask for.

Blessed are you when by all these things you assure us that the thing that make us individuals is not in our peculiar muscles, not in our wounded nervous system, not in our difficulties in learning but in the God-given self which no infirmity can confine.
Isn't that just beautiful???!!!!

31 for 21: Day 28 Dr updates

This month has been crazy with dr appointments bc once again its that time again to go see the dr.s for updates mostly….
Sleep Check up: First up is her sleep dr and her sleep apnea…How is she doing?? The most common question I get from everyone…well we went for a check in basically and she is getting smarter and apparently she is taking it off pretty much right after we put her to bed..her I thought she was getting better and leaving it on longer each night but I guess she had me fooled!!!;) We did get a new mask that we are going to try..that is one of our biggest battles is finding the correct mask that fits her correctly..I don’t know if we will ever get there where she will leave it on all night but we will keep trying…usually when I go to bed I put her mask back on just to make me feel like im trying:) 

ENT check up: She has not had one ear infection since we had tubes put it in..the best thing we could of done..and it has been over three years and they are just now falling out!! One of her tubes fell out on her own and the other one was stuck in her ear canal so the dr just pulled it out.She didn’t even flinch...I couldn’t believe how tiny it was..they are smaller then a pea.. HE said that we just need to come back on a as needed basis…wooohoo!!!  Hopefully we don’t have ear infections again though since the tubes aren't in there..but he did say that her ear canals are bigger then what they were so that’s good…
Dentist check up: Everything was great!!!  That is always good:)
Eye Check up: He still doesn’t want to do anything about her one eye yet…which makes me a little uneasy but I guess we just wait bc everyone tells me that he is good and knows what he is doing and he is the only pediatric eye dr in the area..my concerns are that her one eye wanders in and I am seeing it a lot more..just not when she is tired anymore..she also tips her head side ways…ill just keep watching it…
Her neck: We were suppose to go to the neurosurgeon today but he had to have surgery so we will be going on the tenth of November..
Special Needs Dr/nutritionist: She is doing great…she really watches her weight and to keep her in check so she don’t get to heavy!! Everything she eats gets put under the microscope!!! Which in the end is good!! She also said that we can let her drink from an open cup without having to redo a swallow study bc I don’t hear her coughing when she drinks..she mainly drinks from a straw but she does do an open cup now and no more sippy cup!!! 
One other thing we are checking out is that she has a weird little bump next to her spine on her lower back..I don’t think it is anything major according to the one dr but she said that we need to go to her regular dr and then he can order back x-rays so we can just make sure…so I am waiting for the dr to call me this morning..we will see …let you all know when I know what it is!!!  At first I thought it was just a bruise but it has been there for months now and it seems like it is getting bigger.
Well that pretty much sums it all up…ha!!