Thirty Handmade Days

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Mique

A few weeks ago I mentioned to Callye of Sweet Sugarbelle that I wanted to do some something for autism awareness month. She had the fabulous idea to make autism inspired rice crispy treats! Is she clever or what? (YES!!!!!) That girl will do anything to use a cookie cutter. Have you seen her collection?

Most of you know that I am an autism momma. I know that there is more exposure on autism now than ever. But I want you to know that there are real faces behind that big word. There are stories of struggles and triumphs with long journeys. With the rate now 1 in 110 children you will be hearing about it even more. Promise. Please help me and Callye do just a little more for autism awareness. Thank you! On to the crafty goodness……

These are the rainbow rice crispy treats for St. Patrick’s Day.
Here’s what I did this time:

I ordered some supplies from Sweet Baking & Candy Supply:
puzzle piece cookie cutter, food coloring & a cookie scoop (for later )
I LOVE what arrived in my mailbox!

I made the rice crispy treats like I did for the rainbow ones
only used different colors- the colors from the autism puzzle symbol.
After I made the treats, I used the puzzle piece cookie cutter from Sweet
to turn them into puzzle rice crispy treats!

Warning: concentrated food coloring = concentrated mouth coloring.
My #1 taste tester didn’t seem to mind one bit:

You didn’t think I’d stop there did you? Nope.
I made some printable labels. You get some 2″ labels and print these.
Or you could get full label sheets too. Or you could use cardstock.
I wanted to make them accessible to everyone.
So I made Autism Speaks labels and Love you to pieces labels.

I printed larger ones on a full sheet of label paper and used a scallop punch to make them even cuter.
You can download individual circles too-
Autism Speaks 3″ circle and Love You to Pieces 3″ circle
Here are Callye’s amazing creations:

And in a cute cookie jar. Good news- she’s giving them away!!

Thanks to cute Callye for being such a great supportive friend!
And to all my family and friends who have been on this autism journey
with my family- we most definitely could not do it without you! xoxo

I linked up here:

Join us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap up party!

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Mique

After years of putting it off, I finally decided to share my story as an autism momma. If this is your first time reading, start here. Unfortunately with a server crash last week, all of my comments were lost from the last six weeks. I am most sad about that for this series. The comments have been amaaaaazing! Thank you! I’d love to hear more from you, comment away or email me.

….back in the day when Josh and I were dating (loooong ago)….we talked all about what our kids would be like. We both envisioned six kids, each two years apart. That was obviously well before we had one.
After we had JJ, we knew we would have more. Julia arrived, perfectly timed- two years and two weeks after J. But after Julia came and autism came into our every day vocabulary, I seriously questioned whether we would be able to have even one more child.
As J got older and therapy and school became a daily routine, we started talking more and more about having another baby. I was very reluctant. Josh, not so much. Still, what comes naturally to a lot of families, was a huge struggle for us. I felt like we were running out of time as Julia was almost four. We never wanted to have a big age gap. But someone had other plans.
Eventually we decided to take a leap of faith and have another baby. And even though I was excited, I was still really nervous.
Nine months later we welcomed a screaming baby boy into our family. Though it definitely took some time to adjust, (I think three is an adjustment for everyone) we settled in as a family of five.

Now thinking of life without our baby (who will be five in a couple months) seems impossible. He fits the baby role so perfectly. He’s hilarious, fun, smart, and four going on fourteen. Drew brings something different to our family that was missing. All three of my kids brings joy to my life in ways I never imagined. Our family of five is complete.

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Mique

After years of putting it off, I finally decided to share my story as an autism momma. If this is your first time reading, start here. Unfortunately with a server crash this week, all of my comments were lost from the last six weeks. I am most sad about that for this series. The comments have been amaaaaazing! Thank you! I’d love to hear more from you, email me.

…….there have been some big exciting/hard milestones in J’s journey. When I first started reading about how to help my son progress, I kept seeing the age of five over and over again. The brain is malleable until the age of five. There is a lot that can be done before the age of five. As long as you get in there (wherever “there” is) before five, he will be fine. So the pressure was on to push our little man as hard as we possibly could until that magical birthday.
As he inched closer and closer to the big 0-5, I became more and more frantic internally. What if he wasn’t better? What if he hadn’t progressed much? What next?
I think you might guess what happened next. He turned five. Yep, just like everyone else.
And he was the same as the day before he turned five. Just like everyone else.

On the inside, I was freaking out. We had done it…crossed that magical age and his brain was still….his brain. But now, not malleable anymore?
This was around the time that we started to think about J’s placement in kindergarten. Back when he was diagnosed, I thought by five he would be mainstreamed. He might need a little extra help, but he would be able to function in a typical class. But when the time came to actually make a decision, we knew he was not ready to be mainstreamed.
*Let me just insert here- when Josh and I were first married I was a teacher’s aide for two kids with Down syndrome in a typical class. They were ten and in the second grade at a very unique school called the Open Classroom. It was a challenge every time I stepped foot in the class with those boys. There were lots of tears shed. But I also loved them. I got excited when they learned new concepts or made good choices with their peers. I mention this only to note that I know mainstreaming can be done and can be done well. It was heart breaking to come to the decision not to put J in a typical class. I so wanted to believe that he would be ok there. But he needed too many modifications and I knew in my heart that mainstreaming wasn’t appropriate for him.
It was with great trepidation that I dropped my son off for his first day in a special day class. Although I was nervous, J did have shadows with him from our home program (the 40 hour a week one) that were always with him. They were there to help reinforce what was being learned at home as well as help transition him into a school setting.
Luckily for J, his kindergarten teacher didn’t hold his huge file with lots of legal mumbo jumbo and fights over him. She, like everyone who gets to know him, grew to love him. Kindergarten was pretty successful overall….the next year? That’s a whole different story…….