Making Christmas Gifts (December 2013)

He painted different projects for each one of his grandparents

a cross for Meme (painted white then glued glass beads in it)

He decorated a box with paint and glass beads for Grandma Anna...

and he decorated a tissue box with paint and stones for Grandma and Grandpa...

grrr..... another video I can't load.  The size of it is huge and it shouldn't be.  I need to find me a good tech guy who can figure out what's wrong!  Hope I will be able to post them another time.  

School Christmas Party (December 2013)

His kindergarten class had a little Christmas party-  here are just a couple of photos from that.

Gingerbread Train (December 2013)

Matt's mom had gotten a gingerbread train to make with Caelan.  It turned out nice but I don't get the impression is on the agenda for next Christmas... I wasn't home when they made it.

School Christmas Program (December 2013)

His first school Christmas Program!  I was one proud Mama....  and yes, a little teary-eyed.

We didn't think he would participate, we actually didn't even think he would go up on the stage.  What we definitely did NOT expect was for him to sing!  And he poured himself into it- it was so awesome!

The whole program was beautiful.  Each class sang a few songs, there were Scripture readings, prayers and then all the kids from the school sang together.

Here is beforehand-  all the kids were in a room down the hall from the sanctuary.  He wanted me in there with him, and so I stayed with him and walked with the class and sat with him as well.  But he went right up on that stage by himself!

Above-  singing "Noel, Noel, Bells are ringing" at the top of his lungs.

Notice the tie didn't last long

Then they sang a song that involved shaking some bells.  He got just a little bit too enthusiastic with them and started swinging them around.  In the video, you can tell right when he finally looked up and saw me signing to "Stop!" and his teacher motioning to "ring gently!"

All the kids singing together.  The younger ones weren't as interested in this part and were all very distracted. The girls behind him were trying to politely tell him to turn back around.  And at one point when he was just sort of bending over for no reason at all.... Brant (next to him with the green tie) just very slightly tapped Caelan's foot with his own, without every missing a beat~ and Caelan stood back up.  His swaying side to side also caused him to topple over sideways off the step... causing a domino affect, taking down a couple other kiddos.  It could have been worse- and it was actually funny.

I was hoping to post the video here but the file is too large. We didn't use our camera to record it.  The bonus to using the nice camcorder is that you get great video quality; the downside is that the files are HUGE.  Sad I can't share it- it is the funniest video and I laugh to tears every time I watch it.

And for some reason, it has disappeared from Facebook so I can't even create a link to it.

His 1st Electric Train (December 2013)

This boy is all about trains-  he loooves them!  He reads books about them, watches videos about them, plays with toy ones.  He can tell you pretty much anything about them-  it amazes us!

Matt's cousins came into town in December and Christopher said that he had a gift for Caelan.  Christopher has only seen Caelan maybe once or twice and that was years ago.  He also loves trains though and he said that before he came up here, he felt 'led' to buy a train set but didn't know why.  Then when he spent time with Caelan he understood.

Christopher had bought a basic electric train set for Caelan-  the boy was beside himself!

He kept wanting me to put it together for him but I told him he had to wait for Daddy to get home to help him.  So he said, "Ok... I will wait right here on the couch and hold my train until Daddy gets home."

And so he did.... 

 For a while.

But it does appear that it was worth the wait- he was very excited about it!

Odds and Ends (2013)

A couple of odds and ends from July-December

he had hooked his wagon up to his tractor- pretty smart idea 

 

 

riding the tricycle Grandpa brought over

This is a marble maze game he has- you can configure the different pieces to make the marbles go in different paths.  He likes it to be tall.

Watching Bear and Blanket in the washing machine while they are "taking a bath"

Our son the engineer!  Look closely at that support system and how perfectly it's all balanced!

 

Shoo fly!  We get fruit flies each year which drive us nuts- so I taught him to sing the song to make them go away

 

Bear makes a great bookmark 

Fall Festival 2013

Not many people know this about me but... I hate Halloween.  I always have.  Even though it involves free sweets.  I enjoyed it when I was with my sisters and we had the three boys together the one year- that was cool.  But overall, not for me.  And we weren't sure what we were going to do this past year.  We are both content to not really promote it with Caelan not to mention that he doesn't care for it himself because he won't wear anything on his head or face or most costumes we have tried.  He is also so visually sensitive that we don't want to put him in an overwhelming situation of multiple people and things that will upset him sensory wise. 

This past year we asked him several times for a couple of weeks if he wanted to go trick-or-treating or get dressed up and he said no.  So we were going to just skip it altogether.  Then around 4:30 that afternoon I saw a post on Face Book by someone about a local church doing a Fall Festival that had games, candy and prizes, food, jumping houses, petting zoo- the works- for FREE.  So an hour later we were there!

We had such a great time!  He had been to that building before for some other activities so he was ok with the environment.  There were some people in costumes but that wasn't the focus so he was fine to not be in one and there was little risk of him being visually set off by that.  And I love the look on his face in these pictures!

He was really good at the games and wait til you see the videos!  

 

Throwing a football

Picking a duck out of the pond for prizes (he was content to do this over and over and over again- not for the prizes but because he loves to watch water)

 

Baseball!

Angry Birds game- Daddy helped him pull back the slingshot and...

let it go to knock down the piggies!

a break for some sugar cinnamon donuts and apple cider

more games

Ok... this picture above- this was his face when he looked over and saw The Man in the Yellow Hat (from Curious George).  LOOK at his expression!!  He was in awe! I was not able to get a picture of the guy though due to the crowd and stuff but this was a priceless moment.

mmmmm..... cotton candy!  Mommy gets in on a little of that!

 

 

this first video.... Caelan struggles with balance, core strength, coordination/motor planning, and not to mention the whole vestibular piece that affects slides.  He wanted to go into this inflatable obstacle course so I went in with him.  I figured he would get to a certain point and turn around.  Which was more than fine- we always encourage and support whatever he wants to do in these areas.  But wait until you see this!!  And he did it THREE times!! (I was exhausted!!)  This was the final time we went through and I had Matt video it because this was a major, major accomplishment on many levels.  We were so thrilled! (we made copies for his therapists who were just as excited as us)  

And when he is at the top of the slide, you can hear him scream at one point (upset) but it was because I was trying to get myself situated and he was trying to get in my lap- he thought I was going to make him go down alone.  But obviously, he enjoyed it!

 

 

 video 2-  one thing he has always done well with is hand-eye coordination (when he focuses).  Anytime I set the tee up in the backyard, he has done well hitting the ball.  So here he is hitting the ball at the festival.  I love how he stops to tap the bat on the ground- he is so cute! 

Taking Advantage of "Pre-Snow" Days - October 2013

The playground down the road from us.... probably one of our last outings before getting blasted with FEET of snow and sub temps this winter.

 

 

Another one of those things that he has trouble with is slides- but here he is braving the little one!

more than once- yay!

Boo!

This one was a little (very slightly) bigger so he wanted me to go down with him.

He has gone down this big one with me last year... but no go this year!  He was content to watch the other kids on it or to pile mulch on the end.