Apple onesie and chevron tutu for my baby girl’s first birthday…

I’ve had this idea for a few months now of what to make for my baby girl to wear for her first birthday, and with the deadline of our road trip quickly approaching—I finally got it done!!  It turned out to be easier than I thought!!

I bought a white onesie from Hobby Lobby and some red chiffon rose trim.  I also found red tulle and red and white polka dot elastic for the tutu. 

I already had red and white chevron fabric and some dark red striped fabric so I cut them into strips with pinking shears.  Then I cut the same size of tulle and pinned around the elastic.  I just straight stitched it onto the elastic and it was done!!  Soooo easy:)

For the apple onesie, I put a thick piece of white felt on the inside of the onesie and then started pinning the chiffon rose trim to the front—laying it out in the shape of an apple.  I did the outside border of the apple and then just wrapped it around the inside until there was no white left showing.  I pinned the chiffon trim to the onesie and felt so when I went to sew it, it would sew through the felt underneath.  I envisioned hand sewing this to make sure it looked alright—but I ended up just carefully sewing on the netting of the chiffon trim with invisible thread and it turned out great!!  I added a lime green fabric rectangle for the stem and cut the edge with pinking shears.

For my baby girl’s headband, I wanted a shabby chic kind of look so I mixed two chiffon roses I had left over with a chevron, red and white fabric wrapped rose that I hand stitched.  I also hand stitched a lime green leaf accent and the diamond accent to the headband with a piece of felt underneath to keep it soft next to  her head.

I am so happy with the way it turned out, and it was perfect for my sweet apple baby’s first birthday pictures!!

 

Happy Birthday sweet girl!!

 

I am linking to the following parties!

Happy Anniversary….14 years

I can’t believe it has been fourteen years since we got married—but then again, it feels like we’ve been together forever.

I used to hear people talk about how there was one perfect guy out there that was meant to be the one they were to marry.  Call me a cynic, or crazy, or just a pessimist or whatever—but I couldn’t grasp that!!  I kept thinking about my favorite love stories like An Affair to Remember, and thinking—WAIT a minute, what if I miss meeting that certain someone, or he gets in an accident, or lives in a different country….you get it…

But after being married to my husband for fourteen years, after all the crazy trials we’ve endured and the mind-boggling journey of raising a child with Autsim—I can say that my husband was the perfect match for me.  Poor guy!!!  Who else would not only deal with the trials, but make furniture or help me with any of my crazy projects???  That is true love.

Thanks for sticking it out with me honey!! I love you!!

Sew and Show Saturday—#11. Flag quilt…

One of the great things about visiting my mom, is I can show off some more of her great quilts!!

This Flag of Valor quilt from Moda is beautiful and such a wonderful piece for summer decorating!!

The machine quilting on this one is just as pretty with the intricate star patterns that were incorporated with a meandering floral design…

I could have this hanging up all summer—sew pretty!!

Cousin carnival!!!

The moment I saw this cousin carnival on Pinterest, I knew I wanted to do this with my husband’s side of the family this summer!!  My sister-in-law’s reaction was classic, “OH NO!! (groan), really??”  But she backed me up after I explained to her that it wasn’t all about my love of a good party;), but it actually was a great backdrop for Justin to be comfortable around a crowd of people he hadn’t seen in years.  That’s all it took, and she was in!!

We are the only family not living in the same state as my husband’s family—go ahead, call us the outcasts, we don’t mind!!  This meant my fabulous sister-in-laws did most of the work in getting this ready (you are awesome Krista!!).  We adapted games from the carnival post from Pinterest and then made up some of our own.

There was a bubble station full of all sorts of fun bubble stuff including a homemade, giant bubble maker!!  And there were party favors at all the tables for prizes.

Then there was a ring toss to win a bottle of soda…

My husband’s sister and kids made a bean bag toss and bean bags—how’s that for crafty relatives!!  They weren’t able to come, but still wanted to contribute to the fun—so sweet!

The ball toss through the inflatable tubes was a big hit for Justin…in his own way;)

And we also had a shaving cream table and toys for the kids to run through the cream—this is one of Justin’s favorite therapy activities and he wouldn’t touch it at the carnival!!!  Sometimes the best laid plans…

but everyone else loved it!

I can’t describe how memorable this was for all of us—even with Mr. Justin resisting the games, he happily played iPad games and schemed stealing cupcakes:) and he didn’t have any meltdowns!!  The boy cousins liked watching him play the iPad, and he didn’t mind letting them!!

I don’t think we needed a carnival to have a good time with our family, but there’s something wonderful about planning something together and being united in any kind of cause where you can serve each other—it just brings a wonderful spirit of bonding to any event.  Priceless!!

How to talk to kids about Autism…the triumphant Cub Scout story

I was so excited when Justin turned eight years old last year because it meant he could be a cub scout!!  I went out and bought him a full uniform—all the time hearing a voice in the back of my mind saying, “yeah, you can give it a try, but it’s probably not going to work.”  I hoped that voice wasn’t true, but past experiences at church had proven disastrous.

Within a week I got an email from the cub master asking my husband and me if we would speak at the next Pack Meeting which was going to focus on Special Needs and if we could introduce Autism and Justin to the pack.  What a great idea!!  I really hadn’t thought of doing something like that since Justin “went” to church with these same boys—but he really didn’t stay at church when he was there so a lot of these boys might not really understand why that is hard for Justin.  I told him we would, to which my husband said, “you know that means it is just you, right?  You’ll do a great job, and I won’t say it like you.  I’ll watch Justin while you talk.”

I started searching on the Internet to see if there were some good explanations of Autism for kids and after a very long search and not knowing where to even begin with my introduction, I found this website.  This mom did a great job of explaining autism in a way that kids could understand.  I used her example of “pins and needles” to explain sensory issues for Justin and then came up with some other things on my own that related specifically to Justin.

The pack meeting went really well and I was really surprised how many adults told me later that there kids brought up other kids they knew who must have had Autism like Justin too!!

Before we drove out to our family reunion, I sent my cub scout autism introduction talk to my husband’s family (who some of them had never met Justin, and others it had been over 3 years) so they could share it with their kids and talk Autism before we got there.  I think it helped prepare them and it never ceases to amaze me how team oriented kids can be for a good cause!!  They were so accepting of Justin!!

I have decided to post my introduction in case it benefits anyone else in understanding Autism.  I am in no way proclaiming to be an expert in Autism, or explaining it…I’ve just had many wonderful conversations about Autism from sharing this introduction:)

We are so excited to be here tonight for Justin’s first Pack Meeting. As Justin’s parents, we were given the opportunity to spotlight him so that everyone can get to know him a little better.

How many of you have ever broken your arm or leg and had to wear a cast? And for those who haven’t personally broken an arm or leg, you probably know someone who has, right? And you know just by looking at someone with a cast that there are certain limitations or things that they can’t do. You can’t go swimming when you have a cast, right? And can someone with a cast on their leg run a race?? Well, they might not be able to run a race, but they could walk the race, couldn’t they?? They’d just have to go a little bit slower to finish. I’m going to talk to you about some of Justin’s limitations that you can’t see like a cast, because it affects how his brain reacts to situations.

Justin has something called Autism. How many of you have heard the word Autism before??Autism is a condition that makes Justin’s brain react differently than other people his own age. When you look at Justin, he looks just like any other boy his age on the outside, and it would probably take you a few minutes to realize that he’s a little bit different because of his Autism. I’m going to tell you a little bit about how we found out Justin had Autism because it’s not something that he was born with, and it’s not something that you can “catch” from someone like a cold, or strep throat. It’s not contagious.

I bet a lot of you can’t remember some of the things you did when you were a baby, but I bet they were similar to the things that Justin did as a baby. He used to play peek-a-boo, and loved playing with all different kinds of toys, and loved making baby noises. Just before Justin turned two years old, he started to play differently and he didn’t want to look at us anymore or play peek-a-boo, and he started to cry more, and not try to talk any more, and he just seemed really frustrated. We took him to some doctors to try to find out what was wrong, and eventually we found out he had Autism.

There is a really important part of our brain that helps control our reactions to situations and this special part of Justin’s brain just doesn’t work quite right. I’m going to share with you some examples of how this makes Justin feel inside.

Here’s the first example: When you are sitting at school and you are in the middle of taking test, your brain does a wonderful thing in that it will help you not focus on the sounds of your breathing, or the ticking of the clock on the wall, or the sound of the air-conditioning blowing in the room—it helps tune all of that out and lets you concentrate on your test. You probably don’t even think about those other things going on around you because that’s how well your brain is helping you focus on your test!! For Justin, his brain doesn’t know what things are most important to focus on, and so he might hear the clock so loud that it sounds to him like he is in a football stadium with the loud speaker blaring!! Because of that sensitivity to noises, Justin will plug his ears a lot to tune noises out, or just in anticipating that there is more noise coming. That is also one of the reasons why if you walk up to Justin and try talking to him, he might walk right past you. It doesn’t mean you are bothering him, or that he doesn’t like you, but it just means that his brain isn’t letting him focus right then. He does this to me, and his dad and siblings all the time, and we just keep trying to talk to him because you might be surprised that the very next time you talk to him he will make eye contact and interact with you.

Here’s the second example: Have any of you ever sat for a long time or laid funny when you went to sleep and had your arms or legs fall asleep?? Have you ever had that “pins and needles” feeling?? Your brain sends you a message when that happens, to get up and walk around or shake your arms and get the blood flowing again. Justin’s brain is different, in that it sends him messages all day long that he has that “pins and needles” feeling all over his body. Sometimes, he even feels it in his head. So how does Justin handle that message?? When Justin feels that funny feeling, he has to get up and move around to try to get rid of it. That’s why sometimes at church I bet you’ve seen Justin’s dad walking him around the chapel, he does this to help Justin get rid of that feeling so he can come sit down again.

The other most frustrating challenge for Justin is that his brain forms sentences to talk, but it won’t tell his mouth how to form to say the words. So he physically can’t make his mouth say what his mind wants to say. I can imagine that Justin has a lot of things he would like to say to us!  Sometimes he gets so frustrated that he cries. You don’t have to worry when Justin cries because his dad will be with him and do whatever he can to quickly make him happy again so he’s not frustrated. Justin does have a new iPad program that helps him talk and I’m sure he and his dad would love to show it to you.  This helps Justin not be so frustrated.

Even though Justin’s brain doesn’t send him the right signals to react to different situations, we try to help train his brain so that it can learn to react better. Justin goes to a special clinic everyday where he has a therapist with him all the time teaching him different ways to cope with situations and react appropriately. He spends 6 hours a day doing this, just like you all spend 6 hours a day learning at school. Justin won’t ever grow out of his Autism, it is something he will have to cope with his whole life, but we as his parents and with the help of his therapists have great hope for him that he will be able to be happy and be able to go to his Primary class someday and not be frustrated, and go to school again someday. Justin starting cub scouts is a great opportunity for him to learn how to react to things in a really fun environment, because I know you all have a great time in cub scouts. He will have his dad with him to help teach him what to do, and we know that he will love making friends with all of you and interacting with you. How many of you like cars? Justin does too and he is going to love the pinewood derby! He loves making things with his hands.

We know that as you welcome Justin to your troop, you will get to know his infectious personality that we have been so blessed with in our family, and that you will love him like we do.

I have to admit that the day of the Pack Meeting I had a little cry-fest with my sister-in-law.  She has four typical boys, and she is a huge support to me!  I was so worried about saying the right things that night, and she let me read it to her over the phone and helped me with editing—Thanks Elaina!!

Scouting has been a success for us and I will never forget the kindness of the boys in Justin’s troop.