Week 84

Thanksgiving!  For most people it is getting on the cozy pants and eating as much as possible.  For Ryan it is a good time but it does take planning to be sure that we have food that he can eat.  Since he has been on the diet for almost 2 years, he does not get too upset that he has to eat different things. However, we have made great strides in finding different foods that he can eat.  We found rolls, that taste like rolls, making sure that there is a separate baked potato, and cupcakes for dessert.  He did cheat a little but it was only for a spoonful of mashed potatoes.  He had a great time with his cousins and below is a picture of the kids excited to open a gift from Dawn and find their own personalized notebook.

 


Stacy's and Arnold's Wedding.

This weekend we also attended a wedding.  We were a little nervous about how Ryan was going be since he was not in the wedding and Julia was the flower girl.  However, he did great and was thrilled that he was able to ride in the limo with his sister and the bridal party from the church to the reception.  Below are a few pictures of the day.

Family picture outside the Church

Drawing at the reception  

Getting Ready for Christmas!   

Decorating the Barbie Tree

Setting up the Train!

As a side note, Ryan has been acting more and more independent over these past few months wanting to do things on his own.  So today we were upstairs and Ryan wanted to play in the living room.  The train that is in the picture above comes with all of the characters from the "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" Holiday special.  When we came down later Dawn noticed that Ryan had white all over his hands.  When Dawn pressed him as to what happened and why he had white all over his hands, Ryan did not answer.  So Dawn went to the office and noticed that the whiteout bottle was opened.  Dawn kept asking Ryan what happened and finally Ryan went to one of the cabinets and took out one of the plastic train characters.  He broke the hand off and tried to fix it with what he thought was glue!  He actually did a god job but we have to teach him to do a little better job on cleaning up the evidence! We all had a good chuckle!

PC

Week 63

Ryan had a great Fourth of July weekend!  Let's start with the brownies.  There are lots of GF, and even many GFCF brownie recipes and box mixes out there, but it is not always easy to find an egg free mix.  Cherrybrook Kitchen makes a GFCF egg free brownie mix.  It's an okay tasting brownie, but the best part is that it is easy to make.  It doesn't call for a lot of ingredients and it is convenient in a pinch.  Making a recipe from scratch may give better tasting results, but Ryan really seems to enjoy these!



For his PARC graduation Ryan received a Melissa and Doug wooden train to paint from grandma.  He's asked several times and it was never a good time to take out the paints and work on this project with Ryan.  But this week we finally had an opportunity to work on it.  He sat with me for about an hour gluing the wheels on the axel, painting the train, and putting on the decals.  Ryan did most of it by himself.  He was patient and he tried really hard to do a good job.  He looked at the picture on the box and wanted his train to look exactly the same. 



So proud of the finished product!



Video:  Ryan's train

Ryan and Julia checking out the tent at papa's house

roasting marshmallows





Ryan having fun in the pool with his family





This week Ryan also went to camp at Noah's Ark for four days.  Besides swimming both morning and afternoon Ryan participated in lots of other activities.  Here are some pictures that were posted by the staff at Noah's Ark.

Ryan making pretzels with Ms. Jessie

Yes, he's petting a snake!



The class made smores one day.  Ryan couldn't eat the chocolate and graham crackers but he still looks so happy with his friends and content just eating the marshmallow.

I'll end with a quote that I just read on the Autism Speaks Facebook page:

"To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone." -Reba McEntire


DC