Will In Action @ Art Class

Enjoy the video of Will painting a masterpiece with apples. And yes, he did attempt to eat it multiple times, but so did the other kids! What was the teacher thinking?!?

Oodles of Art!

Will is in a four-session art class through the rec dept. We debated signing him up for more structured activities after the fiasco that was the music class, but after many forgetful weeks of the hardships structured classes inflicted upon us, we signed him up for more, including music again later in the fall season!

As soon as we entered the room, we instantly regretted our decision. Again in a class of all girls, Will really stands out. Picture everyone else sitting in a little kid chair, listening to their families about the fun they will have, and now picture us chasing Will around the room trying to prevent him from escaping, opening and closing doors while other people are still trying to enter the room and opening and closing cabinets. Of course these actions are always followed by the defiant "EEEEE" at the top of his lungs! Ahhh...the joys of structure!

After the initial, "What are we doing here" wore off, Jordan instantly thought of a brillant plan! He went to my mom's and got Will's porta highchair so Will could be strapped in at all times! Not only did Will sit in place, but he actually participated in the activity for once! This chair will now accompany us whenever we go to classes! Yeah for the chair!!

Notice Will's "smock?" We didn't have an actual shirt that we wouldn't mind ruining with paint, etc, so we found the next best thing.

Will's masterpieces! This one is a tree painted from his hands and arm. The leaves are his fingerprints. He actually allowed us to rub cold paint up and down his hands and arm. Good thing he is getting Occupational Therapy since it paid off!

This one is made from apple halves and quarters. Stay tuned for a video of Will in action with this one!

Nieman's Apple Orchard

I just love fall! We went to Nieman's Apple Orchard in Cedarburg this past week with the Mom's Club. I was a little bit nervous to go since I didn't know what Will would do. Would he actually be interested in the apples or would he run up and down the aisles and I would not get to pick any apples? We decided to take the risk.

To my surprise, he loved it! He stayed near me for the most part, walking around up and down the aisle and around a few trees, but he always came back!

The hardest part was making sure he wasn't eating the apples that were already on the ground! It was really cute to see the other kids all eating apples at the same time. Half the fun of picking your own is eating them while you pick! We went with four other moms and five other kids. They all did great staying close and participating!

Will really liked the ladder. He learned how to grab and pull apples off the tree. It then immediately went into his mouth!

Yum Yum! His jacket was all full of juice dripping from the apples.

Notice all the little bite marks? He doesn't actually like to eat the red part. He takes bites and spits out the red skin until he eats solid white apple.

My favorite picture of the day. And no, it did not come from the ground :)
Now to make some yummy apple crisp!

Pictures of Will's day...

We are starting to have more scheduled activites with Will so he gets used to a routine, including taking pictures of the different things we do together and creating a picture schedule so he can learn more words and have a better understanding of what we are doing and when. It will also help us make more time for therapy lessons to help Will progress. We got this fabulous idea from Super Nanny Jo during an episode dealing with twin girls and a boy with Autism. We are pretty sure Will will have some level of Autism and are going to get him further evaluated since the Sensory Processing Disorder doesn't seem to cover all the little things we are noticing with Will.
Anyway, included in his new daily routine is working to learn the alphabet. It seems from our research, once kids learn the alphabet and the different sounds, they can progress leaps and bounds from when they didn't know it. This is the picture that will represent the alphabet lesson card. I love it since he is looking at the camera and had to share it! He is super at repeating A-G, with the exception of C and G. F he says like "Efck", but it counts. We are going to focus on one line at a time, and so far he is good at repeating all 26 letters on command, but has a harder time pronuncing some of them. He recognizes B and D! YEAH!

This will be his Bath picture! He actually gave me a smile :D Can you tell I am super excited?

This is not a particular picture for the schdule, but I love the M&Ms melted all over his face! Blue, green and brown are very tasty! I personally like to chew them right away, but Will LOVES to suck them. We both prefer the M&M Peanut Butter variety. I just had to throw this one in there!

This is my FAVORITE picture of probably the last several months! A genuine smile for the camera without us having to make fools out of ourselves to capture his attention! This melts my heart! It will also be his Breakfast picture. He looks so handsome in an Uncle Kevin shirt!

WI State Fair 2009

Well, I finally found my older camera which we prefer to use when photographing Will. It has a faster shutter so we get a little bit better pictures of Will since he never poses for the camera! I found our State Fair pictures, although there wasn't many. It was a rough day! We went opening day. It took us 40 minutes to drive to the right area and the line to exit the freeway took 45 minutes. Then we drove around for another hour looking for parking. When we finally found a spot, we had to walk for 10 minutes and then wait in line for another 10 minutes to get tickets. Will hit his quota for patience and good behavior before we even started to walk around. He also missed his nap. On top of all the general crankiness from the three of us, it was PACKED to the brim with people and it was a hot 85 degrees. I think we may skip it next year if this year was any indication to how it'll be next year! We have gone every year since we were married, but missed Will's first year since he was only a few days old. Here are the four pictures I took!

The Clydesdale Horse(s). They are so beautiful! They are my dad's favorite part of the fair!

The massive amount of people. There was hardly any walking room!

Will's first amusement park ride! The bumblebees moved up and down while going in a circle. Will liked it, but he was very tired and hot, so I think he could've liked it more under different circumstances!
Overall, I think we will try to go next year if we are still in WI, but maybe skip opening day! We did get some yummy cream puffs!

One Big Happy Family!

My brother Kevin and his wife came to visit for the weekend. It was a very nice short visit that felt like a long visit, but not in a negative way! We are sooo happy Kevin and Mary could come and be with the whole family during my dad's BMT. Will especially likes his Uncle Kevin. Uncle Kevin taught Will new games, including "toning the core" by balancing by sitting on a one of Will's gigantic balls, and "skim the ceiling" by throwing Will high in the air (since Uncle Kevin is very tall, Will almost hits it! When Kevin came for Will's first birthday, Will DID hit it!)

My sweet little guy!

Another cute picture Kevin took. Will was hamming it up a little while not looking directly at the camera at all.

This one is my favorite!

My sisters! Mary, me, Katie, Laura. I love having Mary around! The more we hang out, the more I love her! Move to TX instead of AZ!!

We had a nice time visiting my dad in the hospital and playing games. There were late nights talking and early mornings that weren't as fun! Looking forward to seeing you both in November!

The whole family! Jordan and me, Mom and Dad, Katie and Laura in front, Kevin and Mary in back. We never get a picture of all of us! This was right after my dad got his BMT. He is still feeling great. He is going to live above my Grandpa where we lived our first year of marriage. We had a LOT of cleaning to do, but we are almost done!