5/15 - A Lawn Maze & Both boys at Therapy

We are living up the last few days of our grass mazes right now. Here are pictures that were taken almost 2 weeks ago so you can imagine how high/good the grass and mazes are right now. The boys (and I) have had so much fun running around in them. We plan to mow it all down tomorrow and then let it grow again over the next 2 weeks and then make more mazes for Aiden's birthday party.

After some outdoor time in the maze, we came inside and did some sensory painting. I mixed shaving cream with some tempera paint. I got out cookie trays for the boys to play on and then I found some cars to play with as well. At first they just played with the cars and making paths on the cookie sheet for them. After a bit, I added the colored shaving cream. Aiden did play which was great although he did not get any shaving cream on his hands. Eli had fun and didn't mind getting "dirty" as long as he could rinse them off and then dry them off. They had a great time. I'm determined to eventually have Aiden touch the shaving cream but we will work up to that I guess.

We were grateful to have the opportunity for Eli to go to Aiden's therapy last week. Eli has never been to Aiden's therapy here in Alabama and I really wanted him to see what it was like. They were both super excited for about 1.5 weeks leading up to the day. It was so important to them that I woke-up at 5:30am (eastern time) to drive 6.5 hr and met Brad straight at the location of therapy in Montgomery. There was no way I was going to miss this (and potentially cancel the appointment if I wasn't back in time). 

We got there and right away, Eli just wanted to run around and play. He quickly learned that is not how things work at therapy. Mrs. Rusty set up an obstacle course for them. I took it for granted that Eli has not experienced some things like a ball pit. Part of the obstacle course was standing in a ball pit and Eli was quite scared that he was just going to drown in all the balls. 

Eli got tired of doing the obstacle course and wanted to "play." I wasn't sure what he meant by that but I feel like I have watched Mrs. Rusty enough to know I could figure out how to make whatever he wanted to "play" with as part of something to do with therapy. We did lots of different things. He really liked the reacher thing (see directly below this text, top row). He grabbed those crabs and put them up on the platform and then put them down and then back up. He kept switching between his right and left hand. I was surprised he had the strength to do it but he was more accurate with his left hand than his right hand. 

Overall, Eli had a blast. He definitely learned that therapy is not doing just fun things and that he has to do things he doesn't like to. I think this helps because Eli realizes Aiden doesn't get to go and play all during his therapy time. 

10/9 - Therapy & the Fair!

It's been a bit since I've updated because I need to transfer pictures off my computer to make room for more and that takes a little while to do. Aiden is finally back in therapy and has done really well!! I'm excited with his progress. Ms. Rusty, his new occupational therapist, is quite awesome. She's really good with him and gets him to do stuff that he won't do for me. Last week, she had Aiden draw a bear. I didn't think he'd be able to do it but he copied her pretty well and made his own bear. See how he is up on his knees? He doesn't like to kneel like that (he'd rather put his bottom down to his feet and sit on them) but it helps make him stronger.

He just made the bear a hand...

Now she is teaching him how to draw a fish.

After they finished drawing their bears with fish, Aiden had to play the bears a song on the iPad using just his fingers (not moving his entire forearm).

The crawled over to the bears and were trying to get the fish some water using a squirt gun. It was a neat idea/story to incorporate a bunch of different therapy things.

Grandma and Grandpa Hoyt went home about 1.5 weeks ago. We really enjoyed visiting with them! Here is a picture with the boys the night that they left.

The boys are enjoying their new swing set. We have to be careful going out at night because Aiden and I get lots of bites. The boys were doing mazes outside last week. Aiden wanted to sit on the table on the swing set to do his. Eli didn't like sitting at the table because the seat was farther away than he would like.

Aiden is actually really good at mazes. I've printed a bunch of mazes out and laminated them so he can use them numerous times. I even have a few really easy ones for Eli. It's great therapy for motor control and writing and I would have never thought that until Ms. Lisa (his therapist in Jax) gave some to him.

Here is little Eli doing his. I tried correcting his grasp but he doesn't like that and starts crying. I (and his former therapist) worked on that for months with Aiden and just in the last couple weeks has he started to use a regular grasp of marker. Aiden still likes to use his whole forearm to draw/color but we are working on getting that stronger. Eli cracks me up in this picture because he's actually resting his elbow on his leg so he doesn't have to move his whole arm. They are complete opposites!

Eli found a tape measure in the toy bin in the car (I have no idea how it ended up in there) and brought it inside. He said it was his snake and carried it around for a while. I've already told these boys that they will never have a real pet snake in the same house as me. :)

These two boys love to play with each other and one of their favorite games is Puppy. That's right. They act like dogs and love it. Aiden made Eli, the puppy, a bed by emptying out everything in this storage box and putting Eli's blankets in it.  

I brought blocks to Cubbies last week and had to go pick them up this week from another leader's house. I brought them home and the boys really wanted to play with them. That's funny considering they never usually want to play with them. Aiden is building a little city with all his blocks.

Eli wasn't as interested as building with the blocks than he was with playing with the wood-shaped automobiles.

I've been more diligent lately about working with Aiden doing some of his therapy stuff. I'm in the process of making a new section in his notebooks with all the different things he can do for therapy so that when we put our schedules together, he can choose what kind of therapy he wants to do. My goal is for him to do one therapy activity at least once a day but have 2-3 days where he does a couple different activities. I'll take a picture of it when I finish the book. Below, Aiden and Eli are painting while Skyping with Nana. Aiden actually painted 2 pictures (I drew things/shapes on the paper in pencil so he had an outline), did an entire Snip It picture (I'll show some pictures of that in a few days) which was hard for him, and even did his putty for a little bit. He then said he was really tired and I don't blame him. He did a great job. Eli painted a picture too and enjoyed it. He was all done with therapy stuff (no he's not in therapy) and wanted to play Meatball (a made-up game in which you throw a balled up blanket at someone and yell "meatball") with his dad.

Aiden had been telling me he wanted to be a parrot for Halloween. I started looking up parrots costumes to see how I could make one. I then asked Eli if he wanted to be pirate since they kind of go together. Eli was excited and said yes so I went to the dollar store and bought a hat, mini sword, eye patch, and gold coins for $2. Aiden liked it so much he said he wanted to be a pirate too. Needless to say, Halloween costumes are all planned out now.

On Friday afternoon, Brad and I picked the boys up and headed to the fair. The local fair in Prattville didn't open until 6pm so we drove over to the Montgomery county fair which opened at 4:00pm. We walked around for a while and showed the boys the different rides. We were not sure how the rides would go because Aiden didn't care for them much when we went to Disney a few months ago. Wristbands for unlimited rides were $30 each and we weren't willing to dish that out not knowing if they would even like them. That said, we bought 24 tickets for $20. We headed up to the first ride the boys wanted to try not even thinking Eli might not even be able to do the kiddie rides without and adult. Thankfully, he measured in right at 36 inches so he was able to go on by himself/with Aiden (Brad and I didn't have to waste tickets for us to go on the ride).

Wow. These boys LOVED the rides. I knew Eli would because he's a thrill junky. I wasn't sure about Aiden.

After a few trips around on the motorcycles, the ride ended and Eli started to get upset and asked for "more." It was too cute. We told him he could pick another ride. The boys chose these SUV trucks as their next ride. They each wanted to drive their own which was fine because it was not busy at all (it was the first day of the fair and the rides had just opened at 5pm).

These pictures of Aiden enjoying the ride so much just melt my heart. We don't get to see him this happy very often, especially on a ride or something that moves.

This one is a little blurry but the look on his face is equivalent to most people's toothy smile; he's loving it.

As I mentioned, Eli is a thrill junky and I knew he would have fun. I'm glad they enjoyed doing rides together this year because as soon as Eli is tall enough for the crazy rides, he'll be on those. The whole family can get wristbands then and Aiden and I can do fun houses and little rides and Eli and daddy can go on the zipper, graviton, scrambler, and other rides that turn my stomach upside down.

We did go to one fun house. I used to LOVE fun houses. This one was pretty neat but Eli got a little scared at one point because he had to climb a huge ladder rope. He was scared and starting crying. We told Aiden to go back and get him and he tried. Thankfully, the woman working the ride/taking the tickets, jumped over a banister and helped him all the way up. He was good to go from there. Thankfully, Aiden waited for Eli at each section of the fun house (what a sweet brother). It ended with this HUGE slide. I wasn't so sure they were going to do it but once they got on there, they actually didn't move that fast. 

The boys really wanted to ride a kiddie roller coaster but the little one was closed down. They had a slightly bigger one that they wanted to go on but they were not tall enough. They were sad but there was nothing we could do. We told them they each had enough tickets left for one ride. We walked around and got some cotton candy while they decided on what the last ride would be.

Here they are standing in line with their tickets, staring at the roller coaster they weren't tall enough to go on. They chose these balloons for their last ride. They went up and down while going in a big circle and it was a perfect last ride for them.

Here they are just sitting down.

For as much as they enjoyed the rides and wanted to keep riding, I was surprised that when this ride was over, they didn't complain, cry, or meltdown that it was their last ride for the night. I told them we will definitely go to the fair next time it's in town. I wanted to make sure we got a family picture. Aiden didn't really want to because he was so tired. I look like I have blue teeth from sneaking a few bites of the blue cotton candy. :)

We had a great time at the fair and I am so glad we were able to go as a family. Last year, I took the boys but Brad was gone so we didn't do any rides (Eli was way too little and there was no way Aiden would go on a ride by himself) so I promised Aiden we would do rides when daddy could come with us. Promise fulfilled. I'll be posting again shortly since I have room for pictures now on my computer. We had a fun day on Saturday too at their daycare family picnic and Aiden had another successful therapy visit today. Cheers from the Hoyt Family.