Holy Smokes! It's February already!

The last post I wrote was from before the holidays. They came and went so fast! Now it is almost March! Time goes by so much faster the older you get.

Gracie has been growing so much, physically AND developmentally. She was engaged during Christmas. She is waving Hi and Bye 95% of the time. She loved helping me decorate the trees! I think the trees were her favorite things. She took an interest in opening her presents.
She has been sleeping in her crib- with one side off to make it like a day bed. With the help of a gate she stays in her room all night. The last few months have been touch and go with sleeping. For every time she sleeps through the night, she goes 2 waking up at 3AM. But she is very proud of her new bed!

Her Favorite christmas presents were a new collection of gear toys that she loves and a picture of her favorite Quirky Quail ( that she found on one of her ABC games-That's what she is looking at here<)

the quirky quail

Her new passion is painting- herself.

She is picking up on her signing really well and starting to make vocalizations along with the signs. She tries to say Hi and mouth and nose and bubble and take off and so many other things. I wouldn't be surprised if her first words are about her favorite quirky quail.  "A quail is a Quirky bird"
We got a new addition to the family. Well, to our extended family. We got a chihuahua girl for Aunt Peewee and Uncle Roger. We didn't want to give her away because she is so sweet, but we did. ;( But we are going to steal her soon, like they used to steal Buca.

She likes to paint now, although she really prefers that her arms and hands be her canvas.

We have been experimenting with food and she has been accepting. No, she is not eating pizza or peanut butter and jelly, as her father wants her to. But we are doing chunkier textures, and she just started eating pastina this week. She pushes it down to the other side of the table but she lets me get it in her mouth!!!

She is going out more and doing things. We went to one of Joy's basketball games and she was great.
She made a new friend (above) at a birthday party, of a sort. Then, though , this weekend we had a setback when we went to a loud, busy restaurant to celebrate Aunt Peewee's birthday. To be fair, she was sick most of the week, so I didn't expect it to go that well.

I know it probably doesn't seem like much but she makes advancements every day. We are blessed with THE BEST team of therapists and councilors that we could get.
I will try to post more often because there is so much going on. Someday, I'll be able to right about her first words. We hope.

HEADING into the HOLIDAYS

 FINALLY, I have someone to help me with all our Christmas Trees! Yes, Trees. Currently we are up to 8 and 1/2.

Grace is really into decorating Christmas trees. When I got her own tree out of storage, she came running and headed right for the decorations. I let her put them all on, with just a few redirection..She really seems to get involved with them. She helped me put Chris' up in his office too. She tried to bring a big box of ornaments for it without me telling her to. She is really listening to commands and understanding most of what we want her to do, Most times she listens better than her sister.

The other day Gracie was imitating her therapist, Nina, and I came in and said Hi to her and she imitated Me and said HI and waved at the same time. I have a witness! Nina confirmed it!

SHE REALLY IS ONE OF A KIND!

A week without power and water.

this is how Last week ended and...

then this was how this weekend ended. I guess there are alot of clean, empty fridges out there.

I am starting to not like Halloween.
Last year there was snow and no power for 3 days. This year there was wind and rain and no power for 5 days.

In all honesty, we weren't as bad off as other people even though we didn't have power from monday nite to this past Saturday. We had a warm place to stay at least. The picture below was the view outside Gracie's room. A tree fell and was caught by two other trees. It could have been much worse.

 Most of the week was spent in our bedroom as we had a propane fireplace. Grace was so good through out the entire week. She took all the change like a champ! No tantrums. When she did get cranky we brought out the ipad and she played till it was time to go to bed. She did a whole lot better than the rest of us, especially Tasha!

Great Grades.

My little sorceress got grade grades for the first quarter at school! She even brought up her math with a knockout punch quiz and test A and A-!! You go girl!

Waiting out the storm.

While Hurricane Sandy blows outside I am going to take the time to write about trick or treat weekend. What's up with these Halloween Storms anyway? Last year it snowed. This year it's the mother of all storms?
Anyway. I took Gracie to Bounce U on Friday with TSS Nina and she loved it. It took her just one time, being a little afraid , to go down the big slide and then she was hooked! She tried everything!
The problem was I wore her out for the day. She didn't have a nap and we went around the neighborhood for trick or treating that night. She didn't get too far. After the 3rd house, she kind of had a meltdown. It was my fault. She did much better up at Pappy Angelo's trick or treat on Sunday though.

TRICK  OR TREATING WITH COUSIN SAVANNAH

 At Pappy's she actually grabbed her bucket when it was time to go and headed out without any complaint and then she didn't even need her blanky while we were going door to door!!
While we were at Pap's Grace found a toy cat he had that made noises and she mimicked a MEOW!
She is imitating alot more actions and she is comprehending when you tell her to do things.

Halloween festivities.

Even though Hellertown's council is trying to take Halloween out of the Halloween parade, we decided to carry on with our HALLOWEEN TRADITIONS this year.
Grace had a great weekend. We went to a pumpkin patch on Saturday and she was super. She and I waited for Dad , Joy and Savannah to get out of the corn maze for about an hour and she had a good time. She put beads on a bracelet all by herself; she petted the goats and wanted to touch the chickens; and she got a pony ride. When we ran out of activities we sat and did stickers!

If she was great on Saturday, she was awesome on Sunday at the Halloween Parade. She came out of her shell and sat on the curb with Chris and other kids! She even went to pick up the candy when Chris told her to! She decided she liked a little orange spider ring so much she walked over to get another one. She liked the bands and didn't really mind the fire trucks.

She had her cousin Savannah with her so I think that helped. Savannah loves Gracie and loves to be with Gracie and Gracie loves her back. 

Waiting.

We took Gracie to an open house at Equi-Librium in Stroudsburg today. They use horses to help kids and adults with special needs.
They had just started demos with their riders when we got there. Once Grace saw what was going on, I knew she wanted to ride, but we couldn't because of the demos. I was waiting for a meltdown but it never came she allowed me to redirect her for a while . Then finally they resumed the ride and luckily they took her first. She just loves it. She was giving me the sign for walk that she learned at Advent. Then at the end of the ride, she gave the sign for more. So I talked Chris into another ride and she put her helmet on and waited for 7-10 minutes , quietly !!!!!!!!!! Who is this little girl?!? She was awesome!!!

Forward.

 Since we started ABA therapy on August 27, Gracie has made so many advancements. I am going to try to wrtie down some of them for posterity.
-She now communicates with some signs. She signs "more" and adds signs for what she wants to do.
She made up her own sign for "around"- she signs for bounce- jump- shoes- open- swing- . Plus she makes complex signs by using "more" with her other signs. She is getting good at telling us what she wants.
She points. This may not seem like a big thing but for autistic kids , it is huge.
She listens and waits for READY< SET< GO.
She goes down the GIANT SLIDE all by herself.
Her eye contact is wonderful. She is attending to projects for 15-20 minutes at times.
She is starting to mimic things that people do.
She is making a wide array of sounds. Uh, nah, mah, ng, nyah, mm, and is starting to apporoximate sounds with syllables.
She actually said MOM with the m on the end, twice.

This week, I was writing out a project that Joy and I did. She came over to the table and tried to take my pencil so I got her paper and crayons. I looked over and she was drawing semi-straight lines down the paper. I almost fell over. I had to get the phone and make a video of it and sent it out to her therapists. Again, this may not seem like a  big deal but for Grace it is huge. She normally makes circle scribbles but she sat down and made those deliberate motions ALL BY HERSELF.

 She is feeding herself. She really likes vanilla bean yogurt. She still has a texture problem but she is much more open to experimenting. She stuck her tongue out to LICK A COOKIE yesterday!!!!!
Grace has had great therapists since we started therapies. Now she has 4 great ladies that work with her during the week. 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon and the consultants that they work with. Each of these ladies ;Rachelle, Norma, Nina, Megin, Heather, and Melissa; they all have amazing patience and truly love to help Grace to learn. We are very grateful to have them to help Gracie on her long road.  I appreciate them EVERY day.

Making cookies with mom and Miss Nina

Back on her swing with Miss Megin

All this play is hard work.

Snuggling with mom.

Stickerification*

This is how we start,

 Its' almost like a makeover.
She is so serious as she puts the stickers on. But each time she puts them on my nose, she laughs!
Whenever I need to keep her awake, we get the stickers out. Or if she feels the  creative urge, I guess.

* Stickerification- n. - the act of rendering something more beauteous by apply stickers in a strategic formation.

Stickerfied- adj. - having been subjected to the art of stickerfication- willfully
or otherwise.

THe Stickerer.

The Stickee.

THE FINAL PRODUCT