Are You Ready For Some [Arena] Football?

Monday night we had a fun time with our friends, Steve and Becky and their kiddos, Cade (who is Benjamin's buddy) and Miss Gracyn (adorable!). Our evening was filled with BBQ and a wild game of Arena Football! Becky and I definitely appreciated that Arena Football is a lot faster-moving than regular football, the clock doesn't stop quite as much! It was pretty entertaining to watch, too, especially with a very overly-animated announcer who had us cracking up.
Our county has a team called the Cen-Tex Baracudas that call Belton home.
It was an action-packed evening of fun and trying-to-talk-over-the-hilariously-loud announcer.
Jonathan really enjoyed "boogie-ing down" to all of the crazy music they played. He was a hoot to watch. The boy definitely has rythym and knows when to strut his stuff.
Benjamin and Cade really took it all in, too! Everyone was pretty worn out by half-time, so we headed home to tuck 'em all in.
Fun times with fun friends.

The boys side of the row...taking it all in.

TOUCHDOWN!

Could she be any cuter?

Benjamin and Cade checking out the beverage line-up.

There really were other people at this game, our tickets were just one of the last rows filled! This is our bunch (I'm behind the camera!).

Today's funday was a little more run-of-the-mill than we think we'll
normally do, but Jonathan has a little cold virus thingy so we didn't
want to wear him out. The really fun part was that we were able to
spend a little time with Daddy, too. We brought lunch up to David and
hung out at the school for awhile. Since school let out Wednesday, a
lot of the building was empty-- even the gym! So we (they) played
basketball and ran (crawled) off some serious energy.

We took the following photo of Jonathan at David's desk:

And it looked amazingly familiar to one from a few years ago (anyone recognize this crazy kid?):

We stopped by the library on the way home to sign Benjamin up for their Summer Reading Rewards Program which involves a pizza party, a swimming party and a treasure chest of prizes. Oh, and reading. We went home and Jonathan slept the afternoon away. Benjamin and I made banana bread since Benjamin is becoming a non-napper. I watch Food Network fairly often during naptime (huge Paula Deen and Robin Miller fan), and I think Benjamin is now enjoying it, too. We filmed his very own cooking show clip while making our banana bread. Just to clarify, there are a few more ingredients than bananas, flour and sugar in this recipe. In fact, I'll put the recipe at the end of the post. It is the EASIEST banana bread recipe I have ever seen and great for preschool-aged kiddos to help with. Benjamin loves "smooshing" the bananas. It's also quite moist!

The Next Food Network Star:


And that wraps up #2 in our Family Fun Friday series. I changed the name to add family. After thinking about it, our summer is basically full of fun days with play groups and play dates, swimming lessons in July (thanks, Miss Jennifer!), and various other activities. I wanted to make Fridays just about family time. We also found out that we were mistaken in thinking that David was only off Fridays in July...this rings true for June, too (starting the 13th)! So, it will truly be a family day! Fun stuff. Have a great weekend!

Benjamin's Banana Bread (it is shamefully easy!)
3 ripe bananas
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. butter, melted
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped
Mash bananas with fork or potato masher. Stir in all ingredients. Pour in greased loaf pan. Bake one hour in preheated 325 degree oven. Could it get an simpler?

Some Love for Camp Hope

I wasn't going to blog about this, but blogging has truly become a place to store memories as well as other info. I just wanted to recap today's therapy sessions so I would remember some of the cool things we did and maybe I can start implementing a lot of them at home.
We had a different PT this time, her name was Rebecca. She was nice and will be our PT from here on out. It took Benjamin a little bit to warm up to her. It was probably because she kept calling him Ben (even after asking me several times what he went by!). This really doesn't bother me when people do this, it is so commoon. And it would seem logical that he would go by Ben; we just have never done that. No reason. And if you have ever called him that, don't worry! I just think that folks think he is being rude when he doesn't respond. He's not. He just doesn't have a clue who this Ben guy is. He may very well decide to go by that one day.
Shanna was our OT again. Man, I really do like her. Benjamin does, too. It is pretty obvious that she really "gets" him and how to work with him. She picks up on very subtle things, too, that he does. She also takes extra time to explain to me why she is doing something with him and how to do it in case I want to try it at home.
Today he worked on balance (on the big square swing and sitting on an excercise ball), kicking a ball with his left foot (he very strongly prefers to kick with his right, to the point that he almost can't kick with his left), jumping, riding a special trike (we get to take one home for keeps soon--so cool!), lots of muscle-strengthening for his hands including cutting a straw while holding the scissors a certain way, finding coins buried in thera-putty and various other things.
In our home in Muleshoe, we had two old vintage-y school desks put together in the living area to form a sort of kids' table off to the side. I really miss this. I have now used these desks in each of the boys' rooms as a bedside table and don't really want to change that...but I just might! I think it would be good to have a small activity area in our living room again. I tried to avoid this like the plague in this house since we have a playroom, but I'm warming up to the practical side of it. I'm thinking about getting B his own excercise ball here at home to sit on and work on some of his therapy stuff and color in his coloring books (that kid will color around the clock-- maybe not very well, but he sure loves to do it!!). He loved sitting on the ball and Shanna explained how incredibly helpful it is.
That's all I know. I just wanted to get it down "on paper" before I forgot anything.

Good Times with Good Friends

It is such a treat to get to see old friends. Okay, not old, but friends who you have known for quite awhile. (Now that I'm in my thirties, that old word has a different conotation.) Our friends Jami and Jason are following their hometown team to the playoffs in Austin and we were able to spend a little time together yesterday. It just feels good to see them. It always does. They are one of those families that we painfully miss from our Abilene time. I remember when they came to visit us in Muleshoe a few years ago. We were sitting next to them at church and hearing their beautiful singing voices really got to me and David. Sweet, sweet people.
It's strange now how, literally, EVERYTHING has changed. David has known the Wests a bit longer than I have, but when we were all in Abilene, none of us had kiddos yet and both Jami and I worked for ACU at the time. Now here we are, five years, four kids and three big moves later. But we picked up just where we left off and had a great time.
Love you guys. (Go, Tigers, Go!)

Our First KISD ARD

Being married to a school administrator, I have heard the word ARD a lot. It is a meeting to assess a special needs student in terms of progress, etc.. It stands for Admission, Review and Dismissal. It is funny how we found ourselves "on the other side of the table" at this morning's meeting and it was a whole new ballgame.
It is sort of strange to sit in a room of eight people and discuss your child in a formal meeting. These people have spent a lot of time and energy reviewing Benjamin and assessing him. It was quite a process. I am so thankful to those of you who steered us in the school direction, because we will be utilizing their services starting in August. More on that in a bit.
First of all, it was a little bit of a different outcome than we expected. For one thing, Benjamin is now officially classified in KISD on the Autistic level-- a word we hadn't prepared ourselves to hear. One of the ladies used the word autistic child several times and for a moment, I felt myself almost tear up. But I stopped her to ask for a little clarification before I became a blubbering mess in the middle of this meeting.
An Autistic child scores between 85-115 on the scale they use to rate them, Benjamin is at an 85. Which is good. This means he is extremely high-functioning in terms of the label Autism. On the Asperger's scale (same thing 85-115), he is at a 97. This was what we truly expected to hear. But, since Asperger's is a form of Autism, he is classified as Autistic. A little over-whelming? Yes. But, we were also given some good news that this diagnosis is still "fluid" and at his age and the early intervention, in a couple of years his numbers on these two scales can decrease-- even significantly.
We will be receiving in-home therapy for him from the school twice a week starting in the fall. Someone will actually be coming to us-- very cool! I was so happy to hear this. Benjamin is already enrolled in the Christian Preschool at our church for the next year. I was a little worried that we were going to have to take him out of that and send him (gasp!) to elementary school two years early for a few days a week to receive services there. I wasn't exactly ready to send him on his way to real school, yet. We also do two therapy sessions at Camp Hope every week, which we start Thursday (hooray, love CH)! So, we are well into this whole world of Asperger's and finding out what we can do as parents to help our little boy thrive. Ironically, two of the KISD women in our ARD both have children with severe Autism and they were sooooo helpful. They made us feel good when they said they would rather be in our shoes (with Asperger's) anyday. One of them has also advised us to join the local support group for Autism. We will also be going to an Autism workshop at the end of June that the school highly recommended for us to take part in, too.
I know this journey is just beginning. Right now, we are still trying to wrap our minds around the situation. But, I feel so happy to have an entire plan in place for the next year on how to begin to help Benjamin learn some amazing things. I know God has been with us every step of the way. At first, we struggled to deal with our insurance, but that too had a silver lining in the brand new Camp Hope facility. Then we wondered about a diagnosis and KISD was there to help.
Thanks again for your prayers and support. We continue to be blessed by them.