Mary Had a Little Lamb...and a fever!

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day!!

Last week was interesting. We had so much fun on Thursday because it was Nursery Rhyme Day at school!


Before breakfast Autumn put Strawberry Lamb (because it has a strawberry bandaid over an accidental marker spot) into a small mailbox. Not sure why. But it made for a fun picture.


Can you guess who Autumn is yet?


She's Mary Had a Little Lamb! How fun! I loved seeing all the kids in their costumes. Some of the kids were way, way elaborate. Most of them were like Autumn, in outfits cobbled together from closets. Autumn's friend Tristan was Little Jack Horner. I didn't see him but Autumn said he had a purple thumb and a pretend pie. How creative! And her friend Samantha was the Itsy Bitsy Spider. I saw some Bo-Peeps, Jacks, Mary Quite Contraries and Miss Muffetts. Too fun. There's one in the check box for regular school. :P


After school, Autumn was acting totally fine. But after her rest time, I gave her a hug and she was absolutely as hot as an oven! Took her temperature: 103!! She seemed fine despite the fever all night but then when she woke up Friday, she was in rough shape. I got her some chicken and stars, the comfort food of champions. Autumn was still pitiful.


I knew Autumn was sick when I offered to watch a movie with her and she said she just wanted to go to bed! She had taken a long nap so I was pretty surprised. Saturday was a rallying day although all was not well. I came home from Aikido to see this sad fairy:


Despite the morning's not amazing start, Autumn's fever broke early afternoon so Mike took us for a surprise trip. I thought he was taking us to Costco but, nope! It was Dunkin Donuts!


We jumped the gun, though, because her fever was back that night. Thank goodness, by Sunday afternoon all was well and by today, Autumn was in great shape. Very perky and sweet! We had lunch with Nanny and Boppa and Penny stopped in to bring Autumn two new fish--one of hers had 8 baby fish! Then Lainey and P'd got back in from the game in Dallas and we had dinner with the family. Autumn decided she wanted to serve the lemonade from one of her birthday lemonade stands.


I rustled up a quarter from Lainey's wallet and paid her for mine. So everyone else did, too. :P I think she might have earned enough to get the Pinkalicious sticker book she's been wanting! Look at Autumn and P'd's faces...too funny.


So, that was our week. oh! And Autumn and I also worked on this huge painting project--we fixed up a picture frame and turned it into a chalkboard. You can read about it on the other blog. We're starting our first 4 day week since school started so I hope it goes well!

Dawwwwww...

It's been a pretty normal week. For example:


:) This is what I happened upon after getting Autumn up from her midday "rest." Don't call it a nap! We're settling into our new routine. Autumn manages to find time for fun stuff in between her schedule of school, homework,


aikido, and dance! Seriously, Autumn doing tap is one of the most adorable things I have ever seen and you guys know I'm not "that mom." Poor thing, though, I think she might have inherited my "everything looks like a fight" gene. One of the other dance teachers and I giggled every time she shot her arms out and kicked like a teeny Chuck Norris.


It's not all hard work, though! We had a birthday party for Teddy.


Autumn frolicked as a butterfly princess while helping me fold towels and attempt to fix a broken picture frame.


We even made a ridiculously delicious dessert today. I'm probably going to post it on the pinwheel blog but it's sooooo goooooood. So good that I forgot to take a picture of it when we cut it up!


We invited Lainey and Pd and Kyle and Lindsay over for the dessert but also for fried rice which I made using a pork tenderloin I made earlier this week. I didn't like it very much so I'm using it in other things, like tonight's dinner and tacos. When P'd came in, he hid from Autumn.


Haha, grandparents! Speaking of...want to see something soooo funny and sweet?


It's Mike and Ryan when they were littles!! Autumn went up to the picture at Lainey and P'd's house on Friday and said, "who is this with Hudson?" So, so funny. It also reminded me how much Autumn resembles Hudson. I know sometimes she looks like Lindsay and, especially in the eyes and personality, she's little Mike but I didn't really didn't think about how that meant she resembles Ryan some until I saw this! Want to see something else, just to be fair?


That's me when I was a kid, along with my mom, dad, and sister Valerie! Craziness. It's kind of nice to have Autumn be such a blend of me and Mike because I can see myself and my family in her, too! So much fun. Here are some current photos.


One of the questionnaires I filled out for autumn's OT had some family info. It asked what her favorite family member was...of course we wrote P'd! The rest of us fall in at varying points behind! We're okay with that, though.


That's it for this week! Everyone in the path of Isaac, be safe!

The First Full Week

Autumn just finished her first full week of school! She really did great! And Autumn likes her teacher so much that she said she misses her teacher when it's her day off (meaning the weekend). So sweet!

Monday she looked like such a little grown up that I just couldn't stand it:


By the way, she wants all of you to know that she had a bandaid because she skinned her toe...


Playing with crazy Uncle Kyle. :)

(I think you have to click this to view it...)

Back to school...Thursday I sent her to school in a jumper that had a cloth belt, a purple sweater because it's about 12 degrees in her classroom, and two braids. When I met her at the walk-up door, Autumn's teacher came out and told me that Autumn had left her belt on the playground, which led to some dismay on Autumn's part when she realized it at rest time. When Autumn made it out and I got a good look at her, she wasn't just minus a belt, she was dusty and only had one braid left. The other had unraveled and her hair was waving about, medusa style! And she had no idea where the tie had gone.


On our way to the playground, I asked Autumn what happened to her belt and she said she was using it to make a map so the Friendly Frog would be able to find the house she and her friends built for him out of straw. I have no idea where they got the water, but they even dug a hole and put water in it so the frog would have a pond! She wasn't happy to find that the ground had absorbed the water.


When I put the sweater and the belt into Autumn's backpack, I realized that one of the sweater sleeves was completely encased in mud! A good day, indeed! Too funny! Here she is looking clean on Wednesday. Autumn's doing occupational therapy for Sensory Processing Disorder. I'll be writing more about it next week on the Pinwheel Blog because we'll be getting the official evaluation from the occupational therapist. So far it's been a great experience! I wish I had know that private OT was available--and covered by insurance!--and we so would have done this sooner.


Biscuit has, by the way, returned to Autumn's regular play rotation. :) I promise you, if you have ever given Autumn anything, it will get played with! She never forgets anything and tends to cycle through her different animals. Here is Biscuit having breakfast while opening her lemonade stand. Biscuit appears to be an entrepreneur!


Tomorrow our second full week of school will begin! Wish us luck!

The Delivery

Once upon a time, there was a Butterfly Fairy.


She had a Super Special Secret Delivery to take to her Butterfly Fairy Aunt's castle across the village. So, she gathered her tiara, wand and her magic spoon...


mounted her Steed of Steel, and set off on her journey.


Braving the Great Driveway Hill, the Curb of Doom and the Asphalt Range, the Butterfly Fairy safely arrived at her destination.


Parking her Steed, the Butterfly Fairy retrieved her tiara, wand, magic spoon and her Super Special Secret Delivery,


excitedly ran the cobblestone path


and presented her Super Special Secret Delivery. A rock shaped like a heart.


After she spread love and sparkles and Butterfly Fairy joy, the Butterfly Fairy embarked on her journey home.


The End.

School, here she comes!!

Thank you SO MUCH for your prayers! Today was such a good day for all of us. I took a photo of Autumn right after she woke up...


And here she is transformed into a...KINDERGARTENER!


There's a book she got as part of the Books from Birth program called Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come! In the book, the little boy mouse washes behind his ears before school. So, of course, we had to wash behind her ears.


Last night I really mom nerded out and drew a picture for Autumn to see when she woke up. Before we headed downstairs where Mike had made us oatmeal--he told work he'd be late so he could come, so sweet--I showed it to her and she loved it.


Papa oatmeal! I moved that table downstairs when we had some friends over and haven't moved it back yet because Autumn has enjoyed breakfast there so much in the mornings.


Lindsay (she lives across the street now! Did I tell you that??) came over to see Autumn off and I should have gotten a photo of them! But Lindsay got one of us. My hair was the opposite of cooperative. T_T


Our facebook friends have seen this already but it is too cute not to share again! Here we are in the parking lot.


This is one happy miss!


I'm not sure if this will be her permanent classroom or not but I hope so because the teacher was suuuuper nice. And how adorable is this outfit? They have to wear collared shirts and blue, khaki or black bottoms. I made sure she wore something she liked (pink! a skirt!) that was soft and tagless and I got her some no seam socks from a sensory kid store so she wouldn't be distracted by anything.


No tears at all! I think us being there first so she couldn't feed off anyone else's sadness was a huge advantage.


At the end of the day, not much more worse for wear! Although she did have her lovey which I just put in her bag so it would help her to know it was there if she got worried about anything. Funny enough, this is the school Mike went to for a couple of years after they moved to Memphis! He said, "the trees are bigger!" Because it was almost 30 years ago!!


After school, we went to YoLo to celebrate a great day! Penny met us which just made Autumn's day even better.


Happy about yogurt...


Not so happy about stopping for a photo with mama!


Oh!!
And how funny is this? I know raccoons are a disaster if they get in the attic but these little guys were wandering across the street when Mike and I got up! They trundled across and into our azaleas and then spent some time climbing our tree!


It was kind of a fun little show for us.

Seriously, thank you for your prayers. This was such a great day for all of us!

Sigh...

Sunday night/Monday morning readers, tune in tomorrow for a full post...for THIS is happening tomorrow:


o(╥﹏╥)o

Prayers much appreciated, as always.

A Time to Dance!

So we're doing this now!


I have to admit that watching Autumn do aikido is pretty awesome but watching her do ballet is downright adorable. I'm such a mom! And this was almost SUCH a great picture!


She's loving it and I'm pretty excited because the teacher said she could go on to Level 1 ballet in the fall instead of hopping into the creative movement class. Not too bad for a kiddo who took foreverrr to walk, haha.


The day I took these photos, they were pretending to be mice who found some cheese and then had to run away from the cat. And then they pretended to have a beautiful ring which they lost, had to look for, and found again.


This is my favorite series. I thought it'd be more appropriate as a collage...not a bad leap!


By the way, Molly says hi!