Camp Kiesel

I'm not gonna lie. I have not being excited about Darren starting scouts. Not at all. The scout program is great, don't get me wrong, but for Darren it means A LOT of "stretching". Everything that Darren dislikes or is afraid of they do in scouts. For some kids these activities come easy and natural, not for Darren, but are hoping it will be able to find something he likes to do. He will work mainly on those social skills that are so difficult for him and hopefully he'll learn new things in the process.

Flipping through the cub scout handbook made me cringe and shake my head. We really don't have a ton of expectations but at least we want him to try it and be positive about it. Their motto is "Do your best" and that's a very important idea we would like Darren to learn and apply in his life and I'll be the happiest person on earth if that's the only thing he gets out of this. For us tough, the most important thing is that he experiments and tries new things and feels proud of himself when he's done.

I do get anxious about other kids picking on Darren because of his lack of skills on some things but  we hope he also learns that, in the words of Temple Grandin, he's different but not less.

So anyway, Darren's first activity was their day camp at Camp Kiesel and I gotta say Darren was all excited about it even though he had no clue what to expect. Daniel took the day off and went along. They met early in the morning around 7am and came back home around 1 or 2 pm. That's a L-O-N-G morning for a kid who loves to be indoors playing video games or on the computer.

They had a lot of fun activities planned for the kids like a nature walk, archery, boating, BB guns, leather crafts and an obstacle course. Overall and considering the situation Darren did great and much better than we thought. He was fine letting other kids ride in the car with him and Daniel, absolutely loved archery and the rope bridge. Towards the end he was tired and had a hard time with the bb guns (let's say he won't trying those any time soon) and even though he likes boating he did not appreciate getting splashed by other kids haha.

His den is taking the rest of Summer off (and I'm very happy about that :P) They will resume activities on September. There was only a pack meeting a couple of weeks ago and involved swimming and hot dogs. Needless to say Darren loved it! (and this time he didn't mind kids splashing and throwing balls in the water!!)

Power Tools

Daniel and Darren have been working on a wood project together. Daniel wanted to show Darren how to use some basic tools so they decided to make a little bench/table for him.
It's still a work in progress and so far they have completed the table and I helped him sand it so now it's ready to be painted/stained. I'll post more pictures once it's finished. In the mean time, here's the boys working on it.

Maybe I'll even get ambitious and have them make some simple shelves to display Darren's Legos since we're kind of running out of space in his room ;)

Aloha!

The second graders had a "Hawaiian" classroom party today and the kids were given the choice to wear Hawaiian clothes. Darren really doesn't have anything that looks Hawaiian and even though he really didn't care I decided to make him some quick shorts last night. I'm liking the result!

I wish I would have taken more pictures of the kids during their different activities but I was pretty busy helping them make leis.

General Conference

Last week we enjoyed watching General Conference together. I gotta admit it's always a challenge finding ways for Darren to sit by us and try to listen to what the speakers are talking about. This time we talked to him about King Benjamin and how he addressed his people and built a tower so that everyone could see him. All the people gathered in tents with their families as they heard King Benjamin's counsel. We attempted to turn our family room into a tent, we weren't very successful, but Darren liked it and that's all that mattered to us. We know he's still young, but at least we're making an effort and we hope that Darren will come to enjoy General Conference as much as we do.
Here's some ideas I found around to help him. I don't remember all the websites I went to and I don't claim credit for any of the work sheets, some of them I printed and some of them I changed a bit to fit Darren's needs and likes. Coloring is something he doesn't find interesting so we always relay on math papers to kill some time. He's also not a big candy eater so we reward him with a few candy, coins and "coupons" that I come up with and these ones are his FAVORITES! (like skip jobs on Saturday, skip grocery shopping trip, earn 10 minutes extra before bedtime, etc).

Here's our attempt to building a tent, note that we're not campers AT ALL, bahaha.

Darren working on his General Conference packet.

(Hey! there's a giraffe back there!)

 Prizes (candy, coins, coupons) he earns when he listens to key words like: prayer, scriptures, Jesus Christ, Temple, etc.

 Some of the work sheets I found (If you made any of these, thank you!)

Darren placing each general authority on their seat as they spoke during each session.

Darren got to eat an M&M every time he spotted a general authority.

Darren working on a puzzle of the Salt Lake Temple...At this point we were almost out of stuff to do! (wherever Darren is, there will also be a giraffe haha)

 My boys working on the puzzle.

 Puzzle is finished!

Beautiful Salt Lake Temple.

 Darren coloring the ties of the First Presidency.

More work sheets.

 Daniel before General Conference.

Daniel 20 minutes into General Conference :)
Never listen to GC while lying down...duh!

Be my Valentine

Ever since I got married I dreamed of the day I could get the kids at the kitchen table and do all these fun, wonderful crafts together. I obviously love crafts but Darren HATES anything artistic. I gotta be honest, every year I push less and less to any attempts to do any art projects with him but for some reason I kept having this nagging feeling that I should try to keep Darren connected to the family and try to express love for them, especially because we don't see them that often.
So after some complaints we were able to get Darren involved in making "hugs" for family members ( I bribed him with twizzlers haha). I believe at the end he said something like "it wasn't so bad after all". Mission accomplished, Cupid!
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! :)

Shadow Box Bank

Darren usually needs a specific goal to work towards during the school year. We set expectations about his daily behavior at school and jobs around the house and we reward his efforts accordingly. Darren has been wanting an ipod for a while, but he knows he has to work hard to earn it. I came across a really neat blog that gave me the perfect solution to help Darren and keep him motivated.
It's a shadow box bank and if you want the instructions on how to make one go here. She has other great projects!
This is our version of the ipod bank. We are guessing that Darren will have enough money in about 10 weeks. Let the count down begin!

Serger: A new adventure

For the longest time I've been wanting to go back to the things I enjoy the most. Being creative. I love making crafts and I love sewing. My mom bought me my first sewing machine when I was 15 years old and I have loved it ever since. I got my bachelors degree in Fashion and Textile design back in Aguascalientes, Mexico  and worked at Vianney for a number of years.
I've seen the young women in my ward struggle finding clothes that are cute and modest so I think I will experiment with some of these things and see where it takes me to. I gotta admit, I feel intimidated, I haven't done stuff like that in years so I feel overwhelmed but I know that every time I put my mind into something I usually figure how to get it done.
One of the reasons why it's taking me forever to get started is because I didn't have a serger. But not anymore! My sister Cynthia, who is by the way, the best sister ever (well Monica is pretty awesome too!) generously purchased/donated a serger so that I can get to work and hopefully feel successful.
Cynthia, thanks for always having my back...

The best thing about having a sister was that I always had a friend. 

~Cali Rae Turner

Daniel, thanks for supporting me in every crazy adventure and playing with Darren every time I need to get stuff done.
If you try to call me or text me and I don't respond it's probably because I'm in the basement playing with my new toy :)

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Carve that Pumpkin

Our pumpkin carving had two special guest this year, Grandpa and Meguire Burnett. Grandpa helped Meguire with hers design, the Cat by the window and Carmen did the Witch design and the customer design Bebe Giraffe for Darren. I did the Skull.

Darren and Meguire

The Team