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.

It's great to be 8!!

Well, it's almost here!! Next month  Darren will be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We're all super excited especially Darren. I honestly can't believe he's almost 8 years old :) As we prepare for this big day, we have focused our Family Home Evenings on the topic of Baptism and we have had some fun activities to go along with it. Last week we made a list of all the things we needed to do before the big day and yesterday we got Darren all dressed up and took some pictures for his invitations. I'm definitely not a photographer and the pictures truly show my lack of skill BUT I gotta say that Darren's "cuteness" makes up for it.

Baptism Invitation

For some reason I can't upload the rest of the photos here...so here's the link to youtube

IT'S GREAT TO BE 8!!

The Smiley Chart

With the help of Darren's second grade teacher and our therapists at Autism Journeys, we came up with a way to track Darren's behavior at school. The color system they use at school it's not really the best for Darren and we know, from experience, that he struggles to keep up with the rest. Sometimes he would come home extremely discouraged thinking he would never be good enough and getting "greens" and "pinks" became almost impossible. We knew he was having bad days at school and we were hopeful that there were still good moments during the day but we couldn't really tell and Darren couldn't remember most of the time...how could he when he's experiencing anxiety all day long?!!
After brainstorming, Darren's teacher came up with the idea of the "Smiley Chart". We requested that the school day was divided into 4 parts  (3 on Wednesdays) were Darren could earn a smiley face if he didn't have any outbursts. A line on the paper would mean he had cried or screamed. This really helped all of us including Darren to identify when he had made good choices and what things trigger unacceptable behavior. This chart has been a life saver for us, even Darren can see that he had good moments throughout the day and he can stop thinking he's a "bad boy" all the time. At the end of the week certain amount of smileys turn into cash (at home) and his reward at school can vary (things like passing homework, organizing the lunch cards, etc). Over the past few months we have tweaked  the chart a little bit, we asked Darren to write a few key words when he doesn't earn a smiley so that we know what happened at school and sometimes he also writes down when he made a good choice... Makes me sad that sometimes we focus so much on things that we need to fix and sometimes we forget to celebrate his great achievements.
The chart has no miraculous power, but it does give us a clear picture of his days at school and the areas we need to focus on, we still have rough days but Darren has made a TON of progress and just last week  he decided he wanted to try as hard as he could to earn smileys at school. On Thursday (April 26) and Friday (April 27) Darren had all smileys and this kind of motivated him to see how far he could make it (and he also asked if there would be a prize at the end of the week....very clever Darren!).
Here I give you Darren's Smiley Chart for the week of April 30-May 4 :

ALL SMILEYS!!!!!!!!!

HECK YES!

*Note: This is the first time he completed 7 days (I'm counting that last Thursday and Friday in April) with no tantrums at school since November 2011! and that my friends it's a HUGE thing for us to celebrate!!!!

I have to add that the last days Darren even had 2 different substitute teachers and all that change in routine could have affected him but it didn't...at least not this week...tomorrow Monday we start all over again :)

The big "X" you see on Wednesday only means "early out" and the smiley below with the initials "A.J." means that he didn't have tantrums at Autism Journeys (therapy).

I also have to say that in the end he never asked for a "prize" but we did take me out for dinner and he was the happiest little boy EVER. 

Rice Krispie Treats

I made these football-shaped Rice Krispie treats for Ryan's birthday. I didn't get to try them but Darren liked them. I found the recipe on one of my books called "Meals on the go". I forgot to take pictures as I made them but they are not that complicated so here we go:

Crispy Chocolate Footballs
Makes about 20 small footballs


2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I prefer milk chocolate)
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter or margarine
7 cups Rice Krispie cereal
White icing

1. Line baking sheets with waxed paper: set aside
2. Combine chocolate chips, corn syrup and butter in medium saucepan. Cook and stir over low heat until chips are melted and mixture is smooth.
3. Place cereal in large bowl. Pour chocolate mixture over cereal; stir to coat evenly.
4. Lightly butter hands. Shape about 1/3 cup cereal mixture into football shapes, each about 2 x 1 1/4 inches in size. Place on prepared baking sheets.
5. Decorate with icing.

Christmas in April!

Darren loves Christmas songs, even in April...but it's really not Darren's fault, both Daniel and Darren are constantly exposed to my David Archuleta's Christmas CDs, so yeah, sue me :)

                                       

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!

A place for everything and everything in its place.

One of Darren's favorite places to go to is the library, whether it's the "big library" (Main library in Ogden) or the "little library" (Roy branch), he always finds interesting books to read. This time he just couldn't help it but to give the librarians a "hand" by organizing the books on the "popular"shelf. He started with a couple of books and a few minutes later he had a ton of them on the floor and ended up organizing all the shelves. I couldn't help it but to smile watching him as he carefully organized all the different series by number. I kept thinking somebody would come and be upset at how Darren re-organized the books but I honestly didn't care *shrugs* because the books looked SO much better afterwards and they were indeed in order. It reminded me of an episode of Curious George we used to watch together called "Book Monkey" where the librarian Mrs. Dewey leaves him in charge of the library to stack and sort books. When George has trouble finding a certain book, he decides to rearrange them, first by color, then by size. But then Steve tells him that the proper way to arrange books is by subject.
Darren really enjoys organizing and sorting so I just had to sit there to watch and wait until his job was done :)