Aubrey turns 2

Happy Birthday to sweet little Aubrey. She is everyones favorite and a precious girl. This has been a great year for her. She is talking in sentences (which I love) running and keeping up with her older sisters and having a blast playing with them. Dwayne's favorite moment was a toss up between her first "I love you Daddy" and learning to say "Star Wars!" My favorite thing is that she has my eyes. She likes to talk on her toy phone to grandma, push her baby doll in her stroller, dancing to music, watching Dora the Exploring, helping me wash dishes and sucking her thumb while twirling her hair. I have to give her a ponytail in her hair so she can twist it. Her nickname is Monkey and she will repond to it. She loves monkeys and I am always looking for shirts or stuffed animals of the same. We all love our lovely girl. She completes our family.

Mason's First Basketball Game

Today was Mason's first ever basketball game. Both Dwayne and I were nervous to let Mason sign up for basketball in the first place. I always have conflicting emotions whenever Mason wants to try something new. I want him to experience new things and to try things he has never done before but with his Autism I never know how others will react to HIM. Will they understand that he claps and hums and he can't help it. Will they realize that he hears and absorbs everything around him so he can't focus on everything you say so you will have to repeat yourself many times. Will they see the quirky sense of humor he has and see just how smart he is and how much he wants to do well. Will they help him learn, not brush him a side. So when he came home with the sign up paper I said "I don't know Mason." He looked my straight in the eye and said "Mom, I can do it." I signed the paper and said a prayer.

He played more than I thought he would. I thought his coach would put him in for the requisite time that every kid has to play and then bench him. But he played a lot. Mason had a hard time with the yelling and echo in the gym. I think it made concentrating on they ball difficult but every time someone yelled "Mason! Look at the ball" he focused. We need to work on passing the ball because his teammates tried passing him the ball but he flinched and dropped it. But he ran well and followed his team back and forth on the court. My favorite part of the game was what his teammates and coach did for him. The coach told the kids on the court to make a wall, the ball was passed to Mason, he took a shot and he MADE IT! My son made one basket and I couldn't be prouder. As I often remind myself with Mason...baby steps. So thank you Dr. Koerprich for understanding.

Queen Bee

Denyce precipitated in her third spelling bee. She won last year and was hoping to do win again this year. Unfortunately she came in fourth. But she still qualified to go to the county spelling bee on Feb 15th in Snowflake which is what she really wanted. She is determined to do better this year than she did last. No matter what she does I am still super proud of her. I am NOT a speller. If fact I will use spell check when I am done with this post and I will be glad I did. Yup, I spelled something wrong (sigh)

Lily's New Goal

The high school cheerleaders put on a fundraiser where they coached a bunch of little kids on cheering. Then they performed at a basket ball game half time. I asked Lily if she wanted to do it thinking that she wouldn't. She surprised me by saying yes. Lily is not very outgoing and a little shy with new people and new opportunities. So I was proud that she would try. She had a fun time and performed well at the game. She even smiled. Now she says she wants to be a cheerleader and a ballerina. Go Roadrunners!!