Fourth of July Wreath…

One of the most important things that my mom taught me was to look forward to something when your were down and keep moving forward one day at a time.  When I miscarried early in my marriage, she took me out shopping—and I kept thinking, “who can think of shopping at a time like this?!?”  She kept pointing out cute holiday stuff at Hobby Lobby and I muttered sadly, “I just don’t care about anything right now.”  And she tenderly said, “I know, but we just have to find something to look forward to.”  And we did.  We forced ourselves to get excited about Memorial Day and the summertime.  Maybe that’s why I look forward to holidays now, it keeps the days passing by—especially when they aren’t going very well!!

So that’s what I am doing today, looking forward to the Fourth of July already!!

I made this wreath with my mom, and it is made out of red and white Deco Mesh.  It is the first time I have ever used it, and it was SO easy!!  I really enjoyed it.  And then I added polka dot and striped ribbon, and some cork-screw pipe cleaners, and metal star.  I love it!!

Patriotic bunting with chevron fabric…

We are relaxing(or at least trying to) this Memorial Day weekend!!  We are lucky to have family visiting to help keep us calm as we still rough through some of Justin’s tantrums. 

I love my country and all the men and women who have served to help protect our freedoms.  I made a patriotic bunting last year in more rustic colors, you can see it here, and updated this year in bright colors and of course—chevron fabric!!

I love it just as much as I loved last year’s…which one do you like better??

I can’t decide…maybe one for inside the house, and one for outside??  Oh, the possibilities are endless!!

Don’t forgot to see my original post for the easy tutorial on how to make one yourself!!

The Ugliness of Uncertainty…going through a rough patch with Justin

I love posting about Justin’s successes!  It helps me stay focused on the positive things in life and reminds me how blessed I am.  Most days I don't have to look far to find something new and amazing that Justin has learned.  But there are certainly times where things are “that bad” that it seems impossible to find a silver lining…so there is your warning, this is not going to be a warm and fuzzy post about Autism successes. 
Things have been rough….really rough…pits-of-despair-unbearable-rough for the past couple of months.  My way of coping with rough times is to talk about it with friends and family.  That's how I get through it.  I have decided to share the details of the past few months with my readers for a couple of reasons.  My first reason is in case any other mom is going through this--we can bear our burdens together and not feel so alone.  Second, because whether you have a child with Autism or not, we all have super low times where we feel hopeless and I may just need to rely on your strength right now to get me through--and hopefully I can return the favor some day.  And lastly, because I know that somehow, this will all work out and I’ll be able to look back at this post and recognize how God guided my family or others to help us make it through this—that will be another strength to rely upon for trials that will come in the future.

Justin started to have a distended belly back in February and kept pushing on his abdomen and making a coughing-type noise.  He would cry out sometimes, but we couldn't tell whether it correlated directly with pushing on his stomach.  We took him to the doctor and they examined him and couldn’t find anything wrong. Daily bathroom habits were normal, so we didn’t know why he was doing this behavior but originally decided to chalk it up to an unusual repetitive behavior.  Then he started to scream and tantrum more and hit his hips and head with his hands.  He is never self-injurious unless he is in pain, and we had only ever seen this head hitting behavior 2 other times in the past 10 years.  So we interpreted his behavior to mean that he was in some type of physical pain.  We took him back to the doctor and started our game of “Let’s just rule stuff out," which is all we can do since Justin can’t tell us if he is hurting.  We had an abdominal series of x-rays and it turned out he had a significant, partial bowel obstruction.  We put him on a weekend diet of 2 doses a day of Miralax and the head hitting and hip hitting stopped and the orneriness decreased.  Phew!!

But after a few days, we hadn’t seen a huge decrease in the orneriness.  We actually noticed it was getting worse, so we took him back to the doctor and found out he had an ear infection.  We blamed all his orneriness on the new ear infection and waited for things to get better.  But he kept hitting his head and increased his screaming fits and drop-to-the-floor tantrums. After 10 days of that, we took him back to the doctor to re-check ears, and did a repeat abdominal x-ray….partial obstruction again—or perhaps it was never fully resolved the first time.  We had to put him on a clear liquid, Miralax only diet for 36 hours.  It was AWFULl!!  He begged for food using his iPad the entire time and would pull on my arms and scream at me and then run to his iPad and push the icon for Nachos.  When I wouldn't give it to him he would go back to his iPad, scream, and spell slowly N-A-C-H-O-s.  We have spent years teaching Justin this method of communication, and now I had to repeatedly tell him no.  It was so sad!!  At the end of 24 hours, he started vomiting and ended up with a fever of 102!!  We took him back to the doctor the next morning and they did an x-ray and said the bowel obstruction had been cleared.  Back to a soft diet and just a daily dose or Miralax for a month to get back on track.  Yay, we were finally going to see relief!!

But we didn’t.  We also took him to the dentist to rule out any problems—no problems there.  We wondered if he had a sinus infection, and he was put on an antibiotic.  For 3 days he was completely back to normal, no behaviors or fits—it was like we had our sweet Justin back!!  And then, even though we had continued the rest of the antibiotic course, the head banging and fits came back.  We had a sedated CT scan of his head and abdomen and all of that came back normal except for some enlarged lymph nodes around the stomach.  A follow up ultrasound proved that they were no longer enlarged and all his abdominal organs were normal.

And just to complicate things, Justin’s doctor had started him on Abilify.  My sweet boy was all of a sudden not only hitting his head, but biting his arm and starting to shove me.  We never see aggression from Justin so this was all so alarming.  The intensity and anger became very worrisome for us.  He also started having multiple urinary accidents during the day and then he started ear flapping.  He would fall asleep after his screaming fits and head banging, so we wondered whether he was actually starting to have temporal lobe seizures.  We took him AGAIN to his doctor who agreed that they sounded like seizures and put him on Topamax.  The next day he got mad and bit ME and then started having bowel movements in his bed.  This is where mom starts falling apart.  After eight weeks of managing screaming and the uncertainty of where this pain is coming from, and watching my child hurt himself--we were now adding un-potty-trained to the list!! And then he wrestled me one morning and tried to pin be against the pantry door….and this is where we officially hit rock bottom.  Nothing like grabbing my other kids and locking them in a room to keep them safe while I try to calm down the unexplained anger of their brother.  These are my greatest fears as a mom, and as much as I am a talker--I reached a point where this was so ugly I didn't want to talk about it at all!  I just wanted it to stop.  I cried—and cried--and then I cried some more.  And then I did call his therapists and my family and friends and got back into the game and started searching for help again.

I have been through some rough times in my life, but this surely comes close to the top of the list.  I can’t describe how incredibly heartbreaking it is to watch your child hurt themselves and then couple that with the uncertainty of not knowing why…I have just been hanging on with the hope that we can somehow be inspired how to help Justin.  I have had family and friends fasting and praying for us and we are completely relying on that strength to get us through right now.

We have taken him off the Abilify and Topamax, and are treating him with an antibiotic to see if his symptoms subside again.

Have we seen specialists??  Yes, and so far it hasn’t proved to be helpful.  We are open to new specialists if any of my readers have recommendations!!  We will travel if necessary at this point, I just can’t bear to see Justin suffer like this.  Is Autism rough??  Yes!!  Does it mean your life goals will be altered??  Absolutely!!  And I am okay with all that, but watching him in pain and dealing with constant uncertainty of what is causing the pain—is just not right!! 

During all this insanity, I got Justin’s school pictures back from this year (the first time ever I have had a school picture of him—HOORAY!!.)

And this beautiful smile is the whole reason I am fighting—I am not looking for a cure for Autism, I just want Justin to be out of pain and smile like this again.

Rice Krispies Cookies…

I love a “fail-proof” recipe, you know the kind you can trust to work every time you make it??  This recipe is my “fail-proof” recipe.  I adapted this recipe from an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook called Cookies for Kids.

 

These cookies are chocolate free, which is a bonus for this allergy family—and has a rich caramel-type flavor and a chocolate chip cookie type of texture.

Here’s my adapted recipe:

1 C butter

1 C sugar

1 C brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 C flour

1 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. baking soda

2 C Rice Krispies

Turn oven to 375 degrees.  Cream softened butter with sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla an beat well.  Add flour, cream of tarter, and baking soda and mix well.  Add Rice Krispies and mix until just blended.  Bake for  8-10 minutes.  Leave on pan for 1 minute after taking out of oven then transfer to cooling rack.

I usually freeze have of the rounded teaspoon cookie balls and then pull them out a few at a time to bake later—it’s a great freezer-to-baking cookie.  These are definitely a crowd pleaser!!

PB James and Anna Tote Bag patterns…

We have had a ROUGH two months with Justin.  The poor kid has had two partial bowel obstructions, and a sinus infection.  So what do I do when I am stressed?!?!  Sew, sew, and sew…and get two patterns finished!!

The Anna Tote Bag pattern is a perfect beginning pattern.  It is what I use for my beginner sewing students.  The pattern itself includes color pictures for each step of the tutorial making this pattern easy to follow!!

My PB James pattern is a mini version of my PB Inspired Quilt for Little Miss.  I have had several people request that I make quilts to sell in my Etsy shop—and I have 2 of these PB James quilts almost finished!!  It is a great beginner quilt and is also very easy to follow.

You can find these two patterns, along with others, for sale in my Etsy shop.

DIY Angry Birds Catapult….Life Size!!

After we had our son, Justin’s Angry Birds Birthday party, and posted the pictures of our life-sized catapult on Pinterest—we have had a lot of people ask how my husband made this, and the dimensions.

So, FINALLY, here’s the dimensions!!

My husband used 5, 46" 2X4’s for the 2 base legs and 3 cross bars (2 along the base and 1 across the bottom opening of the sling shot.)  The two vertical posts are 60" 2X4's.  Then for the 2 angled boards he cut both of them at a 45 degree and hey ended up being approximately 33”.  He used exercise elastic bands from a sports store and tied them to large eyelets, and then fastened them to a colander.

We have used this for scouting events, and neighborhood parties like our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt—and everybody loves it!! 

 

Sewing Class Schedule…

I am posting my sewing class schedule so my local friends can easily check the calendar and see what new classes have been listed.

All classes are $15 and usually last 2-2 1/2 hours.  The classes are listed in order from easiest to hardest, and I recommend taking them sequentially as each one teaches skills based on the previous class.  That is my suggestion, but if you are over 14 years old, you may take them out of order.  Generally, my classes are best for ages 8 and older.  If a 6 year old is interested and has the patience to sit for a 2-2 1/2 hour time period I am happy to discuss this before signing up for a class (I also can provide some exercises to do before the first class to help prepare them and build their confidence).

I am teaching sewing because I love it, not because I am an expert.  My goal is to help my students get excited about creating something independently and feel empowered to try something new—and hopefully continue sewing on their own and use their own creativity to make new things.  My classes are designed as project based so that you usually have something to go home with that is finished.

All classes require bringing:

• a good pair of sewing scissors that will cut fabric 
• straight pins
• seam ripper
• sewing machine (if you don’t have one, I do have some extra—just make sure you let me know when you sign up so that I can have one sewing machine per student)

 

2013 Class Schedule

All class are $15 per student and usually last 2-2 1/2 hours.

Tote Bag (beginner)

 Saturday, May 11, 2013 10am-Noon

Monday, June 10, 2013 10am-noon

Wednesday, July 10, 2013 10am-noon

Adult Classes: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 8pm-10pm

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 8pm-10pm

Thursday, July 11, 2013 8pm-10pm

**UTAH CLASS** Thursday, September 26, 2013 7pm-9pm

Materials needed:

• 2/3 yd each of two coordinating fabrics (outside and inside of bag)
• 1/4 yd lace or rick rack (if desired)
• matching thread

 

Ruffle Embellished Canvas Bag

Ruffle embellished canvas bag (Level 1):

Saturday, May 11, 2013 12:30pm-2pm

Wednesday, June 12, 2013 10am-noon

Monday, July 15, 2013 10am-noon

Adult Classes: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 8pm-10pm

Wednesday, June 19, 2013 8pm-10pm

Thursday, July 16, 2013 8pm-10pm

Materials needed:

• 4 or 5 strips of coordinating fabric (4 in x 45* in)*45 inches is the standard width of a bolt

• 1 light colored embroidery floss skein
• 1 canvas bag (Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby has 3 packs for $7.99 before 40% off coupon)
• matching thread

Up-cycled Ruffle Denim Skirt

Ruffle embellished denim skirt (Level 2):

Saturday, May 25, 2013 10am-12:30pm

Wednesday, June 19, 2013 10am-noon

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 10am-noon

Adult Classes: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 8pm-10pm

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 8pm-10pm

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8pm-10pm

Materials needed:

• 1 pair of old jeans or cotton pants that you don’t mind cutting up, that fit in the waist and hips
• 1 yd muslin or light colored, inexpensive cotton
• 3 strips of coordinating fabric (4 in x 45* in)*45 inches is the standard width of a bolt
• matching thread

 

Ruffle Embellished Pillow (choose either 12 x12 or 12x 16)

Pillow (Level 2):

Wednesday, June 26, 2013 10am-noon

Friday, July 26, 2013 10am-noon

Adult Classes: 

Wednesday, June 26, 2013 8pm-10pm

Materials needed:

• 12x12 or 12x16 pillow form
• 1/3 yd fabric
• 1/4 yd coordinating fabric for ruffle
• matching thread

 

And hopefully by June I will have these two projects to add as classes…

 

Sew and Show Saturday #20—Quilt for Autism…

This is another beautiful quilt made by my mom, and this one is truly all about the heart.  My mom is donating this quilt through a silent auction with the proceeds going to Autism.

Here are some close ups of some of the button, ribbon, and applique details…

The heart machine quilting detail on the border is one of my favorite parts about this quilt…

So appropriate that my mom is giving away her heart quilt—thanks mom for giving your heart to my kids, and especially to Justin!!

Sewing frenzy…

March flew by this year, only because it was full of craziness!!  We had a medical emergency with Justin, since resolved, but of course it happened while my husband was out of town—that just adds to the heightened stress level around here!!  I was so emotionally exhausted afterwards, and still enduring my annual winter blues, that my parents took pity on me and flew me out to visit for a long weekend!!  I am feeling SO much better now—and I stocked up on fabric while I was with my mom.  So now I am in a sewing frenzy!!

We are on a debt diet this year, and with all our saving money tactics we kept the Easter gifts to a bare minimum.  I made a tote bag (pattern coming soon!!), headband, and two boys’ neckties for the kids and ended up only spending $10 total for all four kids—SWEET!!

Here’s how they turned out…

Cheesy matchy-ness at its finest—I love it!!

The best part about Easter this year was meeting a family who also has a son with Autism.  About six months ago, I received an email from someone who had come across my blog.  She emailed me to ask some questions about Autism because her son was recently diagnosed.  We sent lots of emails back and forth to each other and found out she lived over 2000 miles away!!  We had never met, but quickly became friends through shared emails.  I got an email from her about 2 months ago saying they were moving and would be living an hour and a half away!!  What are the chances!!  We invited them over for Easter dinner and met this sweet, sweet family.  It was like having family to share Easter with—so great!!  I am so grateful for all the many friends we have made through sharing our joys and challenges with Autism.

Besides all my Easter sewing, I am now teaching sewing lessons as part of our debt diet plan—and I absolutely love it!!  I have 6 students now and was shocked to find out they don’t teach sewing in schools anymore—WHAT?!?  I’m determined to bring sewing back—one student at a time!!

St. Patrick’s Day Stockings…

Okay, if you are a bothered by someone who celebrates a lot of holidays (including St. Patrick's Day), please discontinue reading!!  I have read some interesting posts lately about how too many mom’s are going “over-the-top” with celebrating holidays.  St. Patrick’s Day was the focus of one of these posts.

I have oodles to say about the subject, but I will condense it to say just this:

If you choose to do nothing for any holiday, I still love you and think you are a fabulous mother—truly.  If you choose to celebrate every day like a holiday and hire a professional band and fireworks, I still love you and think you are a fabulous mother—truly.  If you do some kind of celebration in between those two, I still love you and think you are a fabulous mother—truly.  How do I know you are a fabulous mother??  Because I think every mother is, just for trying and getting up in the morning—truly.

So here are my St. Patrick’s Day stockings…

 

My mom found a really cute pattern for Halloween stockings and made me one last year.  We were talking on the phone about how awful this winter has been with sickness and depression and she had the stroke of genius to make a St. Patrick’s Day stocking out of the Halloween stocking.  I adapted the pattern and made my own Leprechaun, chunky shoe pattern and I love how whimsical they turned out!!

Because of all the ridiculous illnesses, a health emergency, and my husband being out of the country—again—we actually missed St. Patrick’s Day altogether!!  HA HA!!  My intentions were to just put a note in the stocking every year that tells my child why I feel so “lucky” to have them in our family.  They got a nice green sticky note on their doors instead!!  Perfect!!

But these beauties did make me smile, hanging from my fireplace!!