Gift for Baby

Jeff's co-workers took him out to lunch one day this week and presented him with this gift they had made for him. It is absolutely beautiful!

Last Camping Trip of the Summer

We camped at Big Springs in Mammoth this past weekend. Arrived Friday afternoon, set up camp, and relaxed. Did a couple of geocaches and went to some of our favorite spots on Saturday. It rained constantly all Saturday night and into the day on Sunday until we left at around 3 p.m. For more pictures, please see our dropshots site.

Crafts

The girls made these cute sunglasses at a Mom's Club craft we attended recently.

My great friend, Megan, takes the girls for a couple of hours ever so often and they made these flowers out of egg cartons.

And, we did a quick craft of our own in preparation of The Assumption of Mary.

Daddy Love!!

The girls love to shower their Daddy with lots of love. Here they are before they go to bed one evening...

Sensory Exercise

I came across this blog post that had sensory exercises for children with autism--exercises that help with sensory integration, kind of like "a warm up for your fingers" is how I explained it to Isabelle (she now likes to do this activity before practicing her handwriting, something that she dreads doing). I went through the house and found all sorts of small trinkets and placed them in a container filled with beans and rice. I told both girls the object was to find the trinkets and place them in their bowl but leave the beans and rice in the original container. To my surprise, Melina follows this rule better than Isabelle does.

Another exercise the above blog post mentions, is to hide beads in silly putty and them have the child find the beads as a way to strengthen their hands (I haven't been this brave yet, as I don't know how it will work with Melina, unless I do it during her nap time).