Merry Christmas!

My niece Alaina, Nandi, my little cousin Brittany, Noah, and Eli

It's been quite around here for awhile. Things have been busy! With a capital B!

I made just over 70 Delvin Dolls and that pretty much had me occupied for quite awhile. Delvin's family has really been helped this Christmas season and I want to give a big shout-out to everyone who bought a doll. I'll update the Delvin Doll blog soon with all the updates and pictures.

Nandi finished her first semester of Kindergarten and Eli is now halfway to becoming a second grader! Nandi looooves school and Eli just tolerates it. Thankfully, though, he's made some friends and we're not having to pull him out kicking and screaming out of the van each morning. It's happened a few times.... but not everyday like like last year.

They are both super excited for Christmas. Nandi is hoping for art supplies, legoes, and toy soliders so they "can kill each other". Honestly, I have no idea where she gets this stuff! She's taken to pretending to shoot us all with her fingers.... which.... had this happened a year and a half ago, I'd be really worried (you know... in the midst of the RAD violence that was going on). Now, we just roll our eyes and wonder if she needs a sister so that her tastes can be a bit more refined.

No worries! Not happening anytime soon. But she definitely needs to get some female friends. She's such a little tomboy.

Eli is hoping for two How to Train Your Dragon dragons and some ridiculously priced remote controlled dinosaur/thing called Crunch that retails for $100. Uh, no, thank you! But I think he'll like what Santa brings. They each get three gifts from Santa and that's all, so we try to make it what they want.... but we put the kibosh on the Crunch thing....

Probably because we're totally broke after splurging for an Ipad for Noah. Yep, he's getting one! We're sooooo excited. Oh my gosh, this is totally going to open up his world. We are still trying to figure it out. This is our first i-anything! We've never even owned an Ipod, so we don't now the first thing about downloading or apps or anything like that. I swear it took 10 minutes for me to figure out how to turn the darn thing on. But it's so cool! He probably won't fully appreciate it on Christmas morning, but after a few months I'm sure he'll love it. Fingers crossed!

There are so many apps out there for kids with autism. Our school district sent me an amazing list of apps, so if you want a copy, just send me your email to recoveringnoah@yahoo.com . It's a rocking list! And I'll be sure to let you all know which ones Noah loves and are helping him the most.

Besides that, we've just been busy getting ready for Christmas. We had my niece and little cousin for a few days this week and that was a lot of fun. Today we're cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Or rather I'M the one cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, while the kids are making a mess, mess, mess.

I swear I get one thing picked up and turn around to find 2 more things in it's place! Sim has decided that after Christmas we are going to embark on a major decluttering project where we get rid of 1/4 of our belongings. And we really don't have a lot of stuff. But I do have tons of craft things and homeschool supplies that I've held onto for all these years that I (sniff sniff) probably need to list on Craigslist or something. The hard part will be convincing Eli to part with his things. He's our hoarder and will hold onto pieces of string and tiny scraps of paper with such gusto that you'd think we were torturing him or something when we tell him to put it in the trash.

Speaking of which, I need to get off the computer and start picking up. Laundry, ugh! It multiplies like rabbits!

Hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas! And don't forget to remember the reason for the season!