We Light It Up Blue for Addy!

April 2nd was World Autism Awareness Day.
We all wore blue to celebrate the day!
The kids wore their team shirts from last year's autism walk.

 & I wore my Autism Speaks shirt

& got my nails painted with the Light It Up Blue logo!

And look, the kids made the school newsletter! How awesome is that!

Not only is April 2nd World Autism Awareness Day, but the whole month of April is Autism Awareness Month.

So for the month of April, we have had our door hanger up & 

our signs in our yard

& have been lighting our porch up blue!

 And Nick & I ran (and dominated, but that's a different story...) a 5K that supports the Shorkey Center in Beaumont, which is a therapy & education center for children with special needs.

I'll end this post with some signs of autism...

1. May avoid eye contact

2. May echo words or phrases (echolalia)

3. May prefer to be alone

4. May spin objects or self

5. May have an insistence on sameness

6. May exhibit inappropriate laughing or giggling

7. May have difficulty in expressing needs

8. May have a delay in speech

9. May have no real fear of danger

9. May have a high pain threshold

10. May not want to be touched

Notice that these all start with "May." The reason for that is that every child with autism is different. Not every person with autism will have every one of these signs. But, if your child has more than a few of these signs, I urge you to talk to your doctor. Early intervention is the KEY! 

Walk Now for Autism Speaks 2013

Saturday, September 28th we participated in the Walk Now for Autism Speaks autism awareness walk at Reliant Park.

This was the 3rd year that Nick, the kids & I have participated in this walk. The first year it was just the 4 of us. I heard about it somewhere & we decided to go & check it out. It was a great experience to see so much love and support for so many precious kiddos. I wanted that for Addy. So last year I helped start a team at her school. We had about 15 people who walked with us. And this year..well our team grew! We had almost 30 people who walked in support of Addy & the other children with autism at SOE (Addy's school.)

Here is team 'Sienna Superheroes' which includes family, friends & teachers from SOE. I have to say that Addy is one lucky girl to have this amazing group of people in her life!

A few members of our Girl Scout troop 

and their mommas even came to walk in support of Addy!

Here is my sweet family (Alex is 'camera shy' as he says)

And here are a few pictures from the course...

Here's Addy rolling down the hill at the beginning of the walk.

And here she is pretending to walk on a balance beam. (Which she is great at thanks to gymnastics class!)

Here's Mr. Cool Alex in his sunglasses!

And here is Addy giving high fives to the volunteers. She thought that was so fun!

And here we are towards the end of the walk, right before we got rained on!

Yes, that's right, we got rained on! For about the whole last mile. And then it stopped for a little bit. And then it rained even harder while we were walking to the car. Addy loved it though! She ran in the rain & stomped in the 'muddy puddles.' She had a such a great time & there was no way that she was going to let the rain put a damper on her day!

A big thank you to everyone that came out & walked with us, to everyone that made a donation to Autism Speaks in honor of Addy & to everyone who bought a Sienna Superheroes fundraiser t shirt. You all helped our team raise $1500 for Autism Speaks! Way to go Sienna Superheroes!

Strike Out Autism Skeeters Game

Last Sunday we went to an autism awareness event at the Skeeters' stadium. (For those of you who don't know, the Skeeters are Sugar Land's minor league baseball team.)

Hope for Three, an autism awareness & advocate group in Ft. Bend, organized this special event called Strike Out Autism. It was open for 100 families to come to the stadium & participate. Each child that came, so both Addy & Alex, were partnered with a volunteer to be their buddy for the day.

 Addy & Alex's buddies were Vanessa & Mark. They were a married couple & they were very very sweet!

They took the kids on the carousel

and the playground while Nick & I were able to go chat with friends & relax a little.

The kids were also able to meet the Skeeters mascot Mo

and get their glove signed by some of the Skeeters players.

And then they both got a balloon animal. Addy got a pink cat & Alex got a green dog/dinosaur.

After the kids had played for about an hour, all the families & volunteers headed down to the field for a parade. The kids played a little catch while waiting for the parade to start.

And then we all walked around the stadium in the parade. Alex thought it was pretty cool to be a part of the parade & loved that everyone was cheering & waving as we walked by.

After the parade, the baseball game was starting. Hope for Three had a buffet for the families to eat but there was not anything on it that Addy liked. So we ended up leaving to get her some lunch & did not stay for the game.

Even though we did not stay for the game, we had a wonderful time. It was our first time to go to the Skeeters stadium & it was really cool. They have a playground, slash park, carousel & a swimming pool & you can see the field from all of those places. We definitely need to go back & actually watch a baseball game soon!

The Weekend Before Last

The weekend before last Nick was out of town on a boys golf trip. That means I had the kids by myself all weekend. And let me tell you, it was a BUSY weekend! Here's what we did...

Friday night we went to an outdoor movie night at Addy's school. The PTO set up a big blow up screen & played Wreck It Ralph. 

We got there about an hour before the movie started and met up with our Girl Scout troop. We sat on blankets on the ground & ate popcorn & candy. About 30 minutes into the show, Alex was ready to go. He leaned over to me & said "Mommy, this movie is dangerous. We need to go home." So we did. But we sure had a lot of fun while we were there.


Saturday morning, Addy had a baseball game. As always, she played great & really enjoyed herself. And this time, they had more Angels in the Outfield to help out with the kids so that us parents could sit back and watch. Here is Addy with her awesome Angel Will.


After the game, we ran up to the pet store to look at the animals. Addy could stay & watch the mice all day long.


Look at this little guy. We almost brought him home!


Sunday we went downtown to the Houston Autism Festival.

The kids got their faces painted while I looked at the booths and got some information on different therapy centers in Houston.


Alex got his face painted like a Ninja Turtle & Addy got her's painted like a cow. She's 'mooing' in this picture.


After the Autism Festival, we walked across the street to the Houston Aquarium. It was our first time to go there. Of course Addy loved seeing all the aquatic animals but I was not very impressed.

And since I was disappointed with the Aquarium & it was on the way home, we went to the zoo. My plan was to first check out the parking lot & see how busy it was, but Addy saw the zoo signs & then we really didn't have a choice anymore.

We rode the carousel

and looked at the animals & fed the giraffes. Sadly my phone went dead early on so I didn't get to take very many pictures at the zoo.

Needless to say, we were exhausted by the end of the weekend & ready for Daddy to get home.

World Autism Awareness Day

Tuesday April 2nd was the 6th annual World Autism Awareness Day! 

In honor of the day, Nick, the kids & I all wore blue shirts for the day & I painted my fingernails blue. And after school I brought the kids to Build A Bear so that Addy could make one of their new blue Autism Speaks bears. (And they each also made a My Little Pony Build A Bear.)

Not only did we celebrate World Autism Awareness Day, we are also lighting it up blue all April long in hopes of raising awareness. So all this month we will have out our door hanger, 

our yard signs

and our blue lights.

I hope you'll join us in lighting it up blue all April long!