The garden

Kalista has decided that she LOVES summer squash.  Her new favorite thing is to pick one and fry it up in coconut oil with some salt and pepper.  

I think this little garden was a really good thing for her.  I am proud of how good she is taking care of it.

7/25

I came it from watering the plants and I couldn't find Kalista.  She wasn't watching tv or listening to music.  she wasn't on the trampoline or making mud pies.  She wasn't in her school...

Finally I found her in her room.  She was folding and putting away all of her clean clothes that had come out of the dryer!  What a good girl and what an age appropriate thing to do!  I am really proud of her.

shades

We went for a sunday road trip yesterday and it was really nice.  Kalista is really good at road trips and can drive and drive with no fuss or meltdowns. 

At some point she found Jim's extra sunglasses and thought they were so funny.

See how cool she is???   I love that crooked smile.

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam...

I loved that song when I was a little kid.  I always would pick it when I got to decide what to sing in sunday school.

So I thought it would be cool to teach Kalista how to sing it in sign language.  She picked it up really fast and seemed to love it as much as I do because she wanted to sing it and sing it.  It was so fun and made us giggle all day.

The way you sign "Jesus" is to push your middle finger of one hand on to the palm of the other hand and then do that on the other side.  Like showing the nail scars.  The way you sign "sunbeam" is make a circle with your finger and then spread all your fingers out like the rays of the sun.  It actually makes a really pretty song.

So,  When Jim came home I wanted to brag on her and show him how smart she was to learn the song.  So I told Jim to watch and I signed  "Sunbeam".  I ask Kalista what that was, thinking she would start the song.

With out missing a beat she used her words and said  "FIVE!".  Haha...

Yes, that's right, little smarty pants.  It IS five.

Then she laughed like she just told the biggest joke ever.  Jim thought that she was super smart and he never got the joke.

7/1

Remember when your baby is about a year old and you start to introduce new foods?  Kalista used to spit her food right back out and make the worst faces.  I remember thinking it was SOO Funny.

Apparently, the girl never grew out of that faze. 

I was eating my lunch and she came over and wanted some.  I told her that she wasn't going to like it but she insisted.  So I let let try it.

THAT is how I ended up with spaghetti squash and pesto on my forehead......   and it isn't nearly as funny as it used to be.

Kalista's Garden

This year we planted a little garden as well as the bigger one.  Kalista takes her job watering very serious so her garden is thriving and we are seeing the first fruits.... errr... veggies from all her hard work.

6/25

 They say that if you want to know what kind of a parent you are just listen to what your kids say.  I love when that happens!

Lots of our day is taken up by Kalista's OCD behaviors.  She has to clean and straiten everything that anyone touches,  Flip on and off all the lights before bed,  make sure all the spices are in a row with the lables pointing the same way...  you get the point.  This has been made worse by her emerging skill of  "do it myself".  I have learned that it is easier to just let her do it.  So I try to help her go as fast as we can so I don't go crazy.  I tell her to do what she has to but lets do it Quickly and then I try to make it a race or a game.

Today I was in the bathroom with the door shut. (a rare thing when you live with an Angel)  Kalista wanted me to help her do the dishes and I was afraid that she was going to melt down or worse yet knock the door down.  So I tell her that I am on the potty and she needs to wait.

From under the door I hear "Quickly!!!"  .... ....  "Ready set GO!!!"

Good talking Angel girl.  Thanks for making me laugh.

6/23

Kalista fell asleep on the sofa with her hand on her forehead...  Poor baby must have had a long day. 

Thank goodness for sleep!  If I am smart I'll take a nap with her.

Fathers Day

I will always be so grateful for Jim and what a good Dad he is to Kalista.  It takes a really big man to step up to the plate and take on another person's child.  When that child is an Angel it takes a Super hero to do that job. 

From the first moment they saw each other they have had a bond.  It is more like a chemical reaction.  Their love is so big.  I always say that If it didn't work out between Jim and I, he would live next door and be "uncle Jim" to Kalista because there is no way they can be apart

Happy Fathers day to the mos wonderful man in the world!  I love you Honey.

nuts optional

Today Kalista and I were trying our a new spice bread recipe and I was reading the instructions out loud and trying to make conversions on the things that we need to upgrade.  (recipe and pix coming soon)

At the very end it said that nuts were optional.  Kalista starts to hop around the kitchen singing "optional! optional! OPTIONAL!!!!".

She made me laugh so much and I ask her if she even knew what optional means.  She looked right at me, smiled and then grabbed the nuts off the counter and slam-dunked them in the trash.   "Optional....moma"  she says.

I guess she did know.

ouch!

I have always been a little sensitive to metal.  I can only ware silver or gold.  Everything else gives me really bad blisters.  I had never given it too much thought where Kalista is concerned.  She always has a necklace on but it is silver so no big deal.

Last night she wore a different one to bed.  It was a gift from one of my clients and I don't know what it was made of... but not silver.   The poor girl has the worst welt/blister on the back of her neck.  =(

I keep putting ointment on it but it looks really sore.

5/28

Today I was doing the dishes and Kalista swiped a tablespoon form the drawer.  She helped me do the dishes and was super sweet.  I ask her if she wanted to wash the spoon she had been holding and she kind of turned away so I couldn't get it.  Then when we were done she said "Help" and got the liquid advil down out of the cupboard.  I ask her if something hurt and she said "head"!!  She needed the spoon to measure the advil and me to open the bottle.  It is amazing to me when I see her brain working.  I am surprised by how patient she was, taking the time to help me first with no meltdown.

All of her life I have thought if she could just communicate to me when she doesn't feel good that would make the whole experience easier.  I am so happy and grateful that she was able to do it... Hopefully this is the beginning of a new skill. 

5/27

Today was kind of sweet.  Jim went with his Dad to the mountain so Kalista and I went to the arts festival.  she was super brave.  We walked around the perimeter and checked everything out.  After about 20 minutes she was way overstimulated and quite loud but still happy.  It was just really nice to get outside and have a little fun with her.

pig tail

Kalista really hates her hair done.  She will let me brush it but that is about it.  Even when she was a baby she would rip out the clips as soon as I wasn't looking. 

Imagine my surprise when I walked in my room and saw that she had put her hair in a pig tail herself!!  She left it in all day too.

5/21

So today I go outside to water my plants and I see that one of my pots is empty.  yesterday it was full of bright orange marigolds and now...nothing.    It turns out that Kalista needed to make some mud pies and was fresh out of dirt.  So in the interest of saving the rest of my plants I filled the pot back up with dirt and I am so happy I did.

Kalista catch up!

Sorry I have been missing in action for so long.  I don't have a good excuse  just a lot going on this time of year and I haven't been able to look at a computer screen for too long because of a broken nose causing bad headaches.

So, here is a quick run down of all the cool stuff Kalista has been doing the last couple months.

Grandpa Dale turned 80 and had a party!  We got to squeeze Aunt Kathy and Danielle....and Kalista LOOOOOVES  Danielle.  I was really surprised how brave she was.  She went into a new building an met new people with out a meltdown.... just a whole lot of happy stimming.  =)  The next night she was able to go to the party and even stayed there for a couple hours.  Amazing Amazing! 

The next week Jim's parents had their 50th wedding anniversary party.  Kalista was able to come for the last of it and seemed to like it thanks to Aunt Carol having the ice cream  all ready for her.  It really is a miracle that she didn't meltdown there because almost every else was right on the edge including me.  (Jim left me alone with a bunch of strangers for hours and my autism behaviors were peaking out.)

The Easter bunny came and made a big mess in our house.....  Now we remember why we don't like that bad bunny!   He brings the gift of OCD cleaning!   Now I cant find anything that wasn't nailed down.



Kalista took her UAA testing and was a Rock Star.  The UAA test is what they give angels instead of the standardized test.  Her Teacher Miss Tabitha came to the house and gave it to her.  I was worried (as always) that K wouldn't like her.  It is always so great to have those over with.  I always feel like they are really testing if I home schooled her or not.  

Kalista turned 12!!  Can you believe it?   I have no idea where the years went.  She has been walking around telling me that she is a "Woman" now.  I don't know why but that make me laugh so much.  She is getting into doing her hair and makeup now.  I remember when I turned 12 I was allowed to ware makeup and to shave my legs and I was really excited about that.  It does my heart good to see Kalista having some "normal" behaviors.   Also, what better gift to give me?  Now I can finally do her hair after all these years.... even if she has to tweak it herself after I am done.  We had a quiet party with the people she loves most and she had a good time.  Ice cream at the fish pond is just about as good as it gets for her.

We have taken all the decorative gravel out of the back yard... Oh my Gosh that was hard work.  Then we hauled in topsoil and peat moss and planted grass.  It will be so nice when it gets established.  In the back corner Kalista and I are trying to do a little garden.  It is a good thing that we live in the desert because the girl takes her job watering seriously.  =)  It has been super fun seeing all the plants pop up.  Now I am thinking that we may have planted too much but I was not in charge of the seeds.

Kalista has been sleeping more and talking more.  The other day I ask her how she was feeling and she said "Safe".  What more could a mom want?  Life has been really good.

rabbit soup!

 I was cleaning the bathroom when I heard Kalista laughing and laughing.  She was getting more and more excited and so I had to go find out what was so cool.

When I walked into the kitchen I saw her peaking into the microwave.  She was flapping so hard I thought she would lift off the ground.

On closer inspection I could see that she had put pink rabbit peeps in the microwave!  They were getting B.I.G. and that was REALLY exciting.

So what do you get when you microwave peeps???
Rabbit soup of coarse!

The two on the edges exploded and the one in the middle is still hanging on...

 

Now is the fun part...  the plopping.  this takes about 20 to 30 minutes before she gets tired of it.

and there you have it!  Rabbit soup.

3/3

Kalista is setting next to me on the sofa.  We are hiding under a blanket watching the rescuers down under.  every time there is a scary part  we have to cover our eyes and scream a little.

I have heard of scaring  the hiccups out of some one....  well, Kalista just got the hiccups scared into her!

They are super loud and they make me laugh.  She doesn't think it is funny so she hits me when she has one.