Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Personal Round Up

January has been a very interesting month.

Obviously the home ed review is the thing on all our minds most of the time, but there is stuff going on still.

The regular activities for the group have resumed, with our indoor play met, the hall, and a couple of trips being organised by various members of the group. Then teens now meet regularly for a meal as well as their regular bowling session.

Samuel had a brilliant 11th birthday. Just like Christmas, birthdays can be a difficult time for ASD kids. Samuel finds the period from 1st December up until the day after his birthday, a really intense time. He says it is the "best time of the year" yet it produces the worst behaviour as he is so wound up. However, like Christmas turned out very well, so did this birthday.

On the Saturday he went to the cinema with two friends (one schooled, one home educated - so "in your face" to those people who think our kids can't mix and match their friends...). They went to see Madagascar 2. Afterwards they came back here for some party food and were joined by a number of his other friends (again, schooled and home ed). A total of 16 kids between the ages of 20 months and 13 years (ditto "in your face" comment....)

Samuel had asked for his cake to be a chocolate sponge, with the Star Trek ship Voyager on it... gluten free cakes being what they are, I couldn't make it in advance and was terrifed at how it would go. In the end I started working on it when he left for the cinema at 10 and had it finished before he returned at 1pm! The result:Jonathan was very happy to have his favourite person by his side, as Sheila came up for the day (the picture wasn't actually taken on the day, but it is a lovely one of the two of them!)Jonathan has taken to getting out of bed on his own and pottering downstairs after his afternoon sleep. He started that on the day of the party when no one heard him on the monitor over all the noise! Very cute.

The boys now have a range of new Wii games and computer games to play, that Samuel got for his birthday and Roarke and I spend up to an hour or so (well, he does, I manage more like 15 minutes!) a day on Wii Fit.

We remain stupidly competitive over our scores, especially on the ski jump, though I can't touch him on yoga.

Josh is counting the days until his youth theatre group start back. I'm hoping that spring will herald some new ideas from the boys as to where they want to go this year and what they want to do.

Roarke and I are loving our new church and really enjoying meeting a whole new bunch of people.

Today has been a quiet day as I've had a gastric bug for 48 hrs and am feeling quite wiped out.

5 comments:

Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

Lovely pics - belated birthday wishes to Samuel.

Anonymous said...

Well done on the cake :)

lotusbirther said...

That's interesting about not bein gable to make gluten free cakes in advance. We are GF too and have noticed that cakes do need to be made and eaten th esame day really. I was hoping that it was just the recipe we have been using. A friend has offered to make us a cake for a special event this summer but it would have to be made in advance. Do you have any links to a site or book that might confirm the immediate consumption for me completely? Ta!

thenewstead6 said...

hi. It depends on the cake. I think they dry out quicker as the gf flours take more liquid - or alternatively they don't keep because one has to add fruit (bananas, apples etc) to the mix to improve taste and texture, and they get TOO moist so don't last well. I use http://piginthekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/02/birthday-cake-anniversary-cake-cake-for.html for all our "special cakes". I find it keeps fine for at least 3 days. Otherwise, rich fruit cakes are best. I make one at Christmas that keeps for more than a week without any problem.

lotusbirther said...

Thanks, I'll take a look at piginthekitchen! hmmm, even a week for a fruitcake doesn't sound too long does it, though we made one at Christmas and it didn't even last three days well, though it was cut by then