Evaluation

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Nora had her early intervention evaluation for her speech last Friday.

It went really well. We weren't sure exactly what to expect in terms of cooperation on Nora's part, but she was great. A little shy when they first arrived, but she warmed up quickly. We scheduled the appointment for early in the day--9 a.m.--so that she would be well-rested and at her "best."

Two women came to evaluate her. One was an early childhood specialist who was there to evaluate her development--social, physical, cognitive. The other was a speech pathologist who was there specifically to evaluate her speech.

All they really did was play. And ask us a lot of questions. They brought a lot of props and toys of their own, to test specific things--covering an object with a blanket to see if she would look under the blanket, hiding things under cups and moving them around for the same purpose. Practiced "feeding" a bear with a plastic spoon, practiced laying the bear down and covering him with a blanket, etc. All things that they directed her to do that she cooperated with. They gave her a hand mirror to see how she would respond to her reflection, and she performed--smirking at herself and moving her head to take peeks at different angles. HILARIOUS.
They also looked at books--random ones that they pulled off of her shelf--and asked her about objects in them. Nora pointed accordingly. At one point they were going through a Sesame Street book and the woman was asking Nora about the characters. She turned the page and Nora's finger went out immediately, pointing, and her little voice said, "Boon!" Both women looked at us. "Balloon?" one said. Yep. Pointing right at the yellow balloon on the page, she had said it with conviction. Balloons are one of her favorite things on the planet.
That's the funny thing. As I mentioned in my previous post--ever since I made that call to early intervention, Nora seems to have made a lot of improvements. Picked up a few new words, even since I last posted--Balloon. More. MAMA. That's right, she says Mama now. Every day, multiple times a day. It is awesome.

So, an hour or so passed, and they were done with the evaluation. They had put Nora through all of the "tests," and had asked us all of their questions. The full report with all of the results won't be ready for us for a few weeks, but they told us her scores right away--and told us outright that Nora does NOT qualify for services.

Exactly as I suspected.
According to her scores, Nora does have delays. Not only in speech, but in the social and cognitive skills, too. BUT her scores were borderline normal, just a bit below. They said that the reason for her lowered scores in the social and cognitive areas were all for things related to speech, so... well, it all makes sense. That was why we were in this position in the first place.

At the end of the day, Nora's delay is considered "mild," and children need to have a severe delay to qualify for services. And Nora doesn't, which is honestly a relief. They expect that she will catch up on her own, reassuring us that the range of what is "normal" at this stage of development is extremely broad. Some kids are talking in complete sentences. Some have only a few words. It's just the way that it is.
Given the small sample of children in my family that we've since "surveyed," it sounds like not really talking until after 2 years old is not as uncommon as I might've once believed. Two of our nephews were late talkers. So were a few of my cousins' kids. All are bright, healthy children who eventually caught on--by themselves. No therapy needed.

So, it is what it is. We continue to do what we've been doing. Narrate our day, work with her. Encourage her speech. We do a lot of object identification exercises. Singing. Reading.

In six months, if Nora still seems to be below the curve, we'll have her re-evaluated. But I'm not worried.
I see the light at the end of the tunnel. And there are a lot of words there. :)

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DIY-cation

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Michael and I are taking a random vacation day tomorrow. But here's the thing: We're using it to work our asses off--not behind our desks, but in our house.

Nora is going to daycare.

We're setting out on a home improvement extravaganza.

I haven't shared a kitchen update with you in FOREVER--I haven't even shown you (officially) what our cabinets look like with the doors on. But I've been procrastinating mostly because we have not done ANYTHING to it in weeks and weeks. I knew that our productivity with indoor projects like this would plummet once the weather was nice, hence my original goal of getting it done before late spring/summer hit. Oh well, what can you do? It'll get done eventually.

Tomorrow, our main area of focus is actually going to be on our guest room. My dad has been up to visit a couple of times since we moved here, but he has literally be staying in an empty room with a bed. And that room is actually the room we plan to make Baby #2's some day, so we need move to the official guest room. We're painting, need to finish the six panel door installation, and more. We're hoping to work on a few other miscellaneous projects, too.

It's pretty sad when you have to take a vacation to get things done around your house, huh? Such is life with kids... :) I'm actually really looking forward to having eight straight hours of uninterrupted DIY time.

Have you ever taken a vacation day just to get stuff done? Have you ever taken more than a day to tackle a big project?

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Fire Helmet Cake

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Oh, this cake. It gave me so much grief.

But before I get into any of that, let's start at the beginning.

My brother and his wife: They're having a baby. A baby boy, due next month. A few months back, Marie's mom and sisters started planning her shower, and asked me to make a cake. Of course, I said yes--first of all, because it's for my brother and sister-in-law (so... duh), and secondly, because I do enjoy a good motivator to get me back into the kitchen to bake and do my thang.

It wasn't long after that when Marie's mom texted me and said that they had settled on a firefighter theme for the shower. You see, my brother is a volunteer firefighter. He's been with the department since he was 15 years old, when he started off as an "explorer." He went to school and got a degree in fire science, even. So it's a big part of their lives.

This presented a little bit of a problem, though. The first instinct is probably always to do a fire truck cake. But... I've already done a fire truck cake before. (One that I loved and am still very proud of. In fact, more than two years later, that post still tops the list of the most popular posts on this blog.) I have this thing about not repeating cake projects that I've already done. I figure that if I spend that much time on something--most of my cakes of this magnitude take a full week to prepare--I'm not going to do the same thing twice!

I set out to Google for inspiration. At first I was going to do a traditional two-tiered cake and simply cut out little firefighting designs from fondant and paste them on. I saw fire helmet cakes as well, but I was intimidated by them because they all involved covering the cake in fondant. While I've made and worked with fondant to make details for a cake, I had never actually covered a cake in it.

But as the weeks went on and we got closer to the baby shower, I decided to go big or go home. To take the plunge. To challenge myself. To go where I'd never gone before.

All of that.

Thankfully, I'm pretty happy about where I ended up. :)
This cake was far from perfect. I believe that many of the problems I experienced with the fondant were due to the colors I had to make--red and black. I found that the white fondant and yellow fondant were much easier to work with, but the consistency of the red and black were different because I had to add so much coloring to them to achieve the right shades (despite using the amazing Americolor gels).

I managed to cover the cardboard that I used for the base without much issue, but when it came time to cover the actual cake in red--it was sort of a disaster. The fondant cracked in a bunch of places, but I was too far gone to remove it and start over, especially since there was now buttercream frosting on the back of it. I contemplated taking the fondant off completely and covering the whole thing with buttercream, but that would've meant that I would've wasted my time (several nights) making and coloring fondant that wouldn't be used. Plus, I'd have to make and dye buttercream red, which was just NOT an appealing option me.

I soldiered on without freaking out too much. I don't think I even dropped that many curse words, which says a lot. I Googled "how to fix cracked fondant" and tried a bunch of things. I whipped up a tiny batch of royal icing to use as spackle, but then I accidentally dyed it too burgundy. I still gave it a shot to patch some of my worst holes, but it was obvious because of the color change. Then, I whipped out some red candy melts and melted them, but the red was too pinkish. I added a little Americolor gel into it to darken it, but it seized up (whoops! lesson learned) and became very paste-like. Surprisingly, I had just accidentally created the perfect mixture to fill in my minor fondant cracks. I was able to spread the paste into the little cracks with my finger, and it covered them REALLY well.

For my large cracks/patches that were super obvious, I surveyed the situation and realized that I was lucky in that their placement made them very easy to cover up.

I placed the shield over the biggest flaws, then managed to cover up large parts of the other ones with the black band and the yellow reflectors. Whew!

I had problems with the black edging around the cardboard base cracking as well, but I didn't sweat that as much. I smoothed it as best as I could with my fingers, and moved on with it! The funny thing was that the consistency of the red and black fondant ended up looking a lot like leather--which is something that someone pointed out to me at the shower. They were actually saying that because of this, it looked MORE authentic! Who knew?

Other than my problems working with the fondant, this cake was really not that bad. In other words, if I were to ever do it again (which isn't very likely due to my rule!), I would just buy store-bought fondant for the red and black and call it a day, because I'm sure it's much easier to work with.
To make the cake itself, I baked two 9" round layers, plus a "dome" cake by using one of my glass Pyrex bowls. I didn't take many pics of the process, except this one that I sent Michael in the middle of the afternoon on Friday:

You can sort of see my three cake layers here. I stacked the two 9" layers, then put the dome-shaped cake on top. I carved them a bit to make everything a little more oval-shaped. (I had borrowed one of my brother's friend's helmets for the week so that I could have a live reference for sizes and shapes of things.)

I used rolled fondant "worms" to make the ridges on top of the helmet, putting them into place prior to covering the whole thing with the red fondant. I traced one of the reflectors on the actual helmet and then cut them all using my traced image as a template. I "glued" them on with a little bit of water.

The base of the cake (the brim of the helmet) is made out of foam core that I covered in fondant.

For the shield, I actually made a little bit of my fondant into gum paste so that it would harden faster and sturdier than fondant. I traced the shield on my sample helmet and then traced that shape onto the fondant and cut it out with a pizza cutter. I also traced and cut out the little strips of red. I stuck the red strips onto the white shield and then laid the shield on top of a stock pot resting on its side, so that it would dry in a curved shape.

For more information and detailed photos of these steps, check out this tutorial that I used as my guide for many elements of this cake.
My brother's helmet # is 8, but I used 28 in honor of the baby's due date. I planned the wording around the number--I figured I had to make it clear it was a baby shower cake somehow! The numbers 2 and 8 were cut out of black fondant with my number cookie cutters. I freehanded the rest using buttercream. Obviously, the baby's last name was on the cake, but I blurred it out here for privacy reasons. You'll just have to imagine how it looked for real. :)

Because we needed enough cake to serve 65 people, I also made two batches of cupcakes and topped them with buttercream and my candy melt flames that I first developed the idea for back when I did Poppy's fire truck cake. I love these fire cupcakes! All I do to make the candy melt flames is to print out a clip art graphic of a flame, then trace it using candy melts. Once they harden, I peel them off of the wax paper and stick them into the frosting on the cupcakes.

WHEW. I think that covers everything.

The cake was a hit with my brother, sister-in-law, and the shower guests. Despite my mistakes with it, I am still really happy with how it turned out. Another cake in the history books! :)

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C25K

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I've been a fairly active person throughout my adult life (after college). I was never a gym rat in any sense of the term, but I was in decent shape at least. Michael and I used to go to the gym a few times during the week--I took step aerobics and kickboxing classes--and on the weekends. I felt pretty good about my fitness level. I started taking spinning classes to try them out...

...and then I got pregnant.

When I was seven weeks pregnant, I started having some bleeding problems. I pretty much had them all the way up into my second trimester, and it was always a bit unsettling. When it first started, my doctor suggested that I give spinning a rest, so I quit the class. And since it was the dead of winter and I was in my exhausting first trimester anyway, I didn't have any issues becoming a bit sedentary for a while.

But as I reached the second trimester, the weather was just beginning to improve, and I began walking. Long walks with Tessa that I enjoyed thoroughly. And then Michael began joining me, and from then on, we walked nearly every evening after dinner, about 3 miles. All throughout the spring, the summer... it was routine. And even as I grew hugely pregnant, it still felt really good to get out and walk. I was in good shape going into labor, and all was good.

Then Nora was born, and well, priorities shifted. Majorly.

I give major credit to people who have small children and still maintain a course of regular exercise. Gym time? I still cannot fathom it. Working full time with a child makes life a bit of a whirlwind--we rush home from work, work quickly to get dinner on the table, and bathtime--all before she goes to bed at 7:00. It's mad dash. And when she's in bed? Well, that's time for everything else we need to do. Dishes, cleaning, laundry, home improvement projects, and hey... some relaxing.

My weight is absolutely fine. My fitness? Not so much.

I've been wanting to get back into something, but didn't want to go back to the gym. Walking is still good and I would do it, but since we can't go together anymore (after Nora's sleeping), it seemed pretty boring.

Enter C25K. That's Couch-to-5K, for those who may be unfamiliar. It's a training program to take you from being basically a couch potato to being able to run a 5K.

Let me preface this by saying I AM NOT A RUNNER. I hate running, in fact. But so many runners kept telling me that they started with something like C25K and that it made them looooove running. I'm not convinced, but I committed to giving it a try.

I started by downloading an app on my iPhone. Specifically, "C25K Free" (shown below):


The way the program works is this: You run three days per week. The running is done in intervals--walk, run, walk, run, repeat several times until you've reached 30+ minutes of total activity. The intervals start off pretty easy, with 1 minute of running, then 1.5 minutes of walking during Week 1. Then, they gradually work their way up to be longer periods of running and less walking, until you complete 8 weeks and can supposedly run a full 5K.

The nice thing about the app is that it prompts you when to begin running and walking so that you don't have to be watching the clock. I downloaded some music onto my iPhone from my iTunes, and the app will automatically quiet the music for a moment to speak over it to give me my prompts.

Now, I've only completed through Week 2 Day 2 at this point (Week 2 Day 3 is next), but I have to say... I'm liking it so far. Do I love running? No. At least not yet. But I do feel pretty good when I'm doing it, and afterward, so there are positives. And 30ish minutes three times a week is not too much to ask.

On nights when it works out, Michael and Nora have actually come with me. Michael walks/runs next to me with Nora in the jogging stroller and it's nice to get out and enjoy a little bit of the nice evening weather with them. We can only do this when we have something SUPER simple (like leftovers or sandwiches) planned for dinner, and when Nora is in a decent mood, but it's something.
I hope to continue through the summer and into the fall--by then, I'll hopefully have accomplished the 5K goal, and hopefully I'll have become "addicted" to running. I'm still very much a skeptic about that, but we'll see how it goes.

By winter, we hope to have our basement in order and we have plans to buy a treadmill.

I'm prepared to put some miles on these shoes!

Those with kids: What do you do for exercise? Do you find it to be as challenging to work into your schedule as I do? For everyone: Are you currently challenging yourself in some way when it comes to your fitness? Have you ever done a C25K program before? If so, were you successful in completing it? Did it make you love running (like everyone says)? Were you able to keep it up after the program was over?

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A Day in the Life

Monday, June 18, 2012

At the end of last week, I talked about doing a little "day in the life" project using Instagram. I committed to completing the project over the weekend, and I'm happy to say that I followed through. Woot woot!

The concept was simple: Take (at least) one photo an hour throughout the day to chronicle "a day in the life" and post via the Instagram app.

Some of you may have followed along yesterday. Some of you may have participated yourselves (yay!). And if you did participate yourself, please feel free to share a link in the comments where I can take a look! I tried to follow back a lot of people yesterday, but if I missed you, many apologies.

As promised, I'm also sharing the resulting photos here. It starts just as I was getting out of bed yesterday, and ends with me back in bed again. A true day in the life!

I wish they had time stamps, but oh well. A lesson for next time. The photos are all below, with their original captions. I'll let them do the talking. :)


{Good morning}

{Breakfast for Father's Day (strawberry pancakes)}

{Thrilled}

{Few errands en route to strawberry patch}

{Strawberry fields forever}

{Nap time for her, chores for us}

{Paying bills. BLAH. I do get some sick sort of satisfaction out of crossing them off for the month, though.}

{Father's Day gift}

{And so starts the afternoon. Love! #nofilter}

{Finished an early dinner}

{$2}

{Target run}

{Crabby}

{Bathtime}

{Post-wash curls}

{Bedtime stories}

{Photos}

{Contemplating getting Nora some baby crocs. She's already outgrowing her athletic sandals we bought this spring. *sigh* I hate when growth spurts happen in the middle of a season!}

{Diaper laundry}

{Tired doggy}
{Tucking myself into bed with a little TV. Goodnight!}

Fun project. In fact, I might challenge myself to do it again... once a month? Every couple of months? We'll see. I challenge you to do it, too. And don't forget to share your links with me here.

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Daddy's Day

Sunday, June 17, 2012

I can't start this post without calling out the fact that this is my 1,000th post on Heather Drive. Whoa! Sorry I didn't plan a celebration. At the very least, I could've brought cupcakes. Forgive me.

We had a busy--but really great--day today. I love weekends like the one we just had. Perfect weather, plans with family, fun activities and play time for just the three of us.

We decided a few weeks ago that we were going to get Nora her birthday present a bit early--almost two months early, in fact. It's tough because she doesn't really ever have the opportunity to be given "outdoor" stuff. Her birthday is in September, so it's late to be gifting bikes and sprinklers and pools and stuff. And at Christmas, we're all freezing our butts off and summer--although longed for--is not top of mind. We knew that Nora would L-O-V-E a playhouse of some sort, so we figured we'd get her one for her birthday. But why wait until September, when she'd only have a handful of weeks left to play in it? She's young enough right now that she won't know the difference when we don't get her anything "big" for the actual day.

Anyway, we settled on a Step2 Neat and Tidy Cottage, and when we saw that it went on sale at Toys 'R' Us last week, we planned to buy it. But then by Thursday night, they sold out. And we were bummed because we had really wanted to get it at the discount, and also have it for the weekend. I did some quick Googling and found that Kmart actually had it on sale on their website for just $10 more than the TRU price. Not ideal, but they had it available for pickup at our local store, so we figured $10 was worth not having to monkey with it anymore. But then I Googled last minute for a coupon code, and what do you know? There was one, for 10% off. And it worked. So we ended up getting it for a few dollars CHEAPER than Toys 'R' Us. Thank you, shopping gods.

We got around to putting it together on Saturday night, after Nora went to bed. We cracked open a couple of beers and set out to work in the soft evening sunlight. A perfect evening to be outside enjoying it a little. As we built it, we kept talking about how much our girl would love it.

And then Michael and Tessa tested it out a little. And then we waited anxiously until morning.

We started our Father's Day with some strawberry pancakes--just like for Mother's Day--and then it was time for the big reveal (for Nora, but don't worry--there were gifts for Michael, too). Nora spotted it back there under the trees before we even opened the back door. So when we finally walked her down the deck stairs and let her loose... she made a bee-line right to the little house. (She's still in her pajamas, in case you were wondering.)
To say she was thrilled would be an understatement.
Once she was in, she wouldn't get out.
Michael had to pick her up and carry her inside, which resulted in a massive tantrum. Unlike some of her other tantrums, I actually felt badly about this one since she was just having fun and wanted it to continue. BUT... I'm also wondering how long it'll be until some of the novelty wears off and we'll be able to get her back inside without issue. This week should be fun! ;)

Once we got ready, we were off to the strawberry patch. I've actually never been strawberry picking before--funny, since I love apple picking so much. You'd think I would've broadened my horizons before now! So, it was Nora's first time, too.

Nora was a natural. At picking berries off of the ground, and popping them directly into her mouth (stems and all!), that is. God made dirt and dirt don't hurt. And green stems are extra fiber. You know.
It's a good thing that this patch was OK with "taste testing," because Nora was covered in the evidence.
Michael's sister met us there for a little while, too.

It was hot out there, so we filled our quart container and headed back home. Nora went down for a nap, and when she was up again, we went to my mom's for a very early dinner, then to Michael's parents' house to spend some time with them, too. A good day.

Once we pulled in back at home, we stopped to take an official Father's Day pic before getting Nora to the bath immediately. :)
Happy Father's Day to Michael. Nora couldn't ask for a better daddy!

Stay tuned tomorrow for my "Day in the Life" via Instagram recap post. Don't know what I'm talking about? Check it out here. And, if you didn't participate yet but want to, feel free! It's not time sensitive. And I gotta say, it's been fun! :)

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