Category: boys

2016, autism, boys, movies, october, Uncategorized

A New Milestone

by casadeberry4 Comments on A New Milestone

Last night our youngest accomplished something for the first time in his ten years of life.  He went to the movie theater.

Because of his sensitivity to noise, he was never able to tolerate the loud sound of a movie theater and has had to wait until movies he wanted were out on DVD or available online to see them.

Only one giant, terrifying creature, the King of the Monsters himself, could get Alexander to try this new challenge:

godzilla

Alexander has been waiting for this new movie, a Japanese release called Godzilla Resurgence, or Shin Godzilla; has learned to write the title in Japanese, and has made his own video trailers in anticipation of the movie.  Needless to say, this was a big deal for him.

The four of us booked our tickets and got ready to support Alex through his first movie theater experience.  He was thrilled to see the poster inside the theater and had his picture taken, he kept looking at me and smiling, thrilled to be watching his favorite movie character, and he was polite and quiet during the whole movie.

1014movie

This morning, he was still raving about the experience, calling it “the best thing I’ve ever done.”

We’re proud of Alex, and of Aidan for being such a supportive brother, encouraging Alex and reassuring him so his little brother would have a good experience.

And yes, we will be getting the DVD when it comes out.

 

 

2015, boys, wisconsin

Cozy boy’s bedroom

by casadeberry1 Comment on Cozy boy’s bedroom

My youngest has a few must-haves for his bedroom. His collection of stuffed animals, for one — it actually fills two hampers but he usually only plays with a few at a time.

alexander's room

He also loves dinosaurs, his books, and has already started a collection of globes. I sought to add some fall color while retaining the things our boy loves the most.

Warm plaids will play nicely with the muted yellows and greens Alex loves. Baskets and containers are always good, and in a neutral color will coordinate nicely with whatever changes Alex makes to his color preferences.

Our oldest’s bedroom has had some, uh, Super additions, and I will be posting some pics in the next couple of weeks.

2015, boys

Casa de Berry: TNG

by casadeberry1 Comment on Casa de Berry: TNG

Extra point if you got that reference.

Both Steve and I have musical backgrounds – he played various instruments including the contrabass in a Drum & Bugle corps. I used to be a high soprano in various school and church choirs, but don’t ask me to hit any remotely high notes nowadays.

After expressing zero interest and never before having mentioned it, our oldest came home saying he was joining fifth grade band, playing the tenor sax.

Wha-what?

So we think this is pretty cool, and yeah, I realize this might be a passing thing, which is why that sax is a rented one, but for now we are looking forward to recitals and shows. Our youngest, who has noise-sensitivity due to his autism, might be needing some noise canceling headphones, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

2014, boys, costume, halloween, husband

Right in the “feels”!

by casadeberry3 Comments on Right in the “feels”!

Okay, so I’ve shared plenty of my husband’s amazing creations for our boys – be it cakes, costumes, or piñatas. Something completely unexpected happened recently and I can finally share it with you all – one of our boys’ homemade costumes will be making its debut on the big screen!!!

This is the costume our youngest wore 3 years ago – he was obsessed with Godzilla and daddy obliged. Alex had some sensory issues at the time and didn’t want his hands covered, and he loved being able to see out of his costume:

A couple of weeks ago, my husband was contacted by a lady on behalf of Make a Wish Illinois – a young boy’s wish was to be Godzilla, and a movie would be made with him starring as “Madzilla”. She had found his costume and inquired about getting it for the movie. We donated it and have been waiting to see some pics of sweet Maddex wearing the costume. Now, you can see a series of pictures at the Chicago Tribune. People like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and football legend Mike Ditka will also be appearing in the movie.

To say that we are beyond happy is a complete understatement. It’s so gratifying to see the looks of wonder and the smiles on our boys’ faces once Steve completes a costume, but to have helped make this sweet boy’s wish come true? Indescribable.

Have a wonderful week!

2014, accessories, boys, clothing, jewelry, kids

Unexpected dinner date

by casadeberryLeave a Comment on Unexpected dinner date

The thing with autism is, the unexpected becomes routine.

We were thinking of going to an Italian restaurant for dinner last night, the boys both love filled pastas and we’d gone there before and had a good time, but nope, Alexander wouldn’t have it. So it became my husband staying home with him and me and Aidan going out to dinner and bringing food back for the troops.

Dinner date

Thanks to this super cute and comfy dress from Old Navy and my trusted Sutton necklace, I was dolled up in five minutes, ready for a dinner date with my sweet son. We had a good time and actually worked out a solution to store his assortment of Nerf guns. He loved the pictures I showed him from Pinterest (if you look up Nerf gun storage you’ll see many ideas using pegboard) so I think that might be a project that is tackled soon. He inhaled his adult-sized portion and then we drove home.

As a busy mom, I value pieces that let me get dressed and feel like I am put together without a lot of fuss. Steve picked out the dress for me, and I got it in the gray as shown and in a stripe as well. When I call him my own personal Tim Gunn, I am not kidding 😀

It was an unexpected chance to spend some one-on-one with Aidan and I loved it. Hope your week is a wonderful one!

about me, boys, family, husband

Star Wars at the Tech!

by casadeberry2 Comments on Star Wars at the Tech!

We are super happy that the Tech Museum exhibition on Star Wars was extended because we have been so busy that we would have missed it otherwise.

There were lots of props and costumes used in the actual films:




My three men:

Something that caught my little ones’ attention was the interactive sound/visual stations. You moved your fingers across a small screen and your movements became bright patterns of color and sound.

It caught my attention as well, because I have something called synaesthesia. I’ve always perceived that letters have specific colors, that pain has not only color but taste as well, and that something too bright can leave me feeling like I’m deaf. In plain English, it’s a condition where all your senses run together and, for example, instead of perceiving something visual just with your sense of sight, you perceive it with one or more of your other senses as well.

The highlight of our museum trip for our oldest was the robot-building area:


Lastly, the boys had fun figuring out where we live 😀

It was a super fun trip, and it’s only on for sic more days, so if you’re a local and have wanted to see this, this is your chance!

2014, boys, california, family, mom

Chester road trip

by casadeberry2 Comments on Chester road trip

Recently, my mom had eye surgery and I decided to visit her. She lives in Chester, about 5 hours from me, not too bad of a drive. I told her I’d get there on Friday and leave Sunday morning. What I did not tell her was that I was bringing the boys with me ;D My sister and her husband live in the same apartment building, and they were all super surprised to see the three of us arrive.

Chester is a very small town that supports the local tourism (to Lassen volcano) and although I did bring some technology for the boys, I wanted them to also enjoy the outdoors and hang out with the family.

Of course, the highlight of the trip was that my sister baked a cake. They were not able to make it to Aidan’s birthday, and will probably not make it to Alexander’s birthday in July, so they chose to celebrate both boys while we were all together – isn’t that sweet?

My boys are vanilla/vanilla fanatics – vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, so the cake was decorated half for them and half for the ones of us who like chocolate frosting:

Then it was Happy Birthday singing time!

The size of the slices was the subject of a lot of negotiation.

My youngest also had a lot of fun drawing and coloring, something he’s really into right now, bringing stories to life. It was a lovely, albeit brief visit, and we were blessed with outstanding weather both in Chester and back home.

We do have another, longer, road trip planned in a few months, but we have a lot of good memories to last us until the next time we visit Chester!

2014, birthdays, boys, craft, february, parties

Aidan’s Skylanders Birthday Party

by casadeberry1 Comment on Aidan’s Skylanders Birthday Party

Tomorrow is our oldest’s birthday, he is turning nine and we couldn’t be prouder of what a wonderful boy he is. He requested a Skylanders party, and he asked that it be on his birth month, so we held the party last Sunday. We were lucky to have wonderful weather that day so most of the festivities took place in our backyard.

Games:
We decided to have a couple of games that would appeal to a variety of ages – we chose darts and a ball toss. Steve (of course) created the game boards:

I had purchased a set of decals specifically for the ball toss board, which ended up looking like this:

The darts board:

Set up in the backyard

And with balloons:

Piñata:
Aidan requested villain Kaos as the piñata and Steve obliged:



I helped a bit with the black robe but most of it was Steve’s work.

Cake:
Aidan chose the Skylanders portal of power as his cake design. It was Steve’s first time working with fondant, and he knocked it out of the park with the detailing:



Aside from the cake, we also had sheep and water cupcakes 😀

Kids could earn coins from games and the piñata loot, and then buy various items from “Portal Master Aidan’s Trading Post”:

The items corresponded to the elements in the game, i.e. candy eggs and LifeSavers for Life, gummy worms for Undead, Pop Rocks for Magic, bubbles and whistles for Air, etc.

Kids big and small had a great time and even some grown-ups ended up trying the games later on.

Steve says goodbye to his creation 😀


Our boy had a great time playing with friends and family, and so did we. As tired as we are the day of (I got one hour of sleep the night before) and after, we truly love throwing parties and having people over. Steve did a great job on everything and we were both happy how the party turned out. Of course, we’re planning the next thing already, but we’ll take a couple of days to enjoy the “party afterglow”.

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2014, boys, family, husband

Lazytown

by casadeberry2 Comments on Lazytown

No, not the show. More like, our lives.

My husband, bless his heart, has been working long, hard hours at his new job. The boys and I have been sick, on-and-off, for the past 3 weeks. We’ve decided to spend Saturday as a family, not going anywhere, not “accomplishing” anything other than good times spent together, which to me is the greatest accomplishment we can have.

Plans are flexible but include:

– Finishing the chocolate chip cookies I made last night. I blame my best friend for this new addiction!
– Dumping ALL the Legos on a blanket in the middle of the living room and building whatever we want.
– Making pretzels and experimenting with toppings and dipping sauces.
– Starting a new crochet project (thanks, Lisa!!!)
– Catching up on Supernatural (I’m about midway through season 2)

Or we may do none of this and just lay on the couch and pet Foxy all day long. She’d like that.