Stormy Easter

Happy Easter! I obviously was not thinking about a photo opportunity with Easter basket in cute pastel colors when I dressed Henry for bed last night in red & black skulls & crossbones. Oh, well. Henry enjoyed his basket and proceeded to hide eggs all over the house today and make mama and papa hunt them. He also generously offered us his Easter candy; he really is a sweet little guy because he loves candy and rarely gets it at our house.



I know that April showers bring May flowers, but my goodness! We have received 10-12 inches of rain over the past few days, along with lightning, thunder, hail, and strong winds. I feel like Noah might pull up in his ark any minute to rescue us. It looks like we installed a swimming pool in our back yard. It has been fairly difficult to get any sleep over here this weekend. Henry has developed a complete terror of thunderstorms and Zetta, our dog, has always hated storms. She has found a new place to hide--Chad's laundry basket.



Big things have happened for Henry over the past few weeks. He has gone to the bathroom 5 or 6 times at school now! Here he is picking out a cupcake at Bliss.

The Hunt

Egg Hunt @ the Garretts

London, Henry, Karl & Kaden

Garrett has a bucket full of sticks, in addition to eggs.

Henry & Blair

Erik's Birthday Celebration & Egg Hunt

Happy Birthday!

Lots of eggs and very little competition!
That's the way Karl and Henry like it.

You will be shocked to learn that these two were in timeout
for climbing into a neighbor's truck bed.
Their little faces were so serious that it just had to be photographed.

Timeout Pros
(Looking very remorseful.)

Bells

My handbell group is ringing in church on Palm Sunday. The two hymns we are playing are Holy Holy Holy and Hosanna. If you click on the links and then click on the yellow bells you can hear the exact versions that we are playing. I wish I could be one of those people that doesn't get nervous about stuff like this, but I was completely terrified both times we have played in church. I have no problem at all speaking in public. In fact, I used to do the children's message at church all the time in front of hundreds of people, but playing music is something else indeed. I think my nerves come from the fact that most of the people in my group come from a music background. They include music majors, the two church organists, the assistant music director, members of the church choir, the director of the children's choir and one UofA student that just went to Vienna to see her favorite opera singer perform. Did I also mention that there are two junior high kids in my group that read music better that I do? I'm gonna have to study some over the next week.

Special Treat

Several weeks ago Henry had to move his bus off the "happy road" at school. From what I can figure out through Henry, he and Ava were chasing each other at school and when the teacher asked them to quit, they continued. He tells us this is the first time, and he only had to move to the yellow road and not the red one. So thus started a little stretch of time where Henry was making bad choices at home and also at therapy. He hasn't been the most cooperative little guy lately.

He is also quite stubborn, and combined with his bladder of steel, this makes for some difficult moments when we are out. Let me start by saying that Henry is completely potty trained. The problem is that he does not like foreign or unknown toilets. He is just fine at home, but he has yet to use the restroom at school. He just holds it, which is uncomfortable for him and uncomfortable for everyone around him to watch. (Autistic kids are notoriously hard to potty train. I read somewhere that they are more difficult to train than MR kids.) But today he went to the toilet at speech by himself! (He has been going to the same place for three years, so this was a long time coming!) This is the first time that he has ever gone to the toilet there without a parent. We were so excited that we took him to Orange Leaf on Dickson to celebrate. Yea Henry!



Now if we could just get him to go @ school. ;-)