Mountain Vacation

We returned home last night from a week vacation in the mountains of NC. Ethan's favorite vacation activities included swinging on the front porch, crawling outside in the grass, practicing walking everywhere we went, going on a few short hikes, playing with his cousin Cara and watching her eat leaves (which she is doing in both pictures below), going to a few small town festivals (including the Wolly Worm festival - see picutre below with the giant wolly worm) and a couple of old general stores, and passing the time waving at the cars that passed him by. We had a relaxing vacation and we're ready for a busy fall.

Colorful Carolina

Pictures of the Day

Cookie Therapy
(I told you, we're thinking outside the box around here these days.)

It all started a few weeks ago when our friendly neighbor saw Tim swinging Ethan on the front porch, and in a "hint, hint" sort of way, asked him if he owned a weedeater or just enjoyed "going green these days." Tim answered that our weedeater was broken (thank goodness he had an excuse this time), so a few days later our neighbor came over and weedeated our whole yard...just to be nice (or maybe so he didn't have to look at our ugly yard anymore). That same week one of Ethan's therapists suggested that we use cookie dough to help Ethan get used to touching different textures. He doesn't like squishy textures like playdough, so she thought he might be more into touching it if it tasted good. So, we thought we would kill two birds with one stone...let Ethan work on textures AND make some cookies for our nice neighbor. Needless to say, Ethan has no problem touching cookie dough (or any dough that tastes sweet and has chocolate chips in it). As you will see in the video below, he shoveled the stuff in his mouth and would have continued with the whole roll if I'd let him. Oh, and the last picture here is of Ethan's newest achievement...signing "MORE!"

Ethan before his cookie mess...