Nanny's EGG-ceptional Easter Cakes

Nana and Pappy finally got to visit us yesterday after having to cancel the trip three times before because of illness and snow. This meant that they missed out on my amazing birthday cake so my mum decided that she would do some more baking. This is what she made for us...

It was a fantastic chocolate fudge cake and lots of mini cupcakes. 

The fudge cake was amazing, so moist and not sickly. 

Ethan was fascinated by the Easter Bunnies on top of the cakes and because he was unsure, no angel slices in sight, he wouldn't try a cake at first. He just kept one of the cakes with an Eater Bunny on in his sight and finally decided to eat it after a few hours. 

Thanks again mum for all your hard work the cakes were enjoyed by all. 

My Birthday Cake

This week we celebrated me getting another year older!

As we have no idea if Ethan understands what we talk about when referencing birthday's, or anything we talk about really because of his lack of vocal response and communication we are trying to make more of an effort with our visual clues. 

This means if there is a birthday then there must be cake!

A wrapped gift would also be good but unfortunately Darren's birthday is so close to Christmas he is normally owed a gift and this year I decided that I would rather have a day out as a family than a gift which led to us booking Disney On Ice tickets for next January. Lets just hope we all make this one! Ethan's missed Disney On Ice experience is still to be blogged about!

Not to self - must make more of an effort with visual gift giving!

My amazing mother made me this fantastic birthday carrot cake.

Unbelievably this is the first carrot cake I have every tried. This is because the words carrot and cake doesn't sit well together in my head, with me as a parent Ethan didn't really have a chance with his eating habits but I have come such a long way with all the things I now eat so we are getting better. 

This cake was amazing, my mum really should open a tea a cake shop, and Ethan also enjoyed it. We also had to sing Happy Birthday twice and light the candles both times as Ethan loved that bit the most.

My birthday carrot cake got me thinking, what over vegetables would we be able to put into cakes to coax Ethan and me into eating them?!

Ethan's Silly Sock Day 2013

Today Ethan wore Silly Socks to raise money for Autism Anglia and awareness of autism. He did amazingly well with his sponsors and has raised £305 for the charity. We want to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored him we are overwhelmed by your generosity and support. 

You can visit Ethan's fundraising page HERE

Ethan has been wearing his sock's all day and this is how he got on. 

It was Ethan's nursery day today so we were up bright and early and Ethan had his socks on and ready to go. 

Every time Ethan walked the eye's on the socks made a noise, Ethan sounded like a Morris dancer. He thought it was very funny and run around the room in excitement. 

It was soon time to leave so we got in the car and set off to the nursery. 

They took some photos of Ethan in his class today wearing his silly socks. 
 

It was soon time to collect Ethan from nursery and we headed off to the local supermarket to pick up some dinner. 

I put silly sock stickers on his hat to make people aware why he was wearing his socks. 

Unfortunately it was so cold today that we had to change our plans of going for a walk along the seafront so we had to stay in for the rest of the afternoon. 

Ethan spent some time watching Mickey Mouse... 

...climbing on his truck... 

  

...and taking his zebra for a spin. 

Ethan enjoyed wearing his silly socks today and I'm so glad we took part in this event to raise money for a fantastic charity.

Walt Disney World - Day 6 - Hollywood Studios - Disney Junior Live, Mickey Mouse and The Incredibles

It was still quite early in the day, getting to the park early is such a bonus to get lots done, and we were on time to making it to the first showing of Disney Junior Live so we headed in that direction stopping for photos along the way. 

It was soon time to park the buggy and head into Disney Junior Live. I was looking forward to this as we knew that it would be full of toddlers moving about and parents prepared for this so it would be more relaxed for Ethan to do his thing. We did decide to sit further back to watch the show so that Ethan had more space to move about but Ethan did end up giving another mum a cuddle by laying on her back and touching her hair, his affection signs, thankfully she laughed it off.

Unfortunately we didn't get great photos of the show but Ethan really enjoyed watching it and the bubbles in the show were a bonus. 

It was then time to get our daily dose of Mickey Mouse so we went into the exit of The Art of Animation as we knew that is the area to find him. Ethan was very excited at this point and had to be kept on Darren's shoulders to keep him with us, this was his face when it was our turn to say hello to Mickey.  

He was off all ready for his high fives!

Mickey even got a very rare Ethan cuddle but I do think Ethan was manoeuvred into this by Darren but it was fantastic to capture this rare moment on video
 

You can also see The Incredibles in this area but the queue was too long for Ethan and he was very excited and didn't want to keep still but I asked the cast member if I could queue for Ethan whilst Darren let him burn off his energy, explaining our situation, she was happy for us to do this so Ethan was able to say hello to The Incredibles.

After a fun filled character morning it was time to feed the troops...

STARFISH 5 Swimming Certificate

We only have one more week of term at Ethan's swimming lessons which means after the Easter holidays Ethan will move up into the duckling classes. I'm very excited about this new challenge and already know that Ethan will be able to handle using the different changing rooms as when we had our class the other week our regular changing rooms were out of order so we had to use the leisure pool changing rooms and did so without any dramas. 

This week they handed out the swimming certificates and Ethan was awarded a STARFISH 5. This means we have successfully taken part in the following activities: 

• Encouraged Ethan to jump into the water from a standing position on the poolside whilst holding his arms/hands.
• Supported Ethan whilst encouraging him to roll from a back position to a front position. 
• Encouraged Ethan to make kicking movements with a woggle support. 
• Encouraged Ethan to submerge in a Duckling Dive. 
• Swam around the pool with Ethan holding onto my back.
• Submerged Ethan vertically and rotate 180 degrees in the pool.
• Support Ethan in a front hold to move forwards and grasp a toy, then enabling him to return with support in a back float position. 

Now I must admit that most of this has only happened since the start of this term as it feels like Ethan has finally clicked with swimming but it's nice to know that all of our hard work over the past year is starting to pay off.

Ethan's Toddlebike Adventures - 2013 Toddlebike Trial - Delivery Day!

We received an exciting delivery yesterday, Ethan's Toddlebike arrived!

I had seen people talking about the Toddlebike on twitter and as we are nearing Ethan's birthday I looked into what they are. The official website describes them as an innovative ‘Pre-Balance’ bike for ages 1-3 that is super-lightweight and develops cycling skills indoors and out. Now as the description mentioned balance I must admit I was put off of purchasing one as I have been told that children with autism tend to have balance issues and I have read many blogs where parents have struggled for years teaching their autistic children to ride a bike and the fact that Ethan is nearing his third birthday I decided against going any further with the idea.

Then a few weeks ago I saw on twitter that they were looking for toddlers to take part in a 2013 Toddlebike Trial, they were looking for children that are younger than Ethan but I applied and made them aware that Ethan is autistic and with that also comes delays so he in his mind he would be ready to take part in the trial. The fact that he is also quite small for his age is a bonus and the right height for a Toddlebike. 

I couldn't believe it when he was picked to become a Toddlebike Team Rider, this meant that we could trial the bike for the purposes of a review and also discover if Ethan is ready for a bike like this. 

I decided to ask Ethan to help open the box, I wanted him to get excited about the Toddlebike so that he would take an interest in it. Now considering that Ethan still doesn't really understand Birthday or Christmas gifts he did get very involved with opening this package.  

Here is Ethan's Toddlebike ready to roll!

Ethan got very excited about his new toy and decided to sit on it side-saddle. 

After showing it off to Nanny and Grandad with lots of babbling excitement it was time for Ethan's afternoon nap which meant the Toddlebike had to wait for more adventures later on in the day. 

When Ethan woke up he sat on the Toddlebike's frame, both frontwards and backwards! 

 

Ethan then decided it was time for the Toddlebike to be inspected which therefore meant that Ethan wanted to watch the movement of its wheels. This is one of Ethan's autistic traits and expected so we let him do this for as long as he feels necessary. 

It was then time for the Toddlebike to be shown around our home so Ethan spent the rest of the day carrying it around by it's handlebars. 

Ethan's Verdict So Far: He is very excited by his Toddlebike and babbles excitedly when he is around it. He has tried to sit on in and move forward but at the moment he is mostly sits on the bikes frame. We are working on showing him how to ride it, this may take some time...