September Fun!

 Whew!  Our September has been awfully jam packed of activities.  We got to go support an amazing cause called "Surfers for Autism."   Grayson was still too young to participate and currently he is a much bigger fan of the sand at the beach than the water, but we still wanted to go to show our support.  What a great group of people that travel up and down the east coast of the U.S. to put on this event.   The truly amazing thing was the amount of volunteers that showed up to help.   Each "student" had 4-5 people around them teaching them to surf and trying to get them to stand up in the water.  Most of these volunteers were teenagers.  Sometimes I worry about the youth of America, but on this day I was very proud of them.   Here are a few pictures of our happy little man, playing in the sand.

 Of course the professional photographer that was there also snapped a few shots of our little man and posted it on their site.

 This is one of my favorites.   After we were there for about an hour, for some reason, this is all he wanted to do.  Lay on his back in the wet, gross sand.  Whatever!

 There were a bunch of sponsors for this event and of course our ABA company was there.  A cute shot of Grayson and Miss Carolina hanging on the beach!

 Grayson worked so hard at ABA that he fell asleep in the swing.  I received this picture as a text message on Monday afternoon.   He loves this swing, it is like a little cocoon that they hang by the ceiling in the playroom, and he conked right out.

 Then a little peek a boo with Miss Carolina.   He usually uses his hands and picks up our hands and does it.  This was a bit different because he was using his own hands to cover her eyes.

 Still waking up (this was right after his catnap in the swing pictured above.)

 We are so lucky to be surrounded by the most generous people.  Melanie and Jamie, our old neighbors, bought Grayson a brand new IPAD mini to help with his communication.  The box is a bit blurry, but that smile sure isn't!

 He still loves to swing, so we figured we would try a big kid swing.   Not so sure about it, he definitely cant go nearly as fast or high as in the toddler swing!

 One of our new neighbors, Ryan, who moved into Melanie and Jamie's house is a firefighter.  His fire station is right by the park we frequent. So we made a pitstop to the firehouse!   I had never taken Grayson before because, as we know, he isn't very predictable and I didnt know what to expect, but he loved it.  I was glad we were there alone though, once he got in that driver seat, he wouldnt let anyone else near it!  Adam kept trying to climb in to look around and he got pushed out everytime.

 Just doing a little steering with his foot.....

Nonny and Great Grandma Jo were in town for a few days.  We got to share a meal and a great day at the zoo.

 Three times on the carousel.....one is never enough!

Great Grandpa Ra comes for a visit!

Adam's grandfather, Grayson's great-grandfather Ralph came into town to visit us for the weekend.  Grayson is so lucky to have so many great grandparents!  We got to see some of them back to back!   When Adam was younger, Ra, as he called him, invented "the hook."  It looks exactly as it sounds and Grayson loved it.   I think he is much more gentle with G than he was with Adam, and it mostly looks like a tickling device.  We all know how much Grayson likes to be tickled!  Ralph would just hold up "the hook" and Grayson would go over to him and back into him.  Here are a few pictures from the first day of the visit when the hook was brought out.

It wasn't all about hooking.  Some kissing was allowed also!

A nice shot of Ra with G.

It was a fun filled weekend. We went to a new supermarket opening, walks around the block, swim lessons, swimming in the pool, and we ended the weekend with some bowling.  Below are the boys taking a snack break at the alley.

My favorite shot of the weekend.  Ralph and Grayson bowling side by side.  They tied and each won one game.  :)

Anker/McGahee/Rubin annual get together 2014

Just got back from a great long weekend with family.  It is always nice to see cousins together.   This year we met in Tradition, Florida which is not far away from Port St. Lucie. We even got to see Chelsea for a few hours on Saturday. We missed Andy who was at a fraternity reunion and of course my Mom. We had a lot of fun and were VERY busy, which you will see below.   Not my usual narration of each photo since there are 32!  And....I will have you know there were hundreds, those were just the ones that made the cut on the blog.  Enjoy!

We run a very tight ship. All the boys had study hour each day.  Not!  Just some light afternoon reading or in James' case, stacking.

 James was all about loving on Grayson.  Yet he was so gentle and calm around him.   They laid that way for a while and watched a movie.

 Bath time.  This started out with James "helping" to bathe Grayson, but you can see what happened next.  All three nights the boys bathed together.  Too bad Luke's bedtime was way before the "big boys" had to take a bath.  Maybe next year!  I couldn't choose my favorite, so here is a few.

 Then after bath, they would dress in their respective corners and then read together on the bed.

 On Friday we went to visit Poppi, Grandma Esther, and Great Aunt Rhoda. To the boys that is a great grandpa, great grandma, and great, great Aunt.  Very lucky.   Just watching a video on the IPAD while enjoying a black and white cookie.   You will see by the following pictures that Grayson was NOT having any photo ops today.   Too much going on, highly overstimulating environment.  Even models have their off days, I guess.

 Grayson loves tickles and when females use their nails to "tickle" him.   Aunt Jennie hopped on that train.  She has really good nails. :)

 Some pool time.  We thought we were going to get rained out the whole weekend, but the weather was decent enough to get 3-4 trips in the pool.  Grayson got to show off his swim skills and we all had fun relaxing and playing in the sun.

 Dinner table.   For the early birds.

 Uncle Bill got in on some of the tickles.

 Some more cousin love. :)

 More pool time!

 Gramps came to play!

 All the boys in the "sky pool."

 Smiley, happy Lukey.

 Hawaiian shirt photo shoot.   Luke and Gramps look happy about it, the other two, not so much.

It was a crazy busy but great weekend.  Can't wait to do it again next year!

Random Summer Happenings

Well can't seem to think of a better title for this blog than "Random Summer happenings."  The first picture is the one I am the most excited about.  I was introduced to another mom of a child with Autism through a mutual friend.  She said that a towing company down in South Florida, West Way Towing was trying to raise awareness.  They were going to wrap their truck with puzzle pictures and pictures of children affected by Autism.  Guess who was chosen?  He has such a great location, front and center.  Don't get in an accident if you see this cute picture while driving around town!

 We all know how much G loves water day!  Another random day of water play during the summer with ABA.

 Miss Carolina likes to take selfies with the G man.  This was one of my favs.   Doesn't his shirt say it all?

 After a haircut....

 He would still rather run around the house than engage with toys.  He is starting to really get back into books so that is a thrill for me.  The other times, he creates his own obstacle courses.

 We are running either hit or miss with nap time.   I think some days his body is telling him, "Hey man, you are good, you dont need to nap."  Which obviously is not the case when at 5 oclock he turns into a lunatic or can be found in one of these positions on the couch.   Much different than when he had to be in his room where it was silent. I bet on some of these days a bomb could go off and he wouldn't flinch.