Christmas fun with Cousins

Tucker has been having a blast with his cousins. If you don't know, the cousins that Tucker spends the most time with, both older and younger than him, are all girls. So Tucker spends most of his playdates with Barbie, Justin Bieber, make-up, Princesses, Dora, etc. The other day he actually cried when he asked Molli for a firetruck and she didn't have one!

 Tucker adores his cousins, and he loves spending time with them. Here is a picture of Tucker playing with baby Kinley.

 Here is a pic of them eating Cheetos together. This is from yesterday. Tucker had a rude awakening when Kinley started crawling and toddling around. He was used to her laying in her seat or having people hold her, now she is everywhere, lol.  He is pretty bossy (in case you haven't noticed) and a 10 month old is pretty hard to boss!  His reactions to Kinley are very "normal" but we are not used to normal, so they have taken all of us by big surprise. Kinley is quite the boss as well, and both Tucker and Kinley are so cute that neither one of them hears "no" too often :)

The next picture is proof that Tucker has been spending a lot of time with Molli! We went to her house two weekends ago, then this Saturday Molli spent the day with us. She goes straight for the one pair of high heels I own. I do not have a very good dress-up collection, haha. Tucker wants to do anything and everything that Molli does, including trying on my high heels, too :)

He only made it about two steps before falling over, just like me.  Which is of course the reason I own just the one pair of high heels.

About a month ago, I made the great suggestion to my sister and aunt: "let's get the kids together for a baking day." They all thought it was great...and it was great, but wow, we really underestimated the amount of work it took for us to bake cookies alone, not to mention trying to get the kids involved without ruining the kitchen, haha.  Thank goodness Meagan was there, I don't think Susan and I had any clue what was going on.....no offense to us!

We thought we picked two easy tasks, cutting out sugar cookie dough into stars, then stacking the baked cookies on top of eachother to make a Christmas tree. The second cookie was gingerbread men, simple enough, right? The kids had an absolute blast rolling out the dough, cutting the dough, then decorating the cookies once they were baked.

Here is Tucker decorating his gingerbread man. They have been having a Gingerbread unit at school. So when you say "Run run run as fast as you" he says "can!?" then you say, "you can't catch me, I'm the" he says "Gingabed man!" It is SO CUTE! He also knows all the words to Jingle Bells, including the "Dashing through the snow" beginning, which Molli didn't even know. It cracks me up when I teach Molli the words to a song, she is just so amazed that Leigh Leigh knows anything at all. My mom says that is because kids think only their teachers at school know stuff, not their moms or aunts. So anyways, Tucker and Molli both know all the words to Jingle Bells, and Tucker's face lights up when anyone sings it with him.

 Tucker's older cousins Addi and Aliyah also decorated cookies. They did the work of rolling and cutting while Molli and Tucker just decorated. Tucker also mashed up a pan of carefully cut-out stars, but his cuteness kept him out of trouble, as usual :)

Here is the note that Addi and Aliyah wrote once they were done baking and had gone outside to play.

 The note was very effective. Even I, a self-professed cookie monster, would not dare touch these.

And a fantastic part of the day-Uncle Joey taught Tucker how to ride Molli's big bike. Tucker worked so hard at it, and Uncle Joey stayed on him and wouldn't let him quit. His face just lit up when he got the bike going without help, and now he is a bike-riding machine. Perhaps Santa will deliver a new bike under our (now-dead) live Christmas tree. Maybe it will even be pink ;)

I also went to my parents' house this past Saturday to bake cookies with my sister Jessica. She is more of a watcher than a baker, but luckily Molli came over and was very eager to help. I don't have any pictures from that day, I forgot the camera at home. The cookies were delicious, as they are all gone and it's only Monday.

Tucker's language has blown us away this past week. His therapists are teaching me how to ask Tucker the right questions. One of my biggest issues is that I never know how Tucker's day has gone, or what emotion he is feeling, why he is frustrated or acting funny....really the inability for him to share anything with me. His language has exploded as far as labeling items and demanding things of us, which is a fantastic first step. The next stage is to learn how to extract the information that he has been storing in his brain for years, unable to get it all out. His therapists are showing me how, and I am blown away. One instance is when his therapist started with the gingerbread story, and Tucker finished it. She said that there are so many more things that Tucker knows and wants to talk about, but he doesn't know how. So we will be working on that for months and months I'm sure, but the gingerbread instance gives us all so much hope :)

Next weekend is the big Lavigne party (bring on the tacky sweaters!). Then Morgan and Grace are spending the week at our grandparents' house. The girls are coming with us to two dr. appointments and hopefully a Santa visit on the Tuesday, and I know that Tucker will love spending the whole day with them. We'll probably be over to visit each night, too, as long as Tucker's not too tired.