doughnut date

Lewis and I recently went on our first ever "Doughnut Date." Some friends gave us a cd that a girl they knew recorded and the boys both absolutely love it. One song is about going on a doughnut date with a friend and getting a "frosted with sprinkles" doughnut. Lewis is an extremely picky eater, but since he sings about doughnuts all the time, it seemed like he might be open to eating one. Sure enough, he picked one that was frosted with pink sprinkles (he could've gotten green, or mixed...but he chose PINK!) and he ate every bite! I had to hand him each bite, he wasn't willing to eat it on his own, but he didn't fight with me about it either.

To make the time even more fun, we played a Blue's Clues version of "Memory." Owen and I had stopped at a local thrift store and found it for $1 that morning. Lewis was thrilled about that too. We had a good time, and Lewis even said "hi" to quite a few others visiting the Great American Donut Shop that day.


We actually stopped by the mall before that and Lewis got to ride the carousel. We tried riding a couple other times recently in Chattanooga, and in Bowling Green when the carousel was not operating. This time worked out, and then he got to ride Nessie, a dragon that goes up and down. We also stopped in at Macy's and rode the escalator a few times, which he also really loved. I guess you could say Lewis is a cheap date.

school starts

Lewis started back to preschool on Monday. It has been a busy week! But, to catch you up, one of his latest obsessions is with arrows, and particularly one way signs. He notices arrows everywhere (you should look around the next time you are out at all the arrows pointing all over!). I found him doing this one day with his leap frog letters.


The boys have been watching a video called "Watch Me Learn" that models play for kids with autism. It is funny to see them mimicking what they see. Lewis got home from his first day of school and immediately made a train with Owen to go down the slide. It has become a daily ritual for them. They both really enjoy it and it is great exercise.


Here's a video of a day recently:



As for school, Lewis had a super aide who worked with him last year, but recently took a new job and is not working at his school anymore. Poor Lewis has asked for him repeatedly, but seems to be enjoying school despite his absence. He is adjusting better than we thought, which will really help next year when he will change schools completely.

Since it cooled off this week, Owen and I headed to the park for a few minutes of fun. He liked riding this horse and met a little girl who he said "hi" to repeatedly.

Children's Discovery Museum

Thursday morning, we headed to the Children's Discovery Museum. It looked really fun from the outside!

The first area was all about water. Owen loved splashing around and finding all the boats.

Then we stopped in a miniature house.

There is a huge music area, with huge instruments. You can push the buttons on the front to hear the sounds. Lewis wanted to control about 3 of them, and got upset when other kids (or adults) tried to push them. We had to get out of there pretty quickly and some tears were shed.

Luckily, there were more instruments to try. Lewis loved the xylophones.

Owen tried out some drums.

Next, we headed to the indoor excavation site where young explorers could find dinosaur remains. The boys absolutely loved this part.



They could've played in the sand all day.

We saw a few more things, including these magnets.

Then we climbed some stairs to a lookout tower. We could see an interesting view of the city, complete with crane! It was a super fun time. We highly recommend it!!

part 2: the aquarium

After a quick lunch at Cheeburger Cheeburger, we headed into the Tennessee Aquarium. It was great! The tour started with a sting ray pool where we could touch the sting rays.

We spent a long time looking at all the fish swimming around in a huge tank. The sharks were impressive, but Lewis liked the sting rays best and kept saying, "Hi, sting ray!"

We finally got them away, and Lewis fell in love with jelly fish. They were in a really dark area and we got no pictures of them!

There was a place to touch sturgeons. Apparently they can get up to 18 feet long.

We were pretty tired after all of that fish, but managed to have some fun swimming back at the hotel. We crossed over the pedestrian bridge that evening and took a break for ice cream before walking back. Owen jogged most of the way.

A family portrait from the bridge.

chattanooga: part 1, our hotel

Last week, we went to Chattanooga, for a little family getaway. Aunt Beth came with us, which was really nice. We stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel. They had a nice little package that made it easy to plan. They had trains there that people were actually staying in. Those packages were a bit pricier! The boys loved looking at the trains.


Our package came with a free trip to a model railroad museum. Lewis loves Railroad crossing signs, so we had to take a picture with him next to this one, by the entrance.

Lewis and Owen both loved watching the trains go. It wasn't air conditioned in there though, so we were able to get them out of there before it got too hot.

The kids also got little engineer caps. Lewis was willing to wear his, but Owen threw his off immediately. Stay tuned for more posts. We had fun. :)