With no camp, and no more early morning therapy, the little boys have a new routine.

First, Rerun will get up, and he will crawl into bed with me in the Webmaster’s empty spot.  Often, he will fall immediately back asleep after stealing his dad’s down pillow.  (He would like one of his own, he tells me.)

Then, Thumper will get up, and crawl into my side of the bed, putting me in the middle between them.  (This is when I check Thumper to make sure he is still dry.  I have been unpleasantly surprised in the past.)

Eventually, the two boys will squish right up next to me, making me into the middle of their sandwich of snuggles.

I have now begun to call this the “Mom Sandwich.”

Eventually, they both wake back up, Thumper usually runs off with an iPad, and Rerun demands to check in on his favorite Instagram dogs.

It’s been a lazy way to start the day, but the reality of the school morning is soon approaching….

Happy birthday to my sweet niece Bette!  I can’t believe you are nine years old today!  Love you!

I’ve known this day has been coming for almost a year now.  And I’ve been bracing myself for it.

Tad is officially done with individual ABA sessions at the Autism Center.

Now, that’s not to say that he’ll never be back here – after all, Thumper still has many, many, MANY sessions ahead for years to come, and Tad will probably be along for the ride (this week, even), but after nine years, he has “graduated” from the services that they can offer him.  It’s an amazing moment, even if it is bittersweet.

But even Tad is asking “what do I do now?”  Well, he needs to work on the social skills that ABA has taught him, so we are applying to a local youth services organization to enroll Tad in their social group program.  We have an intake appointment this week.

But for the moment, we’re just standing back in awe of just how far Tad has come.

It’s not a birthday until there is a family party!  And many thanks to Grandma for her extra help in making sure that we had a reasonably clean house for this party.  Seriously, we had an amazing amount of stuff sitting in the living room for the past month, thanks to the kids’ room makeovers.

But it was all cleared away (enough) to look good in pictures!

Yes, that is the same shirt he wore for his friend party.  He only owns one Disney shirt at the moment (if you don’t count Star Wars or Marvel as Disney).  We may have to fix that later.  If I hadn’t been preoccupied with house cleaning, I might have thought of it… moving on…

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Well, it’s official – everyone is now settled into their new rooms!

Ane has a new duvet cover that better matches her new Maui theme on order, but she’s just happy to have her own space again.

With the palm leaf wall hanging, the pineapple fairy lights, her Lilo & Stitch picture, and her 5K medals and bibs on their own rack, it’s definitely starting to come together!

As a birthday present to Tad, Auntie brought over her little projector, mixed some paint, and painted shark silhouettes on his ceiling, swimming around his ceiling fan light.

I don’t know how this room can be any more “Tad” with Batman decor hanging, LEGO sets, and now sharks on the ceiling.

With Ane in her new room, we finally could move Thumper into the bottom bunk!

He was really too big for the toddler bed and needed that extra space!  And now we can start to clean up and breathe a little – everyone is in a bed, in their designated space, before school starts!  And we seriously need to clean up – we’re having Tad’s family party this weekend!