I love watching Christmas movies - where everything works out wonderfully and you finish the movie feeling good. I have been working my way through a couple on Netflix, and as there's quite a few to choose from, I thought I would give a quick summary of 3 of the films I've seen to help you make your decisions of what to watch... The Holiday Calendar A single young woman who wishes her life was more exciting and that she had the courage to pursue her dreams and become a succe

It's December! Christmas Advent is upon us - Bring on all things Christmas!! Today marks the beginning of advent - 4 Sundays to go. The Christmas Prep series is how I/we prep for Christmas, as a family, in the run up to Christmas. We start in the October half term by writing out our gift wish list. We have completed our thankful November challenge #30daysofthankfulness as a family. For those unaware, as a family we choose one thing to be thankful for, each day in November.

Eek I'm a bit late posting this one out! I love Christmas and I'm feeling really excited for it - although to be fair that excited Christmas feeling pretty much happens to me every year. I have been watching a few Christmas Movies on Netflix and I'm in the mood for all things magical. So to create the magic, without feeling stressed, here's what we've been up to... Recap last week's tasks, Christmas Prep Week 2 Visit to Ideal Home Christmas Show Dates in the diary for school

I visited The Ideal Home Christmas Show for the first time this week with my mother. We came off the station at Kensington Olympia, London and was greeted by gentle snowfall (courtesy of the Ideal Home Show). The entrance was adorned with white carpet, artificial snow capped trees, a sleigh and reindeer that you can sit on for photographs and a hot chestnut vendor outside. We queued inside for the obligatory bag search and ticket checks, then we entered the massive hall cove

So church should be a welcoming place to all, Jesus made a point of being with those who did not fit into the social norms. He socialised with tax collectors! He saved the gentiles (non Jews) - He was not afraid of not following social protocols and He did not look down on others. This is the first part of a series of posts on how churches can help support families of children with autism/additional needs. First, we will be looking at Creating a Culture of Acceptance. It is

Its that most wonderful time of year and being organised helps to take away stress and allows you to enjoy the season. From my Instagram feed, we are over half way through our month of thankfulness, so in the midst of busyness we are preparing our hearts and minds to be content and thankful to God. Recap from Christmas Prep Week 1 Decide what to buy for our children. My children's presents are purchased, apart from a couple where I am waiting on promotions to get at a better

As I had written in my previous blog post, November is our month of thanks giving and our month for Christmas preparation. As you know from previous post, my children have already written their gift wish list. (For a free Gift Wish List printable please click here). So the first week after half term I am busy researching the gift list items to find the best prices. This is what I do; The Budget This is really important, going into debt for Christmas is not what it is about

For those that follow me on Instagram, you will know that November is our thanks giving month. We are not American, so do not celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional sense that they do but we do use the month of November to give thanks for what we already have in our lives Why? We give thanks to God for what we already have and are blessed with. Christmas and gift giving is around the corner and we like to prepare our hearts for this busy season. We like to remind oursel

Having not grown up as a Christian but discovering Jesus Christ, for myself, in my 20s I have always wondered about how to live as a christian, what is the right way - does the right way even exist? Should I give up on all worldly possessions? is being a stay at home mum the only way to live as a godly wife and mother? Should I only be wearing modest skirts/dresses? Head coverings? No make up or jewellery? As part of my bible reading plan, I have been going through the apostl

So after my last post of losing sight of what really matters. This half term has been a week of rest. However, I do find doing completely nothing stressful so at the beginning of the week I listed all the tasks that needed to be completed and what the expectations were for my ASD children. The rest of the time was free for them to spend as they wished. They pretty much wished to spend it on YouTube or gaming. Homework So my eldest had practise test papers to do, as he sits

The autumn half term break has arrived - and I'm so glad its here. Its been a busy first term back looking at secondary school placements for son 3, college for son 1, new home ed curriculum for son 2 and making sure son 4 doesn't feel left out! But in all this busyness of life I seemed to have lost my sparkle, the reason for why I was working so hard... Life has been busy with 2 birthdays in the immediate family and 3 in the extended, plus our wedding anniversary (with more

I have posted before about how important it is to train children on whats expected from them - we have training at work and life is no different. We cannot expect our children to just 'know' how to behave in different situations, especially if they have autism. I don't have autism and so learning to parent children with autism was completely knew to me. I was not raised in a christian family and so learning to pass on christian values and raise them to know Jesus was also a

As a family we've moved churches twice. I imagine families with typical children, would research and make sure they are happy with what the potential church has to offer and then just turn up on Sunday and expect to put their children into the kids work, if that is what they wanted for them. When you have children with additional needs - its just not that simple. We've moved twice with autistic children at different ages so thought I would share our experience. Wondering w

How exciting! A little while back I was nominated for a Sunshine Blogger Award. My very first blogging award. If you're wondering what that is - its an award given by fellow bloggers given in recognition of whose blogs are positive, creative and inspiring. So a big thank you to Nancy Mulligan for nominating me! The award encompasses answering 11 questions from your nominator and nominating 11 other bloggers and giving them a further 11 questions. Its a great way to get to kn

I was nominated for The Flawesome Award by Nancy at MyEverydayChallenges.com. At first I had no idea what it was, but after reading up I'm proud to be nominated and wanted to share my flaws with you. I don't want to project a shiny perfect christian person, where faith seems unobtainable and out of reach because this is not what being a christian is about. I try to be honest and real in my blog posts and I feel this award reflects that! The Flawesome Award: This award was c

So fitting in weekday family devotional time before we start the day can be tricky... When my children were younger and at the same primary school, I could organise the children's time more efficiently so when we sat down to breakfast, we could read and discuss a set text devotional, as we all left the house at the same time. We would follow different texts, age dependant and we could pray for each other in the car on the way to school, if things overran . Now they are olde

First and Then Card Visual As I have spoken about previously here, we also used a First and Then card. This was a visual to help our children cope with a task they found particularly hard or we would use to try and get the next task done quickly/avoid meltdown. Once they completed the First, they could have the Then (the motivator). The Then side could change as many times as necessary but the First card could not, until it was achieved. This is how we used visuals and ro

How to stay sane whilst parenting children with autism! Routines and visuals, how they helped to keep a calmer household and trained my children on what was expected. Personally, I hate having to do the same thing over and over again - I find it soul destroying and as feel as though I am being controlled. I prefer to have a set of tasks I can complete throughout the day in any order and add in spontaneity. However, this does not work for my children - at all, not one bit.

I just wanted to take my child and leave school, like every other parent was doing in the school playground. Surely that's not too much to ask or desire? However, my child's day did not go to plan so now he was refusing to leave, verbally broadcasting his anger and upset to everyone. The pressure was on - teachers, parents, his peers and other children were looking on - how was I going to handle this? I could feel the judgements and stares 'He's far too old to be behaving li

At the moment, it feels like financially everything is going wrong. It has just been one thing after another. Unexpected bills, trying to do the right thing only for it to fall back in our faces, trying to earn extra and it amounts to a lot of stress with little return. We have not been overspending but bills have come in higher or unexpected costs have appeared and then keep appearing. We are in the midst of this story and we don't yet know how it will end. It is temptin