The year 2022 has been filled with so many challenges, yet so much joy at the same time. 

We have truly been blessed and watched over during a very difficult year for our business and one filled with many extra expenses related to Sunshine's residential placements in Tennessee and Virginia.

All of us are very excited to start the new year and make it a great one!

(Photo Courtesy of Discovery Cove)

Our big highlight of the year was a trip to Florida in May. Though it was cut short, because we caught COVID-19, it was still worth it.

We spent one week at Jensen Beach, Florida enjoying the ocean, pool and Shuckers.

(Photo Courtesy of Discovery Cove)

Discovery Cove was our next stop. 

 (Photo Courtesy of Discovery Cove)

Swimming with sharks, dolphins, and a bunch of other sea life was incredible.

(Photo Courtesy of Discovery Cove)

Our third stop was Sea World where we enjoyed roller coasters and more! It was definitely a vacation to remember.

Jason and Renae have spent the year working on themselves, improving their mental and physical health, and being the best spouse and parents they can be. 

They continue to work together at Every Star Is Different and also serve as Stake Disability Specialists for the Buena Vista Stake for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The highlights of Renae's year were homecoming weekend at Southern Virginia University where she was able to spend the weekend with wonderful friends and music professors from the past. 

She also enjoyed all of the time spent watching football games as a family in person and on TV supporting everyone's favorite teams.

Jason's favorite moments from the year were swimming with dolphins and the meeting we found out that Sunshine was in fact coming home.

Dinomite, who turns 16 in January, is enjoying early morning seminary with his friends, following his favorite NFL team, the San Francisco 49ers, collecting football cards, and studying German.

He volunteered for the Southern Virginia University football team, as a team manager, under the direction of a retired NFL Raven's player and Superbowl winner. 

His responsibilities included: 

• Filming team practices
• Taking snaps for the offensive and defensive lines
• Rubbing down game balls
• Loading and shooting the jugs for players
• Filling water bottles during games
• Fulfilling the role of pullback coach during games

Can you find Dinomite in the photo above?

Dinomite LOVED this life changing experience, making friends with coaches and players, and can't wait to return next year. 

Bulldozer, age 14, enjoys following his favorite NFL football team, the Minnesota Vikings. He also enjoys collecting football cards like his brother. 

In school he really enjoys developing his language skills through vocabulary and creative writing. His study skills and test scores are the best among siblings.

This year Bulldozer has expanded his passion for movies beyond composers and movie scores to researching and memorizing every award ever given for best film, best actor, etc. The only person who compares in trivia knowledge is his father. 

Bulldozer continues to love Star Wars and has really enjoyed the new Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, and Andor series on Disney+.

Princess, age 13, continues to read as many books as she can get her hands on and writes her own stories, pursuing her dream of being an author. At times she's even incorporating her passion and knowledge of Spanish.

She has also developed her art skills this year, creating beautiful drawings of characters to go along with her writing. 

Princess' other passion is music. She has such a talent for singing and playing the piano. In her spare time she loves to compose music with the knowledge she's gaining of music theory through her studies.

On November 11, Sunshine, now age 11, returned home, after almost 3 years of residential treatment in 4 different placements. She LOVES being home with her family. We are still early in the transition, but are hopeful things will continue to go well.

Sunshine loves unicorns and other magical creatures. She enjoys learning about mythology. Her favorite times of day are play time with Daddy and learning time with Mommy.

Sunshine is doing a fabulous job learning to read, write, and spell using sign language and other hands on manipulatives. She is also working hard to learn her math facts, loving her skip counting songs to help with multiplication.

In her spare time, Sunshine loves to sing, put together puzzles, play with dolls, barbies, her kitchen set, LEGO, and stuffed animals.

The highlight of Sunshine's year was finally being baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the fall.

Our goals for 2023 are to see growth in our business, debts paid off, and peace and calm at home, with all of our children under one roof. Here's hoping the new year is a great one!

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Sunshine has thoroughly enjoyed her Santa themed practical life activities this week on the shelves. 

They are such a fun way to incorporate Christmas into learning!

I specifically chose and designed these activities based on skills I've observed she's struggling with.

There's just something about changing up the environment and adding fun manipulatives that encourages kids, including Sunshine, to work on something they otherwise wouldn't.

What's even more fun is that there are a few free printables included!

Santa Practical Life Activities with Free Printables

Transferring Balls with a Spoon

Since returning home from residential, Sunshine is really struggling with table manners and eating appropriately. She tends to use her hands rather than utensils and lacks coordination when she does choose to use utensils.

In this activity she will practice transferring foam balls from one bowl to the other using the spoon without spilling them.

To my surprise, Sunshine really struggled with this activity. She was more concerned with speed than accuracy and then became frustrated when the balls would spill into the basket.

Eventually she did slow down and was able to complete the activity. She felt quite proud of herself when it was done.

 
Pouring Liquid from Pitcher to Glasses

Originally I thought about putting milk and cookies on this tray instead of red water, but I was worried about mess and frustration, so I went with water.

Sunshine practiced pouring water into the two glasses from the pitcher and serving it to us. Her main concern was  using all of the water, and so she filled the cups up too far to move without spilling.

Next time I'll remember to put less water in the pitcher, until she shows that she's able to observe when a cup is too full.

Transfer with Tweezers

The object of this activity was to use the tweezers to transfer the foam table scatter from one glass bowl to the other.

Like with other activities, Sunshine struggled with this. She became easily frustrated trying to pick up individual trees and stockings. 

Eventually she learned that if she stabbed them with the tweezers she could pick up multiple things at one time and it was easier. 

Next time I'll choose tweezers that are more blunt at the ends and a different object to transfer. So much of her frustration comes from wanting to do things as fast as possible. We'll definitely work on slowing down a bit.

Santa Cutting Strips

I was so excited for Sunshine to do this activity as I remembered how much she loves to cut. But, there are no scissors in residential settings, and therefore she has not cut anything in three years.

Sunshine was quite upset that her skills had regressed and wanted to cut perfectly, which wasn't happening. 

Surprisingly she enjoyed the activity enough to do it a second time. She decided to try straight lines instead of curved lines which went a tiny bit better.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Santa Cutting Strips are a Subscriber's Only Freebie, for your copy, follow the directions at the bottom of this post.

Sharpening Santa Pencils

Sunshine loves having special pencils to do her work. When I saw a pack of Christmas pencils at our local dollar store, I couldn't resist.

She's enjoyed coloring a lot lately with colored pencils at home but struggles to sharpen them by herself. I thought it might be a great idea to practice this skill.

Despite how long it took, and how many different hand positions Sunshine used to try to sharpen the pencil with the sharpener, she succeeded and was very excited.

I absolutely love this pencil sharpener. After trying many over the years, this one works best and is so easy for kids to use.

Santa's Buckles Dressing Frame

I convinced Sunshine that Santa has to have a lot of practice with buckles in order to put his belt and boots on. If Santa can do buckles, then she can too.

Sunshine enjoyed this activity. Her only frustration was at the beginning when I presented the lesson to her and she wanted to dig in and do it right away.

It was nice to see her so excited to complete a task.

I absolutely love our dressing frame, as it's so sturdy and strong and allows for lots of practice.

Christmas Living vs. Nonliving Sorting Cards

Since returning from residential Sunshine has really struggled with the difference between reality versus fantasy, but also living versus nonliving things.

My husband created this printable for her to help. Please note it does not include any pretend characters.

Sunshine will sort cards into two categories: living and nonliving.

She hasn't done this activity yet, as we've all come down with the flu. I'm super excited for her to do so when she gets better, as I'm sure she'll love some of the living sorting cards.

Source: The Christmas Living vs. Nonliving Sorting Cards are a Subscriber's Only Freebie. For you copy, follow the directions at the bottom of the post.

Practical life skills are so important to develop. Holidays, especially Christmas can provide such a great opportunity to work on things.

We hope you enjoy these practical life activities as much as we do!

Don't forget your free printables!

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2. Subscribe to our free newsletter.

3. Open the thank you message you receive in your e-mail, after subscribing. (Be sure to check your spam folder, as sometimes it ends up there.)

4. Click the confirmation link in the thank you message.

5. Once the confirmation is complete, you will receive another e-mail message with the Subscriber Only Freebies.

6. Click on the link.

7. Select the Minimalism, Montessori, or Mental Health Printables Library.

8. Find the printable pack you are looking for listed in alphabetical order, click on it, and voila!

We hope you enjoy your free printable.

Note: If you are already a newsletter subscriber, open your most recent newsletter. At the bottom you will find a link to the Free Printables Library.

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 The Christmas season is the perfect time of year to bring out Santa themed math activities for kids, especially when you want to evaluate skills and review.

Sunshine requested Santa themed activities for her shelves this week, with the agreement that she would continue to work on skills in math, which is not one of her favorite subjects.

She has definitely kept her end of the deal. We have been having so much fun! Sunshine loves her Christmas themed activities.

She's doing so well, that we decided to add a couple more math activities to our shelves, which means some extra free printables for you!

Santa Math Activities for Kids with Free Printables

Christmas Addition Clip Cards

Sunshine has a really hard time memorizing math facts. She often needs counters to eliminate frustration. 

Sometimes counters can be frustrating for her when working with larger numbers as it takes a long time to work out each problem.

For this reason I've created these addition picture clip cards.

Sunshine counts the images and then writes the math problem on the blank paper provided. 

We read the math problem out loud once it's complete to help with memorization. It's my hope that over time as we use manipulatives, write the problems and read them aloud that they'll start to sink in.

Once Sunshine has her answer, she marks it with a jingle bell provided.

Sunshine loves jingle bells right now. I love that they add another sensory component to her work that she really enjoys.

Source: I created the printable for this activity as part of my Montessori-inspired Santa Printable Pack.

Christmas Cookie Subtraction Clip Cards

These subtraction clip cards are so much fun! The idea behind the activity is we're subtracting cookies we've eaten.

Sunshine reads the problem and then places white glass beads on the cookies that are being subtracted or eaten. 

She then counts the cookies that are left and marks her answer with the felt stockings provided.

Source: I created the printable for this activity as part of my Montessori-inspired Santa Printable Pack.

Christmas Cookie Greater Than/Less Than Clip Cards

Sunshine is very excited to show me how she can do greater than/less than problems.  

When she chooses this activity, she will count the Christmas cookies on each side and then mark her answer with a jingle bell provided. 

Sunshine is super excited about the heart jar where the jingle bells are kept as she loves taking things in and out of containers of any kind.

Source: I created the printable for this activity as part of my Montessori-inspired Santa Printable Pack.

Measuring Gingerbread Men

Sunshine is quite fascinated with measurement at the moment. 

Though she doesn't quite understand the concept yet, she's chosen this activity off her shelves every single day. 

She seems to love the mystery of finding out what measurement matches each gingerbread.

Sunshine uses a ruler to measure each gingerbread man and then matches it with the card provided

Right now we're only working with inches. If I observe that she's understanding measurement a bit more, I may attempt to introduce estimation, but she isn't quite ready for that yet.

Source: I created the printable for this activity as part of my Montessori-inspired Santa Printable Pack.

Santa Multiplication and Division Clip Cards

Since Sunshine has been doing so well with math and we've been working on skip counting skills, I thought it would be fun to introduce these Santa themed multiplication and division clip cards.

I have these adorable little stockings to use with the multiplication cards and Christmas bags with gift ornaments to use when we divide. My guess is that she'll have a blast with the manipulatives.

Source: I created the printable for this activity. The Santa Multiplication and Division Clip Cards are a Subscriber's Only Freebie. For your free copy, follow the directions below.

Directions on How to Obtain Subscriber Only Freebies

1. Click on the Subscriber's link at the bottom of this post.

2. Subscribe to our free newsletter.

3. Open the thank you message you receive in your e-mail, after subscribing. (Be sure to check your spam folder, as sometimes it ends up there.)

4. Click the confirmation link in the thank you message.

5. Once the confirmation is complete, you will receive another e-mail message with the Subscriber Only Freebies.

6. Click on the link.

7. Select the Minimalism, Montessori, or Mental Health Printables Library.

8. Find the printable pack you are looking for listed in alphabetical order, click on it, and voila!

We hope you enjoy your free printable.

Note: If you are already a newsletter subscriber, open your most recent newsletter. At the bottom you will find a link to the Free Printables Library.

Click HERE to Subscribe to our FREE Newsletter

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