January is flying...

It definitely seems that January is flying by for our house.  I thought I'd be able to keep up with a blog post a week for updating on the random happenings, funny sayings, and milestones.  I'm thinking it will be more like two or three times a month.

 And while suddenly January is almost gone, I'm wondering where it went and what on earth have we been doing?
For starters of course the kids all headed back to school the second week of January.  That is definitely enough to keep us busy.  Noah is doing well in his second grade studies.  I am thankful for a teacher who continues to challenge him, keep us in the loop on how he's doing with school and behavior and all of that good jazz!  Reading is still a favorite pass time; he prefers to read comics and graphic novels, right now Big Nate is among the favorites.  I'm the mom who keeps pushing him though and so for his daily reading time for homework he gets to read a chapter book that will challenge him.  So he's working on Tom Sawyer that he got for Christmas.  It's fun hearing his thoughts on the book.

Josh started with a new teacher in January for kindergarten as a class was added at his school and he wanted to volunteer to switch classes because he likes adventures and meeting new people.  He's loving his class and new teacher and enjoying the adventure of something new.  He also loves that he's able to see his teacher from last year and give her big hugs!  He is getting stronger with his sight words and math skills.   I'm also getting to volunteer in his class once a week - which is lots of fun.

The boys are both practicing for AWANA games with Mike.  Their Saturdays are full of practice for the Sparks-A-Rama games and then waiting with Mike while he coaches the T&T games in the afternoon.  AWANA games and practices meant we took a break from team sports for this season, while the boys are missing basketball season it is nice to have a free evening once in a while around here.

Addy's still loving school.  It's nice that we are getting more and more information from her about her day.  We have always been kept in the loop about what they were working on in class and speech, but she's so much more talkative about her friends.  She'll tell us all about what they did at recess and who was wearing a new shirt.  Her bus driving in the afternoon tells me almost every day that she's a chatter box and sings on the way home. 
Tonight while I was putting her to bed, she was going on and on, I gave her a hug and told her okay time to be quiet and get to sleep.  The poor girl got tears in her eyes, when I asked her what was wrong she just looked at me with big crocodile tears.  I inquired a bit more and asked her what was the matter, was she sad?  She said yes; I asked her why and she said "I just need to talk more."  Oy! This girl!  She's going to be a chatterbox for sure.

Mike seems to be pretty busy with work this month as well.  I've been pretty busy this month, a few regular sessions and then I did a casting call for newborn clients after taking a lighting course this last month.  I learned so much from the class, and there is nothing better after learning than getting to put it into practice. Thankfully the kids and Mike were good sports and let me do some practicing on them too.

Hello 2014!

So it's been almost 2.5 years since my last blog post on this blog - yikes!  I'm not sure I will be able to promise bi-weekly updates and long posts (that could be a relief to many of you!) but I feel encouraged and led to at least attempt to keep up the blog - for now my goal is for this year at least one post a month. 

So today I'll leave you with pictures from our adventures at Death Valley yesterday.  We need to update the bucket list of things to do before we leave Vegas - and this will be one more thing to check off the list!  It was BEAUTIFUL - really truly breath taking.  We watched a short video before exploring the park while we were at the visitor's center and learned lots about the history and environment of the park - I think the kids were all most impressed that there are 30 species that can only be found in Death Valley.  Josh really liked the pupfish.

An Addy Update

Just a quick note and update on Addy's medical happenings.  Actually it isn't much of an update; I like that it isn't much of one.  Yesterday we saw the pediatric developmental doctor with early intervention.  It's a pediatrician who really focuses on the whole child and any developmental concerns.  If  you have a child with special needs, this is basically your go-to person to help coordinate the care from the multiple specialists if you had several.  We've been waiting for this appointment for awhile.  Really at the moment though, there's not a ton we need from this doc.  Addy's medical stuff is pretty much stable.  So developmentally - Addy's on track.  Her only recommendation was for a kidney ultrasound, just to be sure there isn't anything odd going on (there's a connection between hearing loss and kidney issues often times).
Well this morning, she had an ophthalmology appointment.  Her geneticist wanted her to see an ophthalmologist again (if you remember Addy saw one before she was even 6 months, just to check on her eyes and the nerves and such and rule out signs of Usher syndrome).  The brain atrophy could have affected the optic nerves; we hadn't noticed anything odd in her vision but of course knew it wouldn't hurt to have things checked out.  The appointment was long, the wait was long, but I felt comfortable that the ophthalmologist was very knowledgeable and experienced.  I really liked her, that made it easier to endure the wait time; it also was a huge blessing that the boys were playing at a friend's house for the morning.  Addy's optic nerves looked great (now that I type this, I wonder can they really see the optic nerves or is there something else they see that gives clues?  I'm not sure, I know her eyes were very dilated so maybe they can see them).  Anyway, everything looks great as far as that goes.  That is awesome news!   Apparently though Addy is farsighted and has astigmatism.  It is borderline on needing glasses.  The doctor said if she was in kindergarten she'd still be hesitant to give Addy glasses, if she was in 1st grade it would be recommended because she'd be reading smaller print and more would be required of her eyes.  She will have a follow-up in 6 months and we'll go from there as far as what she needs.  I guess we won't be surprised if by elementary school she needs glasses - not such a bad thing at all.

A Little Glimpse of Today

Today was the start of week 3 for school.  So far we are doing well and everyone is really enjoying it.  I still am struggling to find that "great balance" of keeping house work caught up, keeping in touch with friends, getting to appointments, errands run etc. and trying to work on projects for sewing and crafts as well as trying to stick my feet ever so slightly deeper into the world of photographer.  But - we are learning and growing and I'm thrilled with the progress I'm seeing already.  Noah's coloring and hand writing are showing improvements already, listening skills are growing in all 3 kids. 
Mostly, I love that we are learning together.  I love knowing and talking about all the things that Noah is learning.  It's an incredible gift getting to learn things with him, to watch the "ah-ha" moments happening, to see him grow in so many areas.  I wouldn't trade it for the world right now (though I understand that homeschooling or schooling in a public or private school is a decision that must be made for each child, each year so their needs are met).  Today we read on the trampoline in the afternoon sun, Josh jumping and bouncing around as he was listening, Noah rolling around some as he listened and then acted out part of the story.  Noah also started with his Spanish lessons today.  Who would have thought?  Thankfully I can sit with him and do the lessons since I don't know any!  In history we are learning about the continents - Noah can name all 7, but we're still working on identifying them.  History lessons are moving on to Australia and learning more about it this week, but the beauty of it is that I know Noah needs a bit more practice with naming and locating the continents so we're going to keep working on reviewing those even as we are exploring Australia.  I love that one-on-one.  This afternoon we played a few games we'd made last year and never fully used.  We're going to create a lapbook on the continents that will include the game and a few other things.   Hopefully it will be a fun way for Noah to continue reviewing since he's creating the book.  We also painted our suitcases so we're ready for our world trip and all we're going to learn as we travel.  Everyone enjoyed painting (I think this is the first time we've included Addy in painting and she LOVED it!).  Tomorrow we're going to take our passport photos and make sure they're ready to go when we leave for Australia.
Noah really enjoys his online class sessions - he has a sense of belonging to his teacher's classroom and his schoolmates.  I'm looking forward to going on field trips with his class.  It's going to be a fun filled year I think.  Science was definitely a highlight of the day today for the boys I think - we explored our taste buds with lots of tasting of sweet and sour foods and candy.

First Night of AWANA 2011-2012 Year

The boys had a fabulous evening tonight at church.  I did too, though AWANA is for the kids - seriously I think I get just as much out of it. 
Noah is a Spark this year (which is K-2nd graders) and Josh had his very first night in AWANA as a Cubby.  Josh has been super excited to get to go to Cubbies - just like Noah.  Earlier today he told me as we were talking about going tonight and what he may have to do during the time, Josh told me he was going to get to play with the big boys.  He's just so excited to get to do things that Noah has gotten to. 
Mike & I are helping in Sparks this year, together.  It's awesome because I got to see Noah and Josh both during opening ceremonies and just see the excitement on their faces as the songs got sung.  Josh looked so intense during the pledges and while the colors were presented.  Then during game time we played outside since it was the first night on the big playground.  Again, I got to catch some glimpses of Noah playing and interacting with new friends and I'm sure some old friends from last year.  The church has this "big" slide, it really is big and fast.  It starts on the second floor and goes down to the playground just past the first floor (there's kind of dip for the playground if that makes sense).  Well you ride on towels down the slide and it's really fast.  I heard Noah going down and then saw him come back by the stairs to go try again.  He was so excited about it!  I'm looking forward to another great year with AWANA and the boys both wanted to take their Bibles to bed tonight and read and wanted to know if we could work on their verses in the morning during breakfast.  I love that they are both so excited about learning God's word and know that I need to learn it too, my memorization skills are lacking and I am really looking forward to learning all the verses with them this year.




Addy didn't want to be left out of pictures