Thursday, June 28, 2012

Bragging on my boys

This week was VBS at our church, although I guess it was really Neighborhood Bible Time.  Not growing up in fundamental circles, I had no clue what this meant but Rob did...and it sounds like the program hasn't changed one iota since he was a boy except for the videos to watch on-line each night.

Anyway, the kids had a blast going each night and tonight was the awards night.  I did not attend the ceremony because of my sensory issues, but I wish I had because Ben was 2nd place out of the 1st graders and Matthew was first place over both the 3rd graders AND all of the Primaries!  So proud of my kiddos!  They do a great job memorizing verses and just love every minute of the time they had.  Thanks to all of the workers!

Anna also came home with her ribbons for each day's achievements.  I was able to help her class by prepping the crafts ahead of time and handing them over to the craft person.  I was happy to be able to find some way to help out!  Oh, and another mom's daughter who has celiac made g-free cookies so the kids had a cookie too!  Good stuff all around!!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Bragging on Anna

Anna has been very busy making "cards" for all kinds of people.  She even took a purse full of them to church yesterday to hand out to her friends.  But today she amazed Rob and I with this one:

She wanted to make a card for Sophie, my chiropractor's little girl who is around Anna's age.  So she stamped all kinds of pictures all over a piece of typing paper, then she wrote her own name on the back.  She's been touch and go about writing her name recently.  She showed me the paper and said, "I wrote Sophie's name on it, too!"  And there, plain as day, were the letters "S-O-F-E" in Anna's handwriting.  I thought maybe one of the boys had helped her, but both of them were downstairs playing Wii.  So Miss Anna, age 4 years and almost 3 months, sounded out a word by herself and wrote it out phonetically!!  I am amazed!!  She can't even read yet...or at least I don't THINK she can :) 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

A school update

It just occurred to me that I never did an end of the school year update!  We ended about a month ago and I have been so tired that I haven't felt like updating anything.  So I'll give a little update on each child's progress this year.

Anna:  My little sweatheart completed Sonlight's Core 3/4, which is mainly just reading good children's books.  She enjoyed her special reading time with Mommy each day and has been begging to learn to read.  I have kind of started her on the 100 easy lessons book, but either she's not ready or she needs another method.  She knows all of her letters and sounds so we may just skip that book and use Sonlight's LA for Kindergarten next year, which worked better for Ben.  We also did some preschool math workbooks and games, like Mighty Minds, and she is VERY good with numbers and math concepts.  She will be working through Sonlight's Core 4/5 next year and the Primer book in Math-U-See.  We're also working a wee bit on handwriting.  Right now she copies pre-printed letters and does pretty well.  For summer school, she is working through the four-year-old books for Think it Through from Discovery Toys and she just finished the library reading program.

Ben:  Oh my, did this little guy grow by leaps and bounds in kindergarten!  He was very resistant to learning to read and found it quite difficult, so we tossed the 100 lessons book and just worked slower through the Sonlight program.  Now he is reading easy readers and working slowly into chapter books.  I would have never thought he would progress so far with his reading!  Rob and I are very impressed with him.  He flew through the last half of his school readers (he did LA-1 this year) with ease.  He also completed the Alpha book in Math-U-See with no problems (that's a first grade book for those that don't speak "homeschool.")  Math is definitely his strong point!  His handwriting is behind for sure, but I have decided with all of the kids to just let them learn that skill as they are ready.  I figure if it was good enough for Abraham Lincoln, it's good enough for them :)  For summer school Ben is doing all of the math workbook pages we skipped, devotional book for the Wed night program at church, and some phonics books from the Think it Through set.

Matthew:  This child is my voracious reader.  He did LA for 4-5 grade this year and excelled.  He can literally read anything he picks up!  Right now he is almost finished reading the third Harry Potter book (and that's where he has to stop until he's older.)  He started it Wednesday night and is almost finished!  He completed the Beta math book this year, which I think was his only real challenge in school.  Otherwise he just flew through the rest of his material.  I need to get this guy into a spelling bee b/c he can spell almost anything w/o much help.  For summer school he is doing the same as Ben with the addition of the Bible Bee. 

Next year school will be a bit different.  The plan right now is that I teach Matthew and Anna while Rob teaches Ben.  We have found that Ben and I do not work well together, so our current solution is to hand him over to Rob, who does work well with Ben.  I'm very relieved b/c our only other choice would be to send him to school and I can't imagine what that would do to him emotionally if he gets sent away and his siblings get to stay home.  We love our life as a homeschooling family and can't imagine doing anything else!!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Health Update

It's been a looooong time since I did an update on my health so here goes!  I have officially finished the first six months of treatment.  In mid-May I was retested to see what has improved and how much more work is yet to be done.  Almost all of my numbers improved over last time.  Some of them are not yet at optimal levels, but those are the ones that take longer to fix.  The two main areas that regressed deal with the inflammation around my heart and my iron levels.  My food info was also retested and I can have everything except gluten (lifetime on that one anyway), potato, and quinoa.  The last two are a little tricky b/c there are flours and starches in gluten-free foods that contain them, but they don't seem to bother me.  Potatoes and quinoa in regular form do.  I know I have to avoid gluten for sure b/c it bothers me fiercely if there is even a trace in my food. 

I am overall feeling better, but the lower iron levels do make me tired during the day.  Hopefully we'll see an improvement soon.  My biggest other problem right now is the continuing sensory issues.  I no longer have that bizarre ear thing going on, but rather pain that shoots up my left arm when something is too loud.  It happens most often in church.  I've been trying to attend different services and try different combinations but so far nothing has worked.  I've varied where I sit in church to no avail.  This past Sunday I tried just the AM service and as soon as the organ began, pain shot up my arm and didn't leave until the next day.  It has been suggested that I might try sitting in the foyer, but I really don't see the point of attending the service when I'm only listening.  I may as well stay home and listen to the service on-line. 

So here is where we are at:  as far as treatments go, my doctor will be presenting me with a new plan of attack on Thursday.  It will be more of a fine-tuning rather than an all out attack like the first six months.  We also have to make sure we can afford it.  The church situation is a matter of prayer right now.  I will still take the kids on Wednesday nights but Sundays are up in the air.  I'm such a horrible, miserable person after attending church on  Sundays that I have to make a choice:  Be in pain and avoid the fam all Sunday afternoon or skip being fed spiritually and being part of the corporate body of believers.  Prayers for wisdom are appreciated.