Today we painted the front door and shutters and trim. Now our shutters actually match the door.
And we did touch-ups on many walls inside.
I'm loving spring!!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
March was lovely and now it's over! I accompanied nearly 30 music students in Ogden once Salt Lake several times, and locally numerous times. It's one of my most favorite things to do and I love every minute! Of course with work, teaching, family, and church there is not much time left for things like blogging. Here are some other March highlights:
Eva played with the district orchestra--it was beautiful, of course. She also earned a Superior rating from Federation judges for her solo violin work. Last Friday she went to the state science fair and had a great time. She spent the day with friends--her friend's mom drove and chaperoned Eva that day. They went to City Creek, the new mall in Salt Lake, and she was singled out among throngs of people and a group of friends by a talent director for a modelling agency. She was wearing her medallion that day and the lady made sure to mention several times that they wanted to work with her and her standards. She was flattered but she is not interested. Whew! Of course I know she's beautiful and a great worker but I'm scared of that industry!! She said something to the effect of: "How can I do modelling while I'm practicing violin and piano and teaching and I want to run track?! And I have school!" Exactly right! I love that girl!!
Ethan is loving scouts. I subbed in his Sunday School class and was impressed that he tries to answer nearly every question and knows most all the answers. It's clear he loves the gospel and thinks about it more than I had realized. Eva tells me that her friends in that class say he is always like that. It's neat to witness his testimony. This Sunday he gets to speak in Sacrament Meeting. He is my most thorough worker--and I look forward to when he gets a new zone because I know the deep clean will be done well on that part of the house that week. For Nathan's birthday Ethan gave Nathan a set of coupons for chores. He didn't think it was fair that Nathan wouldn't get a day off chores for his birthday. Of course, I said Nathan could have a day off but then he wouldn't earn money that day. Ethan also finished up his early morning advanced math class--he's loved it and he's looking forward to Junior High. I'm excited to see what clubs/sports he decides to do. He's thinking he wants to try to be the mascot when he's an eighth grader--he'd be great at that!!
Ivy and I were in charge of achievement days one day this month. I wanted to change it because I was so busy but then realized that we were asked to plan it on Ivy's last day with this group of girls. So we muscled through it. She wanted to bake bread. We borrowed some small bread pans and made bread dough with the girls and then gave them a small loaf of their own. Then we made placemats for nursery snack time. Ivy loves cooking and baking. She looks forward to her night every week and volunteers to help in the kitchen all the time. She still checks out cookbooks when we go to the library. She's been growing her hair to donate and it's past ready but she's working on earning enough money to pay for her hair cut. Maybe this week....
Nathan had an IEP this month. He actually didn't qualify for special ed services in speech, writing, or reading. It was shocking to everyone at the meeting. However, he did qualify for math because he wasn't paying attention to the adding/subtraction signs that day. No one is concerned about his math but since he qualified for that if we send him for minimal math help he can still receive services for the other. And the speech therapist qualified him for conversational speech, since that is not yet perfect. I was surprised at how nervous I was at the thought of receiving no services. It's definitely bittersweet. The past few months Nathan has made stunning advances at speech--the professor is literally giddy. I have never seen him this excited for Nathan! He mastered rhyming, syllables, sounds in words, most 3-syllable words and is working on 4-syllable words. He is still working hard on retelling stories, describing things, etc. This is very difficult for him but we have seen some progress--Nathan has told us a couple of stories in the last month or so. His reading level as also taken a big leap. His dibels fluency went from 37 words a minute to 51 words a minute. It's still nearly a year behind where he should be but it's a huge jump! His classroom reading aide and his teacher both noticed marked improvement. I believe that his mind is developing and preparing for his baptism and consequent gift of the Holy Ghost which can only enhance this great growth!
Nathan also went to cub scouts for the first time! The night before he put is shirt on and Ethan helped him make it perfect with the scarf and the scarf slide. It was so cute! Don't tell Ethan I described anything he's said or done as cute. Let's keep that between us. I couldn't believe how excited Nathan was--I hadn't realized how much he was looking forward to it. He's working on saving money for day camp!
This week Nathan will finish reading the Book of Mormon! He turned eight in March and will be baptized this Saturday. It's weird that my baby will be baptized. Every one of the kids has read the Book of Mormon before their baptism. It has been easy for none of them and sometimes feels hardest on me but we have done it and it feels great that Nathan will finish. There have been many times when it seemed it would be impossible but he's done it!! This week we will need to read 2 chapters a day to do it and it's a bit more reading for spring break but when I gathered the kids this morning there was not a single word of complaint. They all know what it means to finish it and the older three are more than supportive of Nathan and willing to help. It's a heavenly thing to witness this kind of support and love!
Aahhh, spring break! We are spring cleaning and I LOOOVE it!! The kids don't love it so much.
OK. Maybe they hate it.
I don't care.
It's impossible for me to deep clean with work and piano and we are past due. A clean house is marvelous!
Eva played with the district orchestra--it was beautiful, of course. She also earned a Superior rating from Federation judges for her solo violin work. Last Friday she went to the state science fair and had a great time. She spent the day with friends--her friend's mom drove and chaperoned Eva that day. They went to City Creek, the new mall in Salt Lake, and she was singled out among throngs of people and a group of friends by a talent director for a modelling agency. She was wearing her medallion that day and the lady made sure to mention several times that they wanted to work with her and her standards. She was flattered but she is not interested. Whew! Of course I know she's beautiful and a great worker but I'm scared of that industry!! She said something to the effect of: "How can I do modelling while I'm practicing violin and piano and teaching and I want to run track?! And I have school!" Exactly right! I love that girl!!
Ethan is loving scouts. I subbed in his Sunday School class and was impressed that he tries to answer nearly every question and knows most all the answers. It's clear he loves the gospel and thinks about it more than I had realized. Eva tells me that her friends in that class say he is always like that. It's neat to witness his testimony. This Sunday he gets to speak in Sacrament Meeting. He is my most thorough worker--and I look forward to when he gets a new zone because I know the deep clean will be done well on that part of the house that week. For Nathan's birthday Ethan gave Nathan a set of coupons for chores. He didn't think it was fair that Nathan wouldn't get a day off chores for his birthday. Of course, I said Nathan could have a day off but then he wouldn't earn money that day. Ethan also finished up his early morning advanced math class--he's loved it and he's looking forward to Junior High. I'm excited to see what clubs/sports he decides to do. He's thinking he wants to try to be the mascot when he's an eighth grader--he'd be great at that!!
Ivy and I were in charge of achievement days one day this month. I wanted to change it because I was so busy but then realized that we were asked to plan it on Ivy's last day with this group of girls. So we muscled through it. She wanted to bake bread. We borrowed some small bread pans and made bread dough with the girls and then gave them a small loaf of their own. Then we made placemats for nursery snack time. Ivy loves cooking and baking. She looks forward to her night every week and volunteers to help in the kitchen all the time. She still checks out cookbooks when we go to the library. She's been growing her hair to donate and it's past ready but she's working on earning enough money to pay for her hair cut. Maybe this week....
Nathan had an IEP this month. He actually didn't qualify for special ed services in speech, writing, or reading. It was shocking to everyone at the meeting. However, he did qualify for math because he wasn't paying attention to the adding/subtraction signs that day. No one is concerned about his math but since he qualified for that if we send him for minimal math help he can still receive services for the other. And the speech therapist qualified him for conversational speech, since that is not yet perfect. I was surprised at how nervous I was at the thought of receiving no services. It's definitely bittersweet. The past few months Nathan has made stunning advances at speech--the professor is literally giddy. I have never seen him this excited for Nathan! He mastered rhyming, syllables, sounds in words, most 3-syllable words and is working on 4-syllable words. He is still working hard on retelling stories, describing things, etc. This is very difficult for him but we have seen some progress--Nathan has told us a couple of stories in the last month or so. His reading level as also taken a big leap. His dibels fluency went from 37 words a minute to 51 words a minute. It's still nearly a year behind where he should be but it's a huge jump! His classroom reading aide and his teacher both noticed marked improvement. I believe that his mind is developing and preparing for his baptism and consequent gift of the Holy Ghost which can only enhance this great growth!
Nathan also went to cub scouts for the first time! The night before he put is shirt on and Ethan helped him make it perfect with the scarf and the scarf slide. It was so cute! Don't tell Ethan I described anything he's said or done as cute. Let's keep that between us. I couldn't believe how excited Nathan was--I hadn't realized how much he was looking forward to it. He's working on saving money for day camp!
This week Nathan will finish reading the Book of Mormon! He turned eight in March and will be baptized this Saturday. It's weird that my baby will be baptized. Every one of the kids has read the Book of Mormon before their baptism. It has been easy for none of them and sometimes feels hardest on me but we have done it and it feels great that Nathan will finish. There have been many times when it seemed it would be impossible but he's done it!! This week we will need to read 2 chapters a day to do it and it's a bit more reading for spring break but when I gathered the kids this morning there was not a single word of complaint. They all know what it means to finish it and the older three are more than supportive of Nathan and willing to help. It's a heavenly thing to witness this kind of support and love!
Aahhh, spring break! We are spring cleaning and I LOOOVE it!! The kids don't love it so much.
OK. Maybe they hate it.
I don't care.
It's impossible for me to deep clean with work and piano and we are past due. A clean house is marvelous!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Science Fair
Congratulations to Eva for getting an opportunity to be in her school science fair! She did well there and moved to the district science fair, where she won the opportunity to be in the Region Science Fair at the U of U. Way to go Eva! Her project involved photography. She used Vince's new camera to see how the flash was affected by different materials. She has been at region before as a sixth grader and the whole experience was a bit stressful for me. We didn't know anyone else going and I had to leave her there (alone) to be interviewed by judges all day. I hated leaving her there all alone. It turned out well but her school did well at district and there are 18 kids going--I'm pretty sure we can arrange some carpooling this time and I won't worry knowing that she'll have friends there! :)
Ethan also had a project this year and he did great. At the elementary level the kids are judged by volunteer parents and he was given a 0 in one category because his science board was green, and given another 0 by the other judge because they didn't notice his bibliography on the board. I've judged those projects before and it's a tedious amount of work. His teacher and the principal were disappointed and frustrated for him (as was Ethan) but these things happen. Ethan did an osmosis project involving eggs. Ivy is looking forward to working on a science fair project for next year. I really hope/wish/dream they would just do them in the summer! I'll admit to never looking forward to science fair! Eva especially loves science but I never have--I think the whole thing is kind of a pain. Luckily for me Eva loves it so much she's willing to help with the others!!
It's Solo & Ensemble season and I'm busy accompanying. I love it--it's a great hobby for me and I look forward to it all year. This year I am accompanying 7 students at the high school. I predict that at least 3-4 will go to region, maybe more. At region I will pick up an additional 2 students from a neighboring high school. Luckily, region will be held at our local high school this year, which makes things so simple! I often wish I could substitute some of my teaching time with accompanying time. I have one student whose parents pay me to accompany as part of her practice time once or twice a month and I LOVE that--I wish I could find more of that kind of work!!
I've been contemplating going back to work to get my Masters degree. There is a Therapist in my ward who has been encouraging me to get my Master of Social Work. USU has recently made a Master's program available in my community and he even offered to provide the supervised clinical hours I would need to get the degree. I thought the suggestion was kind of silly and laughed it off but Vince didn't. I thought there was no possible way we could pay for that but was then remembered of some legitimate hometown scholarships that would help. I still think it would be pretty impossible given my current schedule of teaching, working, and speech. I can't give any of that up yet, as the teaching and working is helping to pay for speech and we can't change that for now. But maybe when speech is over.... If I had my degree and worked in my field we could afford for Vince to get his master's. For now I think I've decided to try to take the GRE this summer, or at least start preparing for it. Then I'll wait until the time seems right.
Speaking of speech, it is IEP time at the school and so Nathan has been going through a battery of tests to see if he qualifies for services at school. When the kids turn 8, the government says they must have a real "diagnosis" and not just "developmental delay". Nathan's testing very well!! So far he only qualifies for services because of math (no one is really concerned about his math--it's obvious he had an 'off' day). This may change when they finish testing. He may not qualify for any services. This is bittersweet for me. I'm sooo relieved and excited to see the results be so great but I worry about him not getting services. I feel like it will be completely our responsibility at home and while we generally take on that responsibility anyway, I'm not comfortable with it being concretely something we deal with ourselves. It's scary because I'm not certain we have all the knowledge and tools to give him everything he needs ourselves. To add to the angst, the speech therapist is even saying he will likely not even qualify for speech services through the school, much to the surprise of everyone else who works with him! (The resource teacher even said that if that happens but that she still gets to help Nathan she would like to have language goals for him--I'm grateful for her--I know that language goals are not really her job.) I don't think highly of the services they offer here but it has been a small comfort to know that if for some reason we couldn't get him to Salt Lake for services, at least he would have something here. Maybe not so. I feel discouraged that we may be 'forced' to continue what increasingly becomes more of a burden to get our son the help he deserves. I'll admit that it was comforting when the mother that we are carpooling with me said last week, "I do not understand how you have been able to keep this up for so long. We've only been driving once a week for a month and it's been a major adjustment. I don't know if we could ever do what you've managed." I wanted to hug her. I know I complain about it a lot but that's because it really is so hard. And yet we know it's so necessary so we keep plugging through it. It's made all the difference in the world for Nathan and I know I should be grateful that we've been able to find all the resources to make it happen but it's still discouraging to know we're not done with it and we can't even see when the end will be. And that we really may have NO option or help from public education.
Ethan also had a project this year and he did great. At the elementary level the kids are judged by volunteer parents and he was given a 0 in one category because his science board was green, and given another 0 by the other judge because they didn't notice his bibliography on the board. I've judged those projects before and it's a tedious amount of work. His teacher and the principal were disappointed and frustrated for him (as was Ethan) but these things happen. Ethan did an osmosis project involving eggs. Ivy is looking forward to working on a science fair project for next year. I really hope/wish/dream they would just do them in the summer! I'll admit to never looking forward to science fair! Eva especially loves science but I never have--I think the whole thing is kind of a pain. Luckily for me Eva loves it so much she's willing to help with the others!!
It's Solo & Ensemble season and I'm busy accompanying. I love it--it's a great hobby for me and I look forward to it all year. This year I am accompanying 7 students at the high school. I predict that at least 3-4 will go to region, maybe more. At region I will pick up an additional 2 students from a neighboring high school. Luckily, region will be held at our local high school this year, which makes things so simple! I often wish I could substitute some of my teaching time with accompanying time. I have one student whose parents pay me to accompany as part of her practice time once or twice a month and I LOVE that--I wish I could find more of that kind of work!!
I've been contemplating going back to work to get my Masters degree. There is a Therapist in my ward who has been encouraging me to get my Master of Social Work. USU has recently made a Master's program available in my community and he even offered to provide the supervised clinical hours I would need to get the degree. I thought the suggestion was kind of silly and laughed it off but Vince didn't. I thought there was no possible way we could pay for that but was then remembered of some legitimate hometown scholarships that would help. I still think it would be pretty impossible given my current schedule of teaching, working, and speech. I can't give any of that up yet, as the teaching and working is helping to pay for speech and we can't change that for now. But maybe when speech is over.... If I had my degree and worked in my field we could afford for Vince to get his master's. For now I think I've decided to try to take the GRE this summer, or at least start preparing for it. Then I'll wait until the time seems right.
Speaking of speech, it is IEP time at the school and so Nathan has been going through a battery of tests to see if he qualifies for services at school. When the kids turn 8, the government says they must have a real "diagnosis" and not just "developmental delay". Nathan's testing very well!! So far he only qualifies for services because of math (no one is really concerned about his math--it's obvious he had an 'off' day). This may change when they finish testing. He may not qualify for any services. This is bittersweet for me. I'm sooo relieved and excited to see the results be so great but I worry about him not getting services. I feel like it will be completely our responsibility at home and while we generally take on that responsibility anyway, I'm not comfortable with it being concretely something we deal with ourselves. It's scary because I'm not certain we have all the knowledge and tools to give him everything he needs ourselves. To add to the angst, the speech therapist is even saying he will likely not even qualify for speech services through the school, much to the surprise of everyone else who works with him! (The resource teacher even said that if that happens but that she still gets to help Nathan she would like to have language goals for him--I'm grateful for her--I know that language goals are not really her job.) I don't think highly of the services they offer here but it has been a small comfort to know that if for some reason we couldn't get him to Salt Lake for services, at least he would have something here. Maybe not so. I feel discouraged that we may be 'forced' to continue what increasingly becomes more of a burden to get our son the help he deserves. I'll admit that it was comforting when the mother that we are carpooling with me said last week, "I do not understand how you have been able to keep this up for so long. We've only been driving once a week for a month and it's been a major adjustment. I don't know if we could ever do what you've managed." I wanted to hug her. I know I complain about it a lot but that's because it really is so hard. And yet we know it's so necessary so we keep plugging through it. It's made all the difference in the world for Nathan and I know I should be grateful that we've been able to find all the resources to make it happen but it's still discouraging to know we're not done with it and we can't even see when the end will be. And that we really may have NO option or help from public education.
Friday, February 10, 2012
CEO Ivy
This morning Ivy was recognized by her teacher as a Chief Example to Others (CEO) Her teacher, Ms. M writes:
"Ivy is a great CEO student. She has a true thirst for knowledge, and will not be satisfied until she knows ALL of the answers. She tackles all problems head on, and is creative when finding her solutions. Ivy is passionate about her learning, and will defend her answers to almost no end (we're still discussing/debating some answers). Her resourcefulness in the classroom has proven her point of view many times! She also is a model citizen in our classroom. She listens to others and has thoughtful insights to add to writing, problem solving, or discussions. Never let your passion for learning, and that drive to find the right answers, leave you. It's powerful stuff! Every teacher will love it!"
I'm very fond of this teacher. She's new to our school and very young but I love pretty much everything about her teaching style, organization of the classroom, interactions with the students,... I was impressed this fall when I first met her as Ivy's teacher and the more time I spend working at the school the more I find to like. She's quite remarkable! She's been great for Ivy who has literally blossomed this year. She's matured so much and has learned to love learning--she hasn't always--I believe she's inspired by this teacher. We're noticing a difference at home, too. Like tonight, for example. I had to drive to speech because the other car in the carpool was broken. Generally, I'm home Friday when it's Ivy's night to cook. I forgot to remind her this morning that it was her turn and I also left the cell phone at home so I couldn't call to remind her. I didn't see her after the CEO meeting before school and I also didn't leave a note or tell her where any of the ingredients I purchased for her meal were. So I was prepared to let everyone have sandwiches tonight and supervise Ivy's cooking tomorrow night. I was so pleased to come home (and it's been a looooong day--one of those days) to find a warm meal on the table, which was set and ready for the family. She baked chicken drumsticks, oven potatoes, cooked some green beans and added salad. She had to wash, cut and season those potatoes. We're very proud of Ivy! It's a blessing when the kids become more responsible than their mother--maybe I don't need the cell phone anymore!!
"Ivy is a great CEO student. She has a true thirst for knowledge, and will not be satisfied until she knows ALL of the answers. She tackles all problems head on, and is creative when finding her solutions. Ivy is passionate about her learning, and will defend her answers to almost no end (we're still discussing/debating some answers). Her resourcefulness in the classroom has proven her point of view many times! She also is a model citizen in our classroom. She listens to others and has thoughtful insights to add to writing, problem solving, or discussions. Never let your passion for learning, and that drive to find the right answers, leave you. It's powerful stuff! Every teacher will love it!"
I'm very fond of this teacher. She's new to our school and very young but I love pretty much everything about her teaching style, organization of the classroom, interactions with the students,... I was impressed this fall when I first met her as Ivy's teacher and the more time I spend working at the school the more I find to like. She's quite remarkable! She's been great for Ivy who has literally blossomed this year. She's matured so much and has learned to love learning--she hasn't always--I believe she's inspired by this teacher. We're noticing a difference at home, too. Like tonight, for example. I had to drive to speech because the other car in the carpool was broken. Generally, I'm home Friday when it's Ivy's night to cook. I forgot to remind her this morning that it was her turn and I also left the cell phone at home so I couldn't call to remind her. I didn't see her after the CEO meeting before school and I also didn't leave a note or tell her where any of the ingredients I purchased for her meal were. So I was prepared to let everyone have sandwiches tonight and supervise Ivy's cooking tomorrow night. I was so pleased to come home (and it's been a looooong day--one of those days) to find a warm meal on the table, which was set and ready for the family. She baked chicken drumsticks, oven potatoes, cooked some green beans and added salad. She had to wash, cut and season those potatoes. We're very proud of Ivy! It's a blessing when the kids become more responsible than their mother--maybe I don't need the cell phone anymore!!
Saturday, January 14, 2012
I'm sure most of our family heard but in case you didn't the big news at our house last week was:
Nathan was hit by a car. Truly. BUT the other big news is that he literally walked away. The car ran over his right foot and that was all. Two police cars and two ambulances came with lights and sirens, so it was a little dramatic but it turns out he's fine. I was teaching piano when I got a call from a good friend (it happened near her house) that I needed to come "right now because Nathan was hit by a car". She told me that he was OK but that he needed me and I ran straight down there. I had a moment when I thought maybe she misled me about the seriousness when I saw the emergency vehicles and that was another scary minute but she was right. We took Nathan for X-rays of his foot to be certain he was OK and he was. He stayed home from school the next day because his foot was bruised and a little swollen but the swelling decreased by noon and he was running and playing like normal the day after that. We know we are watched and looked over!!
The other positive side of this was the teenage driver that hit Nathan was wonderful. He felt terrible, of course, but he stopped his car, checked on Nathan, called 911 and was respectful and showed a very strong character. He was on his way to his Eagle Scout project and the sun was in his eyes and he didn't see Nathan crossing the street. I jokingly (OK--maybe half jokingly) said to Vince that we should tell the boy that since he ran over our son he should take Eva out on one of her first dates. He (not jokingly) said "Not THAT's a good idea!" Eva wasn't sure she agreed--the boy is cute and all but she doesn't want us setting her up. I guess the good part is that it restored our confidence that maybe there are nice boys around here that we might think are OK for her to spend time with. Refreshing after the previous weeks' experience. Can you believe she'll be 15 this year?!!
This week my only goal was for our home address to not be taken in any police record. Saturday is not over but so far, so good!
Nathan was hit by a car. Truly. BUT the other big news is that he literally walked away. The car ran over his right foot and that was all. Two police cars and two ambulances came with lights and sirens, so it was a little dramatic but it turns out he's fine. I was teaching piano when I got a call from a good friend (it happened near her house) that I needed to come "right now because Nathan was hit by a car". She told me that he was OK but that he needed me and I ran straight down there. I had a moment when I thought maybe she misled me about the seriousness when I saw the emergency vehicles and that was another scary minute but she was right. We took Nathan for X-rays of his foot to be certain he was OK and he was. He stayed home from school the next day because his foot was bruised and a little swollen but the swelling decreased by noon and he was running and playing like normal the day after that. We know we are watched and looked over!!
The other positive side of this was the teenage driver that hit Nathan was wonderful. He felt terrible, of course, but he stopped his car, checked on Nathan, called 911 and was respectful and showed a very strong character. He was on his way to his Eagle Scout project and the sun was in his eyes and he didn't see Nathan crossing the street. I jokingly (OK--maybe half jokingly) said to Vince that we should tell the boy that since he ran over our son he should take Eva out on one of her first dates. He (not jokingly) said "Not THAT's a good idea!" Eva wasn't sure she agreed--the boy is cute and all but she doesn't want us setting her up. I guess the good part is that it restored our confidence that maybe there are nice boys around here that we might think are OK for her to spend time with. Refreshing after the previous weeks' experience. Can you believe she'll be 15 this year?!!
This week my only goal was for our home address to not be taken in any police record. Saturday is not over but so far, so good!
Thursday, December 29, 2011
I have been loving this Christmas! Vince has time off he has to use and we are home together as a family. I don't remember the last time we could just relax and just enjoy our family at home. Delightful!
The only thing I really haven't been able to do is take the kids sledding. Where is the snow?!!
This past week I also made bedroom curtains, restained my nightstands, painted a wall in my bedroom and redecorated it. I use the term redecorate fairly loosely (I'm still developing decorating skills). I know--I need to have Eva take pictures and post them here. But I'm not finished yet!
I know that the 23rd of Christmas is an odd time of year to be making curtains but on the night of the 22nd a neighbor stopped by to warn us of a possible peeping Tom so we decided to take immediate precautions. We had window coverings but to be safe decided to improve them. Of course, once the curtains were finished there were other obvious things that needed improving.
Last night, warned by yet other neighbors who were helping to watch over us we caught our guy. He was caught laying down on the ground by my girls' windows. Vince stood outside with him and a neighbor while I called the police. Vince wrote a statement and the young man was taken away. It is a sad story. I feel grateful that we are cared for and protected and yet concerned at what this could become. I also feel sorrowful for his parents. When they were cuffing and patting him down I pictured a boy being cuffed. The boy I remember when we moved here. It's all so sad. I'm grateful for free agency and yet bewildered at some people's use of it. I know his parents have been working with him for years and have tried everything yet he continues to break their hearts.
The only thing I really haven't been able to do is take the kids sledding. Where is the snow?!!
This past week I also made bedroom curtains, restained my nightstands, painted a wall in my bedroom and redecorated it. I use the term redecorate fairly loosely (I'm still developing decorating skills). I know--I need to have Eva take pictures and post them here. But I'm not finished yet!
I know that the 23rd of Christmas is an odd time of year to be making curtains but on the night of the 22nd a neighbor stopped by to warn us of a possible peeping Tom so we decided to take immediate precautions. We had window coverings but to be safe decided to improve them. Of course, once the curtains were finished there were other obvious things that needed improving.
Last night, warned by yet other neighbors who were helping to watch over us we caught our guy. He was caught laying down on the ground by my girls' windows. Vince stood outside with him and a neighbor while I called the police. Vince wrote a statement and the young man was taken away. It is a sad story. I feel grateful that we are cared for and protected and yet concerned at what this could become. I also feel sorrowful for his parents. When they were cuffing and patting him down I pictured a boy being cuffed. The boy I remember when we moved here. It's all so sad. I'm grateful for free agency and yet bewildered at some people's use of it. I know his parents have been working with him for years and have tried everything yet he continues to break their hearts.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
I've decided it's time for a long update. I prefer short quick blogposts but I can never seem to find the time for any posts and I guess it's been so long since I've posted that this one will be long.
Vince was released from the high council to be the young men's president in our ward. I guess it took the stake several months to let him go at our Bishop's request and even after he was released was asked to finish up some projects. It was neat to see many in our stake express sincere gratitude for his work. He LOVES working with the young men. There was a 3-week lull where he had been released and hadn't officially received his new calling yet while they put his presidency together and he was at first very excited (talking a ton, if you can believe that) and then getting super antsy. It was cute. He has always wanted to work with the young men and/or be a teacher and this is almost the first time he's ever had the opportunity. He's like a little kid and he wears the cute "little boy" grin a lot. I love it! He once got to work with Webelos for about six months but other than that he has mostly been in a bishopric or on the high council for most all of the 16 years we've been married.
I got a job at the elementary school as a literacy aide. I love it! I work for 3.5 hours each morning and then I have the afternoons off. This means that most days I work at school then come home to teach at home or take Nathan to speech. I'm still trying to figure out when I clean the house and exercise but that's going to take me some time. Working at the school has been good for me in so many ways. I work with two women that I have looked up to and respected since we first moved to Tooele. I get to put into practice teaching techniques I've been learning from the speech clinic. AND I get to take home anything I need/want to help Nathan with. Which means that Nathan and I are very busy. I can already see a difference in his reading level, mostly because of my access to leveled reading materials. It's very exciting! I think seeing his improvement makes my job most worthwhile, and then extra income is helping us keep him in speech. The opportunity for this job came just after all the major car drama which was expensive and nearly caused us to take a "break" from speech. Of course just after I was hired Vince's work had a company wide pay cut again due to the still weak economy. His cut amounts to roughly half of my new income so we have definitely been blessed.
When I started working it became obvious that I could not keep up my schedule with everything and keep house myself as much as I have been and one of the first things we started was giving every member of the family a night to cook dinner. This helped me a ton. There are six of us so they all have a day and I have two days. We've been trying this out for a couple of months now and it is kind of working. What I noticed was a nearly complete lack of vegetables when the kids were cooking. Shocking, I know. The other week a solution came to me and I spent the first day of Christmas break setting it up. For the next several months each child is going to cook four meals. Nathan's meals are things like hamburgers and grilled ham and cheese with tomato soup and salad. They get more complicated based on their skills--Ethan's making things like Enchiladas and Eva's cooking Chicken Squares. They selected their 4 dinner items--and I did recommend that Eva choose some simpler things because a lot of her stuff is going to take quite some time. Ethan selected things he could freeze ahead and wants to spend time over the break preparing 4 of each of the 4 dinners to put in the freezer. I put all the recipes in page protectors in a small binder and made 4 grocery lists--one for each week that I can just print out and then cross off things I do not need to purchase each week. Ivy's menus go something like this--1. Before school take meat our of the freezer 2. At 4:30 after your lesson, get the tall black pot and.... Very specific. In four months time they will have prepared each meal four times and over spring break we will select new menu items and start a new rotation. I'm hoping this will mean a real meal gets prepared even (or especially) when I'm not home because of speech to supervise and help.
I also prepared chore stuff which wasn't exciting for anyone. In the past I've made some fun ones but now I think we're old enough to just get things done. The trick has been in coordinating everything and everyone and I think we have a handle on that now. We'll see. Getting hired in the middle of school didn't give us any time to get organized and make plans for this stuff. I was really caught off guard.
A quick update on kids. Eva is loving school especially MESA and yearbook. She especially loved playing church volleyball and even stayed after school to participate in some volleyball after school. They do sports oddly here. She still loves violin and piano although both of us are having a little trouble with 6:15 am violin lessons. It was OK until it got colder :) Her piano is especially advanced. She is now memorizing a piece that my "great" student learned in college. She is going to begin a longer piano lesson in January.
Ethan is still learning piano and guitar and still hating piano and liking guitar. He played his guitar in FHE the other week as we sang silent night. We all enjoyed that and we'll have to get him to play more for us. He really, really wants to do sports and is counting down for junior high when he can participate in them after school. He's in the early morning advanced math class but he doesn't like it as much as he thought he would. He was looking forward to learning more advanced math but the State of Utah has a new Common Core law that makes it virtually impossible for them to teach the kids past the core curriculum. I won't get started on our opinion about that. Vince especially was a bit steamed about it. I just shrug my shoulders. The only way to get around it is to homeschool... This law even affects Eva's education in the junior high. I'll stop now. Ethan's doing great! He loves scouts and loves spending time with his friends! I think he even likes that his dad goes to most of his stuff now.
Ivy is most excited that she gets to cook once a week! She has always been interested in cooking/baking. I'll never forget her as a 5 year old going to the adult section to check out cookbooks. She did that for years and still goes over there to see if they have anything new. Monday she made chili and cornbread--from scratch. She used canned tomato sauce and canned beans but used a recipe and not a mix. She was in the kitchen a very long time because she's quite slow (at everything--Ivy just works on her own time frame) and she loved every minute. She wants to learn violin but she doesn't want to practice. She really excels on the piano. She's almost caught up to Ethan and has started playing for pleasure--which is exciting. That's when kids really start playing well. She reads all the time. Her reading scores are VERY high for her grade. But one of the assessments is a measure of how many words the student can say about a passage after they have read it. This is a huge boost to Ivy's reading score! That girl is a talker!!
Nathan is doing great. He's starting to do more chores around the house, although it is difficult because he is so busy. Homework, speech, and reading tutoring with me has him very busy. He gets to play before homework many days when we don't have speech--I send him out while I'm teaching and we work after dinner. He's learning piano but his progress is slow because I don't like to make him practice. A big part of me hates that he's taking lessons but it's what he really wants so we try to get him just enough practice to get by. He started the year at a reading level of F which is a level for the middle of first grade and he's advanced to an H now. His assessments at school don't show any improvement but I don't worry about that because I know more about the test and they wouldn't show improvement--I'll have to explain that sometime. By the end of the school year a second grader should be reading level L or M, I can't remember which. I'm hoping to get there by the end of the summer. Maybe. Eventually I believe he will catch up. It's hard work for both of us but very rewarding. The difficulty is that at an H level he has to try to read things he can't even say correctly. Which make sounding them out extra difficult.
His speech has improved a ton but when you listen to him and realize you can understand everything he can say you may not realize that he only uses words that are comfortable for him. It's sort of like running around the ball in tennis so you don't have to hit a backhand. And then there are language and grammar challenges that small children learn when they learn to talk that he missed. It's overwhelming to think about. The reading and speech interventions are symbiotic--they support each other. But I don't think I will ever believe the progress is as fast as I would like. These things just take time. And like my sweet sister said on her blog it is most often two steps forward and one step back. It seems like it's always that way unless I look at 3-6 month intervals or more. I know life isn't fair but it I don't know if I'll ever be entirely comfortable with the fact that these kids have to work so much harder than everyone else. It really isn't fair! And then by most all measures and standards they have little to show for their efforts.
So there is the long update on what's been keeping us busy!!
Vince was released from the high council to be the young men's president in our ward. I guess it took the stake several months to let him go at our Bishop's request and even after he was released was asked to finish up some projects. It was neat to see many in our stake express sincere gratitude for his work. He LOVES working with the young men. There was a 3-week lull where he had been released and hadn't officially received his new calling yet while they put his presidency together and he was at first very excited (talking a ton, if you can believe that) and then getting super antsy. It was cute. He has always wanted to work with the young men and/or be a teacher and this is almost the first time he's ever had the opportunity. He's like a little kid and he wears the cute "little boy" grin a lot. I love it! He once got to work with Webelos for about six months but other than that he has mostly been in a bishopric or on the high council for most all of the 16 years we've been married.
I got a job at the elementary school as a literacy aide. I love it! I work for 3.5 hours each morning and then I have the afternoons off. This means that most days I work at school then come home to teach at home or take Nathan to speech. I'm still trying to figure out when I clean the house and exercise but that's going to take me some time. Working at the school has been good for me in so many ways. I work with two women that I have looked up to and respected since we first moved to Tooele. I get to put into practice teaching techniques I've been learning from the speech clinic. AND I get to take home anything I need/want to help Nathan with. Which means that Nathan and I are very busy. I can already see a difference in his reading level, mostly because of my access to leveled reading materials. It's very exciting! I think seeing his improvement makes my job most worthwhile, and then extra income is helping us keep him in speech. The opportunity for this job came just after all the major car drama which was expensive and nearly caused us to take a "break" from speech. Of course just after I was hired Vince's work had a company wide pay cut again due to the still weak economy. His cut amounts to roughly half of my new income so we have definitely been blessed.
When I started working it became obvious that I could not keep up my schedule with everything and keep house myself as much as I have been and one of the first things we started was giving every member of the family a night to cook dinner. This helped me a ton. There are six of us so they all have a day and I have two days. We've been trying this out for a couple of months now and it is kind of working. What I noticed was a nearly complete lack of vegetables when the kids were cooking. Shocking, I know. The other week a solution came to me and I spent the first day of Christmas break setting it up. For the next several months each child is going to cook four meals. Nathan's meals are things like hamburgers and grilled ham and cheese with tomato soup and salad. They get more complicated based on their skills--Ethan's making things like Enchiladas and Eva's cooking Chicken Squares. They selected their 4 dinner items--and I did recommend that Eva choose some simpler things because a lot of her stuff is going to take quite some time. Ethan selected things he could freeze ahead and wants to spend time over the break preparing 4 of each of the 4 dinners to put in the freezer. I put all the recipes in page protectors in a small binder and made 4 grocery lists--one for each week that I can just print out and then cross off things I do not need to purchase each week. Ivy's menus go something like this--1. Before school take meat our of the freezer 2. At 4:30 after your lesson, get the tall black pot and.... Very specific. In four months time they will have prepared each meal four times and over spring break we will select new menu items and start a new rotation. I'm hoping this will mean a real meal gets prepared even (or especially) when I'm not home because of speech to supervise and help.
I also prepared chore stuff which wasn't exciting for anyone. In the past I've made some fun ones but now I think we're old enough to just get things done. The trick has been in coordinating everything and everyone and I think we have a handle on that now. We'll see. Getting hired in the middle of school didn't give us any time to get organized and make plans for this stuff. I was really caught off guard.
A quick update on kids. Eva is loving school especially MESA and yearbook. She especially loved playing church volleyball and even stayed after school to participate in some volleyball after school. They do sports oddly here. She still loves violin and piano although both of us are having a little trouble with 6:15 am violin lessons. It was OK until it got colder :) Her piano is especially advanced. She is now memorizing a piece that my "great" student learned in college. She is going to begin a longer piano lesson in January.
Ethan is still learning piano and guitar and still hating piano and liking guitar. He played his guitar in FHE the other week as we sang silent night. We all enjoyed that and we'll have to get him to play more for us. He really, really wants to do sports and is counting down for junior high when he can participate in them after school. He's in the early morning advanced math class but he doesn't like it as much as he thought he would. He was looking forward to learning more advanced math but the State of Utah has a new Common Core law that makes it virtually impossible for them to teach the kids past the core curriculum. I won't get started on our opinion about that. Vince especially was a bit steamed about it. I just shrug my shoulders. The only way to get around it is to homeschool... This law even affects Eva's education in the junior high. I'll stop now. Ethan's doing great! He loves scouts and loves spending time with his friends! I think he even likes that his dad goes to most of his stuff now.
Ivy is most excited that she gets to cook once a week! She has always been interested in cooking/baking. I'll never forget her as a 5 year old going to the adult section to check out cookbooks. She did that for years and still goes over there to see if they have anything new. Monday she made chili and cornbread--from scratch. She used canned tomato sauce and canned beans but used a recipe and not a mix. She was in the kitchen a very long time because she's quite slow (at everything--Ivy just works on her own time frame) and she loved every minute. She wants to learn violin but she doesn't want to practice. She really excels on the piano. She's almost caught up to Ethan and has started playing for pleasure--which is exciting. That's when kids really start playing well. She reads all the time. Her reading scores are VERY high for her grade. But one of the assessments is a measure of how many words the student can say about a passage after they have read it. This is a huge boost to Ivy's reading score! That girl is a talker!!
Nathan is doing great. He's starting to do more chores around the house, although it is difficult because he is so busy. Homework, speech, and reading tutoring with me has him very busy. He gets to play before homework many days when we don't have speech--I send him out while I'm teaching and we work after dinner. He's learning piano but his progress is slow because I don't like to make him practice. A big part of me hates that he's taking lessons but it's what he really wants so we try to get him just enough practice to get by. He started the year at a reading level of F which is a level for the middle of first grade and he's advanced to an H now. His assessments at school don't show any improvement but I don't worry about that because I know more about the test and they wouldn't show improvement--I'll have to explain that sometime. By the end of the school year a second grader should be reading level L or M, I can't remember which. I'm hoping to get there by the end of the summer. Maybe. Eventually I believe he will catch up. It's hard work for both of us but very rewarding. The difficulty is that at an H level he has to try to read things he can't even say correctly. Which make sounding them out extra difficult.
His speech has improved a ton but when you listen to him and realize you can understand everything he can say you may not realize that he only uses words that are comfortable for him. It's sort of like running around the ball in tennis so you don't have to hit a backhand. And then there are language and grammar challenges that small children learn when they learn to talk that he missed. It's overwhelming to think about. The reading and speech interventions are symbiotic--they support each other. But I don't think I will ever believe the progress is as fast as I would like. These things just take time. And like my sweet sister said on her blog it is most often two steps forward and one step back. It seems like it's always that way unless I look at 3-6 month intervals or more. I know life isn't fair but it I don't know if I'll ever be entirely comfortable with the fact that these kids have to work so much harder than everyone else. It really isn't fair! And then by most all measures and standards they have little to show for their efforts.
So there is the long update on what's been keeping us busy!!
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