My Seven Year Old

I really love this kid!
The boy who loves camouflage, spies, hippos, science, magic, and has an amazing imagination. I love how his heroes are the 2,000 warriors! I always tell him, he is a modern 2,000 warrior in training. I've been really impressed at how well he has worked with our little girl. Finding games and activities that she enjoys doing with him. Having her speak a lot! What a joy. I certainly have spent the most time with this boy!
I am sure we have read over 5,000 books together!
We have mommy me time together--so fun!

One of the most amazing thing is to watch them develop. This is one of our stand by crafts. Dots and toothpicks. It reminds me of tinker toys. When we first started doing this, he would just stick dots at each end of the toothpick and make weights. Now look at the incredible structure he makes!

Can't wait to see what happen when he is not longer a modern warrior in training--but actually a modern 2,000 warrior!

I just love this kid--even when he totally frustrates me!

PJ's the best part of Summer School!

Here we are doing school. We all sit on the floor with our little desks. Luke is writing his story: "Diary of a Larva" and Anakin is working on his story of the Life Cycle of a Butterfly. After the egg went through all of his stages and turned into a butterfly, the butterfly went into outer space. It won the race. After it won the race, it went into the ice galaxy. He destroyed the bad guys base at ice galaxy and then joined the good guys. Some science turned into science fiction--not bad! GG sticks around while we do school, and listens to the stories. It's fun! It is amazing how one hour of school in the morning helps to ward off boredom!

Bored of summer so we started school!

The common quote from my oldest, "I'm bored!" He even said, "At school at least we have something to do." So this morning we started school. That's right school. We learned all about butterflies. We made graphic organizers of their life cycle, and did a craft. We are even set for tomorrow's school. Calendar, writing (Diary of a Butterfly based on Diary of a Worm), silent reading, and a great butterfly craft. It should be fun.

Not to be outdone by my kids, I also started class: yes, I did. It is my last class to finish off my Masters. I am almost there! I just need to stay on target.

My Five Year Old

Why is it when kids get to be so much fun--we send them off to school? Five is such a great age--they can actually carry on a real conversation with you, they have great memories, and they are just so much fun to hang out with! Then we send them to school--well this five year old is such a sponge--he soaks up all information quickly! He even knows how to remember big words. He just repeats them to himself over and over again until he remembers them. He loves math, outer-space, running, swimming, smiling and exploring in mud. What a great kid! He wants to be a gymnastic coach and a swimmer when he grows up. With his great mind, he'll probably do great because he will understand the physics behind every single swimming stroke and tumble.

Last night when his brother was annoying him. He goes, I'm nicer to Luke than he is to me, isn't that right Mama. At the precise moment that was true. He loves his brother so much.

As soon as we noticed that GG was not up to speed on her speech and interaction with others, I asked the boys to help me out, talk to her, play with her more. My five year old went right into action. One night after preschool he brings a photograph home. He goes into her room and says, "Miss GG here is a picture of me and Miss Kris." He has continually included her, played with her, talked to her. I am proud that he is such a great big brother. Wow--what a kid!

My Little Girl

Here are some nice shots of GG. She is doing great! We have her in speech therapy and she also works with a developmental delay therapist. We are still waiting for Occupational Therapy. Hopefully once that gets started it will help her with her sensory issues.

She is amazing during therapy: she is always trying really hard to use form her words correctly. Even at home, when I work with her, you can tell she is really concentrating. I think once her sensory issues work out we are going to notice what a silly, bright, funny girl she is. She is already teasing me with colors--trying to say that green is purple--what a tease.

This is her last week at her preschool. I think that preschool/daycare was absolutely amazing for her. It gave her something that I couldn't give her at home: a structured schedule and wonderful girls her own age. It has truly been a blessing in our lives that we found such a wonderful place for her! I am so sad to have it end for her, but I know with crazy summer comings and goings it wouldn't really work out to drive her to and from the facility.

It is hard to go to those meetings and have people say what is wrong with your child, but at the same time without their input, we wouldn't have seen her growth! We have two more meetings to go to with the public school to see if she is eligible for the preschool program. They have one program that really concentrates on language development--which would be wonderful for her.

She still kicks us out of her room when she needs alone time, saying bye over and over again. She continues to love to dance, sing, and watch Backyardigans. She also loves water, and she is quite the daredevil on our slip and slide (which we now need to replace.) What a fun child to have in our lives! We are truly blessed with this little girl!

To Blog or not to Blog, that is the question!

It seems as if most of my blogging friends have left the blogging world--along with me. So I'm wondering if I want to continue to blog or not to blog. Any thoughts--that is if anyone still blogs!

I met Seymour Simon

This might not be as exciting to you as it is to me, but it was wonderful. He was warm, gracious, and loved hearing how his books inspired children. We had just read three of his books in my second grade class--it was so much fun!

To learn more about him go and visit him!