Sunny Day

We enjoyed a beautiful sunny day on Tuesday.  The gardens are waking up! 

We quickly glued 12 items onto the paper and headed outside.

The kids love being on the other side of the fence.  Adam took them to the park.  The kids were searching for and finding all of the small toys that have been tossed over the fence lately.  

It can be fun to throw them back. :)

I forgot how many small balls we have.

See the small park in the distance?  Boy are we lucky!

Do you know someone who needs childcare?  We have two full time openings right now. 

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Dealing With ADHD

It took several years for me to admit we may be dealing with ADHD with our son.  I remember when he was just two years old, his doctor asked me if he had been tested.  My thoughts were this:

• They just want to label my child.
• They just want to medicate him and send him on his way.
• He is a smart boy, just active and healthy.
• He can sit and read for an hour or watch a movie just fine, he couldn't possibly have ADHD.

• I know that I am right.

How wrong I was.  Because I refused to believe it and did not have him tested, he struggled through three years of school and began to be labeled by teachers around him as "the naughty kid."  When I say struggled, I mean behaviorally.  He has always been very smart, but I did not realize how hard it must have been for him to even complete the things that he had completed.  ADHD children often spend long periods of time completing the things that they enjoy. 

Thanks to his 3rd grade teacher this year and a new pediatrician,  we are now aware.  I must say that were it not for the teacher being proactive and emailing me about the behaviors, we very well could've cruised on through this school year again not knowing anything.

Here are the symptoms that we could see:

• He was losing everything.  Even papers that his teacher gave him at the end of the day to bring home.
• Inability to sit and listen without interrupting.
• Being kicked out of Children's Church because of his inability to sit and listen without rudely interrupting.
• Being kicked out of class at school as well for the same reasons.
• Having to be asked to do something three or four times before he would begin that something, and then not being able to complete it without constant reminders.

 By the time I really understood how this could potentially affect his future and how hard it was to struggle in this way, some damage had been done.  I'm sure he had been feeling exhausted and knew that in most situations he could count on getting in trouble. This is so sad!  I do not want to limit my baby in any way.

His doctor suggested that he be treated with medication until his early 30s.  ADHD adults tend to self medicate with alcohol and or drugs.  Especially when the patient has a family history of substance abuse. (Unfortunately that is the case with his bio father's side of the family.)

I can tell you that YES it was scary to medicate my child.  Only because I read the long list of side effects.  I was not sure what to expect, and because there are so many different treatments, we wouldn't know for a couple of weeks how he would respond.  We started with the bare minimum. The result was a boy who said he felt "calm and boring."  (Focused) For the first time, I asked him to do something simple and he actually did it.  The teacher emails stopped.  He continued to move forward in school work and exceeded the math and reading levels by several grades.  He is no longer "the naughty kid."

I want to share this with you because it is important to me!  Our kids deserve to be given the best opportunities that they can get, and being aware of the problem is very important. 
I feel terrible that he had to spend all of that time losing self esteem.  No more.

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Smudge Takes Over

"Um, I am sitting up higher than you, so I am in charge.  Everyone look at me."

The kids used to see Smudge take over more than he does now.  His royal highness joined us again.  

(In official talk to cat voice, "Das Gooood boy.")

He couldn't see the story from up on the shelf.  Problem solved!  My goodness, look at those somber expressions.  Maybe Smudge was being too rough on the kids?

After group time, we line up to wash our hands for snack.  Look who kept them in line?  He sure was a bossy beast that morning.  I loved every second of it.  He's my best beast.

Meanwhile, I thought I would share a great snack idea with you.  

Thaw out some shelled frozen edamame (soy beans) and pour them out onto a cookie sheet.  Drizzle with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and a dusting of parmesan cheese.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Then turn the oven to broil for 2 or 3 minutes.  Eat!  

They were fabulous warm, but not so much when they had cooled.

Up went the bead board on a wall yesterday.  It's coming along.  We are waiting for the cabinet still.

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Sludge

I am still thanking God for the person who invented rubber boots. Outside time would truly be a nightmare if it weren't for these amazing things.  Our lawn has once again turned into a muddy grass sprinkled field of sludge.  I wish there was something we could do about it. Oh well, "Please choose a pair of boots!"  It keeps the sludge outside, and the shoes clean for pick up time.  We store our rubber boots out on the back porch out of the weather.  At least one of these pairs needs to be retired.♥

We continued our seasons talk last week.  

 

This time we cut up the worksheet and glued it to construction paper.  

It's a simple way to stop the redundancy.

Look at that beach!!  I am dreaming of summer. 

♥♥♥Happy Monday!♥♥♥

Story Exploring Thursday

There is a duck at the door! What does he want and what will you two do together? 

In the book, the duck stuck around for winter and was cold.  He came to the door and once inside, learned all sorts of fun stuff.  We decided we would like to create our own duck at the door.

We glued our duck shape.

We colored the beak and feet.

We warmed up duck with some feathers and added eyes.  Grass was added for duck to step on.

Work work work.. they were very diligent.

We then added a story about our duck! Click on the photo to see it larger and read what this duck did. 

I asked each child individually, away from the other children so they wouldn't copy each other.

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Petra Meets Chippy

Look at our little squirrel baby.  Chippy is pretty round right now, actually.  

Still bossy as ever, Chippy entered and Petra noticed. 

She was very sneaky, with those ears back.  It was so funny watching her.  She wasn't sure what to think of Chippy and why her people were feeding this intruder.

"If I keep my ears back, it won't see me.." LOL!

Chippy didn't mind at all.  Petra, however, was frozen.

The ears came back up, maybe she was a bit more relaxed.

 

"I won't eat you if you don't eat me. Right?"

 "Alright now, more nuts please!" 

Now we are working on the number 12.  

We painted twelve 12s in a crayon resist.♥

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Sunshine

When the sun comes out, we go out if we can.  We took a short walk to the park yesterday in celebration of the beautiful day!  The sign says the park is designed for children age 5-12.  1+2=3.  Multiply that by 5 and you have 35.  I'm only 34, so I can play.

Hello, my good friend the swing!  It has been way too long since we last soared into the sky together!  If you haven't hit a swing in a while, you absolutely MUST.  It is good for the soul.

We made sure to stop and tell God thank you for the sunshine! 

 It was so nice and warm on our faces, simply wonderful.

We had the park to ourselves. BONUS! 

Oh glorious sun- my favorite star! 

It was the best morning ever!

When we returned, the kids took note that the flowers are waking up.  We have been talking about seasons. (When DON'T we?) 

Boy do I have a lot of work to do getting the flower gardens cleaned up. I am very ready.

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Paint & Flooring

FINALLY- we were able to get the paint on the walls.  We also painted the ceiling and door.  We painted the ceiling white and the walls a Martha Stewart green 'Fennel Seed'.  We did not go all of the way to the floor because we will soon be installing bead board.

I finally painted the door.  You must know that painting this one door turned into painting FOUR doors.  The doors were white when we installed them a couple of years ago, and I was supposed to paint them with a semi-gloss paint so they could be wiped down at the door handles, which get dirty FAST around here.  It just didn't happen, so my heart was celebrating when they became washable. ♥

Adam installed the floor yesterday! We used vinyl plank flooring, it took him a couple of hours.  Boy did that clean things up!

 I love the new flooring.  It looks like old oak.

The next steps are: tiling the window sill and installing the privacy film, cabinet/mirror installation, bead board installation, crown molding around the top and trim around the bottom. 

Today will be a weird day- I only have one child arriving.  

♥♥♥Happy President's Day!♥♥♥