Socks and Dyslexia

Socks and dyslexia is a combination that I never thought about before. but there is a link. At least in my house there is a link.

This is a face of dyslexia.

Funny, drama, and attitude all rolled into my daughter.
She doesn't quite get what she is struggling with or that others don't struggle the same way that she does. That's ok, we want normal in all aspects of her life.

Socks, lately I have noticed that she never has on matching socks. Maybe I should say that I have not been matching the socks, but simply throwing all of our socks into a big container. Each day we sort through and find matching socks for all those that need socks. It is what it is for now.

Last night, it hit me right in the head. If a dyslexic child cannot unscramble letters or do word searches without stress then why am I expecting her to match socks in a pile that must look enormous and unstructured.

DUH

Today is a new plan and someone is going to sort socks. My sweet girl has even come up with ideas for how we can sort our socks.

Thanksgiving Day

Only one of us participated in the Turkey Trot. Look closely at that face, he did not like it at all.

One lap down and I think I will just watch for the others.

My crafty girl made a thanksgiving banner for us.

Surfing Lessons

Very First Surfing Lesson

Check out other "orange" entries over at iheartfaces.com

Halloween Costumes!

We are ready for the Halloween festivities, but one is sick

and one is "super excited!"

Busy Fall

I have to say that I am ready for October to be over with. It has been a long, hard, busy month.
I'm 22 weeks pregnant and feel great, but I run out of steam by about 7:00 every night. Compund that with some yucky hours from hubby's work and I am give out.

We have had soccer

Cheerleading

Girl Scouts and the school Fall Festival.

They Really Do Love Each Other

She came home from a sleepover very tired.

And he just had to be in the same room with her.

My room to be exact.

It doesn't look like she minds to much (and she never got her nap).

Turning 9

I cannot believe that we have a 9 year old. What a year it has been. She has grown and matured and gotten sassier. She loves being a girl.

At the Corvette Diner in San Diego. They make a big deal about a birthday. This is called straw hair and looks like a crown of straws. Perfect for our princess.

Proof that she can enjoy some time with her brother. They had such a good time today.

Seriously, should 9 yrs old get chocolate covered strawberries for their birthday. Obviously so! My kids are very spoiled by their grandparents.

Girl Scouts

Someone bridged to Junior Girl Scout yesterday and I was so happy to be a part of that with her.

Some of her patches and her buddy standing right beside her.

Hanging with little brother!

The little man and I waiting.

A New Road

A new face in dyslexia.

A new path for student, teacher, parent.

Finding the new road that will lead to success.

To Serve

Recently, the kids served each other lunch. They made a menu, fixed what the other ordered, and served lunch. They were so good about it. I was hoping that they would learn to appreciate each other and the work that others do for them.

Of course, they are just to cute.

I wish the great attitudes lasted all day.

i heart faces

I cannot get the crispness that I want with a pictures. Come on tax return, I already got my next lens picked out. Actually, I have two!

This girl shows me daily, what its like to put your best face forward. She will challenge every situation to find the best of life. She is my furniture arranger, cross country traveler, wear your heart on your sleeve, and love strong girl.

Visit i heart faces to see more.

i heart faces

Can't wait until I can figure out all those wonderful secrets to making spectacular pictures.

“I am submitting this photo into the I Heart Faces logo photo contest. By entering, I am granting I Heart Faces LLC permission to consider my photo for use in the marketing and promotion of their website.”

Chalkboard

I finally got a chalkboard hanging on the wall. C needs to use something besides pencil andpaper all the time to write out answers and ideas. Then she copies the answers, sentences, words, etc.. onto her paper

Hubby bought plywood, the framing and chalkboard paint at Lowe's. The frame made the thin plywood sturdier, but the paint made it all seem like a solid, sturdy piece. I think we put 3 coats of paint on there.

Keep C in your prayers, we have our initial IEP this week and hopefully we can find a way to make learning fun.

Muffin Tin Monday

Muffin Tin Monday is another first for me. Well, it is the first time that I am participating with pictures and all. We do these types of meals for the kids all the time, especially when Daddy is deployed or away training.

I had one muffin tin in the freezer and one in the dishwasher, so I used what we normally use.
We also have a lot of fun dip cups, saucers, and utensils that we use, but none of that was needed for this meal.

On the orange plate we had:

• whole wheat tortillas with cheese rolls
• a slice of tomato
• corn chips
• baked peaches on a slice of bread with a dollop of cream cheese

On the blue plate we had:

• hot dog rolled in a slice of cheese
• tomato slice
• corn chips
• baked peaches (that he did not eat, no surprise there)
• he also ate one of sister's cheese rolls

They also had a left over cookie for dessert and they do not get anything to drink until their meal is half done. That sounds so mean, but they will drink it up and not be hungry.

My daughter is 8 years old and only has few things that she will not eat. However, my 5 year old is a picky eater and he has some texture issues. No bumps in his food.

What's going on!

Our schooling options are varied this year with one in public school but not getting any science or history and struggling with language arts. I use lapbooks to add to her education while waiting for some testing to be completed and then deciding whether to leave her in school or bring her home.

We always knew that C was struggling with reading: she seemed to memorize books, she never sounded out words, and she cannot spell. When we homeschooled last year, the blame for her learning difficulties fell on both of us. Our families felt that I was not cut out to teach C and that she was not trying. So my confidence was lacking when C mentioned that she wanted to attend public school and we decided to give it a try.

The school that C attends is a good school and her teacher is a dream. She has helped me see that C may have a learning disability causing some kind of disconnect in her reading comprehension and her spelling issues. We are in the middle of testing and will figure out what step 2 is after the Christmas holidays.

In the meantime, we are working on homework and supplemental work. Part of C's homework each night is to read for 20 minutes. I try to find a book that we can lapbook or do extra work with. My goal is to find a book that already has a lapbook out there for it, less prepwork for me in this busy time of our lives.

Just a little about what is going on with us right now. Hope yall had a great Thanksgiving.

Enrichment - Making Crayon Disks

It dawned on me recently that C was not getting any art at school. I had not worried about it to much, because there is more going on with her that needs my focus. Art can be a stress release for some and I really feel that this is true for C.

We set the oven to 300 degrees, sprayed the muffin tin with cooking spray, took the paper off the crayons, and divided them up.

After about 10 minutes the crayons were fully melted.

A couple of them broke getting them out of the tin, but no worries here. Now that my mind has realized that C needs a little creative art time, I will give her more opportunities.

Still Summer

It is still summer time to me and we are finally enjoying some down time. Once we got moved in military housing just before 4th of July, we began to feel a bit more settled and ready to enjoy some time of nothing. And we have. The house is set and friends have been made. we get daily use out of the closest playground

We are making some decisions about school. C would like to attend public school this year, I don't blame her one bit. This past year has been difficult on her. We began homeschooling to pull her out of a school situation that she was in. Two moves later, she misses the friendship that she had at school prior to our move from AL to MS. So it has been quite a while since she has had some good girlfriends.

Homeschool is still in our line of sight though. J will be doing a modified preschool/kindergarten program. Basically we are going to beef up the prek stuff, add in things he enjoys, and run off on every bunny trail he would like to study.

We never know what the future holds, so we are mentally preparing for every possibility. C could stay in school or come home, if R deploys we may not stay here at all (we are across country from our family), and J could go into Kinder next year, test into 1st, or stay home and continue homeschooling. Right now, we are living in the summer and not worry about the what ifs.

Hope you are having a fabulous summer. Keep enjoying it.

We are still here...

Where have the days gone? We are busy and stressed here, everything seems to be coming fast. Could someone turn off the fire hose, because we are drowning in the decision making going on.

For now, we are doing what we set out to do, keeping life for our kids as stable as possible. That is one of our main priorities in homeschooling our children. We may move a lot, but they do not have to constantly face a new classroom. Our school time has relaxed, and C is doing a happy dance over that.

Today both kids had to have a sports physical done in order to participate in MWR activities on base. The nurse practitioner asked, J (4 yrs old) if he liked school and he said "NO" very matter of factly. That kid! Good news is that J is more willing to write, color, and be read to and we can see improvements. He's a good kid and still loves to snuggle with his Mama, so we will keep him.

The Navy seems to be out of money and so they will not pay tuition assistance for R to take classes toward his degree since he is at a training command. That makes no sense, I know! If he were not at a training command he would not take classes because he would be deploying or getting ready to deploy. This just came about this week. What a bummer! You can guess it, another change of plans.

Until later, say a sweet prayer and enjoy the weekend.

Who am I?

At times I find it very difficult to be more than one person at a time, but how do you not do it. I chose the decisions that I did because I felt that was were the Lord was leading me. It is hard enough being a military wife or a homeschooling mama without mixing the two. These days I feel so overwhelmed.
I have always felt blessed by my life. Even considering all the downs mixed with the ups. I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do. There is something that I have loved about every duty station and there are people all over the country that I miss dearly.
Now we are surviving a year away much farther from family, in a house that needs some work, with a schedule that is stressful, and we are homeschooling.
Except homeschooling is not going so well. We are both unhappy with each other and I awake every day dreading the fight that lays before us to get the work done. Of course, you can say that it is the move or spring fever, but this has been going on since the get go and I am worn out. I have changed everything more than once, had a rigid schedule and a relaxed schedule, took away privileges, and just ignored that lack of work she was doing, but now I am out of steam and tired of it all. The unfortunate thing is that she is behind in so many things because we relaxed so much to let her reading improve. Her reading has improved freatly although she will ask you every time what a word is before she sounds it out.
C would rather do what she wants to do all day long and the moment that something, anything, happens to upset her then we all pay for it the rest of the day. She cannot sit still and do an assignment and she will not do an assignment at all unless someone is standing over her. Poor little brother gets yelled at making a noise and disturbing her. All those actions are ridiculous in my book. There is not a day that goes by that one of us is not in tears. Usually her, multiple times, with screaming and shouting mixed in.
I wish there was a magic formula, but what I want more than anything is cooperation from all involved to get that formula figured out. I am sure that there is a way to make school fun for her. I just wish someone would tell me what it is.
I got the book Homeschooling the Child with ADD (and other Special Needs). I have no idea if that is C's problem but I thought that the book might give me some ideas.
Now my ranting is over. Thank you for listening. I feel better now.

Settling In

AHHH! Finally some time to myself. The house is somewhat put together. At least most things have a place and I still need to hang pictures.
We made it through 6 nights of hotel rooms, 2 vehicles, 2 kids, and 2 dogs across the country. We had one flat tire and one bad hotel stay. The kids did great, I think they were so excited about traveling that they did not get very bored. I would like to say there was so much to see, but have you traveled across Texas lately. We spent 2 nights in San Antonio and took the kids to the Alamo and Riverwalk.
Our new town seems like a great little town to raise a family in. There are people out walking all the time. Some pushing strollers and some walking dogs, we even saw one lady pushing her dog in a stroller. We have a Wal Mart and a Target and many great grocery stores. My favorite by far is an organic grocery store.
R starts his check in process tomorrow for the school that he will be attending. He is excited and nervous all rolled into one.
C has to get back into the swing of things with homeschooling tomorrow. I had thought that I may be able to get a few things accomplished while traveling but she is not that disciplined yet. It will be a rough day tomorrow as she has a tendency to fight me.
Have a great week.