Happy Thanksgiving

Our gluten-free, soy-free, dye-free, and mostly dairy-free feast.

The Rest of the Catch Up

For the first three weeks of November we have been learning hard and playing hard.
  
The big boys are both doing great in school.  Elliot has started a kindergarten math program and is sailing right through.  He has also proven to be excellent at memorizing poetry, even if his severe speech delay means you can't understand a word he is saying.  

Peter is starting the second grade math book and is now reading at a strong mid-second grade level.  He is devouring the Frog and Toad books and as many superhero readers as he can haul home from the library.  

I have also hit upon a genre of literature that I can read to the boys without Peter getting "worried".  The genre is "Nothing Much Happens" - lots of benign description without much of that unnerving suspense or emotion or plot.  We listened to Anne of Green Gables on audio book and most of the chapters went over fairly well.  A few of the Just So Stories were tolerated.  And then we hit on the All of a Kind Family books...now those are some gentle books.  Peter will happily listen to long narratives about how Mama makes Gefilte fish or the intricate steps necessary to get pinafores clean and pressed on laundry day.

School only lasts for about 45 minutes, so the rest of the time the boys play, play, play.  Spencer is now almost a full time walker.

Wow!! Long Time No Write...

Things have been the good kind of busy around here.  School is going well, extracurriculars are going well, speech therapy and allergy shots are going well.  Halloween was fun and now it is almost time for Thanksgiving already!!

I'm going to share some of the October and early November highlights...better late than never.

In the middle of October Peter learned to swim.  He had been in swim lessons for over a year, and then suddenly, over the course of a week, he went from not being able to swim even a foot on his own to being able to swim half the width of the pool.  Since then, he has been hitting milestones fast and furious; he is now in the Advanced Beginner class for the older age group (6+).

Shortly after that, the boys all made cards for Uncle Scott's birthday.  We pulled out the griddle to do hot crayon drawing, and Spencer made his first masterpiece.  The hot griddle might seem an odd medium for baby's first art work, but it makes the crayons flow across the paper so easily that he could make bold, bright marks even if he did not press hard.  No babies were harmed in the making of this art.

Then we got ready for Halloween.

Spencer was not a fan of the dark or the eerie glow of the pumpkins.

We were at Nana's and Papa's for Halloween, but cold, sleety weather sent us trick or treating at the mall rather than taking to the streets.

The next couple days we hung out with Nana and Papa and ate a lot of candy.  Spencer was just taking his first couple steps.

A bit more to follow in the next post...

Our Solar System Sensory Tub

It's a long sensory tub this time; it stretches all the way down the hall.

In the tub we have outer space (black beans) on one side and rocky planetary surface (aquarium gravel) on the other.  I added a Space Toob and Solar System and some bristle blocks to make space stations.

Then I stretched a solar system model along the hall.  The sizes of the planets (and sun which is the big, red outline) are to scale with each other, and the distances between the planets along the "space line" are to scale with each other, but the sizes and distances are in vastly different scales.

Camping at Interlochen

Allergy Shots Here We Come

This picture was taken as soon as the nurse finished dabbing on the allergy serums...about 45 seconds after the first ones touched his skin.

By the end of the long, three-stage test (which also involved subcutaneous testing), Elliot was diagnosed as being highly allergic to dust mites, cats, dogs, all local trees, all local grasses, all local weeds and some local molds.  He also still shows an allergy to wheat (we had hoped he might have grown out of it) and also now shows an allergy to soy.

Elliot has already been diagnosed with asthma and is prone to severe bouts of croup; the allergist says his respiratory ailments will just get more pronounced as long as his body is experiencing constant histamine reactions to everything.  He is a perfect candidate for allergy shots, and we will be starting them twice a week as soon as the serums are ready.

Wish us all luck.

Catch Up Post

Where did August go?  Here is what we have been up to...

Spencer got his first turn in the bounce house:

We took the remains of the moon sand outside and added water until it was an icky, squishy mess just begging to be scooped and slopped around:

My great aunt Barbara came to visit on her 87th birthday:

And then today the boys and I went to the zoo in the rain:

We've started "officially" homeschooling, which isn't really official at all since Peter is only in kindergarten which is not compulsory.  The big boys and I have been having a lot of fun learning and playing during school time.  Next week we are going camping again and then shortly thereafter we are looking forward to my aunt Victoria coming for a visit and the boys' YMCA sports classes starting.

Lots of fun on the horizon.

Our Geodes

Our plastic egg geodes were done before the camp out, but I didn't get around to taking pictures until now.  They came out very well.

Car Play on the Floor

Doug and I set up a car play area in the basement for the boys to keep them busy while I tidied up after camping and got ready for our company.