Retirement

What is an evil emperor bent on universal domination to do when his owner no longer plays with him and there are no more little boys around? Escort the princess to the ball I guess. 

Which one of these doesn't belong?

ME!

Interesting Thinks

Stuff:

• 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself! Best List EVER! - good advice for everyone.
• Spring Hopscotch at iHomeschool Network - so many great homeschooling articles. I have tons more reading to do!
• Vintage Swallow Locket Pendant - isn't that cute? 
• Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods to Autoimmune Disease - NF1 and autism are not autoimmune diseases - NF1 is a genetic mutation of chromosome 17 and autism is a neurological disorder with unknown causes, but I like to keep an eye on important findings in the medical community.

Nyah & ASD/LD Articles:

• The ADHD Food Fix: How to Fight ADHD Symptoms With Diet and Supplements - I've been trying things here and there to see if it will help with Nyah. Making sure she gets her vitamins every day is key for her to sleep better and have better days. Lately I've felt like our current batch of multivitamins (gummy bears from Costco) aren't as good as the last batch, because she's been having trouble sleeping. 
• What ADHD Students With Their Teachers Knew - fabulous insight into my girl (& student) Nyah. 
• Understanding Self-Injury in Teens - wish I didn't have to worry about this :(
• Hyper- and Hypo-sensitivity in Children with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism 
• Helping Aspergers Children to Deal with Stress
• Asperger and Fear of Failure

I'm thinking about:

I've been reading a book called Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything and this paragraph on page 13 has stopped me in my tracks:

"The emphasis on the correct answer squeezes out unconventional thinking. The fear of making mistakes squelches creativity and innovation. After years of being taught to avoid making mistakes, the child has also learned to steer clear of originality."

There are many things I want to do and too often I don't try because I don't want to fail. I tell Nyah at least a dozen times a day - "Mistakes are okay. Mistakes are how we learn.  We have to keep trying even if we might mess up" - I don't always live that way myself.

Kitchen Helpers

Who says princesses don't know how to work?  

Mom! Stop taking pictures!

Fishy Fishy

This past week Austin has been gone - he's on the stage crew for our commonwealth's Shakespeare play and they've had rehearsals. So the girls and I took a day off and went to the Living Planet Aquarium with a couple friends. 

Being shocked by an electric eel......

.....again and again and again :)

Petting pools - petting sharks, bat rays, sting rays, starfish, sea urchins and more!

Testing

Last week, Austin & Nyah did their standardized testing at a local college campus. 

Yeah, they had fun :)

Family Art

My cutie :)

Drawing

By Jolie - "Mom, this is me in your tummy! And this is how I came out......"

X marks the baby? 

  

Nyah's drawing

Family Walk

2013 Salt Lake NF Walk

Hello Family & Friends!

2012 Salt Lake NF Walk 

Once again, our family will be participating in the Salt Lake NF Walk on August 24th at Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake City, UT.

Please join us for the walk or make a donation to help us reach our fundraising goal for the Children's Tumor Foundation!

Event Information

There will be fun activities and food!

You can join Olivia's Team for the walk

OR

Make a donation at Olivia's Family Page.

There will also be links on the blog sidebar through August - click on the picture to join the walk or make a donation. Click on the event information link for more details about the walk. 

We hope to see you there!

Oh the horror!

One afternoon I went to play the piano and saw this:

In my calmest, quietest, don't-scare-the-little-people-into-lying-so-I-can-nail-the-culprit voice I asked "WHO ON EARTH PUT STICKERS ON THE PIANO?"

Ah, the one child who hasn't gone through the put-stickers-on-everything-until-your-mother-teaches-you-not-to phase yet. 

Fortunately the stickers *mostly* peeled off without leaving sticky residue on the keys . . . and stickers have been added to the "banned from the house" list which only has glitter on it. 

P.S. Austin was just reading over my shoulder and said, "By the way, I didn't know you had a sense of humor." Oh so sad. 

Spring Break 2013

I let my kids each pick an activity for Spring Break.

This is how it began - driving in a blizzard to Park City. Awesome.

  We went to the Lego exhibit at the Kimball Art Center for Austin.

Then we went to the Park City Museum and blew things up.

We ended up doing nothing on Tuesday because I forgot to give Nyah a lactaid with her ice cream cone on Monday. Bad bad mommy :D

Wednesday we went to the zoo with friends for Jolie & Sophie.

On our way home from the zoo we stopped at Chik-Fil-A for Olivia.

Thursday the kids all had their book clubs.

Friday we went to Gardner Village for Nyah - walking around, eating bread and candy, and watching the ducks - lots more fun than I thought it would be.  

We were going to go to Logan on Saturday for me, but I was exhausted so we had a stay-at-home day. I heard the weather was awful so it wouldn't have been much fun anyways. 

And Kurt came home from Berlin Saturday afternoon - Hurray!!

Helping dad pack

Ready - set - GO!!

My kids love to race around on a chalk-made race track.

Austin has the cardboard on his bike because it made it sound like a motorcycle.

Superstar Nyah

Friday nights are pizza nights and Nyah likes to go in ALONE and buy our pizza. I wait in the car. My kids are growing up too fast!

 Nyah's book club read a biography of Betsy Ross and the girls were given the assignment to make a flag project. Nyah wanted to make a flag. Oh boy. 

She used fleece and peel-and-stick felt - so easy!

Hiking with Nyah - the highlight was finding the remains of a deer. Exciting stuff.

Rainy Days

Homeschool - Spring 2013

There have been a few minor changes, but for the most part we've been plugging along, getting things done. 

Austin

• Math - Austin is no longer working with ALEKS math. He didn't like it and I think he was short-term learning and not retaining the information. He's still using the ALEKS QuickTables to help him memorize his math facts, but he is also using XtraMath and the Khan Academy outline at All-In-One Homeschool. Once he's finished with the Khan Academy list (some of which he's already done), he'll move on to the Middle School Math. Next year he wants to do Teaching Textbooks like Nyah. 
• Computer Literacy - My Tech High 
• Intro to Robotics - My Tech High - he only has about a week left in this class. 
• Medieval History - this is going well. He's working through the study guide, reading and doing projects, and enjoying what he's learning. 
• Language Lessons for the Elementary Student Vol. 1
• Knights of Freedom - this will finish up the beginning of May. He's really loved his group this year and is looking forward to doing the Shakespeare class with his buddies next year.
• Study Island - to get ready for his standardized testing (next week!) he's been working on this program through My Tech High. 
• Simply Music Piano Lessons - we started working with a Simply Music instructor a couple months ago. It's going really well for Austin. He has a great memory and is naturally talented at piano. 
• Happy Scientist
• BrainPop

Nyah

• Math - Teaching Textbooks - Nyah doesn't love math, but this has been a fabulous program for her. To have her actually talking about and using math outside of doing her assignments makes me want to do a happy dance. 
• Digital Media - My Tech High - she only has a couple photography projects left before she's done with this class. 
• Art class - she has really enjoyed taking art classes at the rec center. 
• History of the Horse
• Marine Biology - Nyah wants to be a marine biologist so we are going to be starting Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures. We're going to take it really slow and see how it goes. It may be too technical. We'll see. Happy Thoughts :)
• Language Lessons for the Elementary Student Vol. 1
• C8Kids - I cannot praise this program enough for the huge strides it has helped Nyah achieve this year. It's been a miracle to watch. 
• Young Stateswoman
• Study Island
• Simply Music Piano Lessons - Nyah is a great piano player, but she hates changes, she romanticizes her past teacher and traditional lessons, and pretty much thinks she's the worst piano player in the world so there are battles every.single.day about piano. To top it off, our new piano teacher had to rearrange some of her group lessons and we ended up with a group that is a couple songs ahead of us and she's trying to get Austin & Nyah caught up. This is stressing Nyah out BIG TIME. In fact, I just realized she went to a friend's house to play and didn't do her piano before she left. Ugh. 
• Happy Scientist
• BrainPop

Olivia & Jolie (& Sophie too)

• ABC's & Learning to Read - Getting Ready 1 at All-In-One Homeschool. We are doing this in conjunction with Language Lessons for Little Ones Vol. 1. 
• Math Lessons for a Living Education: Book 1 & other math games and activities 
• Speech - Olivia recently met all the goals we set for her last year (hurray!). So her therapist and I picked some new goals for her to start working on - /th/, speaking slowly and clearly, pacing so she's understandable. It's helpful to have Jolie (and often Nyah) playing games with us when we work on it. 
• Reading with Mom- fairy tales, mother goose, picture books, etc. We've been reading a chapter book in the evenings before bed and I'm loving it! Re-visiting some of my old favorites - Charlotte's Web, A Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan. Fun fun fun. And my older kids sneak out of their rooms to listen too. 
• Liberty Girls
• PE - making sure we go walking, hiking, biking, swimming, etc. at least 4 or 5 times a week to keep Olivia strong!
• Sophie sits on my lap, coloring and looking through books, while I work with Olivia & Jolie. She's going to be a smarty-pants.

We are trying something new - instead of taking one long summer break, we are trying 6 weeks on, 1 week off of school. We're going to see if a more consistent, predictable schedule works better for us. The classes and clubs they are taking will be over at the end of May, but they will keep doing language lessons, math, history, and science over the summer. At least that's the plan for now. 

We are also going to try a couple classes through CurrClick this summer - 

• MathArt - I've been wanting to add in more of a "living math" experience for my kids and this class looks like it will be lots of fun. 
• Marine Biology - for Nyah, but all of us will join in for the summer. If this works out I think she'll take the classes for next school year. 

Me & my Soph