Photography = Happiness

Photography makes me happy. I have not been able to do as much this year as I would like. Here are a few pictures that I have taken that make me happy.

We don't see these too often anymore, but I remember seeing them when traveling to see my great grandma when I was pint-sized.

We watched fireworks this year from atop of a 6+ foot hay bale.

Even though this water lily is not native, it was a lot of fun to photograph.

 
A goal for myself is to take time to relax through the camera lens. I prefer nature photography, but do enjoy taking pictures of the kiddos.

Do you have any goals that you are working on?

Have a great day!

April Goals

Whew! What a day! Here's a break down:

1) It's World Autism Awareness Day! I'm wearing the blue!

2) I went to eye doctor for a glasses recheck. The verdict: they kept my new glasses and I am getting new lenses. I was smart and took my old glasses with me, thank goodness. My old prescription was -3.75 both eyes with 0.25 prisms. The new ones that I had for the last week were -3.25 both eyes with no prisms. As of today, the new ones will be -3.75 right eye, -3.50 left eye with 0.50 prisms. We will see how this goes. I'm like a bad penny that keeps coming back. Ha ha ha ha! 

3) We have had a lot of wind today. Besides knocking over and relocating the garbage and recycle bins multiple times, we have a 40+ foot tree top (aka: widow maker) hanging horizontally over our yard from a neighboring property. We are going to give it a few days to see what happens before contacting them. Right now it is lodged on four scrawny trees. Oh joy!
 
4) We went with the kiddos to a friend's How to Train Your Dragon birthday party this afternoon. It was crazy, but fun.

5) I got to go shopping solo at a club store. I went for toilet paper and eyeglass wipes. I also came home with avocados, plums, tiny potatoes (oh, so cute!), frozen lasagna, canned fruit, kaiser buns, cranberry juice, and Pringles for the kids lunches. I had a plum and homemade chicken salad on a kaiser bun for lunch. Yum! I think we are going to have the tiny potatoes for dinner. I just need to figure out what to fix with them.

We are going to kick back and relax the rest of the day. Before I go, here are my April Goals:

Health Goals
- Eat more fruits and veggies
- Since I am limited in the exercise department, attempt to strengthen and tone my arms

House Goal
- Finish cleaning and organizing Pumpkin's room
- Organize and de-clutter at least two cabinets in the kitchen

Family Goal
- Go on a family adventure
- Have the kids each plan and help make a family meal

Self Goals
- Find a productive way to keep my sanity. ;-)
- Have a least one girls day adventure 

I leave you with a picture that I took of our pond earlier in the week. It was sunrise and the mist was rising from the water's surface. It was breathtaking!

Run For It

I meet myself coming and going quite a bit. I get myself turned around. I find myself upside down. Quite often I am overwhelmed. Life will get easier, right?

My sister got the front door painted lightening bug yellow a few weeks ago. She gave me a new wreath for my birthday, too. Isn't the combination pretty?

The kids have been playing in the leaves this weekend. Princess even sorted the leaves by color.

Last weekend, I carved the family's pumpkin. Somehow a deer bone is now sticking out from its mouth.

I won a free book a few weeks ago. It arrived last weekend: The Stress Cure: Praying Your Way to Personal Peace by Linda Evans Shepherd. Thank you Baker Publishing and Proverbs31. The book is fascinating and a down-to-earth. It centers on managing stress through prayer and scripture. I have only made it through three chapters so far, but I do enjoy the fact that information is related in easy to understand examples. Chapter Two was about being overwhelmed. That me, OVERWHELMED!

I have been taking some nature photography.

 

I have wrangled with the health insurance company about Pumpkin's specialist. Turns out that I was right and she is in-network. So the insurance company has five visits over the last year to correct. A sixty dollar co-pay is a big difference when it is a two hundred dollar (3) or five hundred dollar (2) per visit bill.

I had the opportunity to attend an ADHD & Special Needs training last week. I have gleaned some information that I can use with Pumpkin. I need to find the time to really sit down and read over all of the handouts. The speaker was very nice, informative, and engaging.

A few weeks ago we took Princess to a neuro-opthomologist in a neighboring town. We were sent by our eye doctor for a second opinion. Good news! Her eyes are healthy and there are no underlying causes for her atypically vision problems. Her glasses are within the acceptable range for what she needs right now. We were referred back to our eye doctor for a 6-month January check-up.

Pumpkin went grocery shopping with me this afternoon. He decided to ride in the cart. Then he strategically stacked and built structures with the groceries as they went into the cart. Gotta love the quirks of autism at times.

I hope that everyone has a great weekend! Don't forget Spotlight Sunday is tomorrow!

May The Lego Be With You

The kids love new The LEGO Movie.  They like the action.  I like seeing the different Lego designs.  I also like the message that it is good to be different, to be unique and to be creative.

Of course, the song "Everything is Awesome!" is addicting.

We love to play with Legos afterwards.

Pumpkin's creation

Princess's creation

Pumpkin loves to destroy his creation before wandering off and Princess likes to preserve her creation.

We do have our own Lord Business in the house- Hubby.  After the kids go to bed he "follows" the directions to rebuild Pumpkin's Lego gatehouse.

The adventures never end!

Time Flies

April is almost over.  Where has the time gone?

Just a little bit of what we have been up to:

• I chased butterflies.
• Princess and I got our hair cut.
• Pumpkin's class performed a play.
• We had a family adventure to the City Museum.
• Princess rocked her kindergarten screening.
• The yearly ant invasion continues.
• Spring wildflowers have finally arrived.
• Pumpkin finally received an evaluation through the local special education district.
• We had Easter fun.
• We have figured out our summer game plan. 

 sliding fun

Easter kiddos

egg rolling

trout lily

 butterfly

 

Chicken Licken play

jelly fungi

grandma and I

~ sometimes I just feel like a giant! ;-)

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

It has been an interesting week. . . . below are just a few pictures of our week.

Photos by me

Barred Owl in the country

 Big Brown Bat on the house

Northern Shoveler in our pond 

Crawdad (crayfish) from our pond

 Kids and Daddy looking at the crawdad

Princess

Pumpkin

Photos by Daddy

Northern Water Snake in our pond

Painted Turtle in our pond

Mommy

Gray Fox in the yard

Spring is Around the Corner

We have been keeping ourselves busy lately.

Blessings
- Pumpkin's class had achievement testing last week, so as a result an entire week of NO homework.  Yay!!!!!
- We have spent quality time with family and friends.
- I received an amazing and uplifting letter this week.
- We splurged and went out to eat at a nearby restaurant and were surprised that it was a kids eat free night. 
- The days are getting warmer!

Projects
- Hubby put the kids' birthday presents from grandpa together this past week.
- I cleaned the homework table off this week and have been trying to keep it clear.
- I would like to try to tackle and organize the great room during the month of April.

Wildlife
- We have seen sholvers, mallard ducks, great blue heron, kingfisher, grey fox, white tailed deer, cardinals, dark eyed juncos, Canada geese, raccoon, and green sunfish in the yard this week.
- Pumpkin and Princess encountered a crawdad (crayfish) in the creek today.  Unfortunately it gave them quite a fright and they had to be rescued by Daddy.
-  Out and about, I have seen green winged teal, turkeys, red bellied woodpecker, cooper's hawk, red eared slider, turkey vulture, sea gulls, and so much more.

Reading
- Pumpkin has been enjoying listening to Roscoe Riley Rules: Don't Swap Your Sweater for a Dog by Katherine Applegate.
- Hubby just finished reading Watchers at the Pond by Franklin Russell.
- I have been reading Unmending The Veil by Lisa Heaton on the Kindle.  I just started reading The Get Yourself Organized Project by Kathi Lipp yesterday. 
- Princess has been listening to a variety of books too.

Cooking
- The brussel sprouts were yummy!  

Garlic Parmesan Brussel Sprouts

Ingredients
fresh brussel sprouts
sea salt
cracked pepper
garlic salt
2 tablespoons light olive oil
fresh parmesan

Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Wash and quarter brussel sprouts.  Toss with olive oil and spread on baking sheet.  Season with sea salt, cracked pepper, and garlic salt to taste.  Bake for 15-18 minutes.  Add parmesan and bake for additional 2 minutes.

- Tonight we tried garlic butter asparagus.  Yum again!  Can you tell that we like garlic?!?

Garlic Butter Asparagus

Ingredients
1 bunch asparagus
4 garlic cloves
1/2 stick butter

Instructions
Dice garlic cloves and cube butter add to a skillet on medium high heat.  Add cleaned asparagus spears (I removed the bottom 1/2 inch of the stalk) to the skillet once the butter is melted.  Saute for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

I Think We Can! I Think We Can!

We have been experimenting with Pumpkin and how to motivate him in regards to education. 

Poker Chip Incentive
The grounding concept of this idea came from our childhood development pediatrician.  She had used a similar idea on her ADHD son when he was in junior high and high school.  We modified it for our first grader. 

Idea:  Use poker chips as an incentive to award appropriate behavior. 

Our Goal: To teach Pumpkin to concentrate and focus while working on school work.  A subgoal is to teach Pumpkin the value of money.

What we did:  I got a bag of old poker chips from my grandma's house and gave them a bath in the sink.  I used a permanent marker and wrote "A" on 10 blue chips, "B" on 10 red chips, and "V" on 10 white chips and placed them into a baggie.  Then I made an awards chart listing how many chips are required to earn each incentive.  We told Pumpkin that every time he brings a paper home with the grade of A, B, or V (very good) he will earn a chip.  Once he earns enough chips he can trade the chips in (like money) to collect incentives.  We found a plastic jar with a lid to deposit his chips into like a bank.

Results:  He has brought home papers with higher grades.  He has finished more in-class assignments in whole instead of leaving blank answers when he forgot or got distracted.  The purpose of this is to not make him feel like he needs to get only A's or B's.  It is to make him realize that he knows the answers and can do well on his assignments if he takes the time to focus and concentrate at the task at hand.  It is perfectly fine with me if he brings a C home, I just do not want to see the D's or F's when I know that he has the answers floating around inside his head.  So far he earn his way to see the Lego Movie and trade 7 chips to earn dinner out at the restaurant that Auntie works.  I think that he wants to work on earning the Hot Wheel Mega Loop Mayhem Track next. 

Reading Rescue 1-2-3
Pumpkin continues to have issues with reading.  We have yet to fully recover from a non-family adult telling him that she would use reading as a punishment for inappropriate behavior this past summer.  I have consulted with our friendly children department librarians for help.  The head children's librarian suggested Reading Rescue 1-2-3 by Peggy Wilber.  I have found the book useful.  I have used the test to assess Pumpkin's reading level.  He is on level 1c according to their book.  The areas that we need to work on currently are reading short passages with accuracy and rhyming.  When testing him he would say an associated word instead of rhyming word.  For example when I say "bear", he would say "polar bear" instead of something like "hair". Or "red" would end up with a made up word such as "smed".  This book gives a lot of easy to use ideas and is not hard to understand for phonic challenged parents.  

The librarians also suggested that we read books to Pumpkin that he likes.  Since he likes listening to the Junie B. Jones series, they recommended the Roscoe Riley Rules series.  Pumpkin is really enjoying listening this particular series since it has a boy for the main character.  They also suggested non-fiction books about things that Pumpkin enjoys.  Today we checked out books about sharks, snakes, butterflies, and camouflage.

Educational Games

We have been trying a variety of games to help entice Pumpkin to practice and learn words.  

POP for Rhyming

 

Oh my!  Such an amazing and fun game, both Pumpkin and Princess enjoy playing this.  It has picture bubbles and a spinner.  You spin to see how many bubbles to pull out of the container.  For each bubble you say the name of the image then say a word that rhymes.  If you rhyme correctly you keep the bubble, if the word does not rhyme the bubble goes into a discard pile.  If you get a POP bubble all of your bubbles goes back into the container.  The player with 10 bubbles wins. 

POP for Sight Words

 

We also enjoy this game.  Pumpkin gets about 80% of the words correct.  This will be a great game to continue helping him to become more fluent with reading.  It is similar to the POP for Rhyming except the cards look like popcorn and you play until the container is empty.  Pumpkin was enjoying it so much that he had his Hot Wheels playing too, so he would say their cards for them.  I looked up the company's website and there is a POP for Sight Words 2.  I will have to look into purchasing that version in the future. 

Spelling Word Matching Game

Pumpkin's teacher suggested that we turn Pumpkin's spelling words into a matching game to make the learning process fun.  Every Sunday I make up a batch of matching cards for Pumpkin to practice at great grandma's house before and after school.  I make the cards out of index cards that have been cut in half.  Pumpkin plays traditional matching with them, but has came up with a new game on his own.  He has great grandma hide one set of the cards in a different room.  He takes his matching set and looks for the cards.  When he find a matching pair, he says the word and then spells the word.  Each evening at home we work on write each spelling word twice and our spelling sentence twice.

So we are trudging along and exploring what works to help Pumpkin.  Princess should be a wiz at reading before we know it since she gets roped into playing our games to help Pumpkin.  If anyone has any ideas to try on Pumpkin, we are all ears!

The last few posts have mentioned sickness.  After about two months we are almost sickness free.  Pumpkin got his pneumonia shot earlier this week.  Princess has a bit of a runny nose.  My voice has returned and I am not coughing too much now.  Of course after all this time it would be silly to believe that I would reach 100% so soon, so as fate would have it, I sprained my ankle on Thursday.  Go figure!  At least I got a nifty new ankle brace through my workplace.

One of these days I will get back to attempting to loose a few pounds.  Maybe I can tempt hubby to join in too.  I need to get myself to my quirky normal before I can attempt to even go on a leisurely walk, take a hike, or play with the kids in the yard.  I guess that I could at least start with eating more fruits and vegetables (wink, wink).  Oh and you will never guess what happened!  My sister roasted brussel sprouts the other evening, yuck!  But I tried them anyway and liked them.  So I bought fresh brussel sprouts at the store today and will try my hand at creating my sister's recipe.

Snow Day

Oh the weather outside is frightful.

But the fire is so delightful.

And since we've no place to go.

Let it snow!  Let it snow!  Let it snow!

And snow it has!  I have heard anywhere from 8 to 10 inches of snow.  So, we had a snow day today!  

View from our garage door.

That dark blob between the two trees to the right is one of our yew bushes out near the road.  

Just past the bushy blob is the sidewalk then the roadway.

The kids spent the day playing and I spent about three hours shoveling snow.  Thankful, I had some help for our very long, long, long driveway.  A nice gentleman stopped to see if we needed the driveway plowed and I politely told him that I did not have any extra money to spend and thanked him for stopped by.  We have actually never splurged to have our driveway plowed.  I am sure that it would cost an arm and a leg since it has to be at least 100 feet in length if not more.  The nice gentleman decided to plow a path from the garage to the road for free.  What a wonderful blessing from God!  I made sure to note the business on the side of the truck, so hopefully in the future if we need a handyman he will be on the list to call.  Hubby finished shoveling after he got home from work this evening.  I have a feeling that I may have overdid it on the shoveling, so ibuprofen will most likely be my friend tomorrow.

Last night we made and sampled our first snow ice cream.  We filled a bowl with fresh snow.  Then mixed in white sugar, a touch of vanilla extract, and milk until it was the consistency of ice cream.  Hubby and I liked it.  Princess thought it was too cold and Pumpkin did not like it one bit.

Princess has been sick for over a week now.  She had the stomach flu early last week, then had a high fever for four days spreading over this past weekend.  We saw the pediatrician on Monday.  She is on antibiotics and eye drops.  Monday afternoon was the last of the fever.  Thankful, no one else has fallen to illness yet in the household.

We have had the kids birthdays spread in the mix since the last post.  I am reserving my comments on all of festivities until after we have their joint birthday party.  It does look promising for sledding though!