Been awhile again...

Well to be honest I have either been too busy or just plain could not think of anything to blog about. :) One of the things that has kept us busy is Hunter has been doing wrestling since October and with two practices a week plus the tournaments and stuff on the weekends it has kept us busy. He is really enjoying it though! He won the last two weekend events he participated in. He was so cute with his medal that he got at the Turkey Tournament he wore it for 3 days. Last weekend at the event he participated in the head coach came over to hubby and told them that the coaches all liked Hunter and want him on advanced next year so he was pretty psyched to hear that.

Krista has been working hard on her bronze award for girlscouts, and also she joined the leadership team at church and this past weekend she and the leadership team went to a nursing home and sang Christmas carols. She loved that. She is also taking a literature class through our homeschool coop and a science class. All her other studies we still do at home and she is doing very well at it. She is finally liking Math a little bit since I did away with the traditional counters and replaced them with holiday M&M's to help her learn her multiplication. She is a very visual kid so it is helpful to have manipulatives. I love homeschooling for this very reason. Name a secular classroom that is going to let a child switch around curriculum and ideas to fit their individual learning styles. :) She is about 3 weeks ahead in her studies so far, and the child that was labeled as having a "reading disability" in first grade is currently in 4th grade and reading at 6th and sometimes 7th grade level and loving books.

Joey is doing awesome this year. He has worked so hard on his sensory issues. We made the tough and painful decision to allow him to go back to school part time in order for him to get extra speech and occupational therapy time. I am ok with it only because he has an IEP (individualized education plan) and everything is set up on my terms and I know I have the power to pull him out if it starts to be a bad thing. But I am happy to say he got his wonderful teacher he had in preschool who is now teaching the sails program that he is in and the two therapists he has are the same ones he has had for the last two years (he was going to the school for ot and speech only) and he has a helper when he spends time in a regular second grade classroom and he is loving it. Plus he is now the "cool kid with a dog" since his serivce dog Daisy goes with him. We are so blessed to have Daisy she really helps with Joey and even when he has meltdowns once in awhile she will help calm him down. But anyway add all this extra help plus his outside speech and OT at the wonderful therapy center in Kent and he is just making progress in spades which is good because our plan is to keep him in where he is at until he is caught up to where he should be and then I will bring him home again. He only goes half a day now 4 days a week but I still miss him. I am probably too attached but you know what? God gave me these great kids and for me having them with me is the best thing. Plus hubby has a somewhat flexible schedule so he gets home fairly early and helps with the fun curriculum like science. Oh and the best news is Joey has been seizure free since June! We are hoping that stays that way...the closer to two years we get the better chance he has of completely outgrowing them. His ears are all healed so I think this is just his year to shine and I am finally getting my happy boy back that he was when he was little. The last two years were very tough on him.

Moving on ...hubby is doing great in his job and loves it, and I am still babysitting for a sweet little girl who I have had for almost two years now and also in this spring her parents are adding a new little one and we don't know what the gender is yet they want to be surprised so I will have two extra little ones.

Well this turned out long again...guess that is what happens when I take so long to post. lol In any case if I don't get back here before Christmas then I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

hugs,
the Cheerio Queen