P.T.C. Time!

Last night we had Parent Teacher Conferences (P.T.C.) - yeah!

Up first - Little C! We were lucky that in our meeting was the Behavioral instructor, his Teacher and the Principal.
For the past 3 weeks he has been causing some chaos so we were forced to change his daily routine at school. Well, actually - we forced the school to make the changes.
He had an incident where after recess, he decided he didn't want to go inside, so he took off running and left the school grounds. The Teachers aide that was watching over him at recess could not catch him, so it took a parent that was driving by to stop and bring him back inside.
We of course had a big issue with this and raised heck with the principal about his safety.

The school immediately changed some things around and has C spending his entire day with the Special Ed Instructor. C LOVES this teacher and was great with the switch up. So now he is spending his entire day in a contained classroom setting where there are 3 teachers/ aides and maybe 4 kids.
Next week they are going to start bringing C back into the classroom 15 min at a time. First he will return for story time. Then the following week after that he will join them for Science.
The basic report back from the school is that this has been working really well and there have been no safety issues. The principal has even taken C outside on occasion and she will sit on the bench at the playground. She lets him play for 10 minutes to work out some of his energy, then they return back to do work.

Daddy and I have noticed a 50% improvement on not only his behavior but his overall outlook at home too. I am happy with the solutions so far, so we'll see.

Next up - A!
Talk about the golden child. Her teacher Loves her and when she spoke all I could hear was Perfect, perfect, perfect! ok, maybe not like that, but it is such a nice change to sit with a teacher and hear so many compliments. A is right on track and meets all requirements for first quarter. She is such a people pleaser that I am not surprised.

So now we have 4 days off before returning to school again and while we have nothing special planned, the weather has decided to play nice. The kids are able to play outside and they are happy to help me move things around inside.

3 days, 18 hours left till school resumes.......

When no one is looking

Nooshie, like most 2 year olds, loves to explore the wonderful world of freedom and of course probably learns most of it from the older kids.

Today, I caught Noosh enjoying the last drop of a 2-liter from the fridge - Love It!
After polishing off the soda, he proceeded to stick his hands in a bowl that had ketchup leftover from his hot dog - yummy!

Rain, Rain stay awhile.. Ahhhhh

Today there is beautiful, wonderful rain here in Iowa and I LOVE it! yes I know I'm from the Northwest - but I love the smell of rain, I love the puddles! I love having to use windshield wipers and seriously having my pants wet at the bottom is music to my ears.

It has been weird watching the weather stay at the high 70's, low 80's until the end of September - finally the nights are dipping into the 50's - Fall is HERE! and Halloween is right around the corner and there is nothing sweeter than candy apples or Caramel Apple Ciders from Starbucks - you know what I'm talking about!
Conference Sunday was crackers, salami, and cheese and only a sampling of the wonderful Holiday we call Thanksgiving that is right around the corner. Yeah for Holidays!

We are searching for the perfect place to buy the kids warmer winter coats from and I checked out Old Navy online and thought I would go peek at the selection while the kids were at school today.
BAAAA ! Yuck! this is not what I thought I was looking at online and seriously if it was - I am SOOOO disappointed. I know that Old Navy is hit and miss sometimes, but the only Really good deal worth mentioning was their 10 for $10 kids socks - score!

So tomorrow we will be checking out Childrens Place and hopefully come up with something in our price range and actually worth wearing. If you know of some really cute coats for a decent price for kids - please feel free to share!

Here are some pictures of the kids playing at the park yesterday- probably one of the last nice days we'll have this season.

Little Things

Often with days that are long and nights that are short you forget to be thankful for the little things.

Asleep with a Tootsie Pop (& Obviously Not a Blue One!)

Soaked her shirt from all the drool that drops off her chin- somehow its only cute when its your own baby.

Asleep in the rocking chair and still in her clothes

Asleep in her own little chair

Pretending to be asleep with a bowl of ice cream- but still cute.

Yeah, I realize that the majority of these pictures are of the kids sleeping, but seriously C and I are very Thankful for this!
We are also Thankful for blue tootsie pops, soft blankets and really good pizza. :)
Hope you are having a great day and remember the little things that make you smile.

My Friend

I have a friend and I was thinking of her today. She's no ordinary friend. She is special to me. I was thinking about how great it is to have a friend like her. There is no judging. We would do our hair at the others house - makeup was never a requirement and running after our kids in public is perfectly normal. I love not having to feel like I need to explain my sons behavior, because she already understands. I love that we share a lot in common & that venting to each other is more like therapy except its free. I love it when she comes over to visit just because. I love that she teaches me how to get the best deal out of everything. I loved going shopping with her. I love that she is the queen of food storage and that $200 worth of groceries could be legally purchased for $12, or a case of cookies for a buck. she makes me smile and laugh about things that most people might cry about. When my dad died, she didn't hesitate to call and tell me that she was on her way. She packed her kids in her car and drove 3 hours to babysit. I love her logic and all the "I don't care what other people think" opinions. She is the best girlfriend a person could ask for and I am missing that today. I need the sarcasm when our boys do something outrageous. I need someone to laugh with even if we shouldn't. I want to visit with her for hours about nothing. I love that she makes the unfunny funny again.
I know that people come and go, but I know that I will always have a friend in her. I want to Thank her for everything - even the little things. She is now 2000 miles away and I miss her!

"We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere." -Tim McGraw

Growing Kades

KD is 4 1/2 months old and weighing in at 15 Lbs 5 Oz and is in the 75th percentile for weight. The Doctor discovered that KD's neck tends to lean to the left. Well after he brought it up, I thought about it and yeah -it does. I never thought anything about it because this is the age where they are still learning to hold their own heads anyway. So they are referring us to the local Physical Therapy office for a better opinion. We will probably learn some exercises we can do with her to help her strengthen her neck muscles, and eliminate the possibility of anything else. He checked her hips also and they are doing great, but did mention that they are now calling it congenital hip dysplacia and said that it could onset at almost anytime and not just at birth, so they will continue to check her.

Beans insisted that I take her picture -what a cutie.

Nooshie also saw the doctor with KD today and although has not grown a significant amount in the past 6 months he did gain at least a pound. So he weighs 26 pounds and is in the 25th percentile for his age group.
For what ever reason he always has something on his face no matter how many times I wipe it clean. I'm going to blame this on his age.

I love it when they all play nice! :)

School Pictures and stuff

My days lately, have been fun - just me, the baby and Nooshie. We have been making an effort to have lunch with dad once a week and I'm pretty sure Noosh enjoys it, but I enjoy it more.

I'm getting ready to teach the moms at church how to make the korker bows and I have spent some time gathering everything I will need to do this. I glanced at the sign up sheet on Sunday and was totally shocked when I saw the number of people interested in learning. Holy cow - I hope I can do this without messing it up. We are making them with a Halloween theme. Here's a sample of the teeny toddler ones! I think I'm also going to throw in Spider bows to pass the time while the others are cooking.

Teeny Toddler Korkers

I made several of these last year & I gave them all away to the girls at church.
we sort of ended up with the misfit one, but they are still cute!

We got the kids school pictures back already and of course they are adorable. Beans has a closed mouth smile, a crooked bow and bangs in her eyes (we're growing them out) but she is happy with them so we will not be taking any retakes.

Chan - First Grade

Beans- Kindergarten