Conferences

We had parent/teacher conferences for both boys on Wednesday. I went to Andrew's conference earlier in the afternoon. Loren wasn't able to go because of combining corn, and I messed up scheduling it at 3:30. That was not smart on my part and Loren was disappointed. We met with Kris and Mrs. Schaffer. Kris is Andrew's Special Ed teacher and Mrs. Schaffer is his 1st grade teacher. Both are great and just so excited when it comes to working with Andrew.

The big thing is that Andrew is working on his sight words. Steve (his para) works on them at school and I do them at home. Anyway, Andrew has been testing at about 83%, which I consider awesome. Especially since we just started them a few weeks ago. We are using "picture me" words which you can learn about at "Picture me Reading". The words he is working on now are: play, big, red, me, we, see, and, I, can, a. Andrew is also working on his counting and his reading. He counts by using his "step by step" and then hits the switch for each number (eg. 1, 2, 3, 4...). The big thing has been getting him to stop counting, which he has showed progress on. For reading he is doing very basic books with as many sight words as possible. He has different switches available and then he hits the right one for the right work. They've only been doing it for a week but he's doing well.

Aaron's conference with Mrs. Bruhn was later in the evening so Loren was able to attend it. We left Andrew home with his respite worker so Aaron could have our full attention. Andrew tends to "fuss" when he's not the center of attention.

Aaron is doing well in everything. There's not much else to say as far as academics go. He enjoys school, he just has a tendency to try and rush through things instead of taking his time, thinking about it and then double checking his work.

The one thing that I am becoming more concerned about is his anxiety. I've spoken to Mrs Bruhn about it before and she brought it up again. This whole anxiety thing was really brought home to us when Aaron had a complete and total meltdown a few weeks ago because he left his agenda at school. I started getting worried when he was still crying and upset after two hours. Normally I would have just let him work through it but he had 3 tests the next day and I was concerned that he'd blow them. So I agreed to take him to school and then I chatted with Mrs Bruhn.

So anyway, Aaron has recognised this as being an issue and has recently started praying that God would increase his confidence. Interestingly, he thought of that on his own, it wasn't at my suggestion.

After conferences we went to celebrate at Perkins. Once there I realised that we had left the debit card at home and that between Loren and I we had $16.00 in cash with which to eat at Perkins. Anybody who has been to Perkins lately knows that usually we need a little more money than that. So we all drank water, they guys each got a plate of pancakes and I got the soup (which wasn't very good). As Loren said, it least we discovered it before we ordered. LOL

Love ya

Salvation Army

Tonight we went out ringing for the Salvation Army. It was actually a Scout project for Aaron and Andrew, but Loren said he'd be happy to do it again. It was kind of fun, but cold. We had Andrew ringing as well. He got tired of it after about 10 minutes so I took him in to get some basic groceries. We then came back outside for another 10 minutes singing Jingle Bells, before our half hour was done. It was kind of nice wishing people a Merry Christmas 10 days before Thanksgiving.

The lift is in

After searching what seemed like everywhere I finally found the cord for the camera so I could download my pictures. Believe it or not it was right in front of my face the whole time. I still can't find my cereal bowls after the move though. I remember mom packing them but I can't locate them to save my life.

We got the ceiling lift system installed and working last week. I think it's going to work well for us. I do need to remember to put Andrew in his wheelchair though to move through the house. It's so easy to pick him up and carry him and then I realize how heavy he is getting. Insurance has also approved his new bed so hopefully that will be coming in a few of weeks.

Aaron gets first try at the sling.

The sling under Andrew in his chair.

Up, up and away. That's Kathy, one of Andrew's aides.

I'm back (again... lol)

Ok, everybody has been asking about the house. Yes, we've moved as of October 11th. Here are a few pictures of the building process. I'll post the finished product later.

I have alot to catch up on. I was looking at my pictures from the past year and wondered how in the world could I get by without sharing them. So hang with me as I update the blog with old and new. Hopefully you'll enjoy the ride. And now I need to figure out how all of this works again.

Aaron's soon to be bedroom.

Aaron's favorte part was crawling on the gravel.

The back of the house.

Back, bottom patio.