Week Before Vacation

I had to get through last week to make it to a week of vacation.  I made it!! 

The week was a much more normal week since all the events for work are over.  I had a dentist appointment on Monday.  Thankfully that went fine.

Tuesday I had Lindy’s annual IEP review meeting.  It went fine.  She is just getting hearing and vision therapy these days.  She has speech in there just as support in case we ever want to start services up.  She also gets adaptive PE.  The new assistant principal at school was surprised she doesn’t have PT as a service.  She did when she started kindergarten but they eventually discharged her because nothing was impacting her education.  She does trip a good bit but I’m not sure that affects her education.  The scariest part of the IEP was seeing the testing modifications in there.  Since this goes through the beginning of her 3rd grade year, they had to add modifications for the beginning of year EOG.  I dread thinking of those EOG tests next year.  What I also learned at her meeting was how much stinking testing is done in 3rd grade.  It is going to be rough.  Testing is hard for every child but they are not made for visually impaired kids and it is so draining for her.  Something to look forward to. 

Thursday after school Lindy had a neurosurgery appointment.  She was thrilled she didn’t have to have surgery that day.  I guess she misunderstood the appointment! ha!  We got there early so we grabbed a snack from the cafeteria and then headed up at 3:30pm.  They were 30 mins behind but I had brought homework so we worked on that.  They called us back at 4pm and we saw a PA around 4:25pm.  She was gone a little after 4:30pm.  Lindy was going on and on about the actual neurosurgeon so the PA asked if Lindy wanted to see him and of course she said yes.  Around 5pm I was ready to blow that joint.  I didn’t know if we actually needed to see the neurosurgeon or if we were just saying hi.  He finally came in and it turned out to just say hi.  Lindy got to check his reflexes and check out his light.  She got his business card, which she was super excited about.  On the way out she said, “If I have a shunt emergency, I’ll call you.”  ha ha!  She is a nut.   I’m so glad she has done well with her shunt.  For the most part we forget it’s even there but he reminded me of it when he said “let’s hope we don’t have to do surgery because we’ll have to give you a funny haircut.”   Yes, let’s hope not.

We had a pretty quiet weekend.  I searched for something fun to do Friday night but never found anything.  We ended up going out to dinner and to Walmart for ice cream and cookies.  ha!  Saturday Will got a haircut and had tennis lessons.  It was his last lesson as he won’t be there next week.  He has enjoyed the lessons and he would like to do more in the spring.   Saturday afternoon we went to see the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe play put on by our local theatre group.  Our neighbor girl was in it so we went to see her.  Her parents gave us tickets, yay!, and saved us seats on the front row so Lindy could see better.  It was definitely community theatre but Will loved it and Lindy watched about as good as I’ve seen her at  a play.  Drew had just finished reading the book to the kids so they knew the story well.  It was a nice afternoon. 

Today we had church and a Thanksgiving lunch after church.  It was quite yummy.  We also got our pictures taken for our Christmas card.  Good times. 

Enjoy a few pictures.  Stay tuned till next week when you learn of our Thanksgiving adventure!

Tuesday was World Prematurity Day.  We wore purple for preemies.
Will finished another Kinex set this week.  He has worked hard on these sets he got for his birthday.   These sets are hard and the instructions are tough but we did it!
Lindy has shown some interest in her dolls this week. We will see if it’s short lived.


Lindy with a few cast members on Saturday at the play.

Our neighbor Carmen.  Who is younger than Lindy. ha!
The witch, whose real name was Landy. 

Event Week

Last week was an event week.  We had our last March of Dimes event for the year!  Seven major events over the year keep us busy!  I was super busy last week with work which meant I didn’t have time to take many pics.

Not much happened during the week except the kids had school off on Veteran’s Day.  Awful timing for me as there was no way I could take the day off.  My mom came to the rescue and watched the kids.  She came over Tuesday night and spent the night and kept the kids on Wednesday.  I’m proud of her as she took the kids to McDonald’s and Target all by herself!  She is always a bit nervous to go places she doesn’t know well but she did great.  She did homework with them too!  Score! 

Our event was Friday night and Drew came to help volunteer so my mom came to the rescue again.  Thanks, Mom, for the help this week.  She picked the kids up from school and took them for yogurt on the way home.  Unbeknownst to me until much later that night, my dad and Sadie dog came over for dinner too.  I’m sure the dogs loved romping around!  Mom spent the night with us since we didn’t get home till super late. 

Saturday morning my mom and I took Will to tennis lessons and Drew and Lindy ran up to the church to get some Brunswick stew they were making.  When they got home Mom and I ran to Target to pick up a birthday present.  She headed home and the kids and I headed to a birthday party.  Will is much closer with Ben but Lindy had him in kindergarten so she was invited too.  There were a couple other girls there her age.  I was the only parent that stayed but they was a lot of outdoor, semi dangerous stuff (not really!  ha!) and I didn’t want one of the parents to have to watch her the entire time.  Both kids had fun – I hardly even saw Will he was having so much fun! 

Sunday was church and chores and a nap.  I needed a nap after last week.

Here are the pitiful amount of pics I took this week.  And actually, two my mom took! ha!

No pics so I’ll include the sweet puppy.
At McDonald’s on Wednesday
Playing in the leaf pile at the birthday party on Saturday.

Special Boy’s Special Day

I finished my post last Sunday but Drew was already in bed and I didn’t remember to have him read it until Wednesday.  He reads all my posts because I hate proofreading my own things.

So let’s start with Sunday night – THE ROYALS WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!  In case you missed it.  I stayed up until 1am to watch them win.  That made for an interesting week.  It was awesome.  So awesome!!  I had to celebrate by myself though as everyone else had been sleeping for hours.  I was so close to waking Will up for the end – but I didn’t.  I should have.  I made him a note and had it on his bed so he saw it when he woke up!   We wish we could have been in Missouri to celebrate!  Kansas City area schools cancelled school on Tuesday so everyone could go to the celebration parade.  My sister and nieces got a ‘Blue Snow day’ and went to the parade.  We were jealous! 

Wednesday after school was an exciting day for Lindy.  The Industries for the Blind called to say her new CCTV was in.  This is a machine that magnifies everything for her.  She has been using one at school for years, but she got a brand new one this school year.  They gave us one when she started kindergarten but it interfered with her hearing aids and sat in the closet.  I returned it this summer when we were moving.  I contacted them this fall about trying another one.  They ended up ordering her the same brand as her school one and we walked out the door with another brand new one.  They knew it didn’t interfere with her hearing aids so they got it for her.   We have been trying it out in all different kinds of situations.  Homework is the number one priority I wanted it for but we have been using it for Facetime this weekend.  Normally when she face times, she holds the phone so close to her head that people can only see her bangs.  Now we set her phone up and she sees them blown up on her screen and they can see her whole face.  Score!  She reads on it too and man she flies.  She has to move the book back and forth because she has it so magnified.  She was about to make me sick the other night but she is used to it.  She uses it to write as well.  It’s so counterintuitive to look up and write but it magnifies the lines she is supposed to write on so it helps.  I’m hoping to see some better concentration during homework time each night because it has been taking a long time lately.  But after a full day of school I’m sure her eyes are exhausted.  In ways we can’t even imagine.   So anyway, we are excited about it.   Lindy is super excited!

Thursday after school the kids had dentist appointments.  No cavities but there was a good bit of teeth cleaning going on.  Lindy has come so far at the dentist.  She gets x-rays and cleanings without throwing up and now she loves the dentist!  So glad this got so much better!  We tried letting the kids have more freedom with their own tooth brushing but that backfired a bit.  Will didn’t have it too bad but Lindy endured a good 10 minutes of scraping, mostly on the back of her bottom lower teeth.  Obviously she had not been brushing there.  So we are back to going over them at night now.  Not ready yet to go it alone.  She did amazing to sit there and take it that long.  Will had some on the front of his bottom teeth but not too bad.  He also has a loose tooth so that should be out soon. 

Friday we celebrated our sweet Will’s special day.  The day he came home from the NICU.  It’s a day we still celebrate – even 9 years later!  Lindy and Will will always share their birthday so this is our way of making sure they have a day just about them.  This day was all about Will and how excited we were to get our first baby home – 100 days after he entered the world.  That’s a long time!  The kids love their special days.  Sometimes I think more than their birthdays.  There are no presents involved on special days but instead we let the special kid pick an activity for us to do.  Something we wouldn’t normally do.  It happened this year that I influenced both their special day activities a bit but that is because I found some stuff I thought they would like and they would have no way of knowing about.  But because of plans for Friday night, we celebrated the special day activity on Saturday night.  I did make signs for Will for his bed and had some balloons blown up.  I also went and ate lunch with him at school.  He chose his friend Ben to eat with him. 

Friday night was Family Fun night at school.  The best day of the year for the kids at school.  This year it was moved to after Halloween and made into more of a fall festival.  Although kids still dressed up if they wanted.  We met Drew there that night and did all the required games and activities.   Two new ones this year included Lindy’s vision teacher and she loved that.  They had a silly string contest and they got to shoot silly string at Ms. Donna.  Ms. Donna was shooting it right back at them.  It was funny because my kids had no idea what silly string was until Friday night.  They were a little weirded out at first but got into it quickly.  The second activity was the dunking booth and Ms. Donna.  She actually told Lindy to go hit the button with her hand so she got to dunk her.  She told Will to move up and I think he took that as go push it with his hand too and he did before we could stop him.  Thankfully Ms. Donna likes him too.  I worked a shift at the hay ride for Will’s class.  Drew and Lindy left and Will and I waited till the end to see if we won the raffle.  We didn’t.  We headed home after a fun (at least the kids think it’s fun – not sure I agree! ha!) night.

Saturday morning we had a super lazy morning around the house because it was raining outside.  Tennis got cancelled again.  We were continuing on with Will’s special day celebration and so we tried to go see the Peanuts movie but it was sold out.  We had a super disappointed boy on our hands.  Thankfully that was not his planned activity – just an additional one we thought of.  We headed to Winston for dinner and then went to see the Boxcar Children play. We spent most of the summer reading the Boxcar Children books so I suggested that to Will when I saw it was the same weekend.  It was fun to do something different.  Will really enjoyed it but we’re not sure how much Lindy saw of it.  We got there early and they let us in early to get a good seat but it was still set a little farther back on the stage.  She acted bored so that’s why we aren’t sure what she saw.  I didn’t love the play.  It portrayed the characters much differently than the books.  But as long as Will liked it, that’s all that matters.

Today we had church and then Will and I gave it another go at the Peanuts movie and this time we had success.  We went to the theatre in our new town which is smaller and only $4.  Heck yeah!  We got there around 1:15pm and there was already a short line.  We got in and had to wait but it was worth it.  It was a cute movie and Will loved it.  Charlie Brown falls in love.   I wonder if it will change Will’s views on girls.  I don’t think he’s spent too much time thinking girls are pretty (although he told Lindy she was sexy the other day.  Ummm, had to have a conversation about that! ha!).  It was cute and Will and I enjoyed our afternoon.  Lindy and Drew enjoyed theirs going to Target to look at Paw Patrol toys.  Her favorite activity these days.

We’re gearing up for another week.  A few pictures of this week though.

We were excited Royals fans this week!
They wore their shirts to school on Monday.
Lindy chilaxing at the dentist on Thursday.
Will’s special day!!
Lunch with Will and his friend.

Family Fun night madness with Ms. Donna!
Lindy tried on a Minecraft Steve head
Ms. Donna in the dunking booth!  The lady lifted Lindy up to push the button.

Will tried throwing before he just went and pushed.  This one looked good.

There really wasn’t much to take a picture of at the Boxcar Children so no pictures of that. 

Halloween 2015

Another Halloween has come and gone. 

But first, the week before.  The kids had Monday off because it was the end of the quarter.  Unfortunately no one else had the day off.  Thankfully my very flexible boss allowed me to work from home on Monday.  It was kind of tough with the dog going out every ten minutes and the kids wanting to play with me all day.  They don’t truly understand why I’m there but can’t play because I’m working.  They did pretty good and really I wish I could have just played with them all day!  Monday night we carved pumpkins.  Will drew his and carved almost all of his.  He would get tired and let Drew carve a little.  Lindy requested a puppy so I drew it on there and had to carve most of it.  She didn’t understand that since she chose something harder that I had to do most of the carving.  She helped me some and carved an L on the back by herself.

Tuesday I went to school and stuffed Tuesday packets for Will’s class.  I did it during lunch so I really only saw him on his way out of class on his way to lunch and then I saw Lindy in the hallway on the way to her lunch.  Tuesday started the World Series and more late nights than I’m used to.  I couldn’t stay awake for the 14-inning all nighter they played – and the Royals won!  Wednesday was another late game with the Royals.  And another win!

Friday night started a busy, but fun weekend.  Wake Forest had a Friday night football game at 7pm against Louisville.  Sadly, they lost by 1 point.  I cooked a chicken stew and we met Katie, Kris, and kids, my parents, and Ed and Jamie to tailgate.  It was a yummy warm meal on a chilly October night. 

Saturday we were able to sleep in because we had no other plans in the morning besides Will’s tennis at 10:30am.  Lindy went with them because she wanted to see Belle, the puppy of one of the other kids in tennis lessons.  I headed over a little while later with Aiden and took him to the dog park.  It’s silly we live across the street from a dog park and this is the first time we’ve taken him.  Considering it was his first time, he did well.  There were two other pups when we first got there and then one left.  She got tired of Aiden humping her.  Then four other pups showed up.  He did a bit of humping on one of them.  So embarrassing.  How do you teach a dog not to hump other dogs, people???  He ran and ran with the other dogs and it was so good for him!  We finally headed home for lunch and I spent the afternoon working on the garage.  We moved in and hadn’t touched it.  I organized some shelves, unpacked some boxes, and we packed the car with another donation.  There is still too much stuff for the car but it felt good to make a little headway in there.  

We ate an early dinner, changed into costumes and headed downtown.  Our church is a block off Main Street and they do front porch trick or treating.  We started there and then headed to Main St., where they shut the streets down and let kids come trick or treat.  And I think every kid in town was there.  It was basically one long line through all of downtown.  The stores (just some, not all) would be out front of their stores and give out candy.  It was interesting.   The good thing was you could see people’s costumes.  Lindy started getting tired and whiney after awhile but it really was a night of standing in line.  The highlight for Lindy was seeing some blood hound dogs that were there.  Lindy said I shouldn’t sleep with a bloodhound because they snore loud.  The owner told her she was right!  I’m not sure we’ll do it again.  We headed home and at my request, we hit up some houses that still had lights on.  They didn’t get a ton, and honestly it was cheap candy (because they have to buy so much) at the downtown thing.  They got better candy on our block – even scoring a full sized candy bar from one house!  Total winner of the  night!   At another house there was a dog at the door and she asked the owner if it was a Beagle.  The girl has studied her dogs!  After sorting their candy, they headed to bed. 

My extra hour of sleep was kind of ruined by staying up to watch the Royals come from behind in Game 4 to win.  The World Series times are killing me! 

Today we had church and then I went grocery shopping.  It was raining so it was a good day to stay inside and play.  And get groceries to eat for the month.

Pictures from Halloween 2015.  Meet our pumpkins and let me introduce you to Yoshi (from Super Mario brothers) and the Dalmatian Guide Dog.

This girl loved the pumpkin guts
This guy – not so much!

Who is that big boy carving his own pumpkin??
Teamwork

Finished products!
The L she carved

They were giving out the funniest hats at the football game Friday night!  How cute are these?


A Dalmatian and Yoshi

In character mode!


Our Dalmatian guide dog


The Yosh!


Trick or treating at church
Lindy and the bloodhound
Examining the haul!  With the prized possession!