Summer? I think I missed it.

WOW!! Time is flying! I can't believe I haven't updated since July. It's been crazy around here - and about to get crazier :) We were busy this summer working on projects outside. Eric, with the help of my dad, put up a fence around the backyard, we tore down and rebuilt the flower beds, painted the shed, painted the swing set and made a play area for the kids, and made a bird garden (Connor's request). We've now started back to school which has been an adjustment. Connor is in 2nd grade, Garrett is in Kindergarten, and I'm doing preschool with Landon. It was definitely easier when it was just me and Connor working at the table. Now trying to keep all 3 on tasks (and quiet so the others can work) is a job!!

We are also in the middle of doing Landon's IEP and I've reached the conclusion - DO WE REALLY HAVE TO DO THIS??? It's been an experience. I had our initial meeting where I signed all the paperwork to start the process the day before Bella went into the hospital (back in April). I told her point blank we were not looking for preschool at this time but just wanted to continue speech therapy and if he qualified physical therapy. We got a letter about what we thought was another meeting to discuss what we were looking for. Showed up for that to find out it was his evaluation. Eric took him in while I waited with the other kids. He said they put Landon between 2 strangers who alternated trying to get him to do 50 things in about 20 minutes time. It was a joke!! Example-they asked him to count. He doesn't know the word count but if you start or ask him how many, he can count to 12. Since he didn't know what they were asking they said he couldn't do it. Every thing they tried to get him to do they asked directly using terminology he doesn't know yet. The result - they basically said he was only age equivalent of 1 yr 3 months and has ADD. HORRIBLE EVALUATION!!! For comparison, we just had his exit evaluation for Early Steps and the lady that conducted it kept saying how advanced he was for his age. She couldn't believe how off their evaluation was. I'll save our IEP meeting for my next post - that was an even bigger waste of time!!

Update on Landon - he knows the entire alphabet, can identify any letter and knows what comes next, and has started writing the letters now. Now we are working on learning colors and being able to differentiate between on/in/under.

Update on Bella - crawling all over the place!! Nothing is safe now :)

Update on Garrett - loves Kindergarten. He asks for more work every day after he finishes his lessons.

Update on Connor - we went ahead and put him in catechism classes this year. Because our homeschool curriculum is Catholic based, we can do his religion classes at home, which we've done the last two years. This year he'll be making his First Communion so I figured it would be easier for him to do his first confession if he did it with other kids. He loves going to the classes so I asked him if he wanted to start regular school instead of homeschool and he said no, that he loves religion classes because they just do activities and crafts. He doesn't want to have to sit in a class all day doing "boring" work as he calls it. The thinking of a seven year old :)

I'm going to make a slide show of all our projects this summer. Which leads to our next announcement - we are moving:) We are busting out of this house with 4 kids so we've decided to sell the house; get into an apt for a year or so to give us time to decide where we want to build/move, if we are building to plan the house, and save up a good downpayment. We've been talking about it since before Landon was born but kept putting it off. We've finally decided we need to do it now while they are little and it won't be so hard to be crammed into an apartment. Plus after all the problems with Landon's IEP, we are looking at moving to another parish/school system that will hopefully be better (yes, that is how bad it's going with his IEP). So it's even crazier around here with trying to pack stuff up and get ready to put the house up for sale. We had a garage sale Saturday and could probably have another by the time we go through everything.

I'll do a post about our IEP plan later.