Last bit of October - a field trip to Jordan Dam on 10/30

Some of you may be shocked – but this is my last post for October – and I’ll be starting November ASAP. Yippee!!!  There are so many fun things I want to share. :-) It’s a good problem.   The not so good problem is our computer - it's very, very slow.  I keep thinking it's on it's last leg.  We'll see. 

This was another wonderful field trip.  We visited Jordan Dam.  We had beautiful weather which was so very nice! 

This is the dam.

This is the view looking in the opposite direction.  It's really lovely out there!

First, the rangers gave us a brief history of the dam to our group.  We were then split in half by age.  The younger children focused on learning a variety of things which would enable them to earn a Junior Ranger badge.  They learned about various animals that live in the area from snakes to foxes to squirrels and more. 

Then they went inside and listened to a story and made ranger hats to wear. 

At the same time, the older children were learning about water quality by playing a hands-on game called Macro-Invertebrate Mayhem.  It looked like a lot of fun.

We then gathered together again for a quiz.  Two groups (mixed ages) played against each other to see how much they knew and had learned. 

We then walked to the dam for a special presentation.

The younger children were presented their Junior Ranger badges.  It was a neat ceremony.

We then went to a lovely park, with lots of green space, at the bottom of the dam.  This was a great place for a picnic and to play.  It was a lovely day! 

Just had to include one of my littlest cutie pie.  Doesn't she look like a big girl?!

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to learn in this manner with my children.  It's really a lot of fun!

Blessings,

Leslie

State Fair - Oct Retropost

Yes, I'm getting close to winding up Oct - and have much to share already about November!  I'm trying to catch up but our computer is very, very slow these days and it makes it hard to upload photos sometimes.   

 We went to the State Fair this year.  It's something we enjoy doing every year.  We had the pleasure of going with dear friends.  The food, the crafts, the rides, the animals - so much to enjoy and there is something for everyone! 

Just liked this photo of Joshua and Isaiah. 

Rebecca entered several items in the fair and won ribbons!  She entered a mobil.  She made paper stars and won a 3rd place ribbon. 

She also entered a Christmas ornament.  She made this as a gift for me last year and it is so beautiful - and fragile.  She won a 4th place ribbon for this.  There was a note on it that the judges thought this was beautiful and it would have won money had it not been so fragile.  This was meant to encourage Rebecca - and hopefully one day it will - though I think it made her a little sad.  It's a good lesson though on details and finishing things well. 

We enjoyed seeing some of the prize winning vegetables and animals. 

Daddy and his little girl! 

I should have gotten a photo of Christopher with food - he loves the variety and takes advantage of it too! 

This was in front of a really fun exhibit on foods in  North Carolina. 

Each of the children received a basket and then collected various foods through out the exhibit.  Even Eliana was given a basket. 

It was too big to carry for long - but it was still fun.  When the children finished collecting food, they were given money in exchange for the food.  They could use this to buy a bag that included an apple, peanuts and a pencil.  A good trade.

We enjoyed the rides - the bumper cars were a hands-down favorite for my family.  They did this one several times and I saw lots of smiles.  There is more - and more photos too - but in the interest of catching up, I'm going to stop here.  Here is one last photo of my little sweetie and I.

  Blessings,

Leslie

Field Trip - Oct 16 to Duke Homestead - Retropost (again!)

We continue to enjoy wonderful field trips with our Five in a Row homeschool group.  I'm thankful to be a part of the wonderful group of families.  We go on field trips every other month and I enjoy these so much.  One of our trips this month was to Duke Homestead which is one of our State Historic Sites.  (Click on the name if you'd like to visit the website.) 

Because we had a large group, we were split in half to participate in the planned activities.  We started with a film in which we learned what life was like on a farm in the early 1900s.  Next, the children learned how to play townball.  It is similar to baseball in some ways, though different enough that the younger children were not at a disadvantage in playing.  It was a lot of fun!

Listening to instructions.

My biggest and smallest boys.

It is hard to tell, but the bat is longer than a typical bat and flat.

The children ran clockwise around 4 bases (not including "home").  The tall sticks in the ground are bases.

Next, we did an archeology project.  The children worked in groups to discover things hidden in a box of sand.  They learned about measuring and recording data.  They then discussed what they might learn from the things that they found.  My younger boys loved doing this!

Lastly, we learned about food preservation.  They talked about types of foods eaten and how to save or preserve them.  They helped to churn butter and then ate some buttered bread.

When we finished, we had a picnic lunch at the site.  It was a beautiful fall day and it was a great time to relax, play and spend time with friends. 

Blessings, 

Leslie

Catch-up post for Oct

SPORTS

We spent a lot of the month involved in sports - soccer for Rebecca (practice once per week and games once per week) and football  for Christopher (practice twice per week and games once per week). 

Soccer is a sport we've been involved in for the last 12 years.  I just counted, has it really been that long?  Christopher started playing the year he was 4.  One year we had 3 children playing - and Roger was the coach for 2 of the teams.  That was a nutty year!  This year, Rebecca is the only soccer player.  She enjoys the sport and is a good player.  I enjoy watching her run, pass, score - and just have fun!

Football is a new sport of us.  Christopher is playing in the homeschool football league.  There isn't a team in Durham, so he joined the Raleigh team that he played flag football with in the spring.  Unfortunately, the practices ended up being moved about 30 min away in a new location - which was about an hour away for us!  It was worth the drive though.  The focus on learning the sport, while also learning the importance of your relationship with God was wonderful.  They stressed being good team players, respect for others and basics of the game.  The spent time in devotions and prayers at every practice and game. 

Christopher plays defensive end.  He enjoys defense.  His team is strong - they were undefeated this year.  In some of the games, when they got off to a strong and early lead, the coaches would scramble their positions to try to balance things between the teams.  This helped to balance things out a little bit.

At one of the games, Christopher's team was off to a very strong, early lead and the positions were again scrambled.  Only this team the offensive players were on defense and vice versa!  It was fun watching Christopher play a different position - and really exciting when he caught a pass for a touchdown!!!  We were sitting at the end of the field and had a great position to view it all.  There was lots of cheering going on!  Eliana has even learned to sign "touchdown" which is really cute.

FRIENDS & FAMILY VISITING

We loved having our friends from VA come down to visit.  We enjoyed lots of activities from watching football and soccer, making cards with our Keepers group and just hanging out having fun.

For those who are curious, we are eating paella and tapas to go with one of our FIAR book titles - The Story of Ferdinand.  It was a yummy meal!

We also enjoyed having my sister and niece visit us while Daniel was having his MRI.

Keepers of the Faith

We met in October to learn about card making.  This was my class to teach and it was a lot of fun!  We learned to work with different tools and do different techniques.  I had planned for each girl to make 4 cards.  It was fun to see how they did things their own way to add in their creative style.  Here's a picture of the girls with their cards.

If you want more details on this class, you can visit my KOF blog HERE.

I just thought this was a fun picture of Joshua and Isaiah being "spies" with the new spy kit they received for their birthday. 

Just a fun couple of pictures of Eliana.

 I love this cute little outfit on her. 

When we ask Eliana a question now, she will often do this.  LOL  It doesn't really help answer the question, but it does give us one more thing to chuckle about.

I still want to add in another field trip and some pics of our time at the State Fair - then I'll be caught up with Oct - and on to Nov.  ;-)

Blessings to you and yours!

Leslie

 

Therapy Updates

I thought I'd share a little bit of what we've been up to here.  Therapy takes up a lot of time in our week - with 2 children in several therapies.  I'm thankful for the progress I'm seeing and thankful the the things I'm able to learn from these therapists.

Speech

Both Daniel and Eliana are seeing the same therapist in our home.  (I love that we are able to be home for this!)  Daniel will be doing speech therapy for a short amount of time.  He loves it as it is mainly like focused time to play.  Our therapist does a great job making things fun and really working with the child's interests.

Some of the things we are working on with Daniel are his vocal qualtiy (he sounds high pitched and a little nasal at times) and breathing quality (able to sustain long breaths).  Some of the things we've done include blowing on whistles and practicing using a deep voice. 

Eliana is still working on communicating.  She has a few words - bye, gentle, hi - sometimes mama.  She has many, many more signs!  We have all been learning signs - thank you Signing Time  ! We practice these with her often.  I will frequently ask her to repeat several words in a string - for example, milk please mommy.  She is very good at repeating things she hears.  She does sometimes initiate them on her own.  The most used sign - PLEASE.  It's a nice one. 

This week she has started combining a sign with a word!!!  Big grin here.  She loves Baby Signing Time and sometimes will walk up to the tv and sign "baby" (which is what we call the DVDs) and say "ba-ba".  Of course she is rewarded with the movie. 

One of the things that I need to do more of is working on her oral motor skills.  This falls into speech and also OT.  It seems that there is a lot of overlap between the therapists which is also nice.  Eliana really dislikes any types of exercises involving her mouth which makes it hard to do things.  I need to do a better and more consistant job at working at it anyway!

PHYSICAL

This is just for Eliana.  She is doing well.  She has reached a lot of the milestones and is fun to watch.  The main thing we are working on now is trying to strengthen some of her inner thigh and core muscles.  She walks with her feet spread too wide.  She needs to learn to bring them in more and have a smaller base.  This will help her as she grows older and may want to do sports and games. 

We've tried several things thus far including the following:

*Theratogs - a velcro contraption that seems neat, but is very difficult to put on a wiggly baby.  Not sure why we didn't try this longer.

*Tape - A specialized tape across her stomach muscles and her inner thighs to her knees.  We tried this brielly.  She didn't seem to really mind the tape, but it really irritated her skin!  Reminded me of the days of much tape and feeding tubes.  (I'm so glad we aren't dealing with that now!)

(If someone is curious about this and wants to see a picture, please email me.)

*Lycra skirt thing that I made which goes from her chest to mid-calf.  It's to try to force her to keep her legs together.  She doesn't mind at all and it does seem to help.

(Same thing with a pic here.  I don't have a good one or I would post it.)

*Exercises - This involves me holding her, usually in my lap, and keeping her legs and feet together.  It helps if I can get her to move and exercise her core muscles.  It's a challenge to do for long.  If I can keep her entertained, she does much better with it.

OCCUPATIONAL/FEEDING

This is another dual therapy appointment - though this one is outside the home.  We start out in a really fun room with balls, foam mats, swings, and much more.  The therapist works mainly with  Daniel in here to help him experience new things.  As a sensory avoider, there were many things that he would not even try.  He is definitely improving in this area and seems to have fun here too.

Afterwards we move to another room for feeding.  Daniel is being exposed to new foods.  It is a slow and sometimes tedious process.  We look at food, talk about it, describe and touch it.  It's an improvement just to have new foods on his plate!  The next step is smelling or licking it.  Obviously the goal is to try to eat it. 

While this is slow, we are seeing improvment.  Just recently he has eaten some peanut butter and jelly (though not together yet).  Some days are hard and frustrating for him, but he is trying.

Eliana is learning some self-feeding.  One of the techniques we use with her is "hand over hand" where you just place your hand on hers to help guide her in doing whatever it is you want her to learn. 

Though messy, she is doing a good job.  We are still working on drinking from a cup.  In terms of food, she still likes things pretty mashed and will gag or spit out food that has too much texture or is too big of a chunk.  (Not my favorite meal activity - the spitting.)  In terms of variety she does pretty well.  One of her favorites is spaghetti.  She actually does well with a variety of pasta as long as there is some sauce (I often used pureed veggies) with it.

Daniel is also doing some listening therapy.  We do this 5 days per week.  He listens to specialized tape and does fine motor activities while listening.  He doesn't seem to mind this at all.  One of the improvements we've seen in this area is his tolerance of noise.  When we first started with therapy he had a very difficult time if other people were in the same room with us (hard in a large therapy room).  He was very bothered by any noises they made.  Now, he is better able to handle these noises and people    and just tune it out or ignore it. 

PIC

Well, this has gotten long - and may not be all that interesting.  Maybe though it's helpful to someone.  I thought I'd share an article on milestones for children with Down syndrome.  It was written by a local therapist that has a great reputation in our community.  He did a free evaluation of Eliana and I was impressed with his knowledge and skills.

 Developmental Chart

 This chart might be helpful for others working with a child with Down syndrome - or perhaps someone just wanting to understand more.

I'm grateful for all that these sweet children are learning and thankful for the assistance I'm receiving!  I was planning to add more pics - but in the interest of getting this posted, I'm going to go as is.  :-) 

Blessings,

Leslie

Buddy Walk - Retropost - Oct 12

 Well, I’m behind – and going to try again to catch up. So, you’ll probably be seeing a few "retroposts" from me for the month of October. I really want to catch up so we can share what we did TODAY! We were part of an awesome event with our homeschool group and I can’t wait to share pictures! More later.

On Oct 12, we attended our local Buddy Walk. We went to our first one last year. I remember not knowing what it would be like and not really knowing many people. We went anyway and I am so glad that we did. This year, we were all very excited to go. Our local group does an awesome job in putting on the event! So many things going on and not nearly enough time to do it all!

We arrived and checked in – receiving a goody bag and t-shirt to wear. I was amazed by the size of the event. There was a very large tent with tables for eating lunch. There were games and rides for the children, clowns, face painting, booths with information and goodies and more!

There was various entertainment – including a drum group with one member being a young man with Down syndrome. The highlight of the day was Rachel from Signing Time! She was there with Alex and Leah to perform a variety of songs. We had front row seats and loved the entire show!

If you aren’t familiar with these DVDs, please check them out here. The company was started by a mom (Rachel) to help teach others signs. She was motivated to help her daughter was was born deaf. She in turn is helping many other families to be able to better communicate! While Eliana does have a couple of words, she has many, many more signs! This is a fabulous way for all of us to learn to communicate with her. As a family – we are sold!!!

After the show was the walk. It was a short walk around the grounds on a paved path. Last year Eliana was in a stroller. This year, I carried her and then decided she could probably do part of the walk herself.

My favorite part of the walk is the signs. There are signs all along the walk with pictures of children with Down syndrome. We bought one for Eliana this year which she found interesting.

This is the picture that we used for her sign.

 We were thrilled to be joined by some dear friends at this year’s walk. We’d love to have more of you join us next year. It really is a neat time of celebrating a special group of people. Last year, I remember just crying at seeing all of the beautiful faces of other children with Down syndrome. Having spent much of the first 10 months of Eliana’s life at home, we hadn’t gotten out much. I am thankful for the support we have here locally – and the support we have personally.

And while I wasn’t sure I’d ever say this soon after Eliana was born – I can say it completely now. I’m so glad to have a precious little girl with Down syndrome in my family. She is a delight!!! I’m thankful for the amazing gift of children – all of them!

Blessings,

Leslie

Results are IN!!!

Normal!  Normal.  Normal.

What sweet words which caused instant tears of gratitude.  Thank you God!  Thank you!

Waiting has been hard.  One more opportunity to trust in God.  I am thankful for the peace He gives even when the unknown can be frightening.  God is good.

We will get the full results and reports some time next week.  Sorry this is brief, but I wanted to post for those who are waiting to hear. 

In His Love,

Leslie

No News Yet

Still waiting.  I called our eye doctor yesterday.  Since she is the dr who asked for the MRI, the information will be sent back to her.  She was out of the office yesterday at a meeting.  I was told she would need to complete some paperwork today to send to Duke requesting the results.  She will hopefully receive them back today - maybe tomorrow.  I'm hoping we will hear something today, though it may be tomorrow.

All this to say, we don't know any more and are just waiting.  Thank you for your prayers.

Love,

Leslie