This crazy thing happened last fall.
We were making excellent progress through school and Mommy wondered, “How can I make us really over-extended for the winter and Mommy wondered, “How can I enhance their learning experiences?”
So I added skating for 8 weeks, and co op for 10 weeks. Co op actually takes 13 weeks to complete because of all the seasonal breaks. And the skating and co op only overlapped for four weeks.
I offered to teach an art class. And it filled up with 16 students in the first day. The offerings turned out to be not so robust for my boys; they needed to take a study hall for their first period. Marie and Tabitha chose to take a NYS history class, my art class, and gym. Like the boys, they get to be together for all of their classes.
Johanna and Katriel only get to take gym together. I am a helper in there, which is good because it is a little over Katriel’s head. From there Johanna has science and chorus, and Katriel has Play-Doh class and a music class that I attend with her. By the end of week, Katriel was referring to her music class as “Bah, bah, bah class” because we sing songs that go – “bah, bah, bah.”
Is this for real?
On January 2nd, I noticed a weird pain in my left arm. I thought perhaps I’d overworked a muscle lifting patients at work the night before and decided to baby it. Over the next 10 days or so the discomfort came and went and changed somewhat in quality. I tried ibuprofen, icing my elbow (where I thought the pain was coming from at one point), and elevation. But by two week mark the numbness and tingling was growing in intensity and keeping me awake at night. I decided to call the doctor.
Office visit – she suspected pinched nerve in my neck.
X-rays – to rule out compression fracture.
Gabapentin – to relieve the pain
Prescription for physical therapy.
X-rays – to rule out compression fracture.
Gabapentin – to relieve the pain
Prescription for physical therapy.
It took a good week to get an appointment, but three weeks later I was completely healed! Therapy was HARD. And WEIRD – look at the photos below! And I was in tears the week between visits two and three as my muscles were in revolt against me an my twice-a-day-hour-long stretches. But the PT was beyond excellent. And I can now turn my head further than I had been able to since Katriel was born. (Her difficult delivery left me with reduced range of motion in my neck. Long story!)
One of those days…
When you are still doing Kindergarten at 5 P.M. because you have Very Busy older brothers and sisters….
When mom says no to a cookie.
And the apples are all gone.
But thankfully we have carrots and dip available.
It’s hard to be almost three……
Big box of fun
I had Fashion Plates when I was a girl.
Amazon offered them to me for about $18.
We got our $18 worth of fun in the first few hours.
Pioneer Girls
We had a few bumps in the road in September as we awkwardly recognized that American Heritage Girls was not where we were supposed to be. On a whim one Wednesday night at 6:10 P.M. I asked the girls, “Do you want to go to Pioneer Girls tonight?” Pioneer Girls is a program that meets at our church and one we had never participated in for a variety of reasons. Two of the girls quickly agreed and we were ready to be there by 6:30. Marie was a hold out; she wasn’t ready to embrace something without some time to think about it.
As I dropped off the girls the woman who would be Marie’s leader said she’d actually prayed THAT DAY that our girls would go to PG. Mind you, she and I had never had a conversation about such a thing and until 6:10 P.M. I’d never considered it.
The following week I made Marie go. I said she had to go three weeks and at that point she could decide what she thought. When I picked them up at 8:00 P.M. the first words out of Marie’s mouth were, “You were right, Mom. This is great.”
It is by far the least structured evening programming we’ve ever been a part of, but it is working well for them. I’ve been helping once a month and have gotten to be in different classes. I’m not sure what next year holds, but it has absolutely been perfect this year.
There was a little awards ceremony tonight.
Most of the girls loved it.
Aren’t they sweet?
Braces off
Stewart was all set for his appointment to get his braces off. Then the office manager called the morning of his appointment to say the doctor had an emergency and would have to reschedule his appointment! Stewart took the news like a champ; the new appointment was only three days later and after two years with them on what is three more days?
About 2 hours later she called back to say the doctor was coming back to the office and they wanted to get him in. Yay! Nan took him for the big event and he was eager to take his own photo when he got back home.
He’s grown so much since November 2013!!!!
Swim lessons 2016
We had to rearrange swim lessons for Nigel and Marie now that they are involved in rehearsals for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But Tabitha, Johanna, and Katriel started lessons this week. Wonderfully enough, Stewart was lifeguarding at the same time. (He is also in the production, but had already been scheduled to work before he knew the rehearsal schedule.)
Katriel wasn’t too excited about the whole thing. She isn’t quite three yet, but they let her in. Although she was floating around the pool like a champ back in September, that was a long time ago in baby minds. She was stiff and uncomfortable today. Until she looked up and saw her BIG BROTHER right there next to her. Be still Mommy’s heart!
Johanna had NO problem getting back in the swim of things. She LOVED her teacher and we could see her mouth chattering a mile-a-minute from where we stood watching.
She did eventually go down it.
Tab also swam. She is always in the deep end, however; far our out of iPhone camera range. Nigel and Marie switched to Monday evening lessons. I did offer that they could skip them this year because of how busy we all are with the rehearsals for the Finney play. But they did NOT like that idea. Seems both of them are excited about maybe being lifeguards themselves one day. 
A little bit of snow
They decided to give the white stuff a try.
It didn’t last too long.
That stuff is cold, you know.
She’s no dummy
But she really enjoyed learning basic life saving at Pioneer Girls club. This club has been such a blessing for our family this year. It’s our first year doing it, and they are having a blast.
Dayspring Disciples 