2012 Easter Egg Hunt

Here are pictures from this year's Easter Egg hunt. Jaron had a better understanding of what was going on so he had a lot more fun. Josiah of course knew what to do and he collected a lot of eggs. After is was all done, some of the older kids replanted their eggs for our kids to find again. Our kids are spoiled.

Then we got a few pictures up in the tree.

Jaron Singing

I know I haven't posted anything for awhile. I got off my weekly rhythm, but I am slowly working back into things.

A lot has happened since I last posted. My parents came out for a couple of weeks and we tore up the front yard. There were some drainage problems with it. Plus had a whole from a tree we took out when we first moved in that we needed to fill in and we wanted to add a rock pathway so the best way to accomplish all of that was to just tear it up and start over. It was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it. I will put up pictures when the grass starts coming in.

Jason finished up his last class of his Masters. He took his comprehensive Bible exam and is waiting to hear back if he passed. If he passed then he will DONE!!! He has been taking classes for 7 years. It will nice to have a summer where he doesn't have to work on school work.

We finally made it to Jaron's neurologist appointment. The first appointment was cancelled due to snow. The prognosis is really good. It looks like he will be on medication for two years to keep him seizures free and train his brain not to have seizures. Then we will wean him off his medication and hopefully be done. Jaron's verbal skills have grown by leaps and bounds. He is singing and talking in sentences now. He knows most of his shapes and recognizes several letters and numbers. He learned all of this from watching his brother.

Josiah is continuing to learn a lot. Reading simple words is getting easier. He can almost count to 100. He is learning how to add by one. He isn't enjoying the worksheets as much right now (I think he has spring fever) so we have been reading lots of books and playing learning games. I wish we were playing outside, but we have only had a few nice days this spring. The rest of the time it has been raining. The books he likes to read right now are comic books and Great Illustrated Classics. Jason got him hooked on Spiderman comic books. Now Josiah is likes to pretend he is Spidyboy and tries to climb the walls with his "sticky" hands. I am considering finding a place to make a climbing wall. :)  I got Josiah on Great Illustrated Classics because the shorter books were getting boring for him. I like these books because they are chapter books, but every page is a picture for him to look at while I read. We read one book about every 3 days because he is always wants me to read.

I don't have any pictures, but I took this video of Jaron singing with my computer camera. It is kind of fuzzy, but I think it is cute.

While Jason was away...

Jason was gone to Memphis for his last class for his Master's. After 7 years of schooling we are finally seeing the finish line. We are very excited.

While Jason was away we tried to keep busy. I scheduled extra stuff in the evenings, like library story time and time with friends so we could get away from the house more. I stayed busy getting the garden ready for planting and organizing the house. My friend Jasmine helped me organize the boys' toys which has been a huge blessing. It is much easier to keep the living/dining room area clean now. She got me excited about organizing so I kept going. I organized our craft/homeschooling corner, my desk, and Jaron's closet. My bedroom is pretty organized, so now I just have to go through the hallway closet and Josiah's closet and I will done with my indoor cleaning. If summer ever comes (it snowed today) I can enjoy being outside and not have to worry about the house.

Last week was Moon week in school. Here is a picture of Josiah helping create a memory game with the different phases of the moon.

During moon week we learned about the phases of the moon, why the moon changes, took an imaginary trip to the moon, and watched some videos of the astronauts on the moon. He can count to 30 and is close to being able to count backwards from 10-0. We are still working on skills to prepare him for reading and sometimes he will challenge himself and read a word from signs he sees. He is even trying to spell simple words by sounding them out. It is amazing how fast kids learn.

Socially Josiah is really blossoming right now. He went through a shy phase for about 2 years. We have been talking to him about how to talk with people and making new friends. Recently he gained a lot of confidence so we enrolled him in soccer. Today Jason took Josiah to a free trial to see if he would like it. Jason said Josiah walked right up to the teacher and started talking to her with no problems. The free trial was of the beginning class since Josiah is new to soccer. Josiah's teacher said he did such a good job following directions and participating, that in a couple of weeks when the new soccer season starts, we could put him in the next level up. Josiah came home very excited so we think this will be a long term thing for him.

Jaron is doing really well. He has not had a seizure in two weeks. His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds and it is so fun seeing his personality come out. He is a really funny kid.

Jaron Dancing

Here is a fun video of Jaron!

Josiah's Crazy Thinking

Here is a fun video of Josiah's creativity. Enjoy!!

Jaron

As many of you heard, Jaron has been having seizures for the past 2 months. He is on medication and we are waiting until his first neurologist appointment to get more information. Despite having seizures 3-4 times a week, Jaron is a normal, active, learning 2 year old. Here are some things he enjoys doing.

He is a very loving kid and likes to give hugs. He especially likes to give hugs to Khalil.

He also likes books. His favorite is the Bible. He is always carrying around a Bible asking to me to read a Bible story. Here he is in a fort Josiah made reading a Bible.

He likes sports, especially football and basketball. Since we don't have a T.V., Jason and I watch West Virginia basketball on ESPN 3 on the computer. Now Jaron recognizes the ESPN symbol and will ask to watch ESPN. He is fan of the "Beebers" (Beavers), Broncos, and the Packers.

He also likes hats. Especially hats that have the sport icons on them.

Here is a fun video of Jaron playing with a basketball

Preschool

Once again blogging has fell by the wayside. I think about it often and then get overwhelmed with all the things I could write and then I don't write at all. This year I have lined out a schedule for myself so I can keep up on things. I have been doing pretty well so I decided I would add this to my regular schedule. I hope to blog once a week. We will see how it goes.

There are so many things I could put up from the past two months, but I am going to start with the present. If you want to know what we were up to over Christmas you can call or email. :)

Since Josiah is 4 he could go off to preschool, but for lots of different reason we are choosing to keep him home and we have been doing a regular preschool time 3-4 times a week. It has been fun seeing the progress Josiah is making. He knows all his letters and sounds. If I give him a word he can tell me what it starts with. He is beginning to sound out simple three letter words. He is getting good at writing his name. One top of the basic reading, writing, and math stuff, I also provide an activity where he gets to build and be creative. Below our some pictures of what we have done.

Not a great picture of Jaron, but we turned a cardboard box into a house for them. This a picture before we put in the door and the windows.

Josiah making a nest out of blankets and pillows.

All three got to play with dried black beans and cooking utensils. This entertained even the little ones for 30 minutes.

One day I put shaving cream on aluminum foil and Josiah practiced writing and then he drew pictures. He really liked this activity.

Jaron got to play, too.

Lately Josiah has been interested in outer space and rockets. We went to the library and got a few books on the topic. Besides reading to him, I decided I would give him a chance to make his own space ship. I collected a bunch of materials he could use and told him to design and make one. First, he made a drawing so he would know what his rocket should look like.

Here is what he put together. After this picture was taken he decided the rocket boosters (yes he calls them rocket boosters) were not correct. They were too flimsy and they wouldn't hold rocket fuel. So he cut some more cardboard and made better rocket boosters. Unfortunately, the space ship could not fly because there was no astronaut to fly it, so today we made an astronaut and a moon. The astronaut has made several missions to the moon today.