Week 30

After a few days of drying up weather we are back to clouds and chances of rain for today.  But we are not expected to get much.  The warmer temperatures were nice.  The children sure took advantage of it and were outside a lot.

The trampoline is back outside and in its place and continues to be a favorite thing to do.  Ellyanna the dog is much nicer and better behaved this year.  Because of this she is invited in to jump with them.  It's funny to watch her jumping and then resting when the children do.  I need to get some videos of that.

Brandon and his friend, Dan, came out Sunday evening to ride dirt bike.  The neighbor came over, too.  They sure enjoy that mud.  Daniel and Leah were outside watching and taking pictures on their DSIs.  They got some good ones.  I wish I knew how to download them onto my computer.

While Daniel was at his last appointment with Dr. Agnes I asked Lisa, the receptionist, how much longer we will have to do his vision therapy.  She said it would be through the summer at least as we just got the 7th set of homework and have 2 more to get through after that.  We do each set of homework for 50 days.  So much for my hopes of being done by summer.  But I am thankful that Daniel is doing so much better.  We will continue with the therapy as we want to give him all the help we can.

This new set of homework is much nicer for us.  Either it really is or our attitudes are better about it.  Even Daniel likes it better.  He alternates daily eye chart activities that he seems to like.  One thing I like about it is that I am in a more supervisory role instead of actually participating in the therapy.  Even Leah is interested in doing some of the activities.  There is one that she particularly wants to do, Parquetry Blocks.  Of course we couldn't find these but were able to make our own.  It is similar to Pattern Blocks that we did for MFW.  In this activity he looks at a pattern for about 10 seconds, covers it up, and then tries to duplicate it with his squares, triangles, and parallelograms.  The first day he did it was pretty stressful.  But he seems to like it now.

Tim had to make a balance board.  I will have to take a picture of this activity as it is hard to describe.  The board is 3' by 18" with rockers underneath.  I don't know how people who are not handy like Tim are able to make these things.  While Daniel is balancing on this board he holds a 3' dowel stick with three different colors of tape which he uses to hit the Marsden ball alternating on the colors of tape.  He is quite good at this as he does it at Dr. Agnes' office.

The only thing I really have to help Daniel with is the jumping jacks.  He does regular ones then does different ones that are a little harder.  These activities help to use both sides of the brain and really would be good for Leah to do as well. 

Yesterday in school Daniel read about Judah being taken away to Babylon.  Today he will start reading in Daniel.  He has been looking forward to that and I think you can figure out one reason why.

Daniel only has six days of math left.  After this week he will have one week of spelling to do.  He is on lesson 90 in English.  He needs to finish lesson 100 to be done for the year in that subject.

Yesterday we started reading Aesop's Fables in Read-a-loud.  The children like those.  I let each pick one fable for me to read.  Then I chose one.  Aesop was Greek.  Since he fits into the time period we are now studying it is a good time to start reading these.

In history we studied a bit about Athens, city-states, and democracy.  They weren't too interested in this but it was a good introduction.  Daniel made some "Greek" coins that he designed himself. 

It looks like a good week of study.

Last evening Leah looked out the window and said that Elly had something weird and was eating it.  When I looked I saw she had a pheasant.  I thought it was just an old dead one she had found.  I was surprised to find it was fresh.  She must have killed it.  I felt bad but couldn't condemn her.  She is only doing what is natural for her.  She had eaten at least half of it already.  I couldn't stand the thought of it so I took the rest away.  Now I know why she has been sort of sick lately.  She has been hunting and eating birds!

Last night we were under another winter storm warning with our area expecting 3-6 inches of snow.  This morning I was pleased to see we didn't get that amount.  It was more like an inch that has ice underneath it.  The five day forecast is for moisture everyday except Sunday.  It's back to mud, lots of it.

Living in a farm and ranch community I get reports from several who are having trouble with calves dying.  They are born out in the cold mud.  Even though the rancher is out there checking frequently they can be pretty cold by the time he finds them.  Some won't make it.  We could use some sunny dry weather.

Yesterday Daniel did his standardized testing in town.  In our state the law says that home schooled children must test in grades 4, 6, 8, and 10 with a certified teacher.  The composite score must then be sent to the local school district. 

"If the child's basic composite score on a standardized achievement test is less than the thirtieth percentile nationally, a multidisciplinary assessment team shall assess the child for a potential learning problem under rules adopted by the superintendent of public instruction." 

And...

 "If the multidisciplinary assessment team determines that the child is not disabled and the child's parent wishes to continue home education, the parent, with the advice and consent of an individual who is licensed to teach by the education standards and practices board or approved to teach by the education standards and practices board, shall prepare a remediation plan to address the child's academic deficiencies and file the plan with the superintendent of the school district or with the county superintendent if the district does not employ a superintendent. The parent is responsible for any costs associated with the development of the remediation plan.  If the parent fails to file a remediation plan, the parent is deemed to be in violation of compulsory school attendance provisions and may no longer supervise the home education of the child."  (taken from the ND Home School Law)

So...testing can be stressful especially if your child has some learning problems.  But Daniel did really well.  The lady who tested him looked over his test before we sent it back to be scored.  He barely missed any questions.   That was a relief!

I am so glad we waited a few months to test.  If we had tested him with our local home school group when they tested in February I don't think Daniel would have done as well.  He is a much better reader now.  He finished every test in time.  Now we just need to wait for the results from the testing service and send the composite score to our local school district.

Today we are back to regular school work.  We are finishing week 29 in CtG.  We had been reading about King Hezekiah and the Babylonian Empire.  Our memory verses for the rest of the school year has been Isaiah 40: 21-31.  Daniel will finish his science book, Genesis for Kids, this week.  Then we will use Archimedes and the Door of Science for the rest of the year.  It will correspond with our study of the Greek Empire.

Because we couldn't read just one chapter we finished The Children's Homer last week.  In music we are listening to Handel.  And we continue drawing lessons in art.

Daniel is almost finished with his math, spelling, and English for the year.  I had hoped to finish those subjects before we go on vacation.  He should finish his math but will still have another week in the other two subjects to finish when we get back.  We will have several weeks in CtG to finish as well but should be able to combine several days into one as he will not have the other subjects to do.

Our school year is winding down.  I am looking forward to being done for the summer and to some summer weather!

Poor Leah!  She has not been feeling well.  So she and I stayed home from church.  She noticed one of my favorite birds eating under my feeder.

We did get to go to Ryan and Whitney's for lunch.  Whitney had made a good dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cheese ball, and ramen noodle coleslaw.  For dessert we had two different kinds of ribbon dessert, pistachio and chocolate.

Brandon was intently reading.  Such a nice relaxing day.

Our dear friends, the L.s, were there as well.  It was so nice to see them.  With the weekend storms we had so frequently we barely got to see them this winter.  It was nice to catch up.  R. and I enjoyed a game of ping pong before we went home.  It was a relaxing game in which we didn't keep score, talked the whole time, and kept the ball going back and forth many times before one of us missed.

My hubby has such a nice smile.

Ryan and Whitney put up a new building they use as a cow/calf maternity ward.  Ryan makes his own gates throughout the winter.  I'm not sure if I remember correctly.  It seems he said there were 16 pens along the sides of the barn with room at the end and middle for more if needed.  With the colder snowy weather all the pens were full.  I wish I would have got some shots of the whole building.  Here is a picture of one of the bottle calves.  This little heifer is two weeks old and was very peppy.  She finished off her bottle pretty quickly.

This little cutie wasn't too good about drinking.  It is one week old, had been sucking well on its mama, but as is often the case with a twin, was rejected by the cow.

The little calf never did finish that bottle.  I hope it did better this morning.

They had had another bottle calf that they were able to successfully put on a cow that had lost her calf.

We all enjoyed our little field trip after which we went back to Ryan and Whitney's for a light supper and ping pong before heading home.

Leah sure was tired and I worried that we kept her out too late.  She slept well though I heard her coughing in the night.  She looks about the same today.  I will have to see how she is doing throughout the day to determine whether I will take her out to church tonight.

Tonight we have our annual Lord's supper service that I don't want to miss.  But I know that Leah gets pretty tired by evening.  Since church doesn't begin until 8:15 it might be too late to take her out.  But we had planned on making unleavened bread tomorrow as part of our Feast study for CtG.  So we can have our own celebration here at home.

Another Winter Blast

After this last week it seemed almost impossible that we could get more snow in large amounts.  But in good old ND that is not only possible but likely in April.  Some of the worst storms that I remember have been in April.

I remember our first winter living out here on the farm.  That was the winter of '96-'97.  The year we had record snowfall.  My dear mother was still alive then.  After spending the winter in nice warm Arizona she had come back for spring.  We spent the Sabbath with her at her farm 6 miles away when it started to storm.  I'm sure we had divine help that night as we drove home.  We could hardly see the road.  The snow was so thick that we didn't know if we had passed our farm which is right by the road.  Finally we came upon it.  Since the temperatures are warmer in April it rained first.  When the wind began to blow it downed power lines all over the state.  We were without power for over three days.  That winter we had no wood stove.  So we didn't have any heat.  It is actually a good memory now.  Still it is nothing I am ready to repeat!

Since we are planning a trip soon Tim has been after me to get a new camera.  My digital camera is over 9 years old.  I think it takes good pictures.  Some of my older children have commented that their cell phones take pictures with higher mega pixels than my camera which is true.

I sort of have had my heart set on a Canon Rebel.  But the price has deterred me for a few years so I put off getting one.  This spring I thought that while I would really enjoy a camera like that I wouldn't like carrying it around while on vacation.  Plus I would worry about someone stealing it.  So I started looking at cameras at WalMart.

Yesterday I tried some out again.  I settled on a Sony Cyber-shot since I had so much success with my old camera which goes by the same name.  This one, a DSC-H70, has 16.1 Mega pixels, 10x Optical zoom, 25mm Wide-angle lens, and a 3.0" LCD screen.  As you can see I've been practicing.

I hope I can learn how to use some of the nice features on this camera before we go on vacation.  I'm planning on taking my laptop with us and should be able to blog while we are gone.

I'm so happy that I was able to (easily might I say) import pictures on my new computer and use my new camera.  I guess there is hope for this older lady.

A Short Post

I really shouldn't take time to post this morning.  But I will, just a short one.  We have had a busy week, it seems, a lot of running.  After all the time spent at home this winter it does feel good to be able to get out when I want.

On Tuesday Daniel had his progress report with Dr. Agnes, his vision therapist.  I have been concerned since his right eye has been staying in when he tries to focus from near to far.  His examination went well.  Everything we have been doing so far has really helped this little guy.  He has none of the jerky eye movements when he tracks from side to side, up and down, etc.  His reading is coming along nicely.  It was just this eye staying turned in that came up as a problem.

Dr. Agnes suggested that he might be "holding on to some far sightedness."  He said that some people will do this.  As they get further into the therapy it comes out.  The only way to know for sure was to put drops in Daniel's eyes to dilate the pupils.  Our older son has to have this done yearly to check for problems caused by diabetes.  I agreed to do it so we would know for sure.  Dr. Agnes first put in some drops for pain as the dilating drops do sting.  Then he instructed us to come back to the office in about an hour or so and he would check Daniel again.

No further farsightedness showed up.  Dr. Agnes thought he was premature in telling us that Daniel didn't need to wear his glasses for farsightedness anymore and instructed Daniel to wear them again and switch to his reading glasses when doing close up work.  He apologized for his earlier diagnoses.  I do like the man.

Daniel had already told me that his glasses seemed to help his eye go back out.  He is aware of his eye problem now so that it good.

We are so ready to be done with therapy but we might be doing it for awhile yet.  I meant to ask how much longer but didn't want to do that in front of Daniel.  He has been looking forward to not doing it this summer.  So am I.  But I have a feeling we will be.

That's about all the time I best take for posting today.  I've got to get upstairs to dry and straighten my hair.  I am looking forward to this Sabbath. 

By the way...I love my computer!

New Computer

It's so nice to be able to go back online again!  Yesterday my mail lady, Mavis, brought me a package.  In it was a new laptop, a gift from my dear step dad.  He is such a blessing to our family.  The new computer has so many features I am sure I am going to need help from my grown children on how to fully use them.

The weather has been warming a bit which has melted some of the snow, though there is still plenty left out there.  I saw that Fargo won the worst weather contest that the weather channel put on.  Fargo even beat Anchorage Alaska!  Fargo got the second greatest snowfall on record this winter which probably means we did, too. 

This morning is nice and still.  As I went outside to dump my ashes I took a few minutes to appreciate the beautiful sunrise, the hooting of the owls, and just being able to live in such a place.  Spring brings so much hope to me after the long winter. 

I know winter is officially over.  But we can still get some major snowstorms in April.  In fact we are supposed to get a storm on Sunday and Monday that has a potential for some big amounts of snow.  I begin to wonder if my muddy yard will ever dry up!

I don't have time to write much now as I need to get ready for church. We have many things going on here that I will share when I get a chance.








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