IEP Meeting, Painting, Spring Fever

We had Matthew's annual IEP (individualized education plan) meeting this past week.  Thankfully,  Aaron was able to come to it with me.  Sometimes we can hear some hard things there and it is always nice to have someone else to be there with me.  Luckily this meeting went pretty well.  However, it was mostly about dealing with Matthew's transition from elementary school to Jr. High.  Wow, I can't believe he is old enough to go to Jr. High!!!  Anyway, this was his teacher's first transition meeting for a student so she was learning things right along with us, but I really like her.  She has been a great teacher for him this year.  It appears he is having hand writing issues so he will start using a portable keyboard to help him write things down during class time.  Well, unfortunate or not, him and Josh will have that in common : /.   Anyway, Matthew is doing about what is expected of him at his own level.  We are still struggling with comprehension (even though he can read anything you put in front of the kid).  He is still in speech therapy and doing social teaching with other students.  This next year will be quite a change for him so we are hoping to make a smooth transition, but change hardly ever goes smoothly with him.  It will be very interesting to say the least.  It seems like his IEP team really has Matthew's best interests at heart so I will trust their judgement for now.  At least we didn't leave the IEP meeting in tears which is always a plus.  Aaron still had an hour before he had to be back to work so we headed down to the nursery to buy some fertilizer for our lawn.  The nursery had lots of little things to look at like a Koi pond, knick knacks, plants and fountains.  Of course Noah's favorite thing was playing in the fountains.  However, he must have been pretty thirsty because he started chug a lugging the nasty water out of the fountain.  He was far enough away from us that he got quite a stomach full before we could stop him.  Ewwwww!!  Thankfully he didn't get sick from it, but did I mention that it was gross?!

It has finally warmed up outside (except for today when we woke up to snow!).  Anyway, me and the two youngest kiddos have been enjoying our beautiful weather at the park.  Our family has a severe case of Spring Fever especially after this bitterly cold January!  

 Last week Sarah was able to go to a princess birthday party of one of her friends.  At the party all the girls dressed up as their favorite princess. Sarah went as Sleeping Beauty because that was the only princess outfit I could find all the pieces to.  Anyway at the party they did all things princessy and Sarah LOVED it!  She came home with a tiara, sunglasses and candy.  Of course the candy lasted all of five seconds, but she loved wearing the tiara and sunglasses.  In fact when I went to check on her before I went to bed I found her sleeping with her sunglasses, necklaces, bracelet and tiara on.  What a funny girl!

 Since we have come in to warm weather finally it was time to break out the flop flops as Noah calls them.  Unfortunately we run into this particular problem every spring--we can never find both flip flops at the same time.  We found five left shoes, but no right.  We gave up on looking after a while and let the boys wear mismatched flop flops--shhhh don't tell anybody ;).

 Our awesome neighbor who is a train engineer gave Matthew another Union Pacific hat the other day.  Matthew was in HEAVEN.  He had to tell anyone and everyone about how he cheers for Union Pacific Trains--even perfect strangers at the store.  We got a few questioning looks that we just had to shrug our shoulders on--gotta love Matthew.

 Saturday we had to run to Ikea to pick up a few things and after we were done we decided to pay G&G T a visit.  It was such a nice day we went outside and played some baseball in their backyard.  It was lots of fun.

 G&G M gave us Aaron's old car toy set and we promptly let the car obsessed Noah play with it.  He LOVES it and makes sure it goes to bed with him every night.  After tucking him in bed as soon as the door is closed he hops out of bed to play with it.  He is a funny car obsessed little boy.

 Because he is such a car lover I decided to paint a mural of cars on his bedroom wall.  Here's the initial sketch--it is hard to see, but trust me it's there:

 

I started painting Monday morning and finished by Tuesday morning.  Noah took advantage of my lack of supervision as you can see.  He got finished playing in the kitchen faucet about the same time I finished painting--that's why his shirt (and my kitchen counters) were all wet.  

Because the kids had so much fun playing baseball at G&G T's house that's what they wanted to do for Family Home Evening on Monday evening.  However, we couldn't find our baseball so we ended up playing kick ball.  Here's Noah running with the ball not knowing quite what to do with it after Matthew kicked it.  Have I mentioned we are loving the warmer weather?!

 

Yesterday I started on Matthew's mural.  Since he is such a train lover that's what I decided to do.  I started after he went to school so I could surprise him when he got home.  He was pretty excited to see it when he got home.  I recorded his reaction, but for whatever reason the video won't upload.  Just imagine him screaming, "IT'S A TRAIN!!"  over and over and over again while jumping up and down flapping his hands. He was very excited!

I am not quite finished, but here's what it looks like so far: