Baldies, Meetings, Ladies Night, Trampoline Park

Wow we have had a busy week.  It started out with getting ready for Matthew's IEP (individualized education plan) meeting.  Matthew has to get tested every 3 years to see if he is still eligible for the special education program and this year he hit the third year which meant I had a bunch of tests I had to fill out as well as all his teachers and the school psychologist.  We all met together Tuesday afternoon to review the test results and discuss Matthew's education plan for the next year.  It was no surprise that Matthew qualified for the special education program again mostly for his autism diagnosis.  I hate these every three year tests because in order to see how Matthew is doing they have to compare him to his peers which is hard to see.  The older Matthew gets the bigger the differences are between Matthew and his typical peers.  It is hard to see how big the difference is, but it does give us a good point of where Matthew is and what goals he can work on in the next year.  His teacher this year is new and still learning how everything works, but she has been really great to work with.  She wants to help Matthew as well as incorporate some of the goals Aaron and I have for him as well.  Not all teachers are willing to add more goals because it means more work for them, but his teacher this year has been great.  There are still a few more evaluations we are waiting to get completed, but overall things went smoothly.  These IEP meetings are very stressful for me.  Thankfully Aaron was able to come to this meeting for support and to add more insight as well.

 

Monday afternoon we had another meeting with the Assistive Technology person, the assistant principal and Josh's teacher to discuss his 504 accommodation plan and his need for updated equipment.  They decided to give Josh and Chromebook laptop to help in his assignments.  Josh's fine motor skills aren't very good and his teacher has a hard time reading his writing.  After having the applied technology person see his writing he agreed that Josh would benefit from being able to type his assignments.  Between Josh's low fine motor coordination in addition to his epilepsy meds which make his overall motor skills lower his handwriting really suffers.  That's why it was decided that he would benefit from having a Chromebook.  He finally got the Chromebook yesterday and so we are still trying to figure out how everything works.  Good thing Aaron is really good at that kind of thing!

 

The funny thing is, is after Josh received his Chromebook Matthew's teacher let me know that they decided to get Matthew a Chromebook also to help him with his work, too since Matthew's writing is hard to read as well.  Hopefully we can figure these things out to help Josh and Matthew. 

 

In other happenings we got the results of Daniel's blood tests back.  It showed he had a really low vitamin D level which has been contributing to him getting hives almost every night.  I have to start giving him a vitamin D supplement in addition to a daily Zyrtec to try and prevent him having reactions so often.  We have to start the daily Zyrtec because this winter has been so warm spring has started early and sent the pollen counts up really high which has really affected Daniel.  I am happy to say that after starting the vitamin D supplement and the Zyrtec Daniel has not had any reactions at all.  It has been wonderful!!

 

Last Friday was ladies night.  It was much needed for me because my stress level has been through the roof lately!  It was a fun night.  We went to someone's house and had a chocolate fountain party and played some games.  The chocolate fountain had all kinds of fun stuff you could dip in to it like caramels, cinnamon bears, marshmallows, pretzels, etc.  It was yummy!!  Afterward we went to a comedy improv show which was really funny.  It was a fun, much needed break for me.  I was glad I was able to go!

 

One of Aaron's friends has a son who is going through a cancer treatment.  The poor boy just lost all his hair and so a bunch of people decided to shave their heads, too.  Aaron was needing a haircut so he decided to support his friends son by going bald, too.  He talked Josh and Daniel into going bald, but Noah and Matthew decided to keep some of their hair.  I still do a double take when I see Aaron's bald head.

Josh is still liking orchestra.  He learned the Jaws theme song this past week and played it for me.  He was so excited:

Yesterday I signed this cute  boy up for kindergarten in the fall.  It made me a little sad.  I have had someone at home for the last 13 years straight so this will be a new experience for me.  However, Noah isn't sad.  He is excited to start kindergarten and go to school like his siblings.

How can Noah be old enough to go to kindergarten when he still looks so little?!

Noah stopped taking naps a long time ago, but he still will occasionally fall asleep on the couch in the afternoons.  He looks so sweet.

 

This is how I feel a lot of times especially after the kids get home from school and spread their school stuff everywhere!!

 Saturday I found out that our Pass of All Passes was still valid--Wahoo!  I thought they had expired January 1st, but they don't expire until April.  They had just added a trampoline park to our list of venues we could go to for March.  We headed down to the trampoline park Saturday morning only to find out that the special didn't start until March 1st--DOH!!  I had gotten my dates mixed up and thought it was March 1st instead of it still being February 28th.  I was a little embarrassed.  Sometimes I feel like this picture is so me:

Anyway, since we had driven over an hour to get to the trampoline park all the kids were bummed.  Luckily, Aaron talked to the manager and the manager agreed to let us use our passes a day early.  We were so glad!!  The kids had so much fun!  Sarah and Noah had fun in the under 5 foot kid area:

 They had a foam pit you could bounce into that they liked jumping in together while holding hands:

I jumped with the kids, too.  I was the oldest person out there, but it was fun.  I did find out that I will probably need bladder repair surgery in the future, though.  Having 5 kids have really done a number on my poor bladder :/.

 They had some bounce houses, too:

 While I was jumping Daniel pointed to this sign and told me to read it.  He had good intentions of trying to help me feel better, but the effect it had was opposite.  Oh well, he meant well :).

 Josh liked jumping on the wall trampolines:

 Daniel is seeing how high he can jump:

 The place wasn't too busy so Sarah and Noah loved jumping on every trampoline:

 Matthew liked doing a few tricks:

 Josh liked the Tarzan rope swing:

 Matthew liked trying out all the trampolines whether people were already on them or not he still jumped through:

 Here's an action shot of Noah doing an almost header off the step.  He's the blurry figure in the right side of the picture as Sarah watches in her pink shirt:

 As the Saturday went on Aaron started feeling sick.  He tried laying down, but he felt worse and worse.  Finally around 9 pm he was feeling really sick--barfy.  The bad thing was he was supposed to teach Elders Quorum the next day.  Unfortunately, he had to text his first counselor and tell him he wasn't going to make it.  Good thing he has a good 1st counselor who was able to go to all the Sunday meetings and teach in Aaron's place at the last minute.  I had to take all five kids to church by myself, too which was not too fun.  Luckily I didn't have to take anyone out, but I did come really close a few times.  Luckily, Aaron is now feeling better and no else has gotten it.....yet, anyway.