School's Out for SUMMER!

Well, we're finally ready for our school-year-end-review... Nate has been a good student throughout his first grade year.  We enjoyed being a part of our homeschool group again this year.  We had classes, field trips to a dairy farm, Indiana World War Memorial, and other fun activities.  We are planning on continuing with the same group in the fall.  We are eager to have some families that we know from church join the group as well as meet new friends too.
This boy amazes me with how much he absorbs!  He excelled in nearly every subject this year.  We did work in Bible, History, Science, Math, Writing, Reading, and   He is voracious reader already.  On top of his favorites like Magic Treehouse and ABC Mysteries, Nate has also been reading books from the Treasury of Illustrated Classics collection.  They are adaptations but still big reads for a not yet seven year old.  His favorite, that he has read three or four times now is Moby Dick.  We love telling people that is his favorite book just to see their reaction!  ;-)
All that said, Nate and I are both very much looking forward to a break from the regular school routine.  Toward the end of the year we were both starting to get cranky about school.  He had worked ahead in most subjects so I was trying to fill in where I could to keep us going through the end.  It will be nice to get a couple months off and hopefully we will both be refreshed by the time we start in the fall.

 Joe had a busy school year too.  He has been working hard with PT, DT and Speech therapy.  He continues to enjoy being a part of his class.  This was his last year in developmental preschool.  We met with his team of teachers and therapists around his birthday to discuss his IFSP and he will be moving on to a Life Skills kindergarten class in the fall.  We met his new teacher and she said focuses a lot on communication which I am very excited about.
Joe is pretty limited in how much he can communicate with us right now.  He is getting increasingly frustrated because he cannot tell us what he wants and needs and frankly, so am I.  He resorts to screaming out of frustration and desperation a lot.  It is exhausting for all of us.  Here is hoping that we make some progress in this area soon.  For my sanity's sake! 
One big thing to happy lately is Joe recently was able to use a regular (non-toddler and non-handicap!) swing all by himself!  I have attempted it before with him but he only managed to stay on for a minute or two before.  This time he enjoyed swinging like a big boy for ten minutes or more before getting tired.  This is very exciting for us because we have been limited to going to parks with handicap swings since Joe has outgrown the toddler ones.  Very exciting progress!

Christine has been a busy girl the past week.  She has been pulling up to tall knees (as you can see in the picture).  But even bigger than that is the huge milestone of crawling!  We have been ecstatic about this! Every chance we get we take turns coaxing Christine to come to us, whether its a few inches or a couple of feet we are all very excited to see this new step forward!  Joe never has crawled (he went straight for hopping), so to see her properly go hand, hand, knee, knee and inch her way forward is very cool.  As stressful as things have been around here for awhile it is refreshing to have something big to be excited about! 

We have put together a Summer Bucket List that has lots of fun things for us to do both as a family and with friends: go to a free summer movie, write letters to family and friends, trip to the zoo, go to farmers' market, DIY Sidewalk Chalk Paint, watch the sky for cloud shapes, go to the aquatic center, roller skating, make splatter silhouette artwork, water balloon fight, craft camp, glow in the dark bubbles, etc...
As far as summer traveling... since Isaac recently started his new job we probably won't be taking any trips for awhile.  But my inlaws made the big move and are living at their lakehouse full time now.  So we plan on making the 3 hour trip up there a few times this summer for some lake fun. 

And of course my baby sister is getting married in August and we are a DIY family so there will be lots to do in preparation for the big day.  And my other two sisters are pregnant, due in September and October... so we are sure to have a full fall schedule as well!


He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.  -  Proverbs 10:5