Week 2

Home Life...

I think Sam may have red hair. Does it look red in this pic? I've dreamt about having red-headed children ever since I attended Girls State. Girls State was really boring but it was a resume builder back when I cared about a resume. The most important things I learned at Girls State... 

•  Rebellion can be fun. I experimented (for the first time) with deliberate willful disobedience against authority.  Me and a few others (Naomi) would lock ourselves in our room and actually skip the mandatory Citizens' Forum meetings. Kind of a big deal and completely out of character, but very exciting to be such a rebel for the first time. Rebellion later in life didn't work out so well, but a seed took root.
•  Red hair is cool. One of the elected officials attributed her win to having red hair. She said, "everybody remembers me because I have red hair." I concluded...I want to be remembered. I want red hair. I want to marry a man with red hair. All of my kids should have red hair too. Red hair is so cool. Another seed took root.

Well, now that you can see my lack of maturity at age seventeen, at least you know why I wanted a child with red hair.  I'd like to believe I am more mature now, but I never stopped wanting children with red hair. This is an example of how thoughts can start to control you. Luckily, I did a little reasoning and decided not to go around  hunting for only red-headed men to marry. I should have done a little more reasoning on the rebellion front, but only so many thoughts can be taken captive in such a wild and crazy environment such as Girls State. Who knew so many seeds would be planted? Regardless, Go Sam (if you have red hair)! If not, that's cool too! Don't let your kids go to Girls State!

Flowers I received from Zoe. Flower clips attached to Tinker Toys put into a Nalgene...she is a tinker.

Snuggling is important.  

Home Cooking... 

 

Keep it real. If you really really don't want to cook, order pizza.

If you really really don't want to do dishes and don't have paper plates, tear up the box lid. Keep it real. Or,

A salad made from leftovers...yes!

1. Make this http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-mustard-chicken-bake/detail.aspx for dinner and make extra chicken and sauce so you have leftovers. Then for lunch the next day...

2. Make a pretty salad with lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, and red onion or whatever.

3. Cut left-over chicken into pretty strips.

4. Take extra sauce from bottom of pan and add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and rice vinegar. Whisk together and pour over your pretty salad. It makes a great dressing and salad. Very left-over style.

Home Schooling...

B is for Bird week. All about Birds. Singing about birds. Finding Birds. Collecting Bird Feathers. Making Bird nests with glue and yarn (so messy, don't do it). We also are working on sight words. This week "see". I "see" that I hate making bird nests. That sort of thing. I am finding that as I teach Presley to read by seeing pics, she really is talking more. Down Syndrome causes many learning difficulties, but one strength is visual learning. She can read words that she doesn't ever use in speech. I am trying to make it meaningful in hopes she will carry these verbal skills into oral communication. After all, the main goal this year is to get her talking more . So, we learn to read words like Buzz (starts with a B).

The girls painted these bird houses. The lovely bird came from the dollar store. "In" was the learning theme here for Presley.

"Buzz" an important word around here.



Lots of important B words for Presley



Oh look! A bird is hatching.

Our bird habitats...not really.

home speech therapy

home occupational therapy



"see" it looks like Presley is cooperating.



She was planning her getaway. Sometimes she doesn't like homeschooling.



Homemade nest for the purpose of counting eggs. We tried.

More accurate depiction of our math lesson. Presley escapes under her desk. So fun.

Home Woody...

I didn't think Woody would make another week in life or in blog, but he did...

home physical therapy

Science lesson from Dad.
"spying glasses" as Zoe calls them really do kill ants. The same ants that killed my garden squash.
 Zoe, "Look mom, they are smoking!"
 Dad, "boom"

Then, Woody mouthed off.

He's okay. Just a little scar. My husband also goes by "Sid"