Kindergarten

Dallin started school in August. I still find it hard to believe that he is old enough for Kindergarten. He loves school so far and was very excited for it to start. For a solid month before, he asked every day if it was school time yet, and then would get mad at me when I said no, like it was my fault that there is no school during the summer. Making a paper chain to count down the days helped somewhat so he could at least visually see that we were getting closer to a school day.

On the first day of school, he was up and ready so quickly.

Watching for the bus and sporting the R2D2 backpack he picked out himself. (You know, to match the Star Wars lunch box he got for his birthday.)

 Notice the lovely bruise/mark on his left cheek?

Connor bit him... on the cheek... the day before school started!! You could see it on his cheek for a whole week. Connor got in BIIIIIIGGGG trouble for that one.

First day of school shoes.

Connor's aren't new, he just wanted to be in the picture.

 Still waiting for the bus.

It turns out there was a "mix-up" with the bus and with Transportation not having Dallin's information (their fault, not ours). We knew there was a problem but went out that morning hoping it had been resolved. Nope. So we got to take Dallin to school ourselves and see him off into the classroom. And I got to pick him up from school. When I picked him up at the end of the day, he started crying at the sight of me. I thought he missed me and it made me start to get all emotional and worry that he wasn't ready for full day school everyday. Then he said through his tears, "I want to ride the bus!" He didn't miss me after all, he was actually sad at the sight of me because it meant he didn't get to ride the bus with his friends. Thanks for the love, kid. We did eventually get his bus situation figured out and now he is happily riding the bus to and from school. I keep waiting for him to get tired of going to school every day, but it hasn't happened yet.

He is in a regular Kindergarten classroom with his typical peers and is pulled out daily for math, reading and writing with the Special Education teacher. It seems like a good mix for him. He is still pretty far behind his peers in some areas, but he is learning quickly and I love seeing his progress. Today, he brought home a picture that he drew of our family.

Drawing people is a very new skill for him. I love so many things about this picture: the hair, Mckay's cone head, the circle ears. The best part is the baby in my tummy. His teachers don't know that I'm pregnant, so that had to have been his own, unprompted addition to the drawing. I never thought I would get so excited about a silly little drawing, but I seriously love this picture. I can't wait to see what he draws next.

Summer Break

School is out and summer break has officially started! Summer weather is here too. We've already had several hot, humid days and I've already turned the air conditioning on, which is way sooner in the year than I did last year.

I made our summer bucket list for this year. I didn't stray from from the layout I used for last year's summer list. 

I left some room at the bottom in case we want to add more. There are a lot of repeat activities from last year, as well as some new ones. I added new travel goals like "See the White House." My goal for Connor is to potty train him. We'll see how that goes.... My goal for Dallin is for him to recognize all 26 letters of the alphabet (his recognition right now is spotty, with about 10 letters regularly recognized). I also want to work on a few other things like writing to get him ready to start Kindergarten in August.

During this summer, we're going to have 20 minutes of "school" time each morning. It will really just be games or activities to help learn the letters. Yesterday, we started with the first letter of the alphabet: A. 

We practiced tracing and drawing the letter 'a' and then the boys got to cover the outline of the letter with cereal pieces. Dallin was the one who gave me the idea for this when he was playing with his Apple Jacks that morning said, "Look! I made a T!" Of course, they got to eat the cereal after they made the letter. Connor started eating his cereal right away.

I tried to take a second picture to give Connor another chance to smile.

He just grabbed more apple jacks to shove in his mouth.

The local zoo is open now, so I'm sure we'll go there a lot this summer. I love having a small, free zoo only ten minutes away. It's right in the middle of town and it's really easy to just stop by for a little bit after running errands.

The recently born baby goats were out so we got to play with them

Connor is so sweet with the goats. He would walk up to the big goats and say in his high, baby voice, "I'm just petting you, I'm not going to hurt you."

Our summer is off to a good start so far!

Apple Picking

Dallin's preschool class had a field trip to go apple picking. We went to the same little family farm as last year's field trip. First, everyone got to taste several varieties of apples while the farmer told them about how apples grow. Then the kids colored pictures of apples.

We hopped on the wagon and the tractor pulled us around the farm.

We passed the big pumpkin field and made our way to the apple orchard.

I was surprised at how small the tress are. I asked about the tree size and was told that they are dwarf apples trees, chosen specifically so that they're easier to pick. No ladders required. They produce just as well and because they're small, you can fit more trees and get more apple production per square foot.

The farmer showed the kids how to gently pick the apples and place them in the bin.

 The apples our kids picked would be cleaned and sold. Don't you love free child labor?

 This cute little fluffy dog lives on the farm and rode the tractor with us. 

Connor never left the poor dog alone.

Each of the kids got to pick two apples of their own to take home. So I guess the kids were paid in apples.

Then the kids got to sit and have an apple juice box.

I loved seeing Dallin drink the juice. He never drinks juice. I'm not really heartbroken about him not liking juice because there are certainly healthier foods out there, but his refusal to try new foods is a difficult struggle for us. He is highly motivated by his peers though, so he'll try pretty much anything as long as other people are doing it. (I can see that this will become a problem for us later on in his teen years.)

Lastly, a picture with his buddy Kendal.

They were too busy looking at the dog, but they always looks so happy together.

First day of the last year of Preschool

Dallin is back in Preschool. This will be his last year in preschool before starting Kindergarten next year. I can't imagine this child ever being big enough to be in Kindergarten.

We did a little photo shoot before Dallin's bus came. He was hamming it up for the camera.

First day of school shoes:

Connor was also very excited to see the bus.

He would have liked it even more if he had gotten a ride on it.

Here is a video right as the bus was pulling up to our house. They boys could see it off in the distance and got very excited. Dallin calls it "Dallin's bus."

Dallin was very excited to be back at school with his friends. He had a rough first week with making it to the potty in time at school and had several accidents. I think it was just the excitement of a fun place and friends and learning a new routine. He's been doing much better at staying dry now.

Home Decor

Dallin brings artwork home from preschool nearly every day. Our refrigerator has reached surface area capacity and there is not space for even one more pipe cleaner, pom pom, or paper plate craft. So I made something that could hang in his room to display his artwork.

It was pretty simple, I mostly copied this tutorial. I painted two long pieces of wood and glued clips to the board.

The hardest part was getting them hung up on the wall. The boards sat in Dallin's closet for a few months waiting for a Saturday when a certain man of the house could hang them up for me. (When I hang things up, they don't look level.... because they aren't.)

I cut some letters with my Cricut :) and pinned them over the boards. Easy!

While we had a hammer and nails out, we hung up some pictures in our front room.

I know, we've been in this house for over 18 months and still haven't hung up all our pictures!? I have trouble deciding how I want to hang things and I don't like extra holes in the wall, so pictures usually sit for a while until I can make a decision.

I like the shape of the pictures. And I like that I can finally look at the walls and tell who lives here.

And while I'm posting about my creative endeavors, I'll share this card that Dallin helped me make for a birthday party he went to.

It was his first big kid birthday party at someone else's house without us there with him. I hear he played nice and participated, even with it being a My Little Pony themed party. 

Field Trips

There is a great little zoo here in Lafayette. It's free and only 10 minutes from our house, yet we've only been there twice. I'm not sure why. It closed for the winter last week, so I took the boys to see the animals before it closed. 

Dallin loved the goats. You can walk in the pen and be right next to all of them. Dallin was fascinated. One of the goats started chewing on Dallin's jacket (as often happens with goats when you have loose clothing), so I gently pulled it from the goats mouth and told Dallin that the goat wanted to eat his jacket. Dallin looked down at his jacket, grabbed a corner of it, and offered it to the goat for eating. Such a sweet boy: always thinking of others.

Dallin liked the tunnel through the otter tank.

He also liked the wallaby enclosure and how close you could get to them.

This is him telling the wallaby to "Wake up!" 

Those were about the only animals still left out that could tolerate the cold. I'll have to be a better mom next year and take them to the zoo several times.

 Next to the zoo is also the biggest, coolest park in town.

Connor went straight for the tallest slide.

They both like to swing, but always want someone to swing with them. Solution:

Put them both in the same baby swing!

Connor LOVED it.

 Dallin liked it too, even though this picture doesn't particularly show it.

On Connor's birthday, Dallin's preschool class had a field trip to the apple orchard. Connor and I got to join them. It was so fun. It was a coldm windy day and none of us dressed appropriately for it. We all snuggled up inside the barn while they read the kids a story about apples and talked about what they do on the farm. Then they let all the kids sample a few different varieties of apple.

Dallin politely took each kind of apple then handed it to me. He's in a big picky-eating funk right now.

Next we got to ride on the tractor.

 Connor was mad that I dared to put him down when he was cold.

We rode around the orchard as the farmer pointed out all the apple trees, the beehives, and pumpkin patch.

We got off the tractor at the pumpkin patch and Dallin got to choose his own pumpkin and gourd to take home.

He chose this weird bumpy gourd.

Connor chose an even weirder gourd with wings on the sides.

The whole class had a great time and Dallin was very sad to leave to orchard.

Along with our pumpkin and gourds, we bought some apples to take home that I turned into the most delicious apple crisp.

Back to School

School for Dallin started again this week. He is going to the same Preschool program for delayed children, but this year he is in a different class at a new school building. There was an open house the day before school started. We knew that the new school was further from home than before, but it didn't really hit me until we made the 20 minute drive, most of it through farms and corn fields. Literally, there is nothing but corn for miles around, then the school, then more corn.

Dallin had so much fun seeing his new classroom. We met his new teacher. He got to play with his friend Kendal.

 She also has Williams Syndrome. They were in the same preschool class last year, they did the walk for WS  together in the summer, and now they get to be in the same class again. He also knows a girl from church in the same class. He's pretty popular with the ladies.

The next day he was up early at 6:30am. I think he could sense something exciting was going to happen. I got him all dressed and ready. He was really excited to see his backpack again.

 His preschool class before was in the afternoon. This year he is going in the morning. The bus picks him up at 8:15am to get to school by 9am.

While we were outside waiting for the bus, we could see the rest of the neighborhood kids waiting at the corner for the elementary school bus. Dallin was excited when he saw their bus pull up, but we told him it wasn't for him. Then we saw his bus coming around the corner a few minutes later. This was his reaction:

(Please ignore the loud train in the background)

I think at first he was still doubting that the bus was for him. It wasn't until it stopped right in front of our house and opened the doors that he got really excited and starting jumping and cheering. If only he had done that on camera...

At first, I was a little worried about having him up, fed, dressed, and ready for school by 8, but we've done really well with our time in the mornings. It helps that I made this chart to remind us of what needs to be done in the morning before school. I got the idea from this post at the IHeart Organizing blog. I made a chart that more specifically meets Dallin's schedule.

There is a similar chart for bedtime as well. I like that it has images along with the words, so even though Dallin can't read, he can recognize the pictures and know what needs to be done next. This will help his independence and make him a little more accountable. I also like that it helps me remember to give Dallin his blood pressure medication each morning. He's been on it for 2 years now and all of a sudden I keep forgetting it in the mornings. And we won't mention the time I accidentally tried to give the medicine to Connor, and I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't let me put the dropper in his mouth.... I might be losing it. I've been good about Dallin's medicine this week though!

He's only had 3 days of school so far, but I can already see him talking more and being more independent. Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I'm sending him off for someone else to teach him things I could be doing. But his teachers are really great and he's getting therapy and so much more than I could do at home. And it gives me a little more time alone with Connor. I just realized that Connor is 10 months now and is picking up a lot of things quickly (like waving bye-bye, clapping, saying ma). It's the perfect time to be working with him and teaching him new things.

First Day of Preschool

 Dallin started preschool this week. His preschool is provided through the local school corporation for children that are developmentally delayed. He goes 3 days a week in the afternoon. Since he turns 3 soon, the therapists that have been working with him weekly will stop coming, and the therapists at the preschool will replace them.

He was really excited to wear his new backpack, even if he didn't know what was happening yet.

He gets to ride the bus to and from preschool. We waited outside for the bus to come.

 I had to take a picture of his "first day of school" shoes.

 And then Dallin wanted to take a picture of Connor.

 His bus pulled up and I helped him up on the bus. He went right over the the aide on the bus and she helped Dallin into his seat.

 He was kind of looking around, trying to figure out what was going on, but he didn't cry or anything when I said goodbye.

I waved to him and the bus drove away.

You can't really see him in this picture, but I could see his little face through the window, right above the 103.

I don't really know how his day went because he can't talk to tell me about it, but his teacher sent a note home saying he had a great day and that fit in really well like an old pro!

She emailed me a picture of him from class.

 

 It looks like he had fun.

When he got home off the bus he seemed tired.

Preschool is hard work.