Future Farmers of America Club

Towards the end of spring break Josh finally got to work on his garden.  He had hoped to work on it all week, but the little bits of snow we had the first few days prevented him from doing that.  Well, it prevented him from doing the outside stuff he was looking forward to doing anyway. Eventually though the sun did come out along with Josh, his tools, and a couple of the neighborhood kids.

 

 

Armed with a tiny work force, Josh and the boys put together this box thing around the side garden plot in our front yard.

 

 

Once the work on the box was finished, it was time to plant the peas.  To "thank" the two boys from our street for their help, Josh gave them each a handful of pea seeds to plant in their own yards, which they both did immediately.

 

 

They're so cute.

 

Now all that's left to do is plant the peppers and tomatoes, and then figure out what's going to be planted in the box.  Or figure out what else will be planted in the garden spot by the house, if the peppers and tomatoes go in the box.  I'm not sure what Farmer Walter's plan is.  What I am sure of is that I cannot wait for everything to start growing and producing yummy veggies.  Yay for gardens!

Whew!

Again, I'm sorry I've been neglecting the blog here.  It's not that we haven't been doing things worth "documenting" here (we have!) but I was closing in on finishing a specific knitting project and so the past few weeks I really threw myself into and spent most of my "free time" working on that rather than on anything else (including cleaning my house).  Now that it's finished and gifted and I've had a little time to recouperate (sometimes knitting takes a lot out of you), I am here to show you what I made, and to recap what we've been doing this month and the last week of last month (spring break woot!).

 

Now, without further adieu, I present to you, the super sweet lion sweater I made for my girlfriend Ryan's newest little boy, Logan, who was born in October:

 

 

Doesn't it just make you want to squee?! Check out the back (it says ROAR!):

This sweater took me a good amount of time to complete.  I learned some new stitches and methods, of which one really impressed me and I would be more than happy to use again.  Otherwise, it was a little rough going with the lion, so I probably won't be making this again.  Ever.  But I'm really happy I did do it in the first place, and it looks super sweet (if a little big) on him:

 

 

(For reference, here's the sweater on Finn who will be 3 in 2 weeks):

 

 

That just means Logan will get to wear it for another winter or so, and get lots of use out of it.  And now that it's finished, it's time to move on to my project for myself that I put aside to make this, as well as some teacher gifts!

Up and Down

Over the course of this day, Finn and I went up and down on not one,

not two,


but three

different escalators. The 3rd escalator we rode twice. When we got off the 2nd time Finn said, "Mommy, more?" I replied, "No. Two times is enough." Which made the young man coming off the escalator behind us crack up.

The part that made me crack up the most was that every time we went down Finn would put his hands in the air and say, "Wheeee!" I think it's safe to say he had a pretty good day.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This Morning's Meeting

Hi guys! Sorry I've been away from here the past two weeks.  After my last post the weather just kind of kept on being crummy and it sort of bummed me out, and so blogging didn't appeal to me at all.  Then last week was spring break for the kids (and Josh) which meant that blogging, once again, didn't really appeal to me.  But now the weather is FINALLY getting more "spring-like" and the boys are back in school, so now I am back to blogging.

 

 

Today I had our yearly meeting to go over Zeke's IEP (Individual Education Plan).  I met with Zeke's case worker, his speech therapist and his teacher to discuss how he's been doing and what would be the best course of action for him for the rest of this year and next school year.  Side note: what I didn't realize before scheduling this meeting is that due to the way his IEP was written, he had been labeled "Special Ed".  I have no issues with that label, and it makes sense given how much help he needed in preschool and kindergarten.  I just didn't realize he'd actually been labeled that. I only mention this because at today's meeting, it was decided that he should no longer be classified as "Special Ed".  We figured if he wasn't getting any of the services associated with that label, why label him that any more?  He still qualifies (and NEEDS) speech services so he'll continue to work with the school's (wonderful) speech therapist twice a week.  But he's doing really well, and his teacher said he's exactly where he should be as a first grader, so I'm happy.

 

Now, I was going to write how I got a pleasant surprise during the meeting when Zeke's case worker told me that he'll still get bus services to and home from school, since he'll still be getting services at the school.  I was going to say super pumped I am about that because busing the boys is SO much easier and convenient for me.  However, as I was about halway through the above paragraph, Zeke's case worker called and said that she had misspoken and he does NOT, in fact, qualify for busing next year. Dang it! Now I'm sitting here wondering if that will go into effect this year, once his new IEP is written, or if it'll go into effect starting in September with the new school year?  Only because if the military was in charge, they'd go with ending his busing services as soon as "technically" possible. I put a call in to the case worker.  Hopefully she'll get back to me on that soon, because the more I think about it, the more I can see it happening either way.

 

Anyhoo! To recap, no more "Special Ed" label, but he still needs speech. He really has come such a long way and I am so proud of him.  Maybe we will be completely IEP free by the time we move from NJ, like I hope?