Manuel has been in the hospital since last Wed. His surgeries went well. He has a mild rash from the sulfur. He should get out Friday.

Connor still has a cold and has fluid in his ear. Let's hope it doesn't become aninfection.

Brian has had a cold, too. And he is having some intestinal tests done today.

Gavin is getting a cold, too.

hopefully we'll warm up soon and kids will start feeling better!

I gues they don't color eggs in Honduras...

Manuel can not understand why in the world we color eggs!!

I was boiling flowers and he asked  'why... was I going to eat the cooked flowers?'

I said no, they were for the eggs and showed him a colored egg... He just looks at my like I am CRAZY!!

He said Chickens don't have red eggs or purple eggs.... why do I make them like that. And they must be no good to eat...

 When I said we do eat them I think he figured we must be aliens or something.

I did get him to dye an egg blue, he thought that was funny and has no intention to eat the egg that he ruined with blue color!

Then he says under his breath... Chickens don't (lay) red eggs......

The Healing The Children coordinator called me yesterday. She asked us to meet her at the hospital to visit with Manuel. We were going to go Sunday, but I was still having migraine issues. So we hadn't been since Friday.

Apparently Manuel was very, very sad. He had been crying for his daddy and in a lot of pain. They had removed his dressing from his burns.

So, we rushed dinner, left while the kids were still eating, the house was a mess, got home at 11:15 and went straight to bed.

Kathleen came to visit with Manuel, too. She is a wonderful Christian women with a heart for these children. She has been working with Healing the Children longer than Lisa. She lived in Bolivia for 10 yrs and some other Spanish Speaking Country for 3 yrs before that. She is very fluent in Spanish. (She taught a couple history classes that Ki just LOVED).

She spoke to Manuel and he perked up a bit. She said the only thing he wants in the whole world is his Poppi. And for food, he wants fillet mingon. some MEAT and POTATOES! and corn tortillas. He told her how his mom makes them on a stone and he puts his eggs on them for breakfast. He talked with her quite a bit.

Kathleen says he speaks a very uneducated Spanish with bad verb tenses and conjugation and has a very thick accent (which she says is just adorable- and Manuel does sound adorable when he talks).

They were able to call his sister's cell phone and Manuel talked to his dad. He was so happy. Then Kathleen asked his dad to encourage him to eat a little more. Well, his dad really ripped into him about it. Manuel was crying and kept saying things like "don't beat me. Will they beat me here?" So Kathleen reassured him over and over and no one would ever beat him here. I guess beatings are a daily way of life for many of these places. Kathleen says they really 'beat these kids to a crisp.'

Then he talked to his mom for awhile and that calmed him down. Then a brother got on to say Hi for a quick minute.

Brian brought some magnets and a sealed dish of iron filings for him. He loved them! I brought some window clings (the solar system) to decorate his window. It was planets or rainbow butterflies.

He had blood drawn and it took a while to get a vein. They 'wet' the burns every few hours. They put a solution of water and antiseptic into a red tube into his bandages. It burns a little. Then they had to move his leg to a different position. He just SCREAMED AND CRIED.  And I will have to clean his burn a couple times a day for awhile..... he's gonna HATE me!

Kathleen was able to ask him about the banana bread. He didn't eat the piece I left and never got the other pieces from the kitchen. But said he'd like it if I brought more. So I will make another loaf Friday. (He didn't realize I had made it and almost looked a little sad about not eating it, since I had made it for him).  Kathleen prayed in Spanish with him at the end. I almost cried.

He has his biggest, most painful surgery today. They will be harvesting skin from his back and stapling it to his leg. He will be in major pain on the back and on his legs. He will be very drugged up on morphine for a few days, so they said there is really no sense visiting until Friday. (maybe Thursday if he is doing very, very well)

Kathleen will try to go down with us on Friday.

Last night was supposed to be our In Home Interview, but that didn't work out...... So we'll do it later this week. I think it will be good when we can tell Manuel he will be staying with us while we help him get better so he can go home. It has to be better than that lonely, boring hospital room!

.......almost....

I submitted game variation ideas to the Looney Lab company that I demo for. They used my idea and my name is on their homepage with a link to my game idea!

I feel famous... almost

you can check it out here: (please do)

LOONEYLABS

scroll down to the Education Section.

--Kimberly

finally.... the 2 months of casts is over.

6 weeks with a pin- 2 weeks without a pin.

Here are the pictures of the end-

They keep asking him if he has ever had a cast taken off before. This was the 6th.

He has holes and stiches. Aside from the pin area, he had 3 other holes that were stiched here:

and another on the top sid of his arm.

He is so tired. He is resting in bed. The things seem to really drain him.

We are having a pizza party tonight.

PINS and MORE (pics)

 

 

  MY BABY IS 10!!  he looks so little here....

pictures-

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=38761157579140121/l=127408595/g=6062305/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

more pictures-

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=9881157781967979/l=127535994/g=6062305/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

September 8, 2006

Day 7.

It's been 6 days and we are not there yet. 'There' being Yellowstone; a place to stop and STAY for a week. I so hate traveling and staying somewhere different every night. Having to pack everything up and rush out every morning. But we have been making stops along the way. I just get so frustrated with being crammed in a van that is over packed and too cluttered and noises bouncing around.  

****Devil's Tower****

Prairie Dog Town.  Awwwww…look at all the cute little prairie dogs! They are so cute and they yelp and bark. Connor tried to catch one, of course.

Wow. That was just so amazing. The boys enjoyed climbing some boulders and then we hiked a trail around the tower. Back down at the information center I remembered to ask for the Jr. Ranger booklet. They actually filled in few pages and the ranger signed their certificates and gave them to me along with their badges. After they complete their booklets I get to give them to the boys.

There is a lot of Native American History out here. It makes me wonder about the Native American History by us. I don't know of much, but I think I'll make an effort to take the boys to a few other places besides the Sunwatch Village we go to.

Connor is just a little Mountain goat on the rocks. He climbs and leaps so quickly and impulsively. Part of me worries with him out there on the large boulders and part of me recognizes it. He acts like I did as a child. I was also impulsive and risk taking in climbing with a lack of concern for safety.

Devil's Tower is called Bear's Lodge by the native Americans, but the name was misinterpreted by Col Dodge as "The Bad God's house" which was changed to Devil's Tower when Roosevelt when it was named as a National Monument.

Then a loooooong drive to The Battle of Little Bighorn. It was closed. So I will have to get some info about it back home. It was on the Crow Indian Reservation.

We about got lost outside of Billings, Montana. Then we had trouble finding a hotel.

I gave the boys a CD of silly, gross and annoying songs. They listened to it on Gavin's CD player. Brian had a 3 way splitter for earphones; peace for an hour!  Silly me, I should have thought of that before we left on our trip and stocked up on stories and silly songs on CD. Actually, I had thought of the DVD player on my laptop, but Brian forgot to install the  driver for the DVD player.  When I did my turn to drive, which only lasted an hour this time, I sang somgs and nursery rhymes with the boys. Then they took turns telling fable type stories.

the first few days were slow and not much exciting happened, but it was nice. We stayed with Brian's cousin Eric and his wife Kim. Which is interesting as I am a  Kim(berly) and my brother's name is Erik.

Anyway- here are my journal entries-

September 2, 2006

Day One

The boys stayed awake all night. Ki fell asleep around 4 in the morning. Gavin and Connor were awake all night. They didnt fall asleep until after we were on the road. All 3 boys slept until Illinois.

 Today was just a long day on the road. They boys did well. We were the road about 12-13 hours. They only complained a couple times about being bored. They never fought. ***Knock On Wood***

I am tired. Brian is tired. They boys are hyped. They are enjoying playing with their cousin, Silas. Actually, he is their Second Cousin. Silas is in 1^st grade. He has a baby brother named Nathan, who  was asleep when we got there.

September 3, 2006

Day 2

Its raining. I have a sinus headache. I already took migraine medicine and I dont know if I can take sinus medicine on top of that. Ill have to check.

We had a French Toast casserole for breakfast. The kids had Frosted Flakes.

I felt good when I woke this morning; which is nice, of course. I was probably up until 1AM and was awake by 8. Usually I feel groggy and tired with less than 8 hours sleep.

I started the day by playing a game with Ki. He got Memoir 44 for his birthday. He had been wanting it. My mom took him shopping for his birthday. Ki insisted they go to the hobby Shop where they sell this war board game. Ki loves history.  He loves talking with the store workers, too. They assured him it was a very good game and a lot of adults like it, too. This is such a big step from where Ki was a year ago. Ki NEVER EVER wants to play games. He has trouble with turn taking. Not in a selfish way, but he could never grasp the back and forth and was always confused as to who’s turn it was. He began playing 2 player games last year- with JUST me. He could handle 2 people games, just back and forth and he likes me….. (smiles). He still wasn’t playing board games, not only the confusion of whose turn it is, but he is not keen on doing things that require him to cross midline… going around a board does a lot of midline crossing.

Now, at almost 10. He will play 2 player games with anyone (not just his mommy….) and he will play card games with more than 2 players. He still won’t do board games and he does NOT like Twister at ALL.(still has trouble getting lost with whose turn it is with more than 2 or 3, and still doesn’t care for midline crossing- but he’s improved)  It is still common for him to rather be the spinner person or the score keeper in games, even if they fit his requirements. And he often chooses to just watch or to play a ‘2 person’ game by himself- controlling both sides.

Still, he has come a long way, I think.

And though he had a crying meltdown at his birthday party, he didn’t get aggressive and angry from the over-stimulation, like he used to all the time. He still gets very hyper and impulsive, but it is so nice to have gotten through the aggressive rages.

Yep, Ki is maturing and learning to cope with his sensory limitations. Life is good. And I LOVE home schooling. I truly believe it has been the bridge to get to these changes in my boys quicker and more efficiently.

I played NanoFictionary with all 3 boys today, for the first time. I had separated the cards by type and dealt 2 characters and 1 of each other type to everyone. Then I shuffled all the cards together. At first, my 11 yr old was being stubborn and just lying on the floor. (He has Asperger’s Syndrome). But after we started reading some of our cards out loud he became interested and joined in. I used the 1-5 cards to represent each round. We played 5 rounds in which we could switch our cards is we wanted. After the end of 5 rounds, we spent a few minutes brain storming and then had story telling time. My 9 yr old said he forgot his story, so I helped him think of a story. At the end of the game the 9 yr old kept his cards to think about his story some more. He came to me later with a great story he thought up with his cards. He has trouble when he feels pressured and just the fact that it was his turn to tell his story was too much pressure. So he froze up, but once the pressure was off he did a great job.

I have been thinking of getting the Eco Fluxx. I think when I do, I will take out some of the cards that say to draw or discard a different amount and add to the NANOfictionary. That could be a fun way of getting more characters. I don’t think the younger 2 are ready for the action cards yet so this would be an easier way for them to add to his cards.

Here is a card I made. Carol at looney Labs suggested I make my own card and stick to a NANO Blank, so the carda all look the same in the pile.

Connor helped make French Toast this morning. He plugged the new electric skillet in. It is NICE. What took so long for  me to get one? I can cook everyones French Toast all at the same time. He found it to be a lot of fun to smack himself in the face with the spatula-turner thing as soon as he flipped a toast and the turner was still hot. It went something like this:

Connor flips a piece of toast and quickly swings the turner up to his face.

SMACK

OW!

SMACK

OW!

SMACK

OW!

gets the turner all hot again and does it all over...

All red cheeked he says   "This is fun!!"

(Yesterday, he was swinging the water hose around and letting it WHACK himself in the side of the head with it's metal end piece...... on purpose.....)

I need to put a curtain here. It is a (almost) 10 foot wide window. the wall is alight green, white trim.

The furniture isn't all inplace, but that school table will stay there. Brian wants big ol' floorlength drapes. YUCK! I want something light and airy. It is a school room, not a formal dining room. I was thinking a swag across the to and down the sides with nothing really over the winidows. I love the sunlight that comes in and the trees are nice to look at. I don't understand why we need privacy in this window. No one sleeps or gets dressed here in this room. In the evenings we are not in this room.

I also need to figure out where to put the rest of the furniture. I think I want the piano againt the wall across from the window:

here- right next to the book shelf (moving the cardboard boxes first of course)

not sure what would go in the corner, though.

On the floor, to the left of the school table, is a lateral, oak filing cabinet. (with a candle on it)..see it?

I want to put my teacher's desk there, so I can look out the window while at my desk. here is another picture of that area:

I want to put that file cabinet where the small rug is on the adjacent wall and put my teacher deck where the files are. It is a small teachers desk and about the same size at the lateral file cabinet.

This leaves a small book shelf to find a place for. Maybe a regular size bookshelf as well. Any furniture or curtain ideas for me? here are a few more room pictures:

that open wall (where I want the oak file cabinet moved to) opens into the kitchen. The door you see partof is the door to the garage.

now you are in the kitchen looking into the school room

I am sometimes tempeted to have my kids'  IQ tested... To see how high their IQ is... Sometimes I am scared to know..LOL.  I often see moms write about how thier child is gifted or in a special program because of their high IQ. And I bet 2 of 3 my 3 would have a high enough IQ for some of those 'gifted kid programs.'  I have a high IQ, so does my husband, so do both my parents... My kids have seen different pediatric specialists (therapist, psychologists, etc...) and they have remarked how my boys most probably have an IQ of at least 140.... But... what good would it really do me to have them tested? So what. Will it change the way I homeschool? I doubt it. Will being in special classes be good for them? Maybe. But maybe it'll make then think they are better than others who don't have an IQ as high. I guess knowing works for some people, but seeing are eclectic, getting-close-to-unschooling approach, we probably have no need to know what the tests say. After all, I already don't test my kids and don't like tetsts....And your IQ has nothing to do with how good aperson you are, it doesn't even matter whith how well you preform academiucally. It would satisfy a curiousity at best. And I have a feeling my youngest probably has an average IQ. and I wonder how I would feel if only some of my kids have a gifted IQ. And Connor with his autism.. it doesn't matter that he has a high IQ really,LOL. He still won't do his work like he 'should', he still will have all the other problems that make schoolwork hard for him....

Sometimes I just think about things too much.

I am improving...well, the laundry room is improving........ until we decide to wear clothes again, then it'll start all over...

That picture was taken before dinner sometime....




This is where you all faint in shock and awe........ This was taken at 11PM (as were the rest)..... not only is it all washed, the floor has been vacuumed and mopped....




O.K... I'm not all THAT good.... here are the things that don't go in the dryer. Well, they do go in the dryer, but not until after they are dry. I know, it doesn't sound logical, but trust me, it is. They need to be softened after they hang dry.

-----as you can see, the shelves are cluttery....


Brian and the boys folded the towels already. I have the clothes sorted, linens folded annd a bsket of socks for the kids to deal with today, after they put their clothes away.

And I have 2 sweaters to wash, but I want to use my dry clean bag thingy and am out of sheets for it.....


BUT my the time I came out to have breakfast, the laundry basket was filling up again (I guess someone decided to wear clothes again, and so soooonn)...and Brian didn't put the towels away like he promised...This is why I like scrapbooking... I make a page, it's neat and crisp and orderly and it STAYS THAT WAY..I never have to remake it, refold it, reclean it......Same reason I like sewing... once it's done it STAYS done...

I was up by 7:30, too! GO ME!



Ki sleeping yesterday after I made him play soccer, though he told me he didn't think he felt well... yet was running around like a mad banshee (read as 'normal healthy boy'), so I thught he was just trying to get out of it.......

he ended up needing his inhaler 3 times during the game, too.

yes.I feel like a BAD MOMMY!

Mylenna had asked if the Lego Olympians had a medal ceremony. They did, as you can see here...

These are the skiers (see the helmets) and if you look closely you can see the medals in their hands...

FLORIDA