Winter Beauty, Speech Therapy, Delicious Food (Jan. and Feb. 2016)

January and February were full of getting used to a new routine, taking Elizabeth to speech therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays and later adding occupational therapy and taking her for a psychological evaluation, as well as doing plenty else.

Quick pictures to cover these two months, and I think I will also write up a review of 2015 soon, and either in that or my March or April post I will detail this year's plans—educational and otherwise.

I love nuthatches!  (Sitta carolinensis)

We get a lot of cellar spiders (Pholcus phalangioides) in the house.  This one is in a bucket from the garden tub, draining a ladybug.  Look at its eyes shining!  This up-close shot displays the design on the spider's abdomen.

We had a mild winter, and on some days the kids wore short sleeves or even less.

I never tire of these breathtaking views.  I love this.

It's too bad those small branches were blocking the full view of this beautiful bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).

This is my first picture of a juvenile bald eagle. 

Trust and Liv watch their Supercharged Science videos together, and Elizabeth normally sits and watches with them.

Elizabeth finds it to be no trouble to keep herself busy simply exploring the ground and other things outside.

I think I must be reading in my chair in my bedroom, and here the boys are choosing to do some school on our bed.

Olivia spent some of her money she received from family back on her birthday on getting her ears pierced.  She had kept going back and forth for a long time on whether she wanted to get them pierced.  She ultimately decided any pain was her gain.

I do apologize once more for the pictures posted that I took with my iPhone.  Maybe one day I'll go ask how much it would cost to fix the camera in it.  It really frustrates me that it stopped working the right way.  I now rarely take any pictures with it, besides screenshots, which look just fine.

Speaking of screenshots, here is one of William's CAT 6 test this year.  He was doing mainly 9th grade level work during this time, but he was working through his 7th grade math, so I tested him on 7th grade level (I tested him on 6th grade level last year).  Whereas last year he was overall slightly below average on math and well below average on a subcategory of math, he scored average on math this year, so I was happy to see his progress there.  Next year I will test him again, but since he will have by that time be just starting 9th grade math (he will be doing his 3 math credits in years 10-12, rather than 9-11, like I did in school), I will test him on a 9th grade level, even though he will be doing mainly 10th grade level work at that time.  The GE column on the test results lists the grade equivalent at which he scored.  He was on "high level" on vocabulary, testing like someone who has graduated high school, whereas on total math he scored like a seventh-grader, which corresponded with his doing average in the 7th grade level math he's been working on (but at 6th grade level in a subcategory).   He will start 8th grade pre-algebra during the summer, only doing lessons 2 days a week while Elizabeth is in therapy. 

Trusten and Liv share quite the hate-love relationship.  They do a lot together and are interested in some of the same things, but then Trusten will be hateful and Liv will be upset at him for being so ugly.  Here, though, reflects one of the times Trusten was sweet to her.  He drew several pictures, and she taped them to her bedroom door.  If I remember correctly, I think that's Nathan, Trusten, and Olivia in the truck, but I don't remember which kid is in the bed.

I was doing spelling with William, and Trusten was working on his social studies or his writing.

One night William made pizzas for dinner.  It was so nice to get a break!  He did a great job.

Oops!  Ninabess decided to give Dinosaur a bath.  I wrapped him in a towel.  Doesn't he look cute?

Ninabess brushing her teeth. I, of course, brush them afterward.

This is the lobby of Children's Therapy TEAM where we take Elizabeth.  

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Mmmmm...some of the mouthwatering delights I made.  Well, ok, pecan pie doesn't make my mouth water, but Nathan sure loves it.  The cupcakes below are marbled, gluten-free (coconut flour).  That was only the second time I'd made them, the first being for Elizabeth's first birthday.

And to end this post, I present to you a screenshot I found on my iPhone.  I let Elizabeth play on my iPhone or iPad, and I sometimes find screenshots of things like this when I get my device back.  It cracks me up!  Olivia screenshots things, too.  She has screenshot the same recipe from a cooking game over and over.  I think she must be trying to send me a message. 

Until next time...

Another Round of What We've Done in Pictures

Maybe after this week I can get somewhat back to normal and then go back to updating the blog weekly in a more organized fashion.  But for now, here is another quick round of what we've done in pictures with a quick update. It's SPRING, and we've been enjoying it.

Animal Wildlife...

Red-bellied woodpecker

Liv with a ladybug

Another ladybug at the edge of our driveway

Nuthatch

Another shot of the nuthatch

Gray squirrel (toward left, in front of tree)

The squirrel in the flowes

Squirrel after climbing in the redbud tree with its prize

The lovely red-bellied woodpecker on a different day and a different tree

Cardinal

To hear this cardinal sing (from another tree), visit this Youtube video.

Vulture in flight

 
Flowers...

Dandelion!

We love dandelions!  Look at these gorgeous yellow jewels!

Petals from henbit and/or dead nettle.  These are a new flower snack for the kids.  They have a sweet nectar (just not as good as honeysuckle). 

Feast of Unleavened Bread...

Unleavened peach muffins...not as puffy and light, but good nonetheless and a good reminder of our need to constantly work on purging sin from our lives

I fixed chocolate mousse as our dessert on one of the two holy days during the UB week.  We had a good Passover and UB week. 

Physical and spiritual food with friends (listened to a sermon on spiritual deleavening)

Jaden's Doings...

During a walk one day, Jaden spotted something down in the valley, so I let him go down to investigate.  He'd just so happened to ride his bike that day, so I suggested he ride back to the house to get a bag so that he could gather the entire remaining skeleton of the deer.  He then worked on reassembling it.

He got clay from our property, shaped it, baked it, and painted it, and then he gave it to his Daddy as a birthday gift.

Jade using my mini food chopper for grass to make green ink, following a recipe he found using his iPod

Assembling the deer skeleton while Trusten watches

Trusten...

Trusten, after catching me taking the below pictures of him playing Mario on the Wii (please overlook the mess...one of those days I did NOT CARE)

This boy ACTIVELY plays...when I say ACTIVELY, that's what I mean.  Whenever Mario is going in a pipe or something, he takes off running, skipping, jumping on the couch, whatever.  He jumps along with Mario, kicks, etc. 

Sweet boy in my redbud tree (get out of my redbud tree!!!!)  LOL

Drawing Art...

We all drew a rhino.  I hurried mine so that I could then help Trust and Liv.  Nathan used sense from the beginning and flipped the page landscape.  His is the one at the lower right with no name...AND it's the best (but he denies it being good).  Uh...not sure what Jade scribbled out the bottom.  I'm thinking he was putting his name in different languages...knowing him, probably.  LOL

History...

Lesson on Hosea from Mystery of History. The story of Hosea is an amazing one.  God taught through Hosea's personal marital circumstances his love for Israel who broke their covenant with him by fornicating with other gods.

Israel (and Judah) will be punished yet again...soon...but God still loves Israel and will show his mercy in the end. 

If Hosea's story is amazing, Manasseh's is astonishing.  One of the most evil kings of Judah, Manasseh delved deeply into the dark side with sorcery, witchcraft, and even sacrifice of his son in the fire.  Yet when punished and dragged away to prison by the enemy, he humbled himself greatly, was released, and then dedicated the remainder of his life ridding the land of the idols and worshiping God in truth.  YES!  There is hope for even those with evil deeds as bad as Manasseh (who may have also been the one who had Isaiah the prophet killed [body sawed in half]).

Miscellaneous...

Enjoying the outdoors on Sabbath (rock-throwing at its finest)

My lilac budding!

Do you see the tiny fuzzy caterpillar at the bottom of that cocoon thing (sorry, don't know the technical term in this case)?  On a previous day I happened to see a bunch hatch/crawl out of another one, which is something I've wanted to see for a couple years, after seeing such things on trees.

Another Sabbath afternoon of enjoying creation

A morning where Trusten dove right into his workbook work (which is a common occurence), and Liz decided to "help" after visiting her looking window and hanging out with Sister.  She likes to let go while standing, but she hasn't taken steps alone, yet.

Daddy and Livi washing dishes

Yeah, we had a bit of snow again.  Had quite a bit of back and forth 70s weather and then cold and snowy.  We never had a lot of snow the winter just past, though.

We are seriously considering moving out of the U.S.  YES, we've discussed this off and on for over seven years or more now.  NO, we've never [yet] gone through with it.  BUT, we're more serious now as we've ever been.  Actually, it's clear that every time we've gone back to considering it, we get more serious, so I guess it's only been a matter of time.  We've always focused mostly on somewhere in South America, like Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru, or Belize.  We were planning to go to Ecuador a few weeks from now, but so many things hindered our plans, making it obvious that was not the answer (we prayed it would play out exactly that way, with lots of hindrances, if it was not in God's will).  At first I considered it might be the enemy trying to hinder things, but then the way things were stacking and stacking, we think that's not the answer.

Nathan is also looking at changing professions, possibly doing school again for something else, selling his business, etc.  We'll see.

Jaden is constantly researching on his iPod about a wide variety of things: geography and languages, metals and other minerals, parrots and other animals, how-to's, technology news, things the idiotic wealthy people waste all their wealth on (which he agrees is absolutely idiotic and sad), etc.  When he's not researching (and sometimes writing about what he's learned), he's usually outside working or exploring.

Trusten is enthusiastic about his ever-improving reading abilities, and he's often up and working on his school work before any of the rest of us is up.  He loves the Wii (see above), and that's all the motivation he needs to do his work (he is limited to his playtime, and I make sure he goes outside, even when he doesn't want).

Liv is very big into imaginative play.  She's now got several imaginary friends.

Elizabeth is still not walking but is doing fine overall.

That's it for now.

Until next time...