Back to reality

Daddy went back to work today, and the music festival is over.  I can breath a sigh of relief, not that you are at work Jeff :), but that we can roll on with our soon to be changing routine.  

While Jeff was home a lot of construction projects happened with nathan and daddy.  They got out the robotics kit nathan got at Christmas and spent hours assembling a car thingy.   Nathan then spent about 1/2 hour to see if he could improve on the initial design of the car.  He tried a few options and decided the original was better.   This was such a cool kit and you can build many different things with all the components.  They only used 2/3 of the motors for this build.  

They worked on a solar power car, but the parts were plastic and you had to pop them out an edsers nightmare.  I started helping nathan and I was about to throw out the thing it was so hard on my hands.  Jeff came to the rescue and nathan and I were relegated to the sorting of parts into bags.  This took forever so we didn't actually build anything else.  

Monday was science club, part two of our forensics day.  A lot of chemistry was covered, including stoichiometry.   All groups managed to solve the mystery to determine Betsy baker was the criminal.  After both nathan and Genevieve played a couple of games of chess.  

Tuesday - nathan and Genevieve participated in Rebecca's DIY class where they made parachutes, wind powered boats.   Nathan worked on a wind turbine and Genevieve worked on a paper mill.  After we went to piano and voice.  Gigi's teacher would like to enter her into a scholarship competition in May.  Genevieve is pretty excited, she is going to sing An die Laute, by Schubert, it is in German and a level 3 song in the royal conservatory of music.  Her teacher is also going to choose a Latin song for her to sing since she is learning Latin.  I think this will be difficult for Genevieve but I think she is up to the challenge.  She was bouncing as she came out to tell me about the German song she is going to sing.  

While Gigi was in piano nathan and I worked on multiplication.  We worked on double digit multiplication and understanding why we do it the way we do it.  If course I first tried the memorizing was add a zero when you multiply in the tens.  We had to break it down so he could understand the why's.   We eventually figured it out.  He did ask to listen to our skip counting cd on the way home (I forgot).  He is realizing how much easier it is for him that he knows how to figure it out, by skip counting.   He almost has the 7's solid, so we just have to work on the 8's and 9's.  So much easier when he is determined.  He learned the 7's in the way to the airport to pick up Jeff last week.  20 minutes and he knew them, and remembered them today.  How we picked the numbers to multiply today is that I had a 7 sided dice and a 36sided dice.  He rolled them to get his numbers.  

Genevieve, it has been bugging me that we have not really worked on multiplication facts yet.  She knows how to multiply but not by memory, like I think she needs.  Well today I gave her two six sided dice, and she solved the multiplication she rolled.  She worked on it for 45 minutes at piano and another 1 1/2 hours at home.  7 pages of neatly written problems, without 1 mistake.  She found the only ones she had to think about were the 7's.  I think I will get her some flash cards to work with next.  And slowly move up the dice.  Glad she liked it and was so determined.  

Oh and to top off our piano, nathan sat on the side of the red chair, well the chair flipped, tossed him to the ground and hit him in the head.  Of course the maintenance person saw nathan sprawled on the floor.  Called for help, they of course are being very careful with him, and worried about him as I am almost laughing out loud saying oh my goodness this is a very minor everyday injury for nathan.  We had to fill out an incident report ha ha.  Don't worry Jeff I was very nice and just went with the flow, even when they were inspecting nathan making sure he wasn't too injured lol

Good things this week, nathan seems back to normal without headaches, he had headaches everyday last week with several medium sized migraines.  The only thing I can think that was different is before the headaches started, he was at my parents and ate gluten for 2 days straight.  Don't worry mom not blaming just making note incase gluten is a trigger.   

Silver and gold, silver and gold...

Well Gigi had two more performances.  

Katy perry fireworks, she recieved a silver, she has struggled with this song and really did not like this song.  Her teacher picked it and well Gigi did not put all her effort into the song.  In the end she performed pretty good, she decided not to use a microphone as she does not like how her voice sounds in it.   We need to get one at home to practice with.  She also does not feel as comport able dining to music from speakers.  She would rather be accompanied by a piano.  But she put in a wonderful effort and I am proud of her putting everything into this song that she could.  The adjudicator did say that he thought when Gigi was as old as katy perry she would be doing exactly what katty perry is :)

She next sang my dog spot this morning, she sang beautifully and achieved a gold again. She was much more comfortable with this song. 

After Gigi's performance we delivered papers and then headed out to stave lake falls power house for a tour.  We spent about 3 hours there.  Lots of near things to do. 

Genevieve wins GOLD

Thursday - homeschooling was definitely a little smoother then Wednesday.  We finished up on Wednesdays lesson.  We then did our Thursday routines of paper route, physio, music therapy, and cheerleading.  Man how does it all fit in one day.  Nathan also had a playdate while Genevieve was at cheer.

Nathans worksheet on values

Genevieves worksheet on values

Genevieve cause and affect

Nathan cause and affect, he drew pictures and had some words, he said the faces showed the emotions, it was pretty good when he explained the pictures to me

Friday - another good day of schoolwork.  And then Nathan had horse riding, where he loped around like crazy, he is really starting to ride well.  Friday evening we took my mom out for dinner.  I think the kids really enjoyed the dinner out with Grandma and Grandpa. 

stereotypes nathan

stereotypes Genevieve

here Genevieve picked a paragraph in the novel, that showed imagery, we discussed what imagery was.  Nathan has one too, I cant find it....

Saturday, cheer in the morning and then for the first time in 6 months no soccer!  I love watching Nathan play soccer, but I am not sad to have a little reprieve of soccer.  We decided to stick around home, I cleaned the garage, the kids had a playdate.  And then we had friends over for dinner and just had a really nice summer day, in winter. 

Sunday - we decided to go up to hope and go for a bike ride to Othello tunnels.  We packed hotdogs and buns and all that to have a weinie roast on the side of the river.  I so loved doing this as a kid, and it was pretty fun to do this with my dad and Nathan and Genevieve, the only thing that would make this better is if jeff was with us.  We ended the day with a birthday dinner for my great aunt Georgette who is 97.  Nathan loves having conversations with her.  Unfortunately there were a lot of people at the dinner so he did not get to talk to her, but they did well.

Nathan enjoying the sun and his rock recliner

Genevieve cooking me a hotdog

Does it get better than this?

Gingy kept up with us running beside our bikes, she was filthy though.  We had to bathe her, two hour bath later and she still has some leaves and sticks stuck in her fluffball.

Monday - No schoolwork accomplished.  Gigi was not feeling well when she woke up, she is achy all over her body, so I let her stay in bed, hoping she would feel better.  Nathan went outside to try and find something to do that was active.  I didn't even her when he came in, but I found him upstairs in his bed reading a book!!!  Nathan previous to taking medication, rarely would read during the day, it was thrilling seeing him reading during the day.  Unfortunately about 1/2 hour later, Nathan was calling me.  I yelled back quite yelling at me and come here if you want to talk to me.  Well poor Nathan replied with a cry, I have a really bad migraine, and I am stuck I can not move.  oh crap, don't I feel like parent of the year.  So I go up and try to assess the situation, its a pretty bad one.  I then go downstairs to get him medication, and see I have received a text.  The teacher wants us there 45 minutes earlier then I had thought.  Oh crap, that means we need to leave in 1/2 and hour, Gigi is not dressed, and Nathan can not move....  Thankfully our housecleaner was there, but she could not stay until we were done, so I called my parents to the rescue again who came and stayed with Nathan.  Of course just when the got there, Nathan was able to be up and about, and feeling better.  He still had a small headache tonight when he went to bed but not like this afternoon.

So gigi's performance was AMAZING!  Wow can that girl sing.  There were 6 girls in her class and she was the only performer who achieved a gold certificate, which means she was above 90%.  She was pretty excited, unfortunately for her at this age level, there is no advancement to the provincial level, or a trophy.  She was pretty excited about her performance though.

Gigi getting prepared

Just before she competed

Genevieve and her teacher marlene

Gold!!!  What an accomplishment

Adjudicators notes

this is Gigis treasure chest, she made it herself out of a cardboard box.  She did most of this herself.

March, first wednesday of the month

Well Well Well, things are starting to settle down around here a little.

Nathan ended up with another flu last week, and missed horse riding on Friday.   We studied some chemistry and both Nathan and Genevieve really liked it.  I was using the first chapter of the elements: ingredients of the universe, it was a free download.  I love this book, and I think I will buy the rest of the book, it is definitely worth it.  Genevieve even liked it related chemistry to baking, something she could understand.  Nathan and I worked a little longer together on this, and I had him balancing simple chemical equations.  But of course he sucks at math right :) 

http://store.ellenjmchenry.com/?product=the-elements-digital-download

 We had a dress rehearsal for the lions club festival of music.  Genevieve performed 2 piano songs and sang 3 songs.  Nathan performed 2 piano songs.  It was great for them to practice these pieces before playing in front of the adjudicator. 

 

 

unfortunately the practice was in a small room and not on a stage, so it was hard for me to take good videos.  But I was able to take some, which I was glad, as I am not allowed to video during the adjudication. 

Saturday we had to wake up early for Genevieves cheer competition in Richmond.  And Nathan had his last soccer game of the season.  My dad came and picked up Nathan to take him to his game.  I am so thankful for my parents and jeffs parents help.

Genevieve had a great time at her cheer competition and she had a little flying at the end of her youth routine, which just before, she got lost and stumbled and landed on the floor, just as the pyramid was closing, I have no idea how she managed to get on top of the pyramid in time for the ending ;)

 

Nathan spent the night at grandma and grandpas after soccer.  Genevieve and I had some girl time together, but after spending all day at cheer I was exhausted, I had thought about getting a hotel, but I think I should have preplanned it because after the comp was done all I wanted to do was go home, not look for a hotel.  So we went out for a nice dinner and came home to watch a movie in bed, we decided on jane austens emma.  I so loved watching this with Gigi.  I love how she can follow it and she seems to enjoy it as much as I do.  Every once in a while I stop the movie and explain what is going on.  The emma production we watched had 6 episodes, and was six hours long, so the next morning we woke up and had some breakfast in bed and cuddled and watched emma until about 12.  All gigi really wanted to do was go to the pool with me.  I even offered to take her shopping, and I would buy, but she really wanted to go to the pool.  So we spent about 4 hours at the pool, and went out for a really nice dinner.

Monday, was Genevieves piano adjudication.  She performed really well, and the adjudicator had great comments for her.  I was also glad Nathan was first so he could see exactly what was expected of him.  Genevieve also baked up a storm today.  I helped her with her first choice which was a pumpkin apple crumble.  Next she made some scones all on her own.  Both were really good, we need to do more baking.

Tuesday - Nathans turn to play his music.  The morning was not going so great, we did our moving beyond the page and Nathan was quite hyper, then we practiced pinao and he crashed, he was tired nad was falling asleep at the piano.  I was a little concerned that piano was not going to go well.  We packed up early and headed to the cultural centre as I was told that there was practice rooms available.  It was such a great idea to do this as Nathan had a surge of adrenalin, and was able to make it through.  He played wonderfully and was very happy with himself.  I don't think I have ever seen him so proud of himself.  He came off saying that is the best I have ever played before.  And a shocking thing happened, the adjudicator was asking questions to the kids, and Nathan answered the questions - 2 of them!!!  I don't think I have ever seen Nathan give an answer voluntarily.  I am telling you this medicine is life changing for him...

Wednesday - you know those days that are so perfect and awesome in homeschooling?  yeah well today was not one of them :)   I started out the day at 8:45 by asking Nathan and genevieve to read chapter 17 in the sign of the beaver, while I make breakfast.  Nathan puts up a big fuss, he does not want to read etc.  1st mistake I made was asking Nathan to do anything before he eats, but I was running late and anxious to get some work accomplished.  So Nathan was sent to his room, for being rude and just disagreeable.  Well this got Nathans blood pressure up and well nose spurting happened.  So he is spewing blood everywhere in his room.  I go in to help him, blood is all over as he barely has time to grab a new Kleenex and the one he has is soaked, and changing Kleenex, causes blood to spurt everywhere, he had gone to the bathroom, as this one was so bad that blood was going down his throat because there was so much even though he was leaning forward.  So now my bathroom is covered in blood.  I take him downstairs to try and sit him and calm him, so his BP will go down and control the bleeding.  Bathroom number 2 is entered, and guess what happens blood everywhere again.  Finally 40 minutes later bleeding is under control.  I now have burnt breakfast and I have 2 bathrooms to clean, and we run out of peroxide as we are cleaning out the blood stains on the carpet.  ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT THIS IS, I get to explain the chemical reaction that the peroxide is having with the blood.  And Nathan likes creating this chemical reaction.  Cleaning takes 20 minutes.  We go downstairs, gigi has made us scrambled eggs, what a darling.  I have a fire alarm going off though as my potatoes, are scorched in the oven, thankfully I had already removed the bacon.  So we ate a few scorched potatoes, bacon and eggs.  Then I send Nathan to finish reading and guess what, he did not do it, I caught him because he was giving me vague answers.  I think he could have fooled his teacher but not his mother, he usually has pretty great discussions about the questions.  Needless to say, I was very upset again.  I sent gigi to her room, so she could work on dreambox, was going to do teaching textbooks, but I could not find the disk.  Nathan and I had a pretty serious talk.  He read the book, and then he started a new math program called redbird Math.

https://giftedandtalented.com/course-detail/-/course/redbird-mathematics-advanced-edition-144

I was a little amazed at how when Nathan does not think he is doing any math he is able to problem solve and do math, but as soon as they put up a regular problem is when he started to have trouble.  I think this program may help him as they first give real world video's on what you would do with the material you are learning.  In this video, he learned about production engineers.  He then had to work as a production engineer, an figure out how to make more pizzas using multiplication.

I am not sure if this math is going to work for Nathan or not, but I though it was worth a shot, and he can use it on his ipad as well, so I think that will help as well, no typing or printing.

After this I was just plain exhausted, but I had to quickly make a lunch and get them out the door to hockey.  After hockey we got a ride to abbotsford so we could pick up my car!  Yeah it is finally ready, no more driving the hip dislocator truck.  Jeffs parents watched the kids as I drove to childrens to go to a connective tissue support group.  And home by 9 pm, whew, anyone tired listening to my day?

January 1st Wednesday of the month

Well I wanted to update the last month first but I started and well I just don't have the time or energy for that post but figured I should post what we were up to today.  

Kids slept in but both woke up in great moods.  We had breakfast while we started making our history timeline books.  I bought a book of really big watercolour paper and we cut the paper to size and made some accordion style books to use for our timeline.  Both nathan and Genevieve are quite excited for this and really enjoying it so far, except the gluing, we are gluing multiple sheets together with contact cement, man that stuff is stinky!   At first I got them to do this part but the glue was drying to quick so I glued the books together.  But the used the contact cenent to glue pictures on their timeline.  

We tried out a couple different size books and nathan and Gigi both went for the larger size books.  We will make book ends for these with bookend cardboard and cover them with fabric.  That way you can keep it folded like a book, flip through the pages or unfold to see it all payed out.  We may make a few of these books for different time periods.  

Genevieve was super excited it was watercolour paper, she started right away by painting some important events and decorating her book. 

Nathan working on his, as he was writing a title on his first page I had to bite my tongue as I was going to tell him to take his time and make sure it was neat.  I realized before I said it he really was trying hard and doing his best.  Instead of painting nathan searched the internet for pictures that worked with his timeline.  His first event was the Big Bang, it was funny when he looked it up as he looked up the Big Bang theory images and all he got was the tv show, he said u think there is a tv show called the Big Bang.  We do have timeline pieces from homeschool in the woods that we will use later, but nathan looked at them and was a little confused how both dinosaurs, the earth and people are all 5000 years old.  We had a discussion on what young earth creation is.  

Nathan's work, I wish his poor hands did not hurt and he could get out on this timeline what I know he would like to write about the Big Bang.  Gigi asked what was there before the big bang.  Nathan said well it was probably black as black is the absence of colour, the absence of anything, white is light, and something else, it sounded better when he said it.  

I love the details on Gigi's!  She is really taking to this and writing notes and different events.  You would think she has done a project like this before!   

We worked on these books for about 3 hours, until we had to get ready for hockey.  

Hockey was a great game!

After hockey we went straight to Abbotsford and I dropped nathan and Gigi off at their grandparents, and they took Gigi to cheer.  I picked up two other moms in Abbotsford and we headed to children's hospital for the first ever meeting for connective tissue disorders.  We had a great drive in, I have met the two moms I drove in with before so we had a good time.  The meeting was facilitated by the heart clinic by a nurse that I have met a few times at the heart clinic, she studies connective tissue disorders.  She had given me her business card a long time ago and two years ago when nathan was in emergency because we thought he may be having strokes I called her and told her what was happening.  She came down to the ER, talked to me and the neurologists.  She could not offer any expertise, as she says she learns more from us patients than she can offer, but it was so wonderful to have her there.  She came and visited nathan and I almost everyday and made sure our needs were being met, she was like our advocate.  

We discussed at the meeting the need to get the children together in a meeting like this, we may in future months bring the kids and let them have their own meeting.  Also setting up some fun dates for the kids.  Most of the parents agreed that their children wanted to know and meet others going through the same thing.  

Leslie also told us of a brand new collagen disorder clinic that has just opened in Vancouver.  We will have acess to mental Heath, pain management, cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, genetics, all in one clinic.  I am going to ask my GP for a referal, so I can get another opinion on my hip, and maybe it would be nice to see the cardiologist at the same time, although I really do like my cardiologist.  

Sick little nathan January 27

Well looks like nathan is sick, he has nicely infected tonsils.  I will check them again tomorow and if there is no improvement I will take him to the dr for a check.  

Nathan does not do well when he is sick so ginger lemon and honey tea was made today.  We didn't do any official school work but learning did happen. 

Nathan played with mini weapons of mass destruction.  

With this weapon nathan used it and thought it should be able to go farther.  He took a look at it and he adjusted the front legs on it, so it leaned slightly back. He explained that when he did that the trajectory was higher and it could fling the object higher.  I think it's pretty impressive he was able to look at it and make corrections and understand what he was doing.   He is quite good at understanding physics.  

This ones called a Viking catapult.  

This little weapon was made by some friends and they have it to nathan, because it sucked and did not fire far.  Nathan took a look at it and figured out why it was not firing the eraser far, it was hitting the elastics and slowing down.  He solved this problem by making it smoother by adding scotch tape on top.  

Genevieve played with duct tape today making wallets.  Duct tape is hard to work with but she seemed to be pretty good at it.  She also practiced a lot of tumbling today.  

We also got a surprise flower delivery today.  Jeff ordered flowers for Friday but the came today.   They were beautiful. 

Thursday, finally some schoolwork feb 19

We managed to get some school work accomplished today :).  We read chapter 10&11 in sign of the beaver and answered the questions.  We were going to do some research on beavers but the kids assured me they did that last year, I think they did it while reading the lion witch and the wardrobe.  So I did not make them repeat it although it may have been interesting to see the difference a year has made.  Instead nathan and Genevieve wrote a letter to let everyone know who they deliver papers too that they have taken over the paper route.  I did not help them at all as I wanted it to look like they had written it themselves, it is their job not mine.  I think they did a wonderful job and handed it out today with their papers. 

Next we went to physio.  

Then came home and kids did the paper route, this takes about 1.5 hours.  We finished in time to have a quick bit to eat before heading out to cheer.  

Also during this quick 1/2 hour break I managed to scan drs letters and send them to the nurse reviewing our at home application.  I'm not sure what or how to show them that nathan can use the help.  

I sent in his children's discharge paper

Abnormal EEG

Documented systolic ejection murmur 

Nephrology

Neurology

It's i think an overall thing but really so many things with nathan are we have no clue what is happening :)