Ian and his tiny little self.

So I guess it's time to update on Ian.  He will be 10 months on February 5, and we were nearly a month behind for his 9 month check-up.  Between his 9th and 10th month he has been sick about 3 times.  First a bad cold, then roseola, and now another cold.  During his trips to the doctor for roseola, the pediatrician ordered some blood tests to make sure that he did not have a bacterial infection.  He had been running a fever for 3 days, on the 4th day I took him in and they weren't sure what it was, so we drew blood.  Those blood results came back as "low blood count" which was to be expected since he was sick, but also "low platelet count" which the doctor said, "I'm not sure what that means." 

Not very reassuring, but she wanted to draw blood in another 2 weeks to see what the platelets did over that time.  The afternoon of that first doctor's appointment, Ian's fever finally broke and he broke out in a rash which was diagnosed the next day as roseola. 

Finally we had his "9 month" well visit on the 27th and he had lost 3 ounces since his roseola visit the week prior.  16lbs 9oz.  This was not good.  So the doctor decided that we were going to up his calorie intake to 30 calorie/oz formula.  He had been on "high-cal" formula that was 24 calories/oz previously.   Today, Monday the 30th we went and had blood drawn a second time to double check the platelets and also to check on some other growth related factors. 

I don't have the results yet.  Hopefully they will come in soon. 

I had the doctor check Isabel's growth chart (which frankly looked worse than Ian's does), and I think that relieved the doctor somewhat that this was probably just the way our kids grow. 

Nonetheless it's small-baby-growing-issues round 2 for us with Ian.

But small or not, he sure is cute.

So far behind I don't know where to begin!

So I'll just post some pictures :)

Isabel is doing well in school...she is reading and really proud of herself!  She lost her first tooth this month.  It's hard to  believe she will be 6 in April!

Ian had roseola last week.  It started with 3 days of fever and on the 4th day I took him to the doctor.  She ordered blood work, and once we got home his fever broke, and he broke out in a rash starting from his trunk and spreading out over the next day.  After a trip back to the doctor, she confirmed roseola and gave him an antibiotic for the beginning of an ear infection.  Poor guy.  He's really had a tough time with colds and sickness.  It's hard to believe that he is almost a year old! 

What's going on with homeschooling anyway?

Well, I've kind of struggled a little bit this year with homeschooling and here is why:

I purchased a kindergarten curriculum which has kind of backtracked us into a review of alot of stuff that we already covered last year.  I'm not sure if I was just ambitious last year, or if I was just flexible enough to let Iz take off and charge ahead.  But this year, I've had a hard time budging from the weekly laid-out scheduled curriculum that is already written in the planner that it came with.  And it was frustrating me, because it has just been too much of a review. I started voicing this to people, and then finally realized....DUH!  You are homeschooling!  You can change things up as needed...in fact, that is one reason WHY you are homeschooling, so that you can tailor things to Isabel's needs.  

I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that it was okay to move ahead as needed.  But at least I am there now!  So while Isabel was starting to blend sounds and read short words, books, and sentences last year, we haven't done any of that until this last week when I realized we could "go ahead".  And she's definitely been waiting for it.  This week we've been working on a short list of "sight words" and she's easily got these down pat...in fact, she just discovered that these "sight words" are everywhere, and that she KNOWS them, and that was a very exciting discovery for her!

In other school work, we did our first lapbook on Thanksgiving, and it turned out to be a great success.  I had been kind of leery of these lapbook things (for some reason unknown to me)....but kids just love them.  She really got great satisfaction out of putting it together and learned quite a bit in the process!  (that's the whole goal, right?) ;)  I've got more of these planned for the future!  I discovered the Homeschool Share website and found great ideas for lapbooks there.

For Advent, aside from our regular school work, I've put out some fun Montessori-inspired activities.

This can be two activities in one:  

Mystery Bag (needs 2 people) They both study the objects in the basket, then one chooses one object that she puts into the bag, while the other person keeps their eyes closed, then tries to figure out which object is missing from the basket.

and

The Sense of Touch Mystery Bag:  All items go into the bag and she puts her hand in, holds an object in her hand (don't peek) and tries to figure out what the name of the object is just by the sense of touch.  (we did this one first, before she had even seen any of the objects and she guessed them all correctly!)

I had an old Christmas card with all these little scenes from the Nativity story, so I cut each scene out, laminated them, and told Isabel to put them in order then tell the story of the Nativity.  

(Sequencing and story comprehension).

Spooning Christmas color pom-poms...an old favorite.

Snowman addition.  She loved this, it was too easy for her unfortunately, but she really liked that she could use a dry erase marker to write the answer (I had laminated these).  Need to make more!

That's just some of the fun we are having here.  I've got a whole list of Advent activities, things for the shelves, and crafts and I'm just refreshing activities during the week and checking them off my list as we go along!  This time of year is so much fun!

In case you missed this face!

The kid cracks us up.

After Halloween to December 2nd!

I've got alot of catching up to do! 

First off, Isabel was Blessed Imelda Lambertini for the All Saint's Day Party this year.  She looked absolutely precious, and we enjoyed getting to learn more about this special holy hero!

I made these cupcakes for the All Saints Day Party and they turned out just adorable.  The popsicle sticks had laminated pictures of saints taped to them, so the kids could take them home.

Ian started carrying socks around in his mouth like a little puppy.  He crawls everywhere now and follows me around the house, also like a little puppy.  He particularly likes to be in between my legs while I'm washing dishes or trying to cook at the stove.

Isabel had a horse painted on her face at Hay Day event we went to.

She also got to ride a horse!  First time riding a full size horse, she loved it!

Ian's favorite part was bouncing on the bounce house.

The cousins came for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful celebration.

Ian made the turkey (you can see it in the oven).

Here is a picture of our "Thankful Tree", the mod-podged leaves we collected, our painted pumpkins, and the pinecone turkey crafts we made.

After Thanksgiving, we went to Wagoner's to pick out our Christmas tree.  This year we went just as it was starting to get dusky, and it wasn't quite as magical when it's not completely dark.  But we found a great little tree for just the right price!

Here we are decorating the tree in pajamas and shorts ;)