It is that time of year where my boys love to pick me flowers.....

This kiddo has officially graduated from speech services from the school district. His therapist gave him a certificate and this hat! He was quite pleased.

Joseph did see the occupational therapist recently. She did not see anything huge going on with his visual perception. She did give me one integrated exercise to do with him based on one thing he struggled with when she tested him. It is a particular pose he has to hold, while holding his breath. We have had a hard time working on the pose because it turns out he is having a hard time 'properly' holding his breath. Instead of immediately breathing out, after he holds his breath, he opens his mouth, takes a breath in and then breaths out. Just really interesting to watch the motor planning.

Yesterday I took Benjamin and Joseph to a drumming workshop but an award winning drummer, whose mentor lives in Africa. There were about 20 kids there and they all had a drum. It was so much fun (of course I forgot the camera). Some of the adults, including me, got in on the action. Learning different rhythms, history behind the drums and culture. I might have to invest in a drum soon. I am looking into a week long drum workshop that this teacher does in the summers. I know Jacob would enjoy it too.

Speaking of, this was Jacob's mother's day present recently...something he completed at school.

JR and the boys are heading down to Miami the end of the month. JR's parents have never met Joseph and have not seen the other 2 boys since summer of 2008. So the 4 of them are heading south and mom will stay home and hold down the fort. I am compiling a list of movies and books that I hope to read, as well as a few projects, sewing, hiking and biking. Jacob will miss a week of school, but will be back for the last 3 days of school.

I finally decided to buy some 'all natural' products and have spent the last 2 days making tooth paste, tooth powder, sunscreen, lotion, salves and body scrubs. I think I even have the boys on board to try some of them. One thing that motivated me was a trip to the dentist for the boys. Two of them were cavity free ~ yay! Poor Jacob...I think he will be our high maintenance dental kid. I can't even remember when he lost his 2 front teeth. However, only one of them has started to come in. The dentist can feel the other in the top of the palate, but he is not real sure if it is on track to come in at the proper place. We might be getting an early referral to the ortho. They will give it another 6 months and then re-evaluate. He also have very weak enamel. So, I came home and researched some things and now have him on a supplement regime, as well as homemade tooth paste and powder. I want to see if we can turn things around in the next 6 months.

We are trying to stay motivated with the homeschooling. Sure is hard! I have told Benjamin that if he focuses 110% next week, that he won't have to do anything those few days after Miami.

Jacob told me today that he ran 1/2 a mile at school in 3.05 minutes!

Today Joseph came in and announced "I keep thinking when I don't want to!" We looked at him and started laughing. Then he had to think about his words and corrected himself and said 'keep blinking'.

Another quiet weekend in store. About the only commitment we have is a 4-H field trip to Domino's Pizza. We played laser tag this past week with 4-H. The kids had fun!

We recently noticed a different vehicle in the driveway across the street. Turns out it is a painter and he was putting a mural up on their garage. It has been very cool watching the different layers go on. He has probably stopped by 10 different times to add more detail to the garage. (It actually looks like he has one more section...the black strip just below the river. I would think more grass or flowers will go in there.) The boys have really enjoyed watching him and going over there to get a close up view.

Joseph had a Mother's Day tea recently at his preschool. The class sang some songs and then served the mothers cookies and fruit.

Here is a picture of a card he made for me, as well as a small pot of pansies.

This was the inside of the card...complete with Joseph's answers to some questions from his teacher.

The weather has gotten cooler again - perfect for crawling under the blankets and watching a movie! Although we have not been afforded that luxury yet. Maybe this weekend. We have nothing planned for the weekend except church activities! I love the quiet weekends. Lots of r&r.

A long rambling post.......

The boys and I recently attended a short presentation at the public library on 3-D printing.  I have heard stories about them and what they can do but never really understood it all. (The first thing I remember hearing about them was a 5th grader who printed all the parts of a prosthetic hand, screwed it all together and then gave to a classmate ~ all for about $2,000.)   Seeing it in person made so much more sense to me.  The one at the library was the smallest, most basic one.  (They received a grant to buy 3 of them, at $1,500 a piece!).  The 'ink' was fed into the printer through a small tube.  (Their printers can just print in one color but of course the fancier ones can print in multi color.)  The printer prints from the bottom up and these particular printers use a plastic material.  (Lots of materials can be used, including steel.)  The printer has a picture of the object (either downloaded or scanned in) and then it horizontally slices the object into 1,000s of layers.  Then the ink is piped in and layer by layer the plastic is laid.  Truly mind boggling.  The library printers can only print up to 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 inch object and it takes about 3 hours.  (I wish I had had my camera.)

Nike has printed shoes for athletes and they are obviously a perfect fit.  They are hoping to soon start using 3-D printing for organ transplants - imagine being able to get all the intricacies of a patients heart exactly right (not sure what material they would use for it).  It is being used to print steel plates that are inserted during surgeries.  They even use the 3-D printing to 'duplicate' the beloved pet (weird in my opinion).  You have the capabilities to print out a missing piece of hardware or that little thingy ma-jig that broken on your whatever it is.  Scientist are currently experimenting with piping food into the printers so that the astronauts can print out real food (think layering pizza) and then it cooks as it is created.

They have even created printers that print from the top down with liquid resin.  There is a 'bowl' of liquid resin and somehow light passes through it and then the printer begins pulling the object out of the resin and it is formed as it hits the air.  This type of printer can print things in about 6 minutes!  Can you tell I was totally fascinated by it all?  If you are near a local library, stop in and ask them if they have a printer or know of one in the area.  You should check it out.  I am sure there are lots of time lapse videos on google.  Our library is trying to figure out how to charge for the printing (probably so much per gram) then they will let the public use them.

Joseph bless his little heart started this school year with 4 therapies a week and he just 'graduated' from another one, so he is down to his 2 private therapies a week.  Wahoo.  He is going to see an occupational therapist on Monday because one of his speech therapists is concerned about some visual perception issues.  As Joseph is describing some things to her, it is almost as if he is not seeing it correctly.  When he was tested a few years ago for this, he did not have enough vocabulary for it to be effective.  (Even as I type that word, I am remembering back to the lessons Benjamin and I did on the proper uses of effect and affect ~ still not sure I could always pick the correct word.)  Anyway, will be interesting to see if the therapist finds anything.  As Joseph is moving into the reading stage, we certainly don't want him having trouble seeing part to whole pieces of a word.  (One of the examples the speech therapist gave me is that she showed him a hand drawn picture of a girl smiling.  She had circles on her face representing freckles.  He was not able to see the freckles as part of the whole pictures, but instead saw them as random balls that were falling off her face.  It is the very subtle things that can create lots of problems later on.)

Benjamin recently went back to the orthodontist.  I think we are ready to proceed with more hardware.  In a few weeks he will go back and get 4 braces put on his top teeth.  They are still waiting for some of his baby teeth to come out.  The ortho is wondering about having a few baby teeth pulled because the roots are about 3mm long and there is starting to be some decay because he has had them for so long.  All of my boys are so slow in loosing their teeth.  We go to the dentist in a few weeks so will see what the dentist says.  Jacob lost his two top teeth a while ago and only one of them is half way in.  Not sure where the other one is!

The boys and I have finalized our plans for a long weekend in South Dakota this summer.  My boys love Christian music and have wanted to attend a concert for a long time (an interest I am happy to put money into).  There is a 3 day outdoor concert in Rapid City mid July and we are road tripping.  A friend from North Dakota will meet us over there and we have rented a 2 bedroom house for 4 nights!  The boys and I have started watching the artists' Youtube music videos, so we can learn the words.  (I think concerts are way more fun when you can sing and dance along.)  The boys have not been impressed with my dance moves though.  I have great visions of dancing away at the concert and watching them hide from embarrassment.  Oh the fun we will have.  One of their favorite parts of the day is we have 'worship' time after dinner, where they each pick a music video and we sit at the table and sing along ~ although usually the only one allowed to sing out loud is the one who picked the song!

Had a very quiet weekend.

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO MY NIECE, KELSEY, WHO GRADUATED WITH HONORS FROM WESTERN MICHIGAN TODAY WITH A DEGREE IN SPECIAL EDUCATION.
(Not bad pictures from 1500 miles away, thanks to internet!)