An update . . . .

A long overdue update! things have been quite busy since the school year started. I have had much to keep me too busy including 2 positions on 2 of the 4 PTA's I belong to! In August, things changed as I now had a 6th grader in my house! I was spoiled as Stephen made lunches in the morning and I could count on him to keep the other two from fighting (well at least sometimes!). The new Jr higher has been doing very well! He went into Accelerated math and he has percussion in band. Despite not having much music experience, he is doing well! He played baseball over the summer and was a starting pitcher, and played football in the fall. He did well in that as well. He is a great athlete and is good in school too, very well rounded kid and I'm very proud of him! He's had almost all A's for the past 3 quarters, so a great start in Jr. High. He has also made the rank tenderfoot in Boy Scouts (he crossed over just a year ago March 2010) and is working on his 2nd class rank (possibly advancing late summer if he works hard). He is tall as I am now and I can no longer buy his shoes in the kids department! This summer he most likely will have braces put on. Ryan has been having a great year. He has a great teacher this year and I recently had his IEP eval. They were having trouble figuring out what to put as goals for the next year because he is doing so well. He has not displayed any aggressive behavior and his noise making in class has greatly decreased. He has been more attentive and focused and doesn't hate school as much as in previous years! In his latest report card, he got all A's for grades and for Effort alot of O's (O's are for outstanding effort!) Last summer we had him evaluated for PT. He has some pronation issues as well as some low tone issues in his shoulders and back. He's been doing phsical therapy since January and is wearing some shoe inserts. This is hopefully a short term thing with the therapy. He is doing much better with his "slouchiness" and has more strength everywhere overall. He is still taking straterra for his ADD. It has helped somewhat but we know he may do better on another drug, yet we have decided to stay on the stratterra as we are afraid if we try a different medication (a stimulant) that he will have even more of a hard time gaining weight. He may have even less body fat than Trevor at this point!! He continues to show his creative side with all the things he builds, all the things he draws. And, he out of the 3 of them, shows so much interest in the cats and all living things - he loves bugs, reptiles, and has had lots of things in his little terrarium this year. cuddles follows him around and they are best buds! Ryan had 6 teeth pulled over the summer of 2010 - preparation for braces! He took it like a champ! He did a lot of swimming over the summer and I'm sure we will do a lot of time at the pool this year when summer gets here. Last year was a big year spiritually for Ryan as he made his 1st Holy Communion. He looked so grown up. It was a great day, yet family drama affected some of the celebration. Trevor is doing so well at the preschool. His speech path says he is ready (has been ready) to be discharged from speech, but we may finish out the year. He is quite a talker. It is hard to believe he had been speech delayed! We are workign on fine motor skills right now. He seems a little behind in that area. He doesn't have good control on his hands when holding a pen/marker/pencil/scissors. I try to work on that with him at home but he usually has to be bribed to do anything with a writing instrument! Trevor has put on enough weight that at our meeting iwth our endocrinologist will not be for a whole year. Trevor has been eating a bit better, but it is still a great struggle to get him to eat anything besides pasta and sweets. He had his first cavity this past year. We had stopped supplementing his juice and he seems to be doing well. He hasn't had any major illnesses - he in fact went through the flu the best out of everyone in the family when we got it this year (note to self, get the darned flu shots next year!!). At a check up with the eye doctor, his one eye is turning in more than the other, so we now patch his good eye in hopes of making the other eye stronger. I am a bit worried about his eye, so I am anxious about his upcoming apt in April. As for me, well, last year was a very difficult year for me on so many levels. One of the reasons I was not blogging. Sickness, family drama, lots of unexpected financial things that led to a lot of stress and a host of other things took its toll on me physically, emotionally and phychologically. I am hoping this year will be a bit better, but only time will tell. I try to keep busy as that will at least give me something to focus on. I am the treasurer at the preschool, and I am the Recording secratrary at the Special Needs PTA. I have made some great friends from the special Needs PTA and at the preschool and that has been a blessing as some of the friends I've had for years just haven't been around much to confide in, joke around with, go out with and all that. So now I am trying to build new friendships. I've been so busy at the preschool and Special Needs PTA that I've had to cut back my Tupperware time. With Stephen's sports, scout activities, social stuff and Ryan's therapy and Religous Ed and Cub Scouts I am in the car alot and when I add that to all the meetings I have for my PTA stuff, I don't have as much time to devote to Tupperware. I still had a decent year, but just didn't make what I wanted to make and didn't have as many parties as I would have liked. I really enjoyed being at Stephen's games, trying to make his performances for band and helping out in Trevor's preschool class, so it is all good. This year Mike and I celebrated our 15 wedding anniversary. Hard to believe its been that long (makes me feel very old!). It also means lindy and gracie are now 15 years old. Lindy has lost her hearing and we just found out they both have early stages of kidney disease, so they are on a special diet. I guess we are all getting old, despite me being in denial about it! So, that is my update.