School Pictures Are Here!!!

Overall, I can't complain about how the boys' pictures turned out. Jefferson's hair didn't stay put, Jackson's freckles kind-of make his face look dirty, and Mason was quite a challenge- just getting him to stand in front of the camera was difficult, and he was doing everything he could to not look at the camera or smile, so the fact that the photographer somehow managed to get a picture of him looking towards the camera without his eyes scrunched shut and his mouth in a frown was a miracle!

The First Day of School

Jefferson's first day of second grade:



Jackson and Mason on their first day of preschool:



Getting on the bus and getting strapped in:

First Day of School- Jackson

Jackson started preschool on August 26th! We were most nervous about how he would do riding the school bus by himself- especially after finding out he would be the first or second kid picked up, meaning he would be on the bus for about an hour each way, but everything went well and riding the bus seems to be his favorite thing. He wasn't scared at all to get on the bus and when he got home he climbed off the bus smiling (while wearing his ginormous backpack).






Mason, on the other hand, was not too happy about Jackson leaving on the bus and proceeded to have a mini tantrum as the bus drove away. That unhappiness was short-lived, though, after discovering what Jackson leaving meant- mommy all to himself for 5 hours (well, 3 when you subtract nap time)! The next day, when I told Jackson he bus would be here soon, Mason ran and grabbed Jackson's backpack and gave it to him- already ready for Jackson to be gone!

First Day of School- Jefferson

Jefferson went back to school on August 18th. He is now a 1st Grader! He was excited to go back- especially after seeing his "girlfriend" Maggie, from his Kindergarten class, at Back to School night, and finding out that she is also in his First Grade class!



We decided to celebrate the day by going swimming for Family Home Evening that night. It was a great plan, and the kids were super excited (I had neglected getting around to taking them swimming all summer- with exception to our vacation in St. George and Jackson's KOTM swim class). Unfortunately, we pulled up to the rec center only to see the pool being closed down for the day and a sign on the door saying that the pool was closed until tomorrow. Turns out there was an "accident" in the pool (i.e. poop) which means the pool has to be closed for a minimum or 30 minutes (and up to 24 hours)to allow the chlorine and other chemicals or treatment methods in the water to get rid of parasites that may cause illness. The rec center chose to close it down for the rest of the day (which would allow at least a 12 hour chemical cleansing time). Now I'm not really complaining about the closure. I really wouldn't want to go swimming right after some kid pooped in the pool, but it was hard to explain to the kids why we couldn't go swimming. They were very disappointed. So to make up for it we went to Sonic and got ice cream. That seemed to lift their spirits some. We then made it back to the pool 2 days later and have turned swimming into a regular Wednesday night activity for our family.

Jefferson's Last Day of Kindergarten

I know it's been awhile since I've made a good post. We've been a bit busy around here. Jackson has had quite a busy schedule with his school district evaluations and other evaluations. We also got a new computer a couple weeks ago that we've been setting up and transferring stuff from the old computer and just getting used to. Oh, and we also got a Wii! That's been distracting us a bit.

So on Jefferson's last day of school (well, technically his second to last day, but since his last day was all of 1 1/2 hours, it doesn't really count) his class has an "End of Year" program. His class sang several songs and did some "Reader's Theatre". I took a few pictures, but they didn't end up very good. Between Jefferson being in the back row for the songs and the lady in front of me moving into the frame almost every time I snapped a picture and the lighting in the classroom that I couldn't figure what setting on my camera to use, it wasn't easy.

Here are a couple pictures:

School District Preschool

Jackson qualified for the school district's preschool program! While it's great that he is going to continue getting the extra help he needs, it's also a little sad that he still needs the extra help. It's that parent thing about wanting your child to be perfect, but I know Jackson is special and we love him so much the way he is.

He was evaluated by the school district in several areas, including: Cognitive, Speech, Fine and Gross Motor, Behavior, and Socialization. Before his first evaluation appointment I had to fill out this super long parent questionnaire that covered several areas in development. The results from that questionnaire were then taken into consideration when looking at his scores from his school district testing.

His first day of evaluations were for Speech and Cognitive. He had no problem wowing the evaluators on his cognitive exam- he is definitely a smart kid! They score the cognitive exam in two ways and one of his scores placed him in the 99th percentile- which means only 1% of kids his same age that take the same test would score better than him. In his speech exam, he scored in the 46th percentile, which is close to average, and higher than I expected him to score. His past year in KOTM has certainly helped him improve his speech! The evaluators still had a few concerns about his speech- like his repetitive phrases, inconsistency in word pronunciations, and the high pitch that he tends to use, so they recommended that he be tested again at the beginning of the school year to check for progress. During the evaluation I ended up filling out another parent questionnaire- this time for autism - because within 5 minutes of Jackson's testing the one evaluator turned to me and asked if they had me fill out the autism questionnaire- Jackson was having difficulty moving on to the next task because he wanted to make sure the cards he was given to match to the pictures were perfectly lined up and a few other quirks were presenting themselves (along with his low scores from the first questionnaire in behavior and socialization). I wasn't surprised at all. I've suspected that Jackson would place on the Autism Spectrum Disorder scale for some time now- although he is certainly high-functioning.

His second day of evaluations were for Fine and Gross Motor. He did great in his fine motor evaluation except for in a couple key areas like stacking blocks higher than four (although he can do it at home just fine- but we have larger blocks) and inconsistency of hand usage. Those two areas brought his score down into the qualifying range (7th percentile or lower). His gross motor evaluation was next and he was tested in range of motion from jumping to walking in a straight line to doing a somersault to throwing a ball to walking up and down stairs, etc.. He ended up placing in the 8th percentile for that, but after looking at his other scores, the evaluators felt he should still qualify for services.

Since it took them awhile to review his results after his Gross Motor test (we hung out in the playroom for 1 1/2 hours waiting to find out if he qualified), and since Nate worked from home that morning so he could also watch Mason (Jefferson was at school) but had to go to a client site in the afternoon, I couldn't wait around all day, so they went over the results with me and sent me home and had me come back a couple days later to get my copies and sign the paperwork which took a bit longer to type up.

So the areas that qualified him are Fine and Gross Motor, Behavior, and Socialization. He starts in August and will go 4 days a week.

Jackson's Last Day of Class

Yesterday was the last day of the playgroup Jackson has been going to at Kids On The Move. He's had a lot of fun since he started in January and made a lot of progress.

A Playgroup for Jackson!

Jackson started a playgroup at Kid's On The Move last week. I'm excited for him to have more socialization. He doesn't have much experience with kids outside of nursery on Sundays and his brothers. This will help him learn turn taking, sharing, interaction, and other social skills. I'm sad that his time with KOTM is almost up. He leaves the program when he turns 3- which is only a short 4 months away! They have been such a great help in providing Jackson and and the rest of the family the education and guidance he needs to improve his speech and language skills. He has really improved leaps and bounds since he started with KOTM.

Jefferson's Kindergarten Christmas Program

On the 17th, Jefferson's kindergarten class had a Christmas program. Grandma, Jackson, Mason, and I went to watch. They sang several Christmas songs including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas (links not from Jefferson's class). Jefferson got to be one of the kids jingling bells during Jingle Bells and thoroughly enjoyed it. Each kid in his class also got to ask Santa to bring a toy to one of their friends. Jefferson's was "Dear Santa, please bring Thomas and Transformers to Damon." Near the end of the program Jefferson decided that Jackson needed to come down and join him. It was cute.

Here's some pictures from the day:

Jefferson's First Day of School

Wow! Jefferson is now officially a kindergartner! Yesterday was his first day and no matter how much I pleaded with him to let me drive him to school, he insisted on riding the bus. He does love buses, after all. He was quick to get on the bus when it arrived, so quick that I missed getting a good picture. Here are some pictures of before school and getting on the bus:



The school assigns each bus a picture, so that kids can more easily remember what bus they ride. Jefferson was stoked (okay, that's an old-school word these days) to find out that his bus home is the "airplane" bus. He sure won't have any trouble remembering that. Here's a picture of him getting off the bus after his first day:



He really enjoyed his first day. His teacher sent home a fun-size bag of M&M's with a little card with questions to ask for each color M&M. The card read:

My First Day of Kindergarten

A Rainbow of Fun!

Have your child open the M&M's and choose a color. Read the question that goes with that color of M&M. Have fun talking with you child about the first day of school.

Red: What is you teacher's name?
Orange: Tell about a new friend in your class.
Yellow: Tell about your favorite thing you did at school.
Green: Tell about the rule you learned at school today.
Blue: Tell what letter you learned at school today.
Brown: Retell a story that you teacher read to you today.

It was a struggle getting the answers out of Jefferson and even then he didn't give me an answer for all of the questions other than "I don't know." But, I probably got more out of him than I would have without the M&M's. Here's what he did say:

• There's a boy named Brian who has hair the same color as mine (dark brown).
• That his favorite things about kindergarten were: Riding the bus, playing on the playground, and meeting new friends. (Hopefully he'll add some educational stuff, like reading, to the list as time passes.)
• The letter for the day was M.

He couldn't remember the rule they learned, didn't want to talk about the story (must not have involved cars or trucks or trains, etc.), and couldn't remember his teacher's name (to give him credit, it is a hard name to say for a kindergartner).

He had a great first day of school and as a treat I made his favorite meal for dinner: Macaroni & Cheese. He didn't even give me a hard time at bedtime once I reminded him that he had school again the next day. He happily got on the bus again this morning and had a great second day. I'm sure he's going to be sad when Saturday comes and he doesn't get to ride the bus to school that day.

The Faux-First Day and Discovery Gateway

Yea! A new post! Sorry, I just haven't been able to come up with anything to write about in the past (almost) 2 weeks, but now I have something:

Yesterday was the first day of school in our school district- for most kids. Kindergartners don't start school until a week later (next Tuesday for us)- something that I didn't even know until about 3 weeks before school started (when I got around to reading the fine print on one of the handouts I was given when I registered Jefferson) . Not being from Utah and being a first-time school parent, I was not aware of the way things are done in Utah. The school districts in Utah (or most of them) use the first week of school as a time to do Kindergarten assessments. Rather than start school, each Kindergartner meets with their teacher once sometime during the first week so that the teacher can find out more about each child and what they've learned already. Kindergarten assessments=Normal, Using the first week of school to do that=Strange to me. Where I grew up, assessments are done during the summer before the school year starts. Who knows, maybe my home region is weird for wanting to do that stuff early. Jefferson had his assessment today and did well.

Jefferson with his new teacher:



I bring that up because yesterday Nate also took the day off work. He submitted the vacation request long before I found out Jefferson's first day of would not, in fact, be the 21st of August, but would actually be the 28th of August. He could have changed his request, but unfortunately, Nate will be out of town next week, missing Jefferson's actual first day of school. So instead of Nate just working on the faux-first day, I figured that we could do something fun as a family for the day. We decided to go to Discovery Gateway. It's a children's museum at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. I took Jefferson and Jackson to the Children's Museum when Jackson was still a small baby and it was located in Northern Salt Lake City, but I hadn't had an opportunity to visit the museum at it's new location (which it has been in for almost a year). There were a lot of similarities between the old and new museums, but the new museum is definitely nicer -except the price: $8.50 for Utah residents 1 & up, $9.50 for non-residents 1 & up, plus parking- the old location was $4/person 1 & up, free parking.

When you first walk in, you enter the "Beehive" which has a bunch of activities centered around tube and balls. The kids spent at least an hour in this area. Even Mason was able to participate. Jackson apparently associated the balls going down the tubes with sliding down a slide since he kept saying "wee" every time he dropped a ball down a tube. Here are some videos and pictures of them putting balls into the tubes:


(Jackson still isn't saying much but he does like repeating some phrases after me, like in the second video he says "good job" after I say it to Mason. Did you recognize it?)



The next area of the museum is like a kid-sized town. There is the Construction Zone, the Market, the House, the Farm, and lots more. You can pretend to be a construction worker, home decorator, cook, cashier, mailman, farmer, gardener, etc.. It's a place full of imagination and fun. There's even a Climbing Wall and a Water Play exhibit. We let Jefferson loose in this area to play wherever he wanted, while letting Jackson and Mason take sanctuary in the "Hatch, Waddle and Fly" area, an area for children 3 and under.

Jefferson playing around:



In the Sanctuary:




The upstairs level of the museum has some cool stuff, but most of it is geared towards older children so the kids didn't have quite a much fun up there, but still found things to do.

Jefferson was able to pretend to be an Anchorman and Weatherman:
(Jackson did too, but he didn't stay long enough to get pictures)



And they got to sit in a Life Flight Helicopter provided to the museum by Intermountain Healthcare, which Jefferson really enjoyed:



We all had a fun day at the museum (even Mason- which is I guess why they charge even for 1 year olds). We would have stayed longer at the museum if it wasn't for the grumbling in our stomachs telling us that we were really late for lunch. Unfortunately, we went over the 3 hour mark by six minutes and had to pay the next fee level for parking. If it hadn't been for our empty stomachs, I would have turned around and gone back into the museum to make the most of the extra hour of parking we had to pay for. I think next year it may be worth buying a membership to the museum so we can go as much as we want and not break the bank. The cost of a membership is a little cheaper than three single day price visits. It really is a fun place for everyone- even the parents!

We didn't spend any extra time at The Gateway, which I was disappointed about, so I'll have to go back sometime to see the other fun things there. They have a fountain that I hear is fun for kids to run around in and the Clark Planetarium also relocated to The Gateway. Another day.

When I Grow Up

Lately, Jefferson has been telling me that he'll do stuff when he "grows up"- which to him right now means when he goes to kindergarten. For example, he loves vienna sausages (or mini hot dogs, as he says), which he started eating when my parents lived with us and my dad would be coerced into sharing with him, but now he's decided that he's not going to eat them again until he grows up. I asked him when that will be and he told me, "when I go to kindergarten." I'm not sure where he got this idea from, but it certainly is like Jefferson to come up with something like that.

So today, on our way to drop of the rest of his Kindergarten registration info, Jefferson told me that he can drive the car when he "grows up." I, of course, had to tell him that going to kindergarten doesn't make him grown up enough to drive a car, and that he has to wait until he's at least 15 to drive a car. I was somewhat surprised to not have him fight me on that. He just said "okay."