Friday, November 28, 2008

Picture Post



Sitting and waiting for the bus.
Do I hear Geese?


Good Moring.


This is how my Spider Boy sleeps.

Pink Apple Butter Bread.

The Boy and I made the Apple Butter Bread yesterday. I think the water was too cold to activate the yeast correctly. I didn't have oil so I used butter but forgot to adjust the amount of salt, so it's a little salty. I didn't have any Whole Wheat flour so I used all unbleached all purpose flour, I know that changes things somewhat, but I already changed it with the butter so ... I also added 4 drops of red food coloring, because The Boy asked me to. Other than a little bit too much salt, The Boy and his Dad didn't seem bothered by the saltiness so maybe it's just me, the taste was nice. It might be because it was Thanksgiving and our minds were preoccupied with all things Thanksgiving, but it tasted and smelled as if it had pumpkin in it. This morning I used it to make french toast, that was really yummy. I'm going to try it again in a few days and see if I can get it to rise better. I want to try Pumpkin Butter too. Maybe for Christmas.
Here's a couple of pictures of the Apple Butter Bread all sliced up and ready to eat.


You can see the slightly pink coloring, maybe next time we will add more drops of color.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Parent Teacher Conference, yesterday.

For some reason I thought our parent/teacher conference was at 1:30, I guess it was actually at 12:30, but we got there early. The Speech teacher happened to see us and took us to the classroom. We had 30 minutes to talk to them, instead of an hour as scheduled, but we covered it all in that time.

The Boy is doing well, he is in a classroom with Kindergarten, First and Second grade kids. All of them have a few different problems. Things like Downs Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Speech Delays and other learning disabilities. We don't know what, if any, disabilities The Boy may have. He is a little delayed, and seems really innocent for boy almost 6 years old. There hasn't been too much in the way of testing to figure it out yet, but we are working on it.

The Boy is in the highest reading group, he is picking up reading pretty quickly. He is still working on some comprehension aspects, sight words, and being able to retell a story sequence.

Speech seems to be going well, he is communicating appropriately, asking good questions, and contributes relevant information during discussions.

He is still having trouble with writing, he really dislikes writing, and won't practice very often, so he isn't dong very well yet. I'll have to keep working with him on it. The teacher wants him to use colors rather than markers when he is drawing or writing, because it will make him work a little harder building up strength in his fingers. He also suggested getting more Playdoh, since the stuff we have has dried out, or clay for more strength building play. Maybe that will help make writing easier for him.

Math is an on going project. He isn't showing them his knowledge of numbers as well at school as he shows us here at home. But for kindergarten he is doing pretty well, or so they told us yesterday. There are a few things that we can work on here at home, now all I have to do is find a way that will be fun enough that he will want to do it.

He needs to learn how to stay on task and finish his work in a reasonable amount of time. He's not too far off an average kindergarten kid in that area.

All in all we are all pleased with his progress this grading period.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Pumpkin stuff.

I have 4 small pumpkins, I'm planning on cooking them up and making some pumpkin butter. I want at least 4 pints of pumpkin butter from them. I'll buy some canned pumpkin to make some pumpkin bread or pumpkin butter bread, because I don't think my little pumpkins will make all that much. I'll probably try to make at least on pumpkin pie, and I want to make pumpkin pancakes too. I wish I had more pumpkins.

I haven't been knitting much this year, at least not like I was last year. I also haven't been taking very many pictures. I guess this year is my non creative year. I've been baking bread though so I'm not feeling totally deprived.