~Life With Boys~
Yellow is my favorite color. It’s clean and fresh looking and I love it.
Every once in awhile the website iheartfaces.com holds a contest.
This time they are looking for photos with a yellow theme.
I couldn’t resist entering this photo.
I took it last year in the nature center on my school property. It was just sitting there, all alone, calling my name.
Love it.
I don’t grow things. I don’t grow plants, I don’t grow gardens, I just don’t have any clue what I am doing. So, it just makes sense that I would just start buying plants and putting them in the ground to see what will happen, right? Right. Makes sense to me.
So bare with me, all you garden-planting, green-thumb-people. Humor me a little.
I planted a clematis against the shed last year. It was puny. TINY doesn’t even describe it. I shoved it in the ground, plunked a trellis behind it, and waved farewell as I scurried back to the couch.
This year it kind-of came back. The dead stuff was there, but then green leaves started to appear. I watered it a few times and hoped for the best.
I check on it every day. I keep hoping for some sort of miracle. This morning I glanced over to it while watering the garden…….
I found three of these gorgeous numbers this morning! I could not believe it.
Last weekend I decided to do something I have wanted to do since we moved here 7 years ago……plant a peony bush.
I bought one and had Mike plant it behind the garage so I can let it get huge and I don’t have to worry about the neighbors laughing at me when it dies because they can’t see it.
Check this out…..
Holy Moly! There are four of these on my bush! I have inhaled so much of this plant today. Made the kids do it too.
Then there is the garden. I will admit, I had to replant a few things. Some of the romaine isn’t cooperating and a few pea plants didn’t sprout either.
But the regular leaf lettuce……
How do I know when to pick it?
I swear the green beans grew 4 inches from one day to the next. I am not kidding. It’s shocking.
So, life is good. Stars have aligned or something. I am diggin’ it.
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Noah speech appointment went splendidly. He read for her, chatted with her, and explained to her what it was like having a stuttering problem. He showed her (just through his normal conversation with her and reading) the various problems he has and she took lots of notes. He will start twice-weekly therapy next week!
We are excited and hopeful. It feels good to be doing something.
Happy heat wave, people.
LB
Busy, fun weekend in the Budach household.
It started with a Friday night get-together with friends. It’s always nice to get together with teachers that I don’t get to see everyday. Lots of food and laughs with the best chuckle coming from Janeen clicking on the computer screen with her fingernail trying to get pictures to pull up. She was trying to use it like a smart board screen. We laughed a long time about that one! She was like a woodpecker tapping violently on my computer screen because they wouldn’t pop up!
Saturday Connor has soccer and then the kids are going to my parents for a sleep-over (thanks mom and dad!). Mike and I are heading up to Lakeville to have dinner with friends of ours. Should be a nice night out and I am looking forward to seeing them.
Sunday we are taking the kids to see Shrek. I am trying to decide if we should venture up to the cities or Rochester to see it on a nicer screen. We will see how much ambition I have when Sunday rolls around.
Look what happened……..
We found the two other eggs at the end of the driveway. I am not sure what happened. Maybe a squirrel? But, we never see squirrels around here since we don’t have mature trees. I don’t know, so sad.
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Monday Noah and I are heading to the hospital. For 5 years he has stuttered. Many, many people don’t know he does it because he covers it very well. He first stuttered when he was 3 years old and we didn’t think much of it. It went away, just like the doctor said it would and we moved on with life. It came back again when he was in Kindergarten but it never seemed to present itself during school, just at home. That always seemed weird to me, but if it had to be one place or the other, I guess I was glad it was at home.
Finally, we decided to have him evaluated by the school speech therapist, just because the issues would subside and be gone (sometimes for weeks) but it would always come back eventually. He qualified (as you only have to have a 5% deviation) and he spent three years going once a week to sessions during school.
Unfortunately, it didn’t really seem to help. The techniques he was taught didn’t really work and pulling him out of class once a week just didn’t seem to be making a difference. Plus, he still had very few stuttering issues at school, so we opted out of speech.
We have never been able to pinpoint a reason for the stuttering, nor have we been able to see any patterns. Sometimes we think it’s connected to something stressful, but then there have been many stressful moments where he hasn’t stuttered at all. He doesn’t fall into the typical categories of people who stuttered (delayed speech when younger, heredity) and so I keep searching for a reason or a way to help.
For about the last month the stuttering has progressed tremendously. It’s the worst we have seen it. He is having moments where he can’t get any words out at all. Of course, this doesn’t make end-of-the-year presentations much fun for someone like Noah (even though these used to be fun for him and presentations were always something he was good at) and it’s not getting better.
I have read many articles and have always been frustrated with the, “we-don’t-know-the-reason-for-stuttering-or-what-exactly-will-help” statements I keep reading. Really? You will research the fact that going to fast food restaurants will cause obesity, but no one researches stuttering and how to help?! Lovely, tell that to my child that can’t give his speech at school and has to stand humiliated in front of his class trying to read his part of a presentation. (That’s what we got to stress about this week, with most night ending with tears)
Noah at the all-city track meet this week where he took first place in hurdles!
So, I decided to call his doctor. I had recently heard there was a speech therapy program at the hospital and figured it was time to check out other avenues or help for him. Luckily, I was able to get him into the program to be evaluated already on Monday! Woo Hoo!
So, Monday Noah and I are taking the day OFF! He has not missed one day of school this year and I talked with his teacher (who has been awesome through this whole thing and has made any and every accommodation to make this easier) and she sent him home Friday with work he will miss, so Noah and I will sleep in, go out for lunch, and then hit that evaluation together.
Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this and help my boy. It’s heartbreaking. Not fair, and it needs to end.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
LB
What a great Mother’s Day weekend!
Saturday night we had both moms over for a steak dinner, complete with fish from Canada.
Sunday was spent just lounging out as a family! We slept in and when I awoke I was presented with great gifts:
How am I ever going to eat these with their little faces on them?! I have four bags!
In the afternoon we went to see Furry Vengeance and then came home and ordered pizza. It was nice to lounge in my jammies and eat a yummy supper!
I feel very fortunate to be the mom to two great kids. Thank goodness I teach and can spend three long months with them just hanging out and having fun.
I hope all of you enjoyed your babes and were spoiled this Mother’s Day.
Love,
LB
We took the kids to their first concert Saturday. Owl City was playing at the State Theater in Minneapolis and we got tickets the minute they came out. Adam Young is the lead singer and he’s from Owatonna so that made the concert that much more cool.
I tried to explain to the kids how momentous this occasion was. For the rest of their lives they will get asked, “What was the first concert you went to?” and for the rest of their lives they will answer, Owl City. For me it was Richard Marx…..yeah, I know, I am so cool.
So, we got there in plenty of time, an hour to be exact. We went through security where Mike presented my camera bag and all it’s contents.
We proceeded to find our seats (row S, main floor) and I had Mike take couple of pictures of the kids and I. immediately one of the ushers was on me.
14-year old usher: “Excuse me, is that a professional camera?”
Me: “Um…no?” said while shrugging because I have no idea. I mean, I am not a professional, so therefore neither is the camera. Right?
14-year old usher: “Because we don’t allow professional cameras in the theatre.
Me: “Okay.”
I remember going to the theater in Chicago and getting in trouble for taking THIS picture because apparently you can’t take pictures of the stuff on the stage of a play. It’s copyrighted, or something and you can’t take pictures. I also know not to use flash and not to videotape the performance…..I KNOW DA RULES! I thought I was following them.
Ten minutes later a security guard comes over and asks me if I have a professional camera. I explain that I don’t think it is, but that I have put it away. She tells me that if the camera has lenses that come off, it’s considered a professional. Well, I do have lenses that come off and on so apparently I am busted. She was super nice about it, told me that some bands are really strict about it, but that Owl City really isn’t. She said if i got through security, then I should be fine to use it. However, I decided to avoid further hassle and just not bother with it. Didn’t bug me at all.
Who knew one little camera could cause so much trouble?
The nice security lady also told me I might want to take advantage of the ear plugs the ushers have for guests. That little tidbit of info will come on handy later in this post.
LIGHTS was the opening band for Owl City. It was a 20-something girl from Canada that played similar music to Owl City. It was just her, a drummer, and a keyboard player otherwise she played all her own instruments. She writes all her own music and I thought she was really good!
Check her out here.
Then is was OWL CITY! My impressions:
Overall it was a great time. Both kids needed ear plugs to make it through the performance, but both said they liked it. They both really liked it when it was a song they knew….which is typical.
For $18 it was well worth our time on a Saturday afternoon. We stopped at the Cheesecake factory on the way home and topped off the day with a yummy supper!
Between getting up early to work the race (and not sleeping well due to a glitch in supplies that I worried about all night), working the race in the WINDY and cold conditions, the concert, and the drive home…..I was beat! I told Mike I could have gone to bed at 6. Poor Mike had to get up at 5:30 to get the kids registered for Sunday school this morning (this is where the biting of the tongue begins……who has to get up at 5:30 to sign kids up for Sunday school?).
Hope you had a great weekend.
LB
