3rd week of December 2015

Here's the "smile" I frequently get when taking a picture...

I caught him picking his nose while his class was in the library reading books.  :)  whoops

The kids love ringing the door bell to get daddy to come to the door

She LOVES these animated animals and plays with them all the time.  She pushes all the buttons and keeps them going at the same time.  (Even up until last year, Maxwell was afraid of some of them...not this brave little girl.  She is certainly more bold than her timid brother.)

Dog piling on momma

My kids love watching Frosty the Snowman

Playing at the park

Some of the cute notes that Maxwell is demanding get put up on the fridge.

Notes with some pumpkins

Not my birthday, but still a fun note

Playing with Landen

Max's progress at swimming lessons is going well.  He is doing so well at swimming.

His coach, Coach Katie, thinks wants to move him up to level 7 with the 6 and 7 year olds.  In level 7 he will learn the butterfly stroke and swim the whole length of the pool and lots more!  They won't move him up though so she is going to start having him swim whole length sometimes anyway. 

Landen and Emmalyn

All dressed up for the holiday party at school

They did a book exchange (it went much better this year!)

The "feast"

The ladies in our neighborhood had our first annual ornament exchange.  These girls can get crazy but I'm grateful to live in a neighborhood where there is a large group of friendship.

Max is having fun going to soccer skills class each week.  This was my first time getting to watch him because usually Peter takes him because I'm with Emmalyn in Kindermusik.  It was fun seeing him do more things and improving his skills.  It was hard a little to watch though because the coach is hard on the kids.  He yelled a ton, sometimes acted out of spite (like BOOTING a kid's ball across the field because they weren't doing what they should have been).  He may have been an awesome coach for 17 year olds but for 3 and 4 year olds?  Not so much.  

At one point Maxwell came crying over to me and I had to pep talk him back into it.  Peter never shared how tough the coach was.  It was cause for me to ponder how I felt about the situation.  I don't want people to baby my child but I also don't think I should just stand by and not say something when it appeared that someone wasn't equipped to be leading children.

Max's alphabet 

Writing his numbers until he ran out of room

Maxwell and a snowman

I didn't put out all the Christmas decorations this year, just most of them.  I also have started a new trend of putting holiday pictures on canvas and using those as decorations.  I want to keep doing that each year rather than buy new stuff.

Playing around outside

playing puppy dog

Emmalyn loves the German Shepard Raider that lives across the street.  She always wants to go over and say hello.

We were "elf'd" by one of our neighbors

Homemade popcorn with dad

Maxwell and I went out on a "date" to a Japanese restaurant and he tried using chopsticks for the first time (he didn't like it very much)

It seems like Emmalyn has jumped into the "terrible two's" a little early.  She NEVER leaves her shoes and socks on in the car.  As soon as we are buckled in, off they come.  She cries or whines immediately when she doesn't get her way.  "Stop it" is her favorite thing to say. She hits and throw things when she's mad and overall has lots of attitude right now!

Third week of November - School pictures and all kinds of testing

Maxwell playing soccer with Jason (note the gloves on Max's hands..he was playing goalie)

I did some REAL labor in the front yard flower beds taking some plants out.  I had to work hard with a big shovel to get these stinkers out.  

After - -all cleaned up for the winter.  I can't wait for spring when it will be colorful again.

Rocking her pebbles ponytail

Her hair is really growing now

Emmalyn and her best friend, Landen on their way to pick up Maxwell from his classroom.

My handsome kid on picture day at school.

Cheeeeeese

His pictures turned out great - I thought they did a great job of capturing his authentic smile (which can be hard to do)!

What a mess! (Poor Britt had to give her a bath she was so messy)

Post bath play-dough fun

Happy Emmalyn

Pouty Emmalyn

Mad Emmalyn

Playing at the park

Maxwell brought his sunglasses with him to the park and his bag that he likes to wear at messenger bag style.  The kid loves to wear sunglasses.

This time was the first time I've seen Maxwell sit normal on the swing and try to pump his legs.  He doesn't have it down but it was fun to see him try.

There's that curl on her forehead - - -it shows up every once in a while.

Reading with Momma

I made an appointment for Maxwell to get a flu shot.  He was so excited last year that I thought he'd be happy about it but he wasn't.  He cried - - with tears.  :(  I think the memories of the 4 shots he had to get in August probably are a little fresh.

It was a busy week for Maxwell at school...

First - Maxwell is now a "non-napper".  That means after lunch when all the 3 and 4 year olds have to go take a nap, Maxwell doesn't have to.  He hasn't been actually going to sleep for a little while now but the rule was that a child had to stay a non-napper until they were 4 1/2 (which he won't be until February).  The school made an exception for Maxwell since he wasn't sleeping anyway and it's not like his behavior went down when he didn't get the nap.  He was OVER the moon when his teacher told him he could be a non-napper.  He's wanted to be one for a while now.

Max also took a vision and hearing test at school.  The state says all kids have to be tested the year before they go into Kindergarten.  So, he passed the hearing test but the results from the vision test say that he needs to follow up with a visit to an ophthalmologist.  The paper they sent home said that the results were inconclusive.  So he didn't pass but he didn't fail either.  My thought is that maybe he was joking around or not behaving well when they were trying to test him so they couldn't say conclusively that his eyesight is okay.  So, I will take him to a doctor but I imagine it will be a waste and they will just say that his eyes are fine.

When they did the testing, we also had Maxwell go through an Intelligence Test.  I've always thought he's pretty smart but wondered if that was just my perception as a doting parent and that he was just a typical boy.

I'm including the results in my blog not because I want to brag on him but for journaling purposes, I'd like to come back and review results.  Who knows how buried that email will be in 5 years, etc.

He took what is called the Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT).  So his SIT IQ level is between 131-153.  It wasn't an exact number, but a range.  Anything above a 128 puts him at a 96% level compared to kids his same age.  That's as high as the levels go.  The description of his ability is "very high".  Maxwell was 4 years and 2 months old when he took the test and the results of the test showed him at a mental age of 6 years and 6 months.

The test analyzed performance in mental age (so comparing him to a 6 year 6 month aged child) strengths and weaknesses and listed him as having a mild strength in vocabulary and a mild weakness in similarities/differences.

They also analyzed his chronological age strengths and weaknesses and listed him as having a moderate strength in vocabulary, a mild strength in information and no significant weaknesses.

Vocabulary is defined as: "This involves word knowledge, expressive language, and verbal fluency.  It relies on memory, language development, and the storage of information. A word may be presented as FORK for a younger child and DEMOCRACY for an older child.  Both would need to define and describe them.
Information is defined as: "This is general knowledge which is gained from long term memory and educational experiences.  Questions may include names of body parts, objects, dates, historical/geographic facts, and other information gained from general understanding.  For example, a  young child may be asked to point to a shoulder, and an older child may be asked who George Washington was.

It was interesting to read the results and see what they observed in Maxwell.  I would have been really interested to see how they delivered the screening and came to the results.