Vacation

This week I took a much needed vacation from just about everything. Evie has had way too much going on, to the point where she was wired and overstimulated. We both needed a break, so I took the week off from homeschooling. I am very seriously considering year round homeschooling. I looked at this one woman's schedule online, and she takes a 2 week break after every 8 weeks of homeschooling, and then she takes 2 weeks off for Christmas and 1 week off for spring break. She takes a month off in the summer. I modified the schedule, just playing around to see what I could come up with. I have gotten burned out easily with homeschooling because of the sensory issues Evie has. I came up with a schedule where I took a week break after every 4 weeks of homeschooling (instead of the 2 weeks after 8 weeks that the woman that I read about did). To me, 1 week is a good vacation! Besides the week off after every 4 weeks of homeschooling, I figured in 2 weeks off for Christmas, and a month off in summer. It worked out to be 180 homeschool days, which is what is required. This way I am not constantly looking forward to summer. I get a nice break in summer, but not so much that I lose motivation. We are going to try it and see how it works. I really like the flexibility of homeschooling.

I am finding that I need to do more to meet Evie's sensory needs. Evie was diagnosed as what is called a "sensory seeker". She craves sensory input, and her sensory nervous system is basically screaming at her all day long for more input. It has been a really challenging past few weeks for us. Some ways to help with the sensory issues is to let her squeeze special squeezy balls, hit punching bags, swing in special swings, play tug of war, and do therapeutic horseback riding. I am thinking I need to invest in an indoor swing, and a punching bags. The squeezy balls are a challenge. She usually pops them really quick. We bought one once at a store, and she popped it in line after we paid for it! I took a picture of Evie at her therapeutic riding class a few weeks ago. I wish my camera took better pictures in the arena, but the lighting there is really crazy. She really enjoys horseback riding, and it is really calming for her.














Last weekend we got to meet our new addition to our family. We got to meet our new baby cousin, who was adopted from China. She is about 10 months old, and is soooo precious!




















Evie got to hold her, and she just relaxed in Evie's arms. It was so sweet. She is blowing bubbles in this picture :). I got to hold her twice, even though there were about 50 people there. I wish I could have held her even longer! She is such a precious baby girl!