A little field trip and homeschooling

Friday after school I took the kids to the duck pond park to feed the ducks and play on the playground.  We had so much rain during the week that it was time to get out and run!  The kids loved feeding the ducks, even though Hunter was upset that his bread was going to "sink." 

I told Hunter and Paige to head to the park, and they followed the path, running ahead together.  I have never allowed Hunter to run without me next to him at the park, for fear he would run too far towards the street, or go through the ravine that surrounds the park.  He has done such a fabulous job lately with direction following that I figured he could do it- and he did.  He waited when I shouted to stop at the ravine.  He walked on the sidewalk around the entrance of the park when I asked him to.  So many directions, and every step met with compliance.

The kids played at the park for awhile; they played chase, they pretended to be trolls on the bridge, and actually posed for pictures for me.  I have never seen Hunter so agile on playground equipment before.  He climbed every ladder, went across the monkey bars with a little assistance, and climbed the rock walls. Here's a few of the cute pictures.

The rest of the weekend I set to accomplish a few personal goals as far as intervention and enrichment, for all the kids.  Hunter and I worked Sunday morning on his ABA goals.  He read a book to me- so impressed with his literacy skills! Blogspot has changed their format, and you have to upload pictures to a website as well as videos to youtube.  Haven't figured out the videos portion yet to keep them private, so wish I could share the reading . Here are a couple pictures of his self-portrait.

He first drew a sad face on his person, because he had "lost his pet."  He changed it to a smiley face, and told me that he could stay naked because he was about to take a bath.  :)

Made a gluten free frosting-in-the-mix cake this weekend.  We used to make these in college, with a cake mix and a can of frosting.  SO healthy, right???  I used a gluten free vanilla cake mix, made homemade vanilla frosting, and mixed the two.  I used a bundt pan, and dusted the top with powdered sugar.  It actually tasted great!  Hunter loved it- I THINK he had two slices, but it disappeared pretty quickly.

We also have been doing green smoothies regularly as preventative health measures.. and I finally got Peyton to drink them.  All it took was a big boy cup with a straw. 

Daily serving of kale, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, and bananas.  Plus the powerful pack of probiotics in yogurt...

Maybe we can convince Hunter to drink it now.  Ha!