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Canyon is going to be playing basketball :) It's a special league for kids with disabilities. We missed it last year. I found out about it at their last game. It's just for the month of October. Thru Upward Basketball at the Baptist church, it's called Shooting For Success. He gets his team shirt and pictures done on Thursday. At sign ups we saw so many familiar faces from A Field Of Angels baseball. I'm so glad these activities are available for him.

5th grade

Canyon names the planet in order starting with the sun.

Like the class I work with, Canyon does not take the Benchmark tests in the Spring. Instead little samples of work are compiled together in a 'portfolio' of all the standards for the grade level and sent to the state for grading. It takes for every student having a 'portfolio' put together, about 5 months of work. One of the many things 5th graders study are the planets. One of the tasks with the planets are putting them in the correct order. Canyon has brought home several worksheets about this activity and today he just blurted out the planets. I couldn't believe that he repeated them in perfect order about 10 times. I'm guessing that they are not learning Pluto as a planet tho because he left it off each time. It's a shame that useful things and life skills can't be used or taught for the portfolio tho. It would be so great to show he has mastered money or telling time. Instead he will have to show he knows the difference between an acute and obtuse angle, fractions, parts of a plant...things nice to know, but not necessary for everyday living.

And she wants me to go next??!!!......

This past weekend I was Mila's moral support. She had a tattoo on her ankle for the last 20 years she was not happy with. She finally went to get it fixed.

With stress ball in hand, she endures the outlining.

She said the coloring in was not nearly as bad.

The end result...

It was a rose (not colored in ) and a word under it. She had the word covered with the rose stem and leaves and added angel wings for sentimental reasons. You can't even see that a word was ever there!

Sahara's Party

click on picture for closer view


YAY! It rained the morning and afternoon of the party, but pretty much left 5-10:30 open and free of rain. Perfect for Sahara's party.
We had 8 boys and 10 girls show up which was a pretty good turn out considering the weather.

They first played football (mostly the boys) and then we tried to get them to play race games. They were too 'immature' for that really and I got the games on video, but they didn't play well. So we ended that and went for the roasting of the wieners. I ended up with so much left over that we will be roasting again today for lunch.

After the hotdogs they did s'mores, listened to music, and played hide and seek in the dark.

It started raining at about 10:30 and why do we still have so many kids here past 10???... because I invited any girl who wanted and could stay the night to do so. Mila took what ever boy could stay to her house. She ended up with 3 plus Zach. I had 8 girls. You should have seen the livingroom. I put Saharas trundle mattress and Canyon's 2 mattresses on the floor and 7 girls slept there all in a row. They looked like the kids on the Grinch all in the bed together. One took the couch.

Before all that, Sahara opened her gifts. She got a lot of $$$, earrings, a belt, a bear, and a couple of shirts.

The loot!

7 girls in a row

It was a pretty good time and we all went to breakfast at Mila's with the boys at 9:30. I took 2 cartons of scrambled eggs, paper plates, plastic forks, and 2 pitchers of koolaid. Mila made biscuits and sausage.

I have lost a few now at noon, but the rest are staying thru lunch to roast the leftover hotdogs. 4 packages. I have to use them because the buns will go stale in a few days.

Sahara's b-day

Seems like everyday since her b-day has been her b-day. Money and gifts just keep trickling in. Here she is with her b-day money so far ($125 I think)

~ thank you Aunt Kristy, Aunt Paula, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Mel and Uncle Brian

A phone from dad with a full keyboard which is so important when you have to make 50-150 texts a day.

Nana got her a fairy door and window in the perfect color blue.

Her party isn't till Saturday (weatherman is predicting rain) OF COURSE!

Flu Shots

The Arkansas Dept of Health is offering free flu shots to all kids and school employees this year. We do have cases of N1H1 at both the kids schools and my school all ready this year. We are requested not to use or let the kids use the water fountains and the desks and tables are disinfected nightly. Now, my kids (as far as I can remember) have never had the flu and I haven't had it since Sahara was 3 months old. Nor have any of us ever had the flu shot. I'm torn whether or not to go ahead and get the shots for us with the chance of getting the flu from the shots or just taking the chance on getting the flu. Hmmmmmmmmmmm......