Flower Fantasies

Chicka has been busy coloring flowers - all the extras are from her artistic talents!

James and the Giant Peach

Zabi, Polly-Mops, Chicka and JiJi wait patiently for the show to being.  Funny - 3 of the girls are using the adaptive device that verbally narrates what is happening on the stage - descriptive narration, I think it is called.  The 3 sighted girls loved it - the one with no sight - no thanks!  What a goof!

They all loved the production and met with the characters after the show.

Snigarette

Chicka told me today that she doesn't like snigarettes. Me either, sweet-pea!

Da'Feet

mom "Did you take some new shower gel into the shower with you this morning?"

jiji "no, I forgot."

mom "that kind of defeats the purpose of showering - you need to use soap."

jiji "but mom, my feet are clean!"

How can one argue with that?????

It also just struck me how, as a mom, you are so very aware of every little body part of your child.  It is so easy for me to see each child from just a photo of their feet.

Lord, today I pray over each of my children, their heads, their hands, their feet.  What everyone can see from the outside and more importantly, their hearts and souls.  May YOU be their guiding light forever.

The Earth Lapbook - Adapted

Textures! Miss JiJi is cutting out her hemispheres, and glued them into her lapbook. The textures on the globe made it easier for her to follow the form to cut.

Creative? Knot!

"I'm tying knots, mom." Gee, thanks, sweetie - now who is going to Untie the beautiful knots???

THANK you to all who have contributed towards the purchase of JiJi's Smart Brailler - those of you we know and those of you whom we do not know. We are now just over 1/3 of the way to be able to purchase it! You have been SO very generous - THANK YOU!

Garden Lovlieness

Worked a short shift last night - back home before midnight - yeah!

Thought you might enjoy a peek at what we brought in from our teeny tiny garden the other day. I am so tired of having deer, dog, rabbits, goats, chickens and whatever else two or four legged creature happens to wander into MY space take their pick of what they want . . . . What I am trying to say is that I would LOVE to have a fenced garden. You know - the kind that requires going through a gate to enter the space?

Nonetheless, we did manage to get a few things - we even ate corn from our garden this year!

Hope your summer is winding down perfectly for you.

A Great Big THANK YOU!

THANK YOU for all the votes and participating in the event for the Smart Brailler - that was a l.o.n.g. time to keep remembering to vote!

O.K.  sigh.

Miss JiJi did NOT win the Smart Brailler contest, but Miss Abby did!  Congratulations, darlin'!  It was an exciting day yesterday to watch the percentages fluctuate and wonder which of the top two contestants was actually going to win - way to go Abby!

Now for the super cool news.  Perkins has offered to each of the other five families the option to purchase a Smart Brailler from them with a $500 discount.  Nice discount, for certain.  It gets better.  

Remember the movie Pay it Forward?  Well, we have something like that going on right now!  One of the five remaining kiddos, I believe, has already raised enough funds to purchase his smart brailler.  Another kiddo is already halfway there.  To my knowledge each of the families, including the winner, has pledged to donate any extra funds from their fundraisers back into helping the other children from the event purchase their own Smart Brailler!  Pretty awesome, 'eh?

You can always keep clicking on the image of Marty on the sidebar to be directed to the wonderbaby site, which has all the updated information on what is happening, and to whom.

Here is our fundraiser link - 

http://www.razoo.com/br/causes/Adelyn-And-Her-Journey-To-Mr-Marty-1/edit

And here are two of the other fundraiser links - please visit them!

http://www.gofundme.com/48s9vk 

http://www.razoo.com/br/causes/A-Glimpse-Beyond-Sight-Alden-Porter-1


Thanks, once again - you guys are rock-stars!

Braille

Congratulations to Miss Abby Duffy - she won the Perkins Smart Brailler! It was a fun event and I'm sure she is going to get many years of good use out of her new braille writer!

Mis JiJi just called me over to her school table - "look Mom - there is a k a on my arm!" Kind of gross, I guess, but she was right - her arm scabs say k a! What a dork!

Last Day to Vote and Last River Day

All good things must come to an end. Such as it is with both voting and warm weather for river playing.

Voting continues until midnight tonight (eastern time). Please help us out!

Let's Play Doctor

Ha - how can you get more innocent than this? I wondered what they were up to when I heard - "let's play doctor!!!!".

 Hmmmmm - of course - the doctor's office!

 Zabi (in blue) is the doctor noting the color of eye prosthetics Miss JiJi is choosing to order. Chicka (purple butterfly) is the assistant preparing the different color choices.

Then Miss Zabi is outlining her options in the second photo.

Cookin' up some Cajeta

And we bring you yet another goat product (as Chicka would say)!

Cajeta - goat milk, sugar and vanilla - all boiled down to a delicious sweet caramel. Dip some apples in it, drizzle it over ice cream. YUMMY! We also just made a Cinnamon Honey batch of cream cheese. The girls just sampled it on our whole wheat sourdough artisan bread that just came out of the oven. Yes, it is a hit around here!

Although we are at the bottom of the heap as far as voting goes - there is just one day left to vote. Won't you please take the time to head over to cast yours? Just click on the image of Marty on the right sidebar and you will be directed to the voting poll.

Thanks!

2 Dead Chickens

DARN the dog!! Went and chased/killed two of our chicklets. Of course if the durned chickens would stay in their pen, that would alleviate most of the problems.

I hope you don't find this in poor taste, but what better way to really get to explore and learn about a bird? It was a fresh kill and she did wash her hands very well when she was done. All the girls wanted to hold it and say a little prayer for it.

It kind of looks yucky - there was no blood. Just alot of missing feathers :-(

And Yet Another One is "Born"

Miss JiJi was able to see "the birth" of this little chick, from the first peep hole, a bigger one, a crack, and she got to see it come out of the egg!

Can I tell you that our sweetie (well, all of them, as a matter of fact - bio and adopted) adds so much richness to our lives?  If you ever have any questions about blindness, please don't hesitate to ask!  Of course, each child comes with their own personalities and quirks, but blindness as a special need?  SOOOOO easy!  SOOOOOOO not an issue!  We love to see things in a new light through our daughter's lack of sight!

And yes, she washed her hands well with soap afterwards!

Now, go vote.  Thank you!

Don't forget to KEEP voting! Each IP address (I actually first wrote IEP - you know what I am thinking about!) is allowed one vote every 24 hours.