I told you!

Sometimes in life is stinks when you have to act like an adult. Especially when you really, really want to act like a child! The kindergarten teacher said today that Paige's reading is, "out of my league!" She is a very experienced teacher who is retiring this year. Apparently when the reading specialist first had Paige read to her the other person in the room emailed Paige's teacher saying, "Oh-my-goodness! Have you heard this kid read?" Um, yeah! She is well into first grade level math also. Sooooo they are arranging for testing asap to determine if she would be better off in first grade. Criminy people - I TOLD YOU!!!

I have followed the stories of many of these children from birth and all of them for many years now. I sat and sobbed over the deaths of each of the "angels" shown in this video. Though we've never met, this connection through the internet has brought us together. I follow Tripp and Jonah's blogs especially close and encourage you to check them out. (The links are on the right).

This week is EB awareness week:

Be Part of the Cure

Happy, Happy Birthday, Trace!!!

Trace requested a football cake and I was quite impressed with the way it turned out. I ran out of brown food coloring so it's a bit more tan than I wanted but close enough! This was also the first time I ever added whipped cream to homemade frosting and boy did that make it wonderful!
Opening his gift from the grandparents - a LEGO set. Aunt Chris gave him $25 on a Target card. Rick and I decided a long time ago to get him his own laptop for his 13th birthday. So in early September we went shopping for the one we had decided we wanted only to find it had been discontinued. A week later we were able to buy the floor model - but the keyboard was broken. So off we went to another store that had the only other floor model. THAT one had blown speakers apparently. It was sent in for repair and came back a week later UNrepaired! So back it went and after three weeks we still didn't have it back. After spending all weekend on the phone with managers we were finally informed on Monday that the computer was being junked and our money refunded. Trace's birthday was on Wednesday! Talk about a stressful couple of days! In the end we found a new computer, wrapped it up and set up a scavenger hunt for him to find it. After a lot of laughs over the clues he finally found it. It was a great surprise and he loved it!
For his birthday dinner I made him steak (which he'd been begging for for weeks) and baked beans (which he loves) with salad and parmasean noodles. It tasted great!

So another year has passed and technically we have a teenager in the house now. I'm glad that Trace isn't in a hurry to grow up. No girlfriends, no loud music and no gangs of kids hanging around all the time! It will come - Caden will be 13 in only 3 more years! Until then, I'm going to just enjoy the kid that he is and take each day as it comes!

Football is our life right now!

Trace is really doing great in football this year! His team is one point (literally) from being undefeated! Trace was asked to fill in for center when the regular one broke his hand - when the regular guy returned they had a contest and Trace beat him out to keep the position! Apparently the other boy has played for three years too! I wouldn't say that Trace is an all-American football star, but he is eager to learn, asks lots of questions and works really hard to follow instructions - his coaches love him! The picture above is pretty typical of most games where the other team doubles up on him and he holds his own!
Practice in the mud! Somehow this night it rained at Caden's practice but not at Trace's 5 miles away!
Carson was excited to try on his big cousin Caden's football gear! A little future CCYF player I think!

The Pumpkin Patch

For the second year our (totally awesome) friend gave us each a ticket to get into the local pumpkin patch. At $8/person x 5 we really couldn't justify it on our budget so we were extremely grateful! We went early this year and managed to avoid both the mobs and the rain. Rick's parents as well as his sister and her family all met us there for a fun morning.
The great pumpkin launch! No one got it in the bucket, maybe next year.
The whole crew!

Kindergarten days

Paige is loving school this year! I suspect that most kindergartners do though. Her teacher has been great and makes a real effort to keep her challenged. Just today the teacher told me that they are still in the process of testing her reading level. At this point she has cleared first grade and still going strong! I’m anxious to see how close she is to my guess of 3rd grade. Yesterday I gave the teacher her homeschool math book to work with at school (now that’s a pretty receptive teacher!). We’ll find out on Halloween at our conference what the recommendation is as far as testing her to be moved to first grade. The teacher told me the other day that a lot of parents talk about how smart their kids are, “but this one… this one should definitely…” I believe she meant Paige should be tested for first grade, or maybe moved, I’m not sure. Fun, fun, fun!