Dear Rachel, Congratulations today you start your junior year of high school! I know you are so excited and your daddy and I are excited for you. It is really hard to believe you are a high school junior. I […]
Soaring: Rachel’s Junior Year
Category: Down syndrome
Back to School: Communications 101
Yesterday, I said I would run a few older blogs that I hope will be helpful. Home-school communication is one of the top issues for families. I hope this helps. Communication 101 for Educators (Reprinted from April 2014) If you […]
Start Up Tips for School
Social media and my email are both filled with questions and concerns about the start of the school year. Whether you have a child with Down syndrome or another “special” diagnosis or not, the new school year brings concerns, nervousness, […]
To Blog or Not to Blog
I started my blog a little more than five years ago. I was under a different blog host and my firs blog was “Great Women of My Life.” Jonathan had been encouraging me to blog for a good while. I’ve […]
Faith Inclusion: Rachel “Unashamed”
Church and faith are important to our family. Rachel was about two weeks old when she first went to church with us, and she showed up in the nursery at six weeks. Her first real babysitters were people from our […]
4th of July Treat by Rachel and Jawanda
Happy Independence Day! Rachel and I have a tradition of making some kind of Fourth of July dessert every year. We usually make a flag cake but we have made a flag cookie and cupcakes. This year I wanted to […]
17 Years with Rachel!
Dear Rachel, Today is your 17th birthday. Happy, happy birthday my sweet, precious girl. Seventeen years ago today it was very hot in Memphis, Tennessee. We weren’t expecting you for a few weeks. In fact, we had scheduled your arrival […]
Little Pink Houses and “the Hill”
I grew up on Joy Mountain. Joy Mountain is between Searcy and Rose Bud in White County, Arkansas. When I go home, I often say I’m going to the Hill! So I did return to the Hill but maybe not […]
Community Inclusion, School Success
We moved to Kansas eight years ago. Rachel was entering third grade. Of course I had concerns about school, church, services and community inclusion. We were fairly well-connected in the Memphis community and the unknown is usually a bit unsettling. […]
Rachel’s All-Star Teachers
This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to those who teach and specifically to the teachers who teach or who have taught Rachel. That includes the support personnel like paraprofessionals, speech, occupational […]