Last Call for Shutterfly Holiday Cards!!

When I saw Shutterfly's Holiday Card promotion giving bloggers 50 free holiday cards I signed up right away. And that was as far as things got until this morning. I had Christmas ensembles laid out for each of us to wear and Goldie's Christmas party. Then Children's Hour was cancelled and that gave me the time I needed. Imagine my surprise when I logged into Shutterfly and saw that this promotion ends TONIGHT at midnight! Do I have good luck or what?

I have been a customer of Shutterfly for 8 years. I love their photobooks (Goldie really loves them), cards and invitations. I enjoy being able to pick and choose what I want online and not have to stand in the middle of store with 4 kids running circles around me. If I'm lucky. Sometimes, they just take off in straight line.

Here is our Christmas card from 2008:

Plaid Christmas

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Here is a holiday card/birth announcement from last year. I just couldn't send out cards until all my children were here!

Family Snowfall Teal Christmas

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I've been browsing this year's Christmas cards and here is what I'm looking at so far:

Sharing the Love or Our Shining Stars

Homeschooler with Down Syndrome Signing "It's About the Cross"

This video is from a mom on my "local" homeschoolers with special needs email list. She is graciously letting me share her beautiful daughter Abigail signing "It's About the Cross" by The Ball Brothers.

Sometimes it is hard for me to imagine Goldie's future, both near and distant, because there are so many possibilities on a path that is always changing. Just when I was lamenting over Goldie's lack of fine motor skills in relation to her signing, this popped up on my screen. Watching Abigail reminded me to just be patient and that there are bigger things than how well my daughter can sign.

Homeschool Preschool - Color Sorting

Goldie has been keeping me very busy this fall doing all kinds of preschooly things. (I've been heating my kitchen with my laminator!)  Goldie's latest achievement is sorting by color.  Sorting is an important part of an early math curriculum. We started working on this around her second birthday at the urging of her vision therapist. I didn't think she was ready for actual sorting so I focused more on just learning colors. Once Goldie was able to sign her colors (thank-you Signing Time) I was able to know how well she could identify and label her colors.

First I tried having her sort with Busy Bugs. But, she was so distracted by all the different types of bugs that she didn't care what color they were. Spider, caterpillar, fly, etc...

Then I had a lightbulb moment when Swatcho left her Sorry! game on the kitchen table.

Sure enough, without the distracting bugs, Goldie was able to sort the red from the blue and place them on the correct squares. Another important math concept is one to one correspondence.

After this, I gave Goldie red, yellow, and blue buckets with a pile of colored cubes.  She shocked me by immediately sorting them out. I had to run and get green and white bowls. If more than one color was stuck together she would pull them apart and place each cube in its correct container.

Moments like these just blow me away. I find myself thinking back to when Goldie was born and being told she had Down syndrome and then at a year old when I was told she was legally blind. I wondered then if these days would ever come. Now, I see her love of learning and how she wakes up one day and just does something she's never done, but acts like she's always known how to do it. And my heart overflows.