What DID we do for World Down Syndrome Day?

Well... on the actual DAY, we all wore our Buddy Walk shirts but otherwise didn't do anything very exciting.  Mike and I got my parents to come over mid-afternoon and then we went to Orlando for some time by ourselves.  Not exactly a celebration for the kids LOL.

BUT... On Tuesday we celebrated a little more 'outwardly' :)  I actually washed all the kids' shirts between Sat and Tuesday (this is sometimes a GREAT accomplishment!) and they wore them to their Tuesday classes.  Brianna and Micah are both part of Kids' Adventure Days (aka Mom's Morning Out) at our church.  Their classes consist of 8-12 typical students plus them.  Their teachers haven't had experience with kids with Ds necessarily, but took them in with open arms and have asked questions and been very encouraging and helpful to both of the kids.

We decided to take WDSD as an opportunity to say THANKS to those people that aren't "used to" working with people with Ds but have openly accepted our children.  I found some M&M Premiums that had Triple Chocolate (milk, dark, and white- a trisomy of chocolate :) ) and I super-glued (literally LOL- this is what I was doing while we were in the end of the Ukraine chat on Monday night! LOL) the Blue and Yellow ribbons on each box.  We sent in a thank you note along with it to the classroom teachers.  We also found a mixed bag of Kit-Kat bars with the triple chocolate as well.  I made up a basket with blue and yellow crinkled shredded paper in the bottom and 21 chocolates of 3 varieties along with a note of thanks for the rest of the nursery staff.  They now have all 4 of our kids on the weekends and have been great about allowing them to participate at their age-level or where it may be more appropriate- Emma stays in Micah's age-group on weekends with the 0-2 yr olds.  She's stayed 3-4 times now and not had any difficulties.

And one more group we wanted to thank was the church leadership.  Mike happened to need me to bring him a few dollars and was in a staff breakfast, so while I was there I also delivered a thank you note to our pastor along with one of each of the little Kit-Kat bars wrapped in blue and yellow ribbon.

Lastly, I wrote up a quick 1/2 sheet of paper that had 4 paragraphs.  One about what Ds is.  One about the specific child that is in the class (This part is different for M's and B's classes), one about WDSD and our family celebrating our kids, and one with a quick invitation to ask questions and a link to a website of info.  Then we signed it from the family and printed a small photo of our family on the bottom.

I printed enough for each student and got permission to send them home with each child in Micah and Brianna's class.  I know that parents probably know there's a child in their class with Ds, but they may or may not know what Ds is or anything about our kiddos.  It's almost the end of the year, but this is a nice "non-pushy" way to celebrate our kids and take the opportunity to educate and raise awareness at the same time :) 

When we told about the child I focused on how being in a class with same-age peers was helpful to the child. 

So... the photo at the top is the three kiddos before they left for school on Tuesday.  Kristopher already had left for school with Mike.