Animal Food

Again this summer I am keeping grandchildren, Connor, 5, and Chase, 10 as well as their sister Kennedy, 10 months while their mother is at work.  Yesterday after Connor's speech lessons at the Masonic building on Cotton, we went to the feed store on N. Market.  Dottie Belle and Gypsy needed some alfalfa. I read one should always have alfalfa for goats to nibble on so they will not get nervous and over eat on plants.  They were also out of alfalfa the day Gypsy made her escape to the bank.  So I am being very careful to always have it hung right within their reach. Nothing worse than nervous goats.

As we entered the feed store, there were watermelons on the porch.  So I asked Connor did he wanted to get a watermelon.  I did not understand what his reply was, good reason he is in speech classes, but his expression was certainly one of disdain. He had to repeat it 2 more times before I understood.  He said, "Isn't it animal food?"  I said, "We've bought watermelons at the grocery store.  You love watermelon."  But he still had that disdainful look and said, "Isn't it animal food?"

"Well, you are an animal, Connor; a human animal." I replied. He let me know really fast that he was not an animal.  He never did get too excited about the watermelon I bought from the feed store.  I'm going to wait until Monday to cut it with them.  Maybe by then he will be over the fact that I bought it at the feed store where I buy animal food.

Chicken Review 6-26-2011

Mostly good news for the chicken

3 of the baby chicks

Cracker, the Sultan

coop.  About 2 weeks ago, I could not take the smell of the 4 little chicks in the house anymore. The crate would stink right after I cleaned it.  So I decided they would move into the coop where they were born with Little Ace, their surrogate mother and Cracker, the nanny hen.  That is what caused the bad news for this update.  Actually, chickens are not nice animals.

I've really never been partial to birds, but chickens are interesting and provide eggs, so I have pet chickens.  I put the 4 chicks in the hutch part of the coop and Little Ace and Cracker where down in the run.  I went into the house to remove the crate and when I returned the smallest chick had jumped down into the run with the grown hens.  But Little Ace did not recognize her baby chick.  In fact, she had beaten it up pretty badly.  The top and bottom parts of its beak no longer aligned and one eye was closed or gone.  I put it back up in the hutch and closed the door so they could not get down in the run with the hens and the hens could not get to them.  I really expected to find the youngest badly hurt chick dead the next morning.  But it has been 2 weeks and it is still the most energetic chick of them all.  After a couple of days of keeping the chicks and hens separated, I just moved Little Ace into the coop with the other grown chickens.  Cracker and the 4 chicks seem to get along quite well.  Three of the chicks have tripled their size.  The smallest one still has a misaligned beak and only one eye, but she is doing great.

One eye and crooked beak.

The 4 hens in the other coop definitely have their pecking order worked out.











Of course, Big Foot, the rooster is top chicken. Trinity and his family came over a couple of nights ago and we twisted off Big Foot's spurs that had turned into small knives.  It was rather interesting, but I forgot to video it.  Trinity grabbed Big Foot by his legs while he was asleep, held him upside down and simply twisted off the spurs with a pair of pliers.  The rooster was paralyzed upside down so he was no problem.

Omelet

Omelet, a Plymouth Barred Rock, is the #1 hen.  That means she decides where she is going to scratch and peck at the dirt and no other hen had better challenge her for that spot. She is the only hen I have left from the original 4 that I got from my sister, Lenora, in March of 2009.

Little Ace

Little Ace, a Copper Maran, is hen #2 in the pecking order.  I got Little Ace with the order of chicks that included Big Foot and Cracker in June 2010.  So only Omelet can challenge her for a pecking spot.

Dottie

Dottie, a  Silver Laced Wyandotte, is third in the pecking order.  She mostly stays away from Omelet and now Little Ace.  I was surprised that Little Ace was able to be second since she had not lived with the others for so long.  But maybe they understand seniority on the property.

Sunny

 




And Sunny, the green egg laying Ameraucana, has to keep her distance from all the other hens.  When I let them out of the coop to free range, she runs in the opposite direction of the others.  Usually, she goes to the Ligustrum hedge along the back fence.






Big Foot sometimes has to step in to maintain the peace between the hens.  When I let them all out, Big Foot will do a "Broken Wing Dance" around the hen that he is particularly interested in.  It is very strange looking, but he does it every time.

Chickens may not be nice to each other, but they offer an interesting study of basic animal interactions.     

Nasty Cigarette Kiss

The other night when I read all the comments made by our "Representatives" about why they did not vote to over ride Jindal's veto of the cigarette tax renewal, it made me double angry and sick.  I don't like politicians who don't vote their beliefs, but choose to compromise their integrity for political deals.  There was nothing good in Jindal's motives or those representatives'.
It might not be dead!! Read this.
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/06/cigarette_tax_renewal_may_surv.html

Also, I really can't stand cigarette smoke or taste.  So here's my bad high school cigarette experience.  First, when I was in ninth grade at Ouachita High School, they bused all the Freshmen to the Civic Center for this huge anti-smoking campaign.  I know there was a lot of scarey talk about addiction and cancer, but none of that really grabbed my attention.  It's really kind of silly what did.  Somewhere during all the talking, the statistic was given that a smoker's IQ is 5 points lower than the average none smoker's.  Though today, I would challenge that statement and want to see what research it was based on; that statement has stuck with me for 42 years.
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/23/us-smokers-smarter-idUSTRE61M3UQ20100223

http://www.webdoctoradvice.com/medical-news/smokers-have-lower-iq/

   I found the research!!

In tenth grade I was in the marching band.  The practice field was across campus from the band room. A group of us were sitting out of practice. It was probably the small group of us who had to carry a rock in our right hand so when band director yelled rock instead of right, we would not turn the wrong way and go crashing into the rest of the band; but that's another bad high school experience.

Anyway, the best looking guy came riding up in a car. Then he walked up to us and sat down and starting talking to me.  He was a couple of years older than I was, so that was a self-esteem boost.  He did this everyday that week. So on Friday, he offered to drive me around to the band room.  Wow!  I jumped right in the car.  I did notice that it didn't smell good.  But all I was thinking about was how cute he was. Then he asked could he kiss me.  So I said, "Sure."  I had never been French kissed. From that experience I would say it was like licking an ashtray.  I opened the car door and threw-up.    I later found out he had dropped out of school after his 11th grade year. He was just cruising the school looking for girls. So that just solidified my belief that smokers' have a lower IQ.
And I got a little smarter.

When I was teaching 4th grade, I always told a very modified version of that experience as my anti-smoking campaign.   I told them not to ever smoke, because when they grew up and wanted to kiss someone, if they had smoked, it would make that person throw-up.  I knew that was true because that was what happened to me.  It at least always got a very big YUCK from the 4th graders.
Whether it was a reaction to the mention of kissing or throwing-up; I believe it made a "smoking is bad" impression.

Some Stepfathers Really Step Up

I married Don Crawley in 1992.  I had 3 children then; Bridget was 17, Jacquie was 12, and Paxton was 7.  Don had one daughter, Piper, and she was 10.  Don and I dated for 2 years before we got married, so we thought we knew what we were getting into.  We took all 4 children on a 16 hour train ride to Chicago.  That was quite a test.  Actually, we almost decided that this blend might not work, so we broke up for a couple of weeks after that.  Everything actually went well on the trip and Don was very helpful with Paxton, who was only 5 then.  But of course it was obvious that all of us living together would be a lot of hard work.

Most second marriages with children do often end in divorce.  But Don and I decided that we would not fight over our children.  Each of us would do the best we could to treat them all equal and as parents we would stick together.  When things really get bad, I like to close my eyes and say, "This too shall pass."  It is true.  Often times the biggest mistake I make is trying to make something right instead of just staying calm and letting it work out.

Don and Piper                              Don and Chase                        

Don takes being a father as a huge responsibility. Being a teacher, I had to miss some for the children's school functions, but Don would go to their Halloween dress-up party and etc.  He saw that his daughter and my youngest 2 had what they needed to get through college.  Paxton and Jacquie got TOPS scholarships, but Don paid their room and board. When my children got married, Don split the "father's" cost with their father. 

Don really loves that Bridget and her family live just one house from us.  The grandchildren are a part of our everyday lives.  They don't have those "step" feelings.  He is their grampa and Bridget's dad is their papa.  It seems normal to them to have so many men in their lives that love them.

As a mother and his wife, I am so glad for all that Don has done for me and the four children.  Love you! Happy Father's Day everyday.

LA House Members Integrity Goes Up In Smoke

I was reminded of how offensive I find cigarettes today when I read the article in the Shreveport Times, "House doesn't override cigarette tax veto."   http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20110617/NEWS11/106170323/House-refuses-override-cigarette-tax-veto 
My mother smoked when she was a teenager, but when she married my dad, he made her stop.  He did not believe women should smoke.  He smoked a cigar sometimes, those are manly you know, but I don't think it was to the point of an addiction.

His title makes me laugh or cry?

But back to this newspaper article.  It contains two of my most disliked things; cigarettes that make everything stink, and even worse, politicians who prostitute themselves to win political favor and therefore stinking up our government.  Eleven House members switched after voting to renew a 4 cent sales tax on cigarettes in May, to voting against overriding Governor Jindal's veto.  Here are the reasons a couple of the representatives gave for voting against the override. Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro said, "It's different in an override than it is in a vote for a bill.  When I committed to work with the governor, this is part of it."   I bet when he was campaigning he promised to work for the people who elected him.  He is in a separate branch of government for a reason.  If not, then we just need a Governor. He said he agreed to support Jindal   "if 4 cents was worth that much for him.  It's not worth that much for me."  Something tells me this is about more that 4 cents.
Then Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette, said, she voted for renewing the tax because unlike Jindal, "I don't think it's a new tax."  Her stepmother died of lung cancer, so she wanted to do something that might prevent people from starting to smoke.  My question is, Why didn't they vote to increase the cigarette tax to 8 cents given our state's budget crisis.  So we are cutting funds to education and many other areas, but helping smokers buy cheaper cigarettes.  And Landry continued, "In the end, I didn't think it was something I wanted to challenge the governor over. It was important to him and I'm going to be working with him, hopefully, another four years.  I didn't think it was worth a challenge to him.  She said,  "there was no fear of retribution from Jindal if she didn't switch her vote."  But will there be a reward?
http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/Pundit-Jindals-push-to-nix-cigarette-tax-is-sign/aB7EJmYGgEmgcD7-6aFk4w.cspx

My Representative, Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, did not support Jindal on the issue.  "Because it doesn't make common sense.  I cannot support our governor, my governor this morning.  I'm really disheartened that we're put in this position.  If you put me in this position, I'm going to do what's right."  HALLELUJAH!!  I don't agree with Rep. Carmody on most of his education votes, but I have to give him credit when he shows such integrity.

Okay, I'm through quoting the quotes from the paper.


I had a bad experience with "who supports whom" right out of the political shoot.  I went to the local Democratic Committee to ask for financial support.  I was running for School Board against two Republican males.  I left empty handed.  That was okay. I take no well.   But then when the election was over and I was going through all the contributions given to other school board candidates; I noticed that one of the leaders in the Democratic Committee had given a Republican male in a different Caddo Parish School Board race a $1,000 contribution.  I was complaining about this to a rather politically savvy friend and he said to me, "Charlotte, if you want something, are you going to give your money to the Church Lady or the Prostitute?""  Enough said!  But I did say "DAMN!"

I'll write my nasty cigarettes and French kissing story tomorrow.  Enough mixing of vices tonight.

Summer Fun with Cousins

Ava loves it!  Kennedy doesn't.

Jennifer and Max.  Tafta and Ava.

Max and Kennedy

Bridget found a great place for birthday parties last year.  It's Kid City at Shreveport Community Center.  But even better is the free indoor playscape there.  It is large and suitable for children 2 to 12.  Last week in the hottest part of the day, I took Chase and Connor there to get them some playtime away from the television.  They climbed and played for several hours, while Kennedy and I sat in the attached Starbucks Cafe and had a Cafe Latte.  Kennedy didn't have the Latte, just me.

Max, Kennedy and Ava.  Oh no! Kennedy has lost her bow.

I told my niece, Tafta, about it and she told her cousin, Jennifer.  Tafta has 2 girls, Audrey and Ava and Jennifer has a son, Max.  So today, we all met there.  The kids had a great time playing together in a cool environment and the Grammy and Mothers enjoyed sitting in comfort drinking Starbucks treats of our choice.

Kennedy, being only 10 months old, is having some difficulty expressing her fondness for her cousin Ava.  The following is a video of Tafta explaining to Ava that "love hurts"; after Kennedy has a rather aggressive display of affection for her cousin.  I fear that as Ava becomes a young women, she may need therapy.

Connor takes time out from climbing for a photo shoot.

It it truly amazing that there is a place like this that is FREE.  Thank you Shreveport Community Church!

If a Fence Won't Hold Water, It Won't Hold a Goat.

My sister, Lenora, came to visit this past weekend.  She lives on 12 acres next door to where we grew up in Swartz.  She bought chickens first and gave me 4 of her first chicks.  Now I am encouraging her to get goats.  I particularly want her to get a male goat, so I can borrow it.  Anyway, she came to see my fence, goat house and the girls, Dottie Belle and Gypsy.  In her research she came across the adage, "If a fence won't hold water, it won't hold a goat."  Of course I laughed when she told me that. I'm very proud of my fences. There is a 6 ft. wooden fence on three sides and then the 4 ft. chain link that Don and I just put up. Well today I found out that my fence not only fails to hold water, but Gypsy and Dottie Belle as well.   
                                                                                                                                                                                     
It was about 3 pm this afternoon and Bridget was walking home with the baby.  I was watching them from the carport door.  I could hear some people in the shopping center beside my house laughing and really carrying on.  But that's not unusual, there's a nice restaurant with a bar and a patio right on the other side of my fence.  I often hear people sitting out there having good, loud conversations.  It did occur to me that somebody was having a great time.  Then a lady in a car stopped Bridget and asked her if she had a pet goat.  Bridget said, "My mom does.  She lives right there." And she pointed to my house.  Bridget was thinking the lady had heard about my goats and wanted to see them.  I get a lot of people dropping in to see the South Highland herd and flock. Then the lady, Mrs. Adams, said, "A white goat with some black on it and a pink harness is over at the bank."  I was still outside, so Bridget yelled at me, "Mom, one of your goats is at the bank."  I took off running as fast as I could.  It is a little ways to get to the bank though it is exactly behind my house. But I have to go out the gate in the fence beside Ristorante Giuseppe, run a few yards down Pillow Street between my yard and Giuseppe and the through Regions Bank parking lot.

I tell all of this so you will know that I had a few minutes to hear the conversations going on about Gypsy.  I was so focused and horrified that she got out, I forgot to ask the lady, who was restraining Gypsy with a leash made from a purse strap, her name.  But I recognized her from one of the guilds of which I'm a member, probably the Opera Guild.  One lady in a car was yelling at her, "The Times is on their way.  I bet they will put your picture with the goat on the Society Page."  She was having a great laugh at her friend standing just outside the bank's door with a little goat on a leash. Gypsy's savior replied, "When my husband (she said his name but I could not catch it in my frantic state) asks me what I did today, he is never going to believe this."


That's when I made it to her.  I didn't even introduce myself.  I get so focused on "the event"; I rarely think of anything else.  Just get the goat, find out how she got out and take her home and fix it.  The lady returned the purse strap to someone in the bank and came back and showed me the spot under the back fence where Gypsy had squeezed out.  While we were standing there looking and talking about it, Dottie Belle stuck her head from under the fence.  The lady said, "You take that one home and I'll keep this one from getting out."  Before she could finish the sentence and I could tell her that there is noway to stop a determined goat; out from under the fence popped Dottie Belle.  I hope I told her thanks, but  all I was thinking about was carrying 50 pounds of goats home.  I had not stopped to grab their leashes I keep right at the back door. I tried to carry a goat under each arm, like I had just a month ago, but ended up dragging them by their harnesses.  Hopefully, I have blocked their escape route.  I wasn't dressed to do a lot of work.  But I have some big chunks of broken concrete from Bridget's remodeling project that I was planning to use as fill for a water feature with a waterfall, (Just another project I have yet to convince dear Don to help me with.) so I placed them all along the back fence.  But the fence still won't hold water, so can I expect it to hold Gypsy, the ring leader, and Dottie Belle, the follower? I'm also glad I paid for a Lifetime Membership in the Guild, so hopefully they can't kick me out.



Gypsy and Dottie Belle love jumping on the chicken coops and cars.  We have to get their playground built.  That is why I have all that scrap lumber in a  pile there. Yes, another project for Don to help me with.  I could really keep him busy, if he would just cooperate a little more.

School Board Policies Must Follow State Law With Lay-Offs

I have heard from so many people that want to say  the problem with the lay-offs is that they were made according to seniority. That is mostly true, the first employees to go were the ones with unsatisfactory evaluations and then by seniority.  Hopefully, unsatisfactory employees were going to be fire anyway, but sometimes they are moved or given some more time.  But during times of lay-offs, they are fired. What employees and the public have failed to hear or understand is that the CPSB is following state law.  If the board used any type of evaluation other than unsatisfactory to determine who would be laid off, we would be breaking state law and then be flooded with rightful lawsuits.  The State Law says we must lay-off employees according to seniority.  Actually, that is the only objective measure.  It is not fair to the employee who goes beyond satisfactory, but with so many supervisors evaluating; measuring an employee's degree of quality is often in the eye of the beholder; therefore open for bias.
That is why any supervisor who does not evaluate an unsatisfactory employee as such, is hurting a lot of people, including those who do a GREAT job everyday.

Where I differ with the method used, is that we separated secretaries into categories:  Elementary schools, Middle Schools, High Schools, Central Office and Special Education.  Therefore, just for example, an elementary school secretary with 10 years of experience may have been laid off and a middle school secretary with 7 years got to stay, because they were put into different categories.  I am told our Board Attorney made that interpretation of the law.  It may be challenged, but I believe if he made it, he did it for the right reasons.

What I really want to accomplish is to trim the Central Office travel budget, Professional Development budget, district owned vehicles and take home cars, and lay-off the same percentage of secretaries in Central Office.  So far we have laid-off 7% of the secretaries in Central Office and 33% of them at our school sites.  Since only Central Office staff made suggestions for the cuts, I think an obvious bias determined those lay-offs.

Also, many of those secretaries were actually the schools' bookkeepers as well.  Keeping track of money really concerns me.  So yes, I want to reinstate the schools' secretaries/bookkeepers.

It is true we have to cut back on employees. Our student enrollment has dropped over the past 20 years, so we need fewer schools and fewer employees.   But why do we keep 3 non-rural high schools that have just 300 students in them when they should have 1000 students?  Everyone is holding on to their school, even if they send their children across town to another one.  Decisions should not be made about adults' history but instead the students' here and now and their future.  I have long been a proponent of closing or changing Green Oaks to a K-8 and closing Woodlawn.  These schools are making a loud sucking sound on the school district's budget.  I was hopeful that because Dr. Dawkins is an outsider, he would propose that, but he fell victim to politics and came up with a very regretful Vision 2020 proposal.  This causes such an imbalance in our classroom sizes.  The underpopulated schools have 10-18 students in a class and the overpopulated have typically have 5-8 students above our teacher/pupil ratio and some there's a Spanish classes with 44. 

The reason that I want to roll forward the property taxes is because I believe it is actually taxes that the voters have approved and owe.  Caddo's teachers ranked in the top 10 in teacher pay in the state 20 years ago.  We have dropped in our state ranking every year until now we are about 39th out of 69. You can see a correlation to the districts performance rankings and their teacher pay rankings.  In most cases, the top 10 in performance are also the top 10 in teacher pay. The parishes around us pay more. We are also way behind in putting Smart Boards and other technology in the schools.

To sum it up, first I want the right number of schools.  Then the budget to reflect a school site focus. And for parents, students and the taxpayers to believe that their money is spent to provide all students with access to a great school.  Our school personnel is doing their jobs. But they are having to do more with less every year. Taxes have not been this low since 1958. I don't believe that is a bad thing, but there is no other way to fund public schools than by taxes.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2011-05-05-tax-cut-record-low_n.htm

To Have a Town Hall Meeting or Not

Totally failed the Vision test.

 I have had several constituents suggest a town hall meeting.  My initial reaction was "NO", I've been in so many meetings about Vision 2020 and now the Budget that seem to be getting nowhere.







But what really gets me to thinking about it is that I have come up with several ideas that, yes, I do need to allow the public to have a chance to comment to me face to face.  But it is hard to think of giving up another evening. What if only the people who show up are the ones I communicate with almost daily through emails and such or yet worse, they don't even come?

I think I give our lawyer a headache.

The one idea that I support that seems to be the most

Protesting the cuts.

troubling to some, is rolling the property taxes forward.  I know of one example where the school board did that before I was on the board.  In 2007, Superintendent Tyler suggested that the board roll the property taxes forward, but we had a fund balance of about $30,000,000, therefore, I didn't think it was necessary. So I, along with the majority of the board, opposed it. Now that we are running a $20,000,000 deficit, have laid-off 300 employees and have increased the teacher/pupil ratio to who knows what limit, I think we should roll forward the property taxes and collect $6,000,000.  But only if we can use that money to reinstate SCHOOL SITE employees, teachers, secretaries/bookkeeper, office clerks music, band and art programs.  I totally understand the argument about spending money wisely.  There are many examples of money not used to the best ends. I have written about them in several posts.  Our current budget draft is full of foolishness.  Looks like the board will adopt the budget on June 21st.  I am hopeful it will not be the most current budget draft. Then the first week in July will make the decision on the property taxes.

How I don't want them to feel.

It is hard to agree to take more money out of people's personal budgets.  But this millage was approved by voters, we just don't always collect the total amount.  One person told me that is where the school board's first mistake was. He said the School Board should always roll forward the millage and collect the needed taxes and spent it on educating the students.  Those are the best spend taxes.  But when we go back and forth, the citizens get the feeling that we are putting a tax increase on them without their approval.

Here's what it will cost taxpayers:
For the owner of a house that qualifies for the state's $75,000 homestead exemption, that 4.61-mill increase would mean the owner of a $100,000 house pays $11.53 more per year in property taxes to the board; a $150,000 home, a $38.10 increase; a $250,000 home, $80.68; a $350,000 home, $126.78. The median price of a house in the Shreveport-Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area (Bossier, Caddo and DeSoto parishes) was $156,000 in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Senior citizens on fixed incomes can have their property assessments frozen, so they will not have an increase in their property taxes.  That is reasonable.

It's not like this isn't going to hit me hard personally.  Because I own 6 properties that will not get homestead exemption, my property tax increase is almost $300.  And it already hurts in December to write the current amount.  But I really can't decide this on what it does to me! 

I would really feel great about rolling forward the property taxes, if we had a lean, mean budget that focused on providing the best we can afford to the classroom. 

Dr. Dawkins is not listening.  We need to be louder.

So for these reasons I am considering a Town Hall meeting next week at 6:00.  It would be Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday and hopefully in the auditorium at South Highlands.








Leave a comment on this, please. 
Suggestions are welcomed.

Click here to review the budget draft.  You will be disappointed in it.
http://www.boarddocs.com/la/caddo/Board.nsf/files/8HKVE87CECB2/$file/Budget%20Draft%2020110607.pdf

Party Like You're 5 or 75

This has been a BIG birthday weekend. 
Juanita Avant Sheffield, aka Mom, Granny and GiGi, will be 75 and

Andrew Connor Edwards, 
aka ACE, turns 5 on June 6th. 

Bridget, Premier Party Planner

 My daughter, Bridget scheduled Connor's arrival so he would have the same birthday as his GiGi. So this was a well planned birthday extravaganza.  

Bat Man, Gypsy the Goat and Mom and Me

It started at 10:30 with the arrival of the Bouncer/Water Slide Combo.

Ken, sister Debbie, and her son Joe.

 

The first guests to arrive were Sophee, Sadee,

Aunt Casondra and Uncle Joe.

 
 

Then came the crawfish!

The boys picked out the dead ones

that had straight tails.

Trinity, Connor's dad and head Chef!

Trinity, Connor's dad, was the Crawfish Boiler Extraordinaire!

 

We had several sets of Grandparents and 

 Great Grandparents and more

Kennedy, Gypsy and Me

Aunts and Uncles and Cousins galore,

Parents and lots of exceptional Friends  

Even a couple of kids dropped in!

 

Children jumped and slid down the slide.  

They were wet and wild!

A few grown-ups relived being a child. 

 

 

 

 Older adults ate 

and talked about

Body parts that ache.

 

 

Cards that said "WOW you're FIVE!"

and others that exclaimed, "OMG this is 75!"

                                                                                                       

Kennedy Amara Rose Edwards

There were gifts of bird baths,

A special stone for GiGi's garden path.

 

 

Super Hero masks

With weapons to do any task. 

A helmet that looked like a shark

and a bright orange bike 

That may glow in the dark!