Flat Stanley visits Ella's school

Our nephew Brendan's (lives in Illinois) class is reading the Flat Stanley series of books. Their assignment was to send Stanley on a vacation, so Brendan thought Stanley would have fun here in Spokane going to work with Chris (turned out to be quite hilarious, see pics below) and to visit the kids' schools. I can't tell you how funny it is to carry a piece of paper around with you and photograph it : ) So, here are the pictures of Stanley's visit to Ella's school today, it is way easier to post them here and be able to describe what is going on than to email! (Tami, right click on the pictures and then you can print them.)


Stanley watching Ella put a penny in for the Penny Drive!



























Stanley sitting next to Ella for speech therapy
Ella is signing "orange."



























Ella is wondering why Stanley is sitting next to her!
She's not so sure about him....












Practicing drinking out of an open cup, Meaghan (Ella's speech therapist)
even gave Stanley his own cup and juice!












Stanley and Ella switched cups












Then Ella used Stanley to help practice pointing to body parts
here is her pointing to his hand












Ella trying to give Stanley a drink? or possibly just dumping it on his head
Sorry Brendan, Stanley will need a bath when he gets home : )












Awww, now Ella likes Stanley, here she is hugging him












Stanley even made new friends, here he is with Mr Potato Head
and one of the Little People! Nice hat Stanley!












Chris decided to play dress up with Stanley















Miss Meaghan even fed Stanley a cracker, she practices chewing with Ella.












A drink to wash down the cracker












Here he is watching the bubbles.












A kiss for Stanley, he really is there, he is one skinny kid












Ella and Stanley posing on the swing. Ella uses this in Physical Therapy to
strengthen her tummy muscles












Wee!
















Okay now here are a few of the pictures from Stanley's ride-along with Chris two nights ago!

Ready for shift












Out hunting for bad guys!











Stanley played with the lights and sirens












Stanley at the scene of a rolled over car.
(Don't worry no one was hurt, the driver was drunk and as
Chris says " the drunks never get hurt.")

In other news, we had a presentation at an Elementary School today. Chris, Ella and I went with a lady from Ella's school to promote the Penny Drive. It is really an awesome program, they call it the Kids for Kids Penny Drive and kids at several local schools raise money to help kids like Ella. So, Ella's school likes one of the kids like Ella to go to the elementary schools so those kids can see who they are raising money for! Anyhow, Ella was a big hit!! Several of the teachers came up and talked to us and said that Ella better be coming to their school (she's not). Ella was in her element, she had a crowd and she performed! When I put the microphone in front of her and asked her to say hi she put her entire mouth ON the microphone and made some crazy noise, of course the kids laughed and Ella clapped. At the end I actually let go of her and she ran to the front and stood by the interpreter for the deaf children and tried to copy her it was hilarious!! Anyhow, we have 3 more presentations tomorrow and 2 more schools. I think it is so great for kids to see that someone like Ella is just a "normal" kid but that she needs extra help to learn things. A little girl ran up to me in the hall on our way out of the school and said, "I think you daughter is really cute." It was so sweet!!!