The Butterfly Princess & Optimus Prime

(Notice the Spiderman bag that she insisted on; she obviously has an older brother!)

We enjoyed making Jonah's costume. It was a team effort: my creativity and Mike's manpower (and dumpster diving)!

itunes advice

I received a surprise itunes gift card in the mail yesterday. It's perfect timing. I'm so sick of the music on my ipod. So I have a question: What are your favorite songs to listen to when exercising?

Welcome to Holland

As readers of this blog, you've seen some of my emotions dealing with Jonah. I'm discouraged so much of the time and I, if I had to be honest, have such a hard time realizing that this may not be "just a season."

Don't get me wrong, he's making such progress in some areas, but in other areas, life is no different than it was three years ago.

I have these conversations with God. I plead for direction. I plead for wisdom. I plead for progress. I cry, "Why me?"

I love when I find something that gives me a fresh outlook like this article:

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Fall

A kiss from brother--

Tonight

I don't have time for writing much these days-- or being too creative with my blog posts. The photography business is going well and keeping me quite busy!

Here's a quick picture from this evening. My sweet, innocent girl is not sweet or innocent anymore!

The Kids

I just found this picture of the kids I took a few months ago. It's so "them."