Thankful

Today I take Michael to Easter Seals for physical therapy and tech therapy (learning to use his "talker"). I am sitting here thinking about the past 9 years with this little guy. I can say with absolute conviction that these 9 years with Michael have been filled with joy, sorrow, learning, growing, laughing, crying, and just pure love. I have watched him grow each year stronger, smarter, and into a young boy who loves God and his family. Sometimes I think everyone should be blessed with a special needs person in their life. You learn things that you would of never learned without them. I can say with everything within in me "thank you God for blessing me with the life you gave me, I will forever love you".

Goodbye my faithful friend!

I had to say goodbye to Toby last night. He was my faithful little kitty for 19 years. He was a birthday present from my husband, our first pet together. He was a healthy active cat for 19 years, the first 15 or so he was always outside expoloring. But then he began to slow down, he no longer wanted to go outside. For the last year he slept all the time. Today we will bury him. Goodbye my friend. Thank you for being my sweet Toby.

Releasing My Child into God's Hands

Lord, I come to You in Jesus' name and give Michael to You. I'm convinced that You alone know what is best for him. You alone know what he needs. I release him to You to care for and protect, and I commit myself to pray for everything concernining him that I can think of or that You put upon my heart. Teach me how to pray and guide me in what to pray about. Help me not impose my own will when I'm praying for him, but rather enable me to pray that Your will be done in his life. Thak You that I can partner with You in raising him and that I don't have to do it alone.

"The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them. Psalm 103: 17,18

True Woman

I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at a conference called "True Woman". What a difference it has made in my thinking. For anyone interested here is their website www.truewoman.com , please check it out!

Bibs for older kiddos

These are a few samples of bibs that my sister Penny made for Michael. He's a messy eater but didn't want to wear a bib (for babies!). So we took him to Wal-Mart and let him pick out material. He picked dinosaurs, whales, fireman, lizards, motorcycles. My sister then made him several bibs. He really likes them. Now we need to think of a different name than "bib". Here's a picture of some of her kids all wearing the bibs. She's thinking of maybe advertising these.

A Beautiful Summer

It's been such a perfect summer, the weather has been gorgeous! I can't believe it's almost August. Time to start thinking about schooling Michael again. We've done a little bit each day but it will be full time again soon. Matt will be a senior at ISU and Kristy will be a sophmore at MCC with hopes of transferring to NIU for nursing. I hope all three kids have a very good year.

I'm not a faithful blogger!

I really don't have alot of free time to write but I'm going to try and change that. We are having a good summer. I belong to this e-mail group called freecycle.com and was able to get this for free for Michael. He is so excited to have his own swingset. It will be good for him to practice balance while swinging and climbing up the ladder for the slide.

My Family

Here is a picture of my family.

We went to a wedding and had a wonderful time.

Out of commission

My life is a little messed up right now, I've moved into a friends house for the next 10 days to take care of her dogs (a cocker spaniel and a poodle). I stay the night, go home by 8:00 a.m. to pick up Michael, go back for the day, Adi picks up Michael around 5:00 p.m. and then I usually have to work the evening (as a respite care worker), come back and spend the night, and then start the whole day over again! I'm extremely tired. I don't sleep well at their house, I'm a little scared and hear every strange noise. Please pray for strength for me to be able to last the whole 10 days and do a good job!

The tribulations of learning to walk

Michael has learned to take 3 steps on his own now!!! But look what happened yesterday, he took a step and fell sideways into an end table. He is into taking steps when no one is next to him. What bravery!

My kids

Here is a picture of my older two.

I'm a new blogger

This is my first attempt at blogging. I love to read other people's blogs so I thought I'd give it a try. I like to write what life is like, what I'm learning, and what's happening so here it goes.....