Friday after Thanksgiving! A bit of shopping but mostly relaxing with Quinn.

Thanksgiving was so nice. We had John's family over to our apartment and it was cozy, yet so nice. Sarah read Quinn a few books, and we all went out to check out the house. I know I've already shared her lovely sign, but now we have a picture of Quinn and dad with it. I'm thankful to have friday to play with Quinn and put up Christmas decorations! With being in the apartment, we don't have many of our Christmas decorations here, but thanks to a friend who let us use her three smaller trees, we had fun decorating. Then we played, and Quinn loved being in her walker, but shortly afterwards, she was out like a light! What a wonderful day!

Thanksgiving

Chrissy took the girls out to do some shopping the day before Thanksgiving! Now that is brave to hit the store with all the people there!
I'm so thankful!

I'm thankful for Quinn's attitude! Her dance teacher told the kids they could sing to the song they were dancing to, and Quinn was done dancing! She loves singing, and that is what she did for the rest of dance class, and did not take another step!

I'm thankful for the random strange who wants to talk to us, when they see Quinn. In fact Tracy just reminded me of a time this summer when we had this quirky gentleman who saw us with Quinn, and came over and talked to us for a bit, and as he was leaving, he mentioned how nice it is to have a little girl with her mom and grandma out together, and how good we all looked. Well, Tracy is younger then I am, and I am not a grandma, so we just laugh at it and wonder which one of us was the grandma?

I'm thankful for all the folks helping build a house where Quinn can be successful! I'm also thankful for the issues that go into it. I understand that we have to make decisions on what we can have and what we can't, and so I'm thankful for being even more grateful for what we are getting, and we will just keep working hard to get what we will still need for the house in the future to continue helping Quinn.

I'm thankful for a husband who works so hard to find himself, figuring out how to be his most healthy, how to be more successful, and continues to work to be a good husband and father. I'm also thankful when he gives himself time to relax.

I'm thankful for everyone who is helping Quinn learn, live, love, and be her best!

I'm thankful for family who encourages, supports, and loves us.

I'm thankful for old and new friends, who love us for who we are.

We are so thankful!

Well I will be adding pictures from our photo shot, with Tabi, from Creative Eyes Studio http://creativeeyesstudio.com She is amazing and so patient, and so willing to try out my crazy ideas, as well as her own crazy ideas! It works out great! Thanks Tabi!
Chrissy and I got Quinn out to her first musical. Seussical the Musical to be exact. Quinn loved the show, especially the first half! By the last number of the first half, I thought she was going to bounce out of her chair, she was loving it so. The second half she reached out to hold Chrissy's hand. Gave her the puppy dog eyes, that totally showed the, you are the best Chrissy eyes, and tried hard to stay away, but was out for the count.

We have also been working hard on house stuff! We have doors, and shingles. Well we still have the warm fuzzy feeling, but we are still working hard to get everything to work right. We have started to look at where to put tracking, and I really did not think it would be all that hard, but I've changed my mind. We have to figure out exactly where to put the tracks. The tracks are going to be what help us move Quinn around, as she is getting bigger, they will help us move her in and out of her chair, and that will be so helpful! I just don't want to move in and think, what was I thinking to put a track there, it should have been here, and tracks are not something that are easy to move around, so we are trying to get it figured out. I know we will, and we have had such good ideas from everyone, but it's not easy. As Delrae said, it's like life, there will be issues and that is what makes it interesting, and so as interesting as it is, we will get it figured out.

Here are Quinn and Casey, with Casey trying so hard to get Quinn to work, and Quinn not looking all that excited about it! Love to see those girls together!



Wow! Another big warm fuzzy moment! We have a lovely sign out in our front yard! We have roof paper (is that what that paper on the roof is called?) We also have windows! Wow things are happening!
We are still working on how to make the entire house functional for Quinn, and with Quinn's fancy chair, we are struggling to find a way to get her downstairs. The elevator sizes that we have right now are not really fitting, as her fancy transformer chair is pretty big, and I don't want to settle for a different chair, when this one can help her be more successful then anything else. However that is throwing a wrench into the whole elevator situation! I know we will get it figured out, as we do have such a wonderful team, but it seems like we are not making it easy on them.
I'm also getting excited to share our house. As I've been talking to more and more therapists through LPS, we are all getting excited to share our house and what things we are changing and doing to make it work for Quinn. As we were future home buyers, it's was a bit harder to find folks willing to share what their homes look like and what they have done to make it work for their situations. Well, the more I talked about it, the more I learned that so many of those folks are not sharing their homes because they piece things together, and it's not ideal, but they make it work! So I understand how they would not want to share what they have done, as it's not the ideal. In fact we learned that our caseworker, who is in a wheelchair, can not even get her wheelchair into her bathroom. That is so frustrating to hear that so many folks are not living in their ideal home, in the sense that they can not even use their rooms in a way where they can easily get from one place to another.
So I am so excited and grateful to be in a position where we can get our home in the Parade of Homes, or something where we can open our home up to let other families see what all these bright minds that are working so hard have come up with. Sizes of doors, placement of windows, placement of outlets, not a single stair. Things like an automatic hand faucet that Quinn can use on her own. Handicap sinks, fancy toilets, doorways, light switches. Oh I could go on and on, but it's about bedtime, and as I read this over, I can tell that I'm tired, so I'm signing off, but feeling so blessed and looking forward to a book and some cuddle time with Quinn!

Oh, on Tuesday Quinn and I got to go meet with Delrae and start looking at pluming stuff! One of those things I never really expected to do was pick out toilets, and sinks, and such, but it was really interesting, and Quinn did a pretty good job chatting and showing a little bit of interest! So yet another new adventure for us, and we have a few more spots to check out, as we have a few different folks interested in helping out Quinn! What a blessed experience this is to be building Quinn's House!

Here Quinn is at therapy reading a book, and with just a bit of elbow support, she is doing great moving her hands to see what is behind the flaps!

We had another wonderful dance class last Monday! Just look at her legs, not just walking but marching across the floor!



What a busy weekend we are having!
We started off with a birthday party! It's Quinn's very first birthday party that was full of over 10 little girls. She has gone to friends parties, and family parties, but this was the first where it was full of little girls, and games, and crafts, and so much fun. If you look you can see Quinn singing and having so much fun! Amelia's mom did such a great job of introducing Amelia and Quinn to the rest of the girls. She talked to them about how to talk to the girls and how they answer. Then she had the girls ask Amelia and Quinn questions, and it was wonderful. It only lasted a minute, and helped the girls understand better. Then we made butterflies, Quinn picked a yellow one to make. No surprise there! Then we played a few games, where the girls were asked to get a prize or dance, or give high fives, and things like that. One little bitty girls got the sheet that said to give a hug to everyone. She was not sure she wanted to do that, but with her big sisters help, she was all for it and went around the circle, and did great, that is up until she got to Quinn and Amelia, and she did not know what to do and there is nothing wrong with that at all! I wish I could say I just jumped in there and helped her out, but instantly, I got tears in my eyes, and felt like that little 3rd grader who was not included in the playground game. Not what I wanted to feel, but that was what happened. Thankfully, her mom jumped in and had her and her sister and a few other girls give big group hugs to the girls, and everything was lovely! I'm not sure what came over me, as to why I lost my self control for a few minutes. Thankfully I got myself under control, but uggg, it's not easy for me to see Quinn in a spot where others are unsure around her. I know it will happen, and today the girls were sweet as can be about it, but still..... I know that will always be the case, and I think that is one of many reasons why I blog about our life. To share our experiences for everyone to see that she is simply a lovely little girl who wants to share her love for life with others and enjoy life, just like all of us. I talked with another mom for quite awhile about Quinn, and I love to do that. Over all it was a wonderful morning and we are so grateful to have been able to share the morning with our friend Amelia!




Next up was a football game! We went to Seward to watch football with Amy. Well, in Quinn's case she wanted to watch and listen to the band, but again, we had a wonderful time. The weather was beautiful and the parents were so supportive of their boys! So much fun! I always love seeing the boys get together as a team for a prayer at the end of the game as well! I also just have to say that I'm so proud of our Huskers and Penn State, for taking a moment to say a prayer at the beginning of the game today. It brought me to tears today to watch! Phew, I guess it's been a tearful day today!


Then it was back home to meet with Delrae to go over where lights, and outlets will be in the house, this is where I'm so grateful for Delrae, because I know things like that are a big deal, but I'm not sure where I want things or where they would work best, but after some learning about this and that, we got things figured out. Quinn was tuckered out by this time after all the yelling and singing and working so hard not to take a nap at the football game, that now she did not want to sit with us at the table, or really talk to us in general. She only wanted to listen to her stories, and that was ok with me, as I'm sure if I was 4 I would not want to sit in on outlet cover discussions!

Well, we want to thank Lance from channel 10/11! He did such a nice job sharing our story! We are also thankful for living here in Lincoln. I hear there has been such wonderful support for us yet again! It's going to such a lovely little girl, who is singing her heart out right now! We are also so thankful for our team working so hard to help Quinn be her most successful self! We now have a roof, that should be shingled in a week or so, so we are praying for no rain! Quinn is happy to know that there is a roof over her bedroom, as we had a joke with her about how it was raining in her bedroom, and she did not like it very much at all!

What fun we have in the fall with Chrissy and Alexis!




Quinn got a new chair to use at school! I love to see how much she loves it!
I found this on facebook, and though how great this describes Quinn, as well as all of us. We can not all be judged one way or another, but wouldn't it be nice if we could just be accepted for who we are and what we can offer!

Yet another post for the week!

Well, we had a busy day today! Quinn had a great day at school, and I'm a bit surprised, because she was excited about this afternoon and did not go to sleep until it was way to late last night. But she likes to prove me wrong, and she was simply wonderful! Trusses got put up on the house! I've learned that is the triangle shape under the roof! Yet another step closer to having it built, and that is getting more and more bitter sweet! The process of it getting built is filled with such love, that moving into it and not working with the folks building it, makes me sad, but knowing they will be part of our lives forever makes it all work out!
As our story simply continues to grow and grow, we have a few more chapters to add to it today. First a kind soul was donating their crane for the day for us to use to get the trusses onto the top of the house, but with the bad weather and such, it fell through, and then just like that, Greg or Ken or one of our amazing team members make a call or two, and another big piece of yellow machinery (can you tell I know my big machines) showed up at our house, and I hear it had to travel quite a ways to get there, but it was there with a driver and everything to help with the tresses! Wow! Just amazing!


Here are a few of our amazing guys working on the house! Well, not at the moment, but they are working hard!
There are seriously hundreds of folks working on the house now, again, not at this moment, but through the process, and it's totally overwhelming if I really think about it! God at work! We are seeing the power! Amazing!
Watching them climbing around up on the top of those trusses like it's a jungle gym is just amazing! My goodness, just be careful!

Well, we did not help with the trusses, but we were out there, because Lance, who does Lance's Journal on Lincoln's channel 10/11 news wanted to report on our story. Here is his website, http://www.1011now.com/lancesjournal I got a call from him about a week or so ago, as he had heard about our story and the amazing home we are building, and after talking with him, I was so excited to share our joyful experience with everyone, I thought, what is Quinn going to wear, and I wish I would have done a better job sticking to my diet, but YES let's do it! Let's share the love! So after I worked half a day at school, I pulled up to our lot, I saw the trusses getting put into place, I saw Chrissy and Quinn, John and his parents, my mom and Steve, our friend Barb, who got this whole thing started, Greg, Delrae, and Ken, and a lot of amazing folks there to help us out! I could totally feel the love that was there. Shortly after I got there, Lance pulled up in his 10/11 SUV. In my mind he would have a camera guy with him, but he did it all! What a talented guy! He asked me if we had enough information to fill up a few minutes of air time, and I told him that would not be a problem. Now after filming for over an hour, he has a lot of editing to do, we did not think it would be right to skip the weather and sports for the night.

He started interviewing Chrissy and Quinn first, and Chrissy talked about Quinn. Lance asked her if Quinn understood what was going on, she said yes, Absolutely! She was asked more questions about Quinn and it ended with Chrissy sharing that Quinn is wise beyond her years, because she is such a good thinker! Thanks Chrissy, with that chilly air blowing around out there, my heart was warmed beyond belief! I totally agree, but it's so good to hear that I'm not the only one that thinks that way!

Then it was Quinn, John, and my turn, and John and Quinn stole the show big time, as they were singing and talking to each other! I sure hope the mics picked up Quinn's voice. We talked about how the house thing started and how amazing the experience has been.



Then Barb and Greg were interviewed. After that Delrae and Ken were on for a bit, as well as some shots of everyone that was there. Greg talked about a few things with the house and a few of the hundreds of folks involved in this project, and Lance filmed the guys as they finished adding the last tress to the house. We were all standing outside, as it's the only safe place to be when that is happening and the grandma's had to take care of Quinn like crazy! I tend to let her fend for herself, and if she gets cold she has to tell me, but not the grandma's! They were making sure she was nice and warm. I love it how she was watching the tresses get placed on the house too! That is what she is looking at in the one picture!


So here is hoping Lance finds the heart and soul in our story. The love everyone is putting into this along with a lot of hard work and time. Here is also hoping the viewers see Quinn for who she is, and not just her disability. We tried to share that is how our home is going to help Quinn be the amazing person she is, and she will be able to do things in spite of her disability and it will not get in the way of her success because of what our team is doing in the house to help her be successful! So check out our story either on line after Monday, or on the news Monday night, or Tuesday morning, and share in our wonderful story! http://www.1011now.com/lancesjournal Wow, even with a chill in the windy air today, it was a warm fuzzy day for us! Blessings and thanks for checking in on us!