We have a drama queen in the house!

 The weather has been crazy here, but on our way home, we saw the tree's were all icy, and the sun looked beautiful, so we had to pull over and take some pictures.  God makes beautiful artwork.

Then here is a picture of how my morning was made, I was getting things ready, and I hear voices, and Denali and Quinn are talking and playing, and it was beautiful!  I love love love how my kids love each other.

Quinn has not been feeling great and is missing her second day of school due to a temp, and Denali checked the clock and told her that she had 7 minutes to play before she had to go get her morning routine going.  

What a wonderful morning!

What in the world, 4 posts in one week!  That is crazy!

I love playing with the girls and watching them play together.  Isaiah will get in there with them sometimes too, especially if electronics are involved.  So fun to see them play.  I love these dolls and having them role play each other.

Also we are thankful for Chrissy.  Quinn has gone through another growth spurt, and in turn her wheelchair is now to small.  She has been unhappy in it and the moment we get home, she wants out of her chair, and she was not getting her Tobii to work, because she was not lined up with it correctly.  Thanks to a quickly scheduled therapy session, we now have her fitting in her chair better, and she can use her Tobii again.  The down side is that her head controls to help her drive are out of commission until we get her new chair, but 2 out of 3 is not all bad, and they are the 2 things she really needs.  She was so excited to be able to use all of her screen again.

A few pictures from the last few days.

I thank God for letting these three

wonderful humans be in my life!

 They are all empathetic!  They are kind!  

 They are ornery!  They are smart!  They are loving!

We are blessed!

With great weather and a long weekend, we had to get out and enjoy the day.

What a fun family outing.

The zoo was busy, but it was so good.

 We are trying hard to get Quinn out of her chair more then usual.  She has had a big growth spurt and we have grown her chair to maximum size and she is still to big.  So we are in process of getting a new one.  Let's say some prayers that insurance covers it with out to many issues.  She needs a chair that fits her body!

 We love looking at butterflies.

 One of our usual spots to take pictures.

Feeding the fish, the ducks are fast, so the fish have to work hard to get in there to get food right now.

It's so nice to get away from the norm sometimes and be able to just enjoy the day,

enjoy the family.

Enjoy the weather and the animals.

God is good, and we are grateful.

Isaiah did his science fair project last week.  He went into it with an I don't want to do it attitude, and my goal was for him to find joy in it.

So we did the drone novice flying experiment.

Here they are working on their project.

Denali was scared at first.

They did a great job working together to see how easy or hard it is to fly a drone.

Life is Hard.

When life is hard, we can crumble, or we can rise up.

It's hard to rise up, but we try our best.

Thankfully we have God on our side to help us.

We lost another friend who rode the bus to school with us.

It was hard.  It brought back so many memories of our good friend Amelia.

We also talked about our Grandpa, our Uncle, and our dog who have all passed away recently.

That is a lot for all of us to deal with.

Memories are bitter and yet so sweet.

We talked about visits to the pumpkin patch.

birthday parties

and just hanging out with someone who understand so much of 

what Quinn was going through.

We talked about unconditional love!

So we were given a great book to read.

We loved it so much, we got a copy for a few of the families we love, who have lost loved ones.

We spent part of a day delivering these books to these amazing families.

It was so good to share our love with them.

I can't imagine how they feel loosing a child. 

I can't imagine how they go on, but they are.

So it was good for us.

Good for our hearts and our souls.

Again, we were broken, but we will heal even stronger then before.

We have talked to therapists, we have talked as a family.

We have prayed and prayed, and we now can learn from another hard experience.

Here we are delivering one of the books.

Once again, we are reminded how hard life is.

I wish everyone could see how amazing all my kids are.

I wish my kids could show how amazing they always are.

I wish life could be easier sometimes.

With God's help, we can all keep working.

We can all keep educating.

We can shed a few tears, then pick ourselves back up and keep teaching.

We can also take a break and just live in the bubble of our home.

Take a moment to breath and love on each other.

Then we can again, share and teach and live life to our best.

It will not always be easy, but it will be worth it.

When we have children, we will always do our best to help them do their best.

That is our job, and we will keep at it.

We have learned through loosing children and friends around us, living life is even more important.

Phew.  I am tired today.  I am broken today, but I will heal, and I will continue teaching and sharing through kindness.  God will give us strength.

So to the parents we have just met, and parents we have seen lots of struggles through over the years.

To teachers who teach our kids.

To the children who play with and love our kids.

We appreciate you and  we will continue to pray for you.  

This journey is hard sometimes, and these hard moments will make the good moments oh so much better.

Prayers to us all today. 

I can't wait to go love on my kids later today!

Isaiah got to open up his brand new school this year as a 5th grader.  It is exciting helping choose the mascot and and start traditions.  

He get the honor of starting the new middle school next year, Moore Middle School.  He got to be in the first picture on their website.  He is in the red shirt with a crazy look on his face.  It helps me see a lot of what he does at school.  As a teacher I know I see kids so different then their families might see them at home.  I only hope I install enough love and empathy and strength into them for them to be able to be successful on their own.  

Happy Heart Day!

We know that God has given us the big job of educating folks about how we are all special and how we are all amazing.

With Quinn it can be exhausting some days.  I call tell folks one thing, then due to many factors, they don't see what Quinn does, and in turn, they might not believe what I say about Quinn.

I understand that, even though it is hard.  So that means we, as a family, need to keep educating.  So this last weekend, we started filming Quinn learning.  I was so happy, Quinn was so happy, we were all so happy with how hard Quinn worked.

I'm sharing a longer video, but it shows her getting a 90% on her math homework.  It shows patients.  It shows trying new ways to figure things out.  It shows her thinking it through.  It shows Annette and Quinn working as a team.

So you really have to get into it a bit to really see them take off, but it is amazing!

click here to see it.

https://youtu.be/GsXZuocOlpE 

Happy Valentines Day!

Here are our cards for this year.

Imagine suckers coming out the end where the sticks come out.

It is so fun to do this with my kids.  I am understanding this is not going to be able to happen forever, so I am so thankful for the moments I get.

We went to the groundhog ball!

It was a dress up, costume up, or dress down, day, which is great,

because all three kids were happy.

Denali wore a dance costume.

Quinn dressed up.

Isaiah wore his staple joggers and a t-shirt.

They were all so happy!

 It was fun to dance and be silly!

 We took pictures in the photo booth even.  Quinn's chair made it interesting, but we got it to work.

 Quinn and I did the limbo.

 Isaiah and Denali did too.

 and we danced!

 What a fun family night!  We are blessed!

Here Quinn is in the waiting room of the doctors office, telling me how upset she is.

Just wait, this story blew me away!

I have a super smart, super sassy daughter!

Quinn showed me once again how smart and naughty she can be.  I picked her up from school around noon today to go to the doctor’s office, and on the way there she would tell me with her Tobii: why are we going, why are we doing this, what's going on, I hurt, and so on and so forth.

So we get inside and Quinn talked to the receptionist.  She went on talking about how she wants to go back outside and she still has questions and she's worried.  So then we go back into the patient room.

Quinn looks at me and gets this big smile on her face and I'm thinking OK maybe this is going to go better than I think, instead every question that she was asked by the nurse she would turn her head as far to the side as possible and not answer.

Then the doctor comes in and checks her out, and physically she's doing great the doctor says once again I don't know how she is doing great and I know it's all in God’s hands and he is helping us out.  Thank you God for keeping her healthy!

Then Dr. Martin ask Quinn to please talk to her.  She then asks her questions like what is her brother’s name and what is your sister’s name and Quinn once again yanks her head over to the side with no answer, and raises her no hand and will not answer.

So then they asked Quinn if she wants a sticker and I say oh Quinn does not need a sticker unless she's going to answer you because she's been making bad choices to not answer.  So we give her another chance to answer either with her hand or her Tobii computer and she chooses not to answer.

So then on the way out she looks at me and starts giggling and giggling and giggling.  I finally start catching on to this game that she's playing she thought it was hilarious that she did not answer anything they asked her.  She knew she could out wait them, and she did.

Then to top it off we get back in the car and she says I choose I choose and then she goes on to say Isaiah is my brother Denali is my sister and again start laughing and laughing.

So this was a loud wake up call for me to see that she is totally choosing when she talks and when she doesn't and she totally has people right where she wants them.  So I am now looking at some behavior charts for her, we are going to chat with school,  and she is officially in her room grounded and is going to bed early for the rest of the week.  Oh my goodness I love her so much and part of me is amazing by her and her actions while the other part of me knows we got to get this in gear and get her on track because she can do amazing things. 

I love this girl so much, but she is stubborn and smart and it has gotten her through a lot, and now we need to rein in some behaviors and see her beautiful butterfly 

While Denali is practicing her Viola and working hard,

the other two will play!