William's Airplane Birthday

(I really am not a great photographer (see the bad lighting) but I did have fun editing these photos with the new Instagram-like features in Picasa (thanks Deanna for the tip)!

There were a few days last summer when we were not sure if William would see his second birthday. It was with extreme gratitude that we celebrated his birthday last month. His birthday was on a Friday the 9th and we had a gathering the next day. We wish we could have invited everyone we know but we held it at home so there had to be some limits;).

William LOVES airplanes and I love themed parties so I scoured the internet and used ideas from various sites to come up with a "high-flying" day.

We created a landing strip for the guests when they walked up.

I gave the kids "passports" with activities to complete before they could "board the plane." The activities were:

Baggage claim (decorating the treat bag)

Pin the propeller on the plane (Carter freehanded the plane for us:))

Color in the airplane--note about these--Danny has been on a LOT of trips for work recently...I asked him to ask the stewardesses if we could buy small packs of peanuts...he told them William's story and batted his pretty blues and they gave him a ton of peanuts and these fun post cards!

The last station was Make and fly a glider. I bought them from Oriental Trading. The kids put them together and had to throw them through a hula hoop.

Then, we were ready to board the aircraft. We had First Class seats for grandparents.

Our kids and nephew Ryan were flight attendants and handed out above mentioned peanuts, pretzels and waters. We then showed a video we made of William's life thus far. We were thrilled with the final result. We put it on Facebook but if you haven't seen it, it is worth the watch (although we are biased;)). Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3hzPF-OKcU&feature=youtu.be

For lunch, we had "sammies" (sandwhiches but I'd like to think they were fancy) and BBQ flight wings, "plane" chips and "not-so-plane" chips, veggies, and "Captain's Cuties." Can you tell I had fun with the theme?

My mom's friend makes delicious and beautiful cakes and made this one for us.

And, William is so loved Boppie made him another cake!

Carter learned to play "Happy Birthday" on the piano and was our accompaniment. :)

Getting ready to blow out the candle!

And, although I got very few photos of the people here, I did get some of Uncle Eric with all the kiddos on the hammock. The kids love him because he is really just a big kid himself!

We had a great day! We feel so blessed to have experienced many miracles with William and to have such a healthy boy! At his last check-up the doctor was able to decrease his blood pressure medication even more and he no longer requires iron supplement. During some of the "dark days" in LA it was hard to imagine how well he has recovered. William has truly "turned two" and learned to say (shout) "no" and is doing his best to exert his independence. He is a joy to have in our family, even when he repeats himself for twenty minutes at a time;)

"Flat Alaina"

Cousins Mark & Louise's daughter Alaina is in second grade in Utah and sent us her "Flat Alaina" (after reading the Flat Stanley book) that we got to tote around our city. It is always fun to look at our area as more of a tourist. We took the kids to the snow in Wrightwood and brought "Alaina" along to enjoy the mountains.

Then we had fun with her in good ole' Rivercity. We hiked Mt. Rubidoux with all the Todd gals while the Todd boys were fishing one morning and brought "Alaina" along.

Carter has been taking an art class in downtown so we walked around during his class so "she" could see more of Riverside.

We got to write up a little about Riverside in the questionnaire that came with it as well. It was fun to go exploring in the name of education and helped remind us that although Riverside is no NYC, it is pretty cool in it's own rite:). Thanks, Alaina!

The Month of Love

February came and went quickly, even with the extra day this year, and we enjoyed lots of love all month long.

William is in love with Claire's babies (actually he loves all babies and it still calls himself baby when he sees himself in the mirror!)

I love this picture of Carter. I guess I put away Claire's jeans in his drawer. I am pretty sure he knew they were hers but wanted to give us a good laugh.

I realized both of those photos are from me in the same spot in the kitchen. It makes sense because I spend a majority of my day there, especially in the mornings making breakfast, lunches and then cleaning it all up.:)

I love that Claire thinks it's warm enough for sprinklers if it is more than 70 degrees.

Claire loves the "jumping place" and we had a free day we could finally go. They have a pop-in play twice a week and the kids love it!

Claire getting ready to jump

Happy girl after the jump

Silly Willy having fun

In the swing

We love having cousins close by; Cousin Ella come spend the night (well, we tried but we really just had a pajama party and then Ella went home). It was great fun. Those crazy cousins insisted on swimming even though I told them it was FREEZING (we don't have a heater on the pool). Ella went across once but wouldn't get back in for me to video it. Here is Claire the fish. They didn't last long!

We love family home evening on Monday nights! We had a family night where we all write what we love on hearts and plaster them all over the kitchen. I got the idea from www.71toes.com (a blog I would highly recommend following). It is our third year doing it and I love to walk in the kitchen and feel the love all month long! Claire was actually able to draw pictures and verbalize what she loved about the rest of us this year and Carter wrote a cute poem. :)

My little lovebugs on Vday morning:

We love the library and we took advantage of a Valentine craft there the week before Valentines. William was fascinated by/scared to death of Buzz the Bee and still says "buzz" every time we walk in the library!

We met our friends there too. Kim is great and Will was a little more comfortable with Buzz at this point.

We love days off school! Carter got the Friday before President's Day off and we took advantage of it and took the kids to the Chino Youth Museum. We met my friend from work and her too kiddos. Some of the stuff was a little too juvenile for Carter but as you can tell from the photos, he didn't have the worst time;).

I loved that all the rooms and displays were made just for little people!

Playing in the tractor with Joe & Jenna.

The kids pretended to be newscasters in this video I caught:

They had so much fun coming down the fire pole!

We love having grandparents nearby! My grandpa stopped by one morning Claire was at preschool and sweetly read William a book.

We love to celebrate holidays; for Leap Day I went in to Carter's class and we made origami frogs (since frogs leap:)) and I brought in snacks that looked like frogs (english muffins with green cream cheese, chocolate chip eyes and a strip of fruit roll-up for a tongue). I love helping in his class when I can. Since the food coloring was out we ended up with green milk as well which was a great prelude to March and St. Patty's and a fun way to end the month of love!

January recap!

We started 2012 by kicking off the new year at home. We lit off sparklers we've had from 4th of July and watched the ball drop at the New York time via the internet. At about 8:15 pm Claire asked when it was going to be "midnight." It is a good thing we didn't try to keep her up. Carter ran into the street to bang pots. It was really nice to be home and a great way to start off the year!

We went on a looong bike ride January 2nd with family. It was great but ended up being almost 10 miles and Carter was mildly dehydrated and tired. He just reminded me today about how he "almost died" on that bike ride. We rode along the Santa Ana river bottom trail and had lunch after at In-n-Out.

Then life got back in to full swing. Daniel continues to be busy as Secondary Language Arts coordinator where he helps teachers be even better educators. He works with a great team and is getting valuable experience. He does demo lessons in the classroom, facilitates trainings, etc.

Awhile ago, I was going to do a blog post entitled "why I never blog anymore" but decided instead I should just start blogging and summarize why it is difficult at times. One word, two syllables: William. He is a busy, busy boy!! A few months ago, he began getting my wallet out of my bag and taking cards out of it. I didn't even realize it until I was at Costco one day and half of my cards, including my ATM card were gone. I searched high and low and one day while I was searching I noticed him putting playing cards in a vent in our wall. I got out the screwdriver and low and behold, there were the majority of my cards, some coins, screws and various other items. Fast forward to this month. I was sitting paying bills at the computer and in a millisecond I noticed he had grabbed my ATM card and it had gone missing! Back to the trusty vent I went. I had to get pictures because he thought it was sooo fun to use the screwdriver.

That's when I realized this has all been a big game for him! What a stinker!

What I found inside the vent!

He keeps us on our toes! He is so fun though and is learning many new words. His favorites all involve things that go. "Vroom vroom" for car and when said with gusto and the sign it means motorcycle. He loves trains and airplanes as well. He now says "dada" as much as "momma" and even asks for him sometimes in the morning! He loves to help me cook and can be often found like this:

Claire is getting ready for full-day kindergarten in the fall. She takes a dance class nearby that has tap, ballet and gym all in one. She said her favorite part is the gym time but she can be found practicing arabesques at home. Since the classes year is half over, they invited parents in to watch and I grabbed a few shots, but I really am not the best photographer:)

She isn't always right on, but she has fun and is a good listener!

All day she looks forward to her "special time" with Mommy while William naps. We do something different every day and the amount of time varies depending on what I need to get done. I have a hard time doing only make-believe (her favorite). We play often that she goes to her imaginary friend (Stacy)'s house and then I call her and she comes over to play a game or read at my house (on the landing of the stairs). The she gets her make-believe and I get my structure. One day she conned me into making a huge fort and was quite pleased with the result.

She also loves to create things in her room and she created her own sleeping area in the house Grandma and Papa gave her from Christmas. She even dragged her shoe rack in there to create shelves. She is very creative!

Carter continues to excel at reading and art. He started an art class downtown on Saturday afternoons and started piano as well. He is enjoying them both. He finally lost his front tooth! It was loose well before Christmas but he didn't want to just yank it. It ended up coming out at school and he was thrilled because he got a special tooth necklace to put it in.

He also lost a bottom tooth that he swallowed during breakfast! All these lost teeth put him over the edge and figured out the whole truth about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa. We swore him to secrecy from all younger or still believing children and reminded him that if he doesn't believe, he won't receive;)

For exercise in the evenings, Danny will pull both little kids and Carter will ride his bike. It then allows me to cook in peace. :) Two weeks or so ago I got a call and knew immediately they were in trouble. The bike trailer's axle snapped going up a hill! I turned off dinner and drove to get the cutest motley crew I had ever seen!

Every time we pass that area, William says "daddy bike" and sometimes adds a "whoa." Our boys are always up for adventure!

We couldn't start out the new year without some family goal setting.

We ended up summarizing our goals with three words: serve, organize and create.

We have enjoyed as many nights as possible by the fire and are about a third of the way through the novel Indian in the Cupboard with the kids. William usually goes to bed before we read but the other two are enjoying it a lot.

Of course there are difficulties but we are constantly reminded that life is good.

Summer of 2011: Gratitude & Lessons Learned

This year the Thanksgiving holiday brought a greater sense of joy and sweetness to our family than it normally does. We are profoundly grateful to count three happy, healthy, strong-willed children with us as we vacation in Northern California to spend time with family. My brother Rob, along with his wife Laura and new baby Chloe, recently relocated to Mill Valley, a beautiful community just North of "The City" (what people from the Bay Area call San Francisco) so my family converged here from all over the state to celebrate Thanksgiving.

On the journey to our destination Danny and I reflected on the numerous lessons we learned throughout the two month period of William's hospitalization. Here they are in no particular order:

-We cannot control the situations in which we find ourselves here in this world, only how we react.

-Slow down and appreciate each moment, not only because we don't know how quickly our circumstances can change, but also because each moment has beauty regardless of our emotions
.

-Appreciate professionalism. There was a huge difference between health care workers who demonstrated true professionalism and those who did not. Sincerity and professionalism are paramount in any profession, but when someone's life is on the line, there simply isn't room for shoddiness of work and lack of compassion. I for one have always tried to embody this as a nurse but find myself all the more aware of my actions now in light of our experience.

-God answers prayers most often through other people. Time and again when asked ourselves "How can we make this work?" or realized that Carter and Claire needed to be attended to but we needed to be at the hospital next to William and then a family member, friend, co-worker or a member of our church would text, call or "Facebook" us with an offer to help. Our family and friends were the tools through which divine intelligence provided help. We also benefited from the strength of other people's faith; sometimes people we didn't know until William became ill appeared as if out of the blue to offer helpful suggestions or shoulder on which to rest and cry.

-There is a LOT of good left in the world still. Throughout the ordeal we met the some of the most kind-hearted and wise people and although we've benefited from the charity of others throughout our lives, for the first time it seemed we found ourselves on the receiving end of the kind of charity and compassion that we never thought we'd need. The Ronald McDonald House organization, for example, was a God-send. Thanks to them we saved a great deal of money (although you don't technically have to pay, we agreed to pay a substantial amount of the operating costs in order to help others benefit from their services in the future. The amount, however, was a fraction of what it would have cost us to stay in a hotel. Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) was wonderful and their compassionate, professional staff was the biggest reason William survived this ordeal with as few chronic issues as possible. Also, I'd be remiss not to mention The Beauty Bus who gave Claire and me free makeovers on her birthday. Although that might sound trite, it really brightened an otherwise bleak period.

-Trials leave us with increased empathy and compassion. We find ourselves more understanding and sensitive to the trials of others than we were before this experience. We now realize more fully that everyone in this mortal world is in the midst of some kind of difficult trial but we simply don't know about them (and sometimes they don't either).

-Recently we heard someone say that when we look back at our lives, we will view those difficult moments more fondly than the "fun" or comfortable moments in our lives. We can already see that this is true. If all our summer plans had panned out the way we wanted them to, the summer would have come and gone and we'd be the same people. But as things unfolded our family grew stronger, our faith greater and we feel we are better people because of this experience. Of course we wouldn't have wished this on William, but we accept what happened and don't have anger and or fear regarding this situation.

-No matter how bad it is, it could be worse. We met so many families going through situations that we felt were even more difficult than ours. At the Ronald McDonald house we met a family who financed everything to come to LA from England for cancer treatment for their little girl because the doctor's in England refused to try more aggressive treatment options. A wonderful man named Alejandro was sleeping in the parent room at CHLA week after week and despite the fact that his daughter's brain tumor came back even after it was in remission, he had faith that God's will would be done and emanated faith and peace.

-Health insurance is a huge blessing. We haven't sat and tallied all the bills that CHLA and Children's Hospital Central California sent Kaiser, but two days in Madera alone caused our insurance to be billed $16,000. Furthermore, the helicopter transport from Fresno to L.A. totaled $15,000! We are so grateful to not be filing medical bankruptcy.

-Play with your kids! While William was sick, family and friends would relieve us from the hospital so we could to spend time with Carter and Claire. It was suddenly easy to be fully present and just play with them; they needed it and so did we. Now that we have been home a while it has become easier to justify doing unimportant things rather then focus on using every moment efficiently as parents, but we still remember how apparent it was then and that helps us refocus our priorities.

-Find joy in the journey. There were often times we would want everything to magically be returned to "normal" and for it all to be over, but as we gained clarity we began to see each moment as an opportunity to learn from our trials, meet wonderful people, learn about ourselves and find joy, no matter how bumpy the journey.