Welcome Family & Friends

Welcome to those of you who are visiting as a result of the email T. & I sent. We hope you enjoy these glimpses into our family.

Halloweenie Beanie

Click here to view our Halloween Slide Show.

Our Halloween fun began last night (Tuesday) with wax fangs from our neighbors.

Today (Wednesday), Peeps & Big Daddy (also known as T) when to school for the party and a field trip to a farmer's market (seriously, about a 1/4 mile up the road from the daycare) to go on a hay ride, have lunch, and pick out a pumpkin. Peeps was a Ballerina Kitty.


Then, for the evening festivities of trick-or-treating, Peeps & Big Daddy - as Princess and Prince Charming - hit the neighborhood for candy. (He totally won the best parent costume, not to mention the adoration of his girls forever).

Here's E.'s first costume, provided by her big sister.

The Harp

A couple weeks ago, T started on the closets for the girls' rooms. While adding shelving and brackets and such to make them more functional, Peeps decided that the shelves were really harps and proceeded to show us how well she snapped her fingers on the strings. T cut one down for her and she carries it around playing it.

When we asked if she'd like to play the harp and maybe be the harp lady on Mackinac Island, she said, "No, I want to be a server (waiter)."

She is Her Father's Daughter

More and more I notice that Peeps has a lot of her daddy's personality. Sure, she may look like me at that age (although there are elements of T.), and at times what comes out of her mouth is pure me. More often than not, though, I think she's all Daddy.






Things such as:

• Fashion sense
• Mobassa's carrying apparatus (crafting solutions out of what's at hand is a huge T trait and one of genius in this case.)
• Looooong wake-up time
• Active sleeping habits
  
• Mad speculating wildly skills
• Ability to make me look forward to what's next

All from her Daddy.

The Not Napper

On the way home from picking up my car from the shop after a long day at school.

Paradise Lost and Found

In finding out that our second daughter would have Down Syndrome when she was born, we lost:

• Our imaginary second (genetically perfect) child that really only ever existed in our minds and hearts
• Our innocence that anything would ever be okay with our girls again
• Knowing that the heartache of parenting would be a constant
• Dreams and assumptions for the future
  

What we found was:

• A perspective that recognizes that for all the challenges of raising both girls, there are equal (and exceeding) measures of joy
• That our perspectives and assumptions about our lives are forever changes
• That our little family is more important than anything else and we'll work to keep it that way
• That while the death of dreams is hard, there will be new ones and they'll be as good, and probably better, than the ones that died
• That our hearts continue to expand with love despite fear and being overwhelmed
• We still feel ridiculously lucky and blessed to have the life we live. We wouldn't trade it for anything
  

Walk-a-Thon