operation christmas child

as the holidays approach and the boys are consumed with creating wish lists and behaving for santa, i always try to remind them that the holidays are not just a season for wishing, but also for giving. i try to show them that we truly have much more than we really need and, for that, we are so very thankful. i do my best to teach them how to give, in even the smallest ways possible throughout the year, and especially during the holidays. 

we were first introduced to operation christmas child when isaiah started at a christian preschool at two years old. we have been packing christmas shoe boxes for children every year since. we pack the shoe boxes with toys, personal hygiene items (toothbrushes, combs, etc) and other school supplies, then pay $7 to ship the boxes and they get delivered to children in need all over the world. the program has improved greatly since we first started, where we can now pay the $7 online (versus writing a check), then we receive a tracking number and can see which country/town the boxes go to. pretty amazing. this time, we are enclosing a note from isaiah which will include our address and we hope the child will write back.

i decided to try something a little different this year. with the hopes of further driving in the lesson that they have far more than they really need, i challenged isaiah and mikey to go around the house and find things that we already had, but have not used, to fill the shoe box with. 

the amount of "stuff" they came back to me with had me speechless. it just goes to show that there's a lesson to be learned at any age.

play dough, a flash light, jump rope, glow-in-the-dark bracelets, markers, crayons, toothbrush, dental floss...we packed the shoe box with toys, goodies and lots and lots of love.

i even had this sweet boy help me sort through their halloween candy. we separated all of the hard candies and lollipops and added them to the shoe box. 

if you haven't started this tradition with your children, or any tradition that instills the spirit of giving, i encourage you to do so. because that is what the spirit of christmas is all about. happy holidays!!!!

drowning

most days it feels like we have this whole autism thing under control. we felt as if we were drowning for a while, but we found our way back to catch some air and have been treading water since. it even felt like we could see the shore. but when a 5-lb envelope arrives in our mailbox stuffed with five booklets of 15-page questionnaires that we are supposed to answer about our sweet liam, my head feels like it just got pushed into the water once again.

i wasn't expecting this and i'm not looking forward to it, either. i'm sure some tears will come from it, and very likely an argument and some bickering between me and the mister. but we do what we have to do to make sure we get the very best for liam {and for all of our children}. so, this is how i will be spending today, and probably tomorrow and the day after that.

heirlooms

see this cute little guy?

i'll bet you can never guess how old he is.

older than ME, that's for sure!

and guess where he was found? in an old toolbox in my mother-in-law's garage.

shawn's mom was so great about creating and preserving heirlooms and now our boys are very fortunate to have these wonderful pieces of their daddy's childhood to hang onto - from ornaments to legos to stuffed toys. they probably don't quite understand how special these things really are right now, but i'm sure that one day they will, when they have children of their own. until then, i'll happily be the keeper of it all. they will be treasured and loved and cherished until they can finally be passed on.

speaking of memories, shawn's dad sent us this photo.

i should find out how old it really is, but judging from shawn's age, it's probably from 1977 or 1978 - about as old as the cookie monster ornament above. i can just picture that 4-year-old boy, excited for the coming Christmas, with joy in his eyes as he runs his fingers across each ornament in the store display until he finally chooses this very special - very perfect - ornament as his own. 

heirlooms have an amazing ability to make memories even more special and real than they already are.

speaking of that 4-year-old boy, he has a pretty close resemblance to the little 4-year-old boy sitting on his dad's lap below.

they are so strikingly similar it's almost eerie. and the hair - omg - i had no idea that's the way shawn rocked his when he was a kid. it kills me.

free is my favorite

ok, peeps. it's no secret - i'm pretty cheap. but, let me tell you, i haven't always been this way. once we went from dual-income to single-income and my husband threatened to divorce me if i didn't change my spending ways {just kidding...but kinda not}, i realized i had to shape up or ship out. 

anyway, i've since joined the local freecycle group, which is just a group of people that offer up anything that they want to get rid of - always for free - and anyone in the group can pick up any items that could be valuable to them for free. it's just a way of reducing the amount of "trash" that goes to the landfills because, you know, one person's trash is another person's treasure. 

i've been part of this group for a long while now and never picked anything up. i've given up a ton of stuff, though, because i'm constantly in purge mode around our house. i think the circle of giving and receiving has finally come back to me within the last few weeks. 

first, i scored ceramic dishes with service for eight. i haven't taken a picture yet, but the set was in impeccable condition and didn't even look used. they were all plain white and go so well with the milk glass pyrex that i've been collecting from thrift stores. and it came at such a perfect time because many of our current mostly-matching-but-some-not-matching dishes were chipping left and right. they've now been tossed and replaced - for free.

today, i picked up this art easel. perfectly good condition, but it just wasn't getting any more love in the home that it was in. heaven knows it will get lots of love from this casa of boys - especially from liam. he busted out his dry erase markers and even pulled up his little chair in front of it. i couldn't peel him away all morning.  free.

last saturday's score - a retro radio flyer trike!!!! i've been dyyyying for one of these for my kids, but it was just never high enough on the "need" list. nothing ever really is, so i guess i meant the "really want" list. now we have one and it was free!

this cute little peanut wasn't really free but he was yearning to be free when he saw his brothers playing outside this afternoon.

please, mom. if i flash my multiple chins and neck rolls at you, will you please let me play outside?

ok, ok, neck roll baby. you can play outside, too.  

see wyatt's sweet ride? shawn was testing driving his car around the block after a repair he did and this was sitting at the curb outside someone's house with a sign that said, "FREE". in a heartbeat, the mister jammed it into the passenger seat of his mustang {i still don't know how he made it fit} and away he drove into the the sunset...errrr, back home to his kids.

another item getting little to no love in one home to lots of love in our home.

wait. what? you can ride on the bed of the truck? what about seatbelts?

i'm all about risk. i need to feel the air in my hair when i whoride down the block in this g-ride.

it really is true - some of the best things in life are free. or maybe they just become the best things because they are free. :)

pumpkins and treats

honestly, i'm all halloweened out. i'm tired of the parties, the candy, the excitement. i just want things to mellow down. ha! then along comes thanksgiving and then, what?, christmas?! yeah, there shall be no mellowing down until january, un-thank you very much.

but i do need to get all of these obligatory halloween photos into our family diary...so here it goes.

carving pumpkins with daddy - whoop dee doo.

mikey's jack-o-lantern face that we he wanted daddy to carve out. umm...sorry, buddy. we aren't talented enough to carve out a comic strip.

not too shabby for freestyle carving, mister man.

ghost s'mores that we made for isaiah's classmates. thanks, pinterest!

real men get crafty.

team liam

a few weeks ago, we participated in our local walk now for autism speaks in honor of our sweet boy, liam. we didn't do a lot of fundraising since we only decided two weeks before the event that we would be participating. we were lucky to even get our shirts made in time. it was a difficult and very emotional decision because - even over a year after his diagnosis - the emotions are still raw, the fear is still very real, the uncertainty is still taunting our family every single day. but we finally decided to participate because we realized that it is important to teach involvement and awareness to liam's brothers. 

team liam

my reason for breathing.

liam's caped crusaders.

daddy - our superhero

thank you, anne, for always being there for me and my family. we love you!

it was a wonderful day filled with family, love and support. we are so very grateful to have all of those.