5 things Friday

1. feeding my kids healthy food! (when they will actually eat it!)

2. seeing friends from a far off land (we have friends visiting from Wisconsin and it is SO good to see them!)

3. selling things in my etsy shop (it makes me feel so productive and contributing)

4. hugs from Rowan, and spontaneous kisses

5. Asher's hair. (he has wings!)

TACA seminar in Atlanta

Here is my big boy with his new hair cut! So handsome :-)












Joel, Susanna, Bella and I went to Atlanta for the day! Joel and I had signed up to attend a "Talk About Curing Autism" seminar and Sooz volunteered to take Bella for the day while we went to the seminar. It was awesome!! Sooz and Bella spent the day roaming around Atlanta with our dear friend Kim, who lives there. We woke up at 5 AM (which was not easy with only 4 hours sleep prior!), then drove 4 hours to Atlanta, only to get there and sit for another 7 in the seminar. On the way, there was an amazing rainbow in the sky. Sooz shouted, "Look! There's your promise!" The Lord promised us many months ago that he was going to give us our so n back. So I think he was just reminding us that day of that. Ok, moving on!

Suprisingly, we made it through the whole seminar. I thought for sure Joel was going to fall asleep but he did great, after a few times of getting up and walking the halls. My back was hurting from sitting for so long, but since I was so interested in what was going on, it didn't bother me that much. Thank God! Joel and I learned so much during those hours sitting there, especially Joel. I feel like I'd heard most of it before, but for him, it was the first time and it's really nice to be totally on the same page with him now! And he was thrilled to be learning all of this. We are now SO motivated to keep moving wiht this thing.

While we were there, we met a Christian couple and got to sit and pray with them over lunch. We laughed and cried together and it was awesome. Just to be able to relate to someone like that was priceless to us, as we'd never met anyone else going through what we are. Such a great divine encounter, thank you Lord! I'll never forget Larry and Laura Lea, and their little boy Lorenzo.

We came away from Atlanta with a bag full of resources, a notebook full of scribbled notes, and the gumption to keep going. I am a bit overwhelmed with all of this new information and with all this new motivation, so please pray that i can pace myself! TACA's motto at the seminar was "Autism recovery is a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself." I can totally see myself completely burning out if I'm not careful, and I certainly dont want to neglect my other children!

Above all, continue praying that God would heal Rowan. I know that He can, and I hold to the promise that He said He would!

Here is a photo of my little Bella, hanging on to the window sill (under Daddy's supervision of course. She is only 7 months but she sure is strong!)

YART SALE!

Ok all, there is a sale in my etsy shop. It is a site-wide sale on Etsy, so for some reason that must explain why they spell it "yart". Not sure why. But anyway, everything in my shop is now 20% until Sunday!!! Here is the latest bag I made:








So go check out my shop!! And buy stuff :-) Love you all!

Wordless Wednesday

my angel

glorious smiles

The past few days I have just been revelling in Rowan's smiles. I love all of my children's smiles, and if you're a mom, you know that every smile melts your heart. For Rowan, who for the better part of 2 years barely made eye contact, his smiles melt me just a little more nowadays. He has been looking straight at us and grinning from ear to ear, hugging us, wanting to be with us. His eye contact is remarkable, which for me is a turning point because it makes me feel like I am connecting with him when there aren't words. Soon I will take a picture of his beautiful smile and post it on here for all to see.
In my last post, I talked a little bit about "the fog". A friend of mine wrote me recently and told me of another way that someone put it once: "There is this perfect child on the other side of a dirty window that you just can't seem to clean. Sometimes you can't see through at all, some times you squint and get a glimpse. But, so help me, I will tear that window out of the wall and pull that child out."
That is how I feel. I long to see this little boy's smiles accompanied with words like "I love you Mommy," or even "I have to go poop", or I'd even take "Mommy, I just ate dog poop and it was yucky." I'd even be happy and probably jump up and touch the ceiling if he called me fat or something! I'm telling you, there is going to be a day like this and I hope you come back and see the photos, because there are going to be a million.
Today we ran out of Ro-safe food so he had to have almonds and black beans for breakfast and lunch. I caved and gave him a bite of orange, which isn't good for him for a number of reasons that I dont have time to write; the main one being that it is too much sugar and if there is a yeast issue in his gut, sugar feeds yeast and thats bad. But he happily ate those black beans and almonds and drank his lemon water! I never thought I'd see the day when my 3 year old willingly and happily ate totally healthy foods, much better than even I eat. Praise God! Now if only I could get my two year old to eat vegetables...

Hello, blogspot!

I am new to Blogspot Town so I'll be experimenting with templates and such, but we are here now! I'll be doing this one instead of the wordpress one from now on. I prefer blogspots gadgets and templates way more than wordpress so far!
Anyway, check back for an update soon!

Jenn