Big Helper

May 2010

Tyler 2 McKay 9

Tyler is my new little helper! We train them young here in this house :)

I need all the help I can get!!

This is one of the very first times that Tyler has shown any interest to help feed McKay. He got the bar stool all by himself and told us he needed to stand on it. He was right on that one, because gravity is what makes the Pediasure go down. Good Job Tyler Bug!

Pictures

Mother's Day

May 9, 2010

Picture taking with children can sometimes be tough. well.....at least it is with my little kids. Even if you don't count McKay, it still is. These were taken on Mother's Day sometime after church. this was the best one out of the bunch! Between Tyler crying and McKay not wanting to hold his head up it was quite the ordeal!! These kids that call me mother sure are cute one's though. I love them very much and feel blessed to be their mom.

Easter 2010

What a fun Easter/Conference weekend McKay had

He got to hold a bunny at the baby animal days in Logan

He loved to feel the soft bunny!

He was trying to get into some trouble at G-ma Linnea's house! That doesn't happen very often so when it does happen.....we have to take pictures of it!

We were all sitting there watching conference, we looked over and saw McKay doing this. Just sitting there with his finger in the blinds. Not sure what he was thinking but

it was sure cute to see!

Dad holding him while watching conference

McKay doing some thinking during conference. I'd really like to know what this kid really is thinking sometimes!

Holding dad's hand....

Dad going up stairs to give him a bath.

Easter morning 2010

They're all sitting on McKay's bed

We have to look at the fish in the big fish tank every time we come to the hospital. It's one of the high lights! Hannah's got the fishy face down good!

January 4, 2010

Waiting for Doctor Peter to come check out McKay's braces. His dafo's, which are his feet and ankle braces and his back brace.

Our wheelchair guy Matt, is making some changes on his wheelchair. You can tell McKay was loving every minute of it!! I'm just glad he was calm. When he's struggling or fidgety it's to had to get a good fitting. But when he's calm like this it's such a better fitting. So that worked out for us this day!! He made more changes this visit than ever before. McKay went through a growing spurt so his wheelchair needed to be altered quite a bit. You change one thing and then it starts a domino effect....one thing after another.

Very entertaining when you take 3 kids to the hospital. I try to make it as fun as possible....kind of like a field trip! With Hannah in Kindergarten, it made it hard sometimes to schedule his appointments. Because she had morning I would plan them in the early afternoon.

Wheelin' on ice

December 26 2009

Here is a picture of Little McKay wheelin' around on the ice. I almost left him with grandma Leah, but decided not to. I thought he'd like getting out and getting a few laps around the rink by anyone who wanted to push him around. I would like to say that he had a thrilling time...but he slept the whole time we were there. So maybe it was so great and so comfortable the only thing he could do was sleep! At least he stayed on all four wheels this time. The last time he went we had a slight problem...nothing to major- just kind of scary looking. His chair slipped back and the two front wheels of his chair were sticking straight up. He was fine, his head wasn't even touching the ice because he was strapped in so good, but still..... the look of it was just wrong. So compared to last time this was a smooth skate. He skated just beautifully! maybe next time he'll try one of those cool spins!!

Tyler playing with McKay

October 2009

At one of Matthew's basketball games Tyler entertained himself for a minute
by climbing on McKay wheelchair. He would climb all over that thing. McKay didn't seem to
mind one bit. He was half a wake and half a sleep. This is a great picture of a close up of his latest headrest. So far it's been a favorite. Out of the 4 we have tried in his life time this one has been the best. His ears don't fold in half as much and our favorite part- is the strap around his forehead. For at least 3-4 years John and I have joked around about strapping a belt or tape around his head to keep it up. And here's our answer.... this does the job really good. I just wish someone would have told me about it several years ago!

A great Quote

My friend sent me a baby announcement and inside it was this little quote.

"the child must know
that he is a miracle,
that since the beginning of the world
there hasn't been,
and until the end of the world
there will not be,
another child like him."

I think this is so true. and it's directed to all the children. They are so individual- so unique in their own way. and all are so special. I am grateful for the 4 children that I have been given. And I'm grateful for what they all teach me.

McKay

On January 8th
over a year ago McKay had several hip surgery's. During the first surgery they did both the right and left hips. Later finding out the Left one didn't take- we had to do it again. The plan was to remove the hardware earlier but because I had little Ty and McKay got sick two different times the surgery was planned.... we had to wait until now.

He has recovered really good. He'll have a good day and then the next might be not so good. He just got back from school today(early out) and seems very comfortable. I need to go get him out of his wheelchair and lay him in his bed. He is just sitting here pulling all sorts of faces. Sometimes I really wonder what they all mean. The little boy also needs a haircut. I could go take him in somewhere- but then that would be a lot of work..... Maybe john and I can just do it here later tonight. But then that's quite the process too! it's cheaper.... so that's what we'll do.

He's my big baby
I love how McKay gives me some relaxing down time

Miracles are everywhere

Today has been a day of many thoughts..... There seems to be so much going on. It's election day... I've got two sick kids with colds- Tyler and McKay... John's in Logan finishing up some paper work with the purchase of the new van... rescheduling McKay's surgery to remove the pins from his hips- I had to cancel due to his congestion and fever... and so I took a break and grabbed a book. This book that was given to us on our Make-A-Wish trip. It's written by the man who came up with the whole idea of Give Kids The World (where we stayed in Florida). Families get to stay here when a child wishes to see Mickey Mouse or wish to go to Disney World. The whole idea is amazing. But in this book you get to know him and some of the history behind it all. He is a survivor of the Holocaust and his story is very interesting. Today I was touched again when thinking about this whole experience we just went through a few weeks ago.


The rest of what I've written is taken from the book "Gift of Life" By Henri Landwirth.

Every life is touched by miracles. Sometimes people just don't recognize them, but that doesn't mean that what they are experiencing in not a miracle. My own life has been touched over and over again by events, by happenings which I cannot define any other way, but to call them miracles.
There were miracles in each of my six lives, but none as profound as what I'm experiencing today. When the Castle of Miracles was under construction, Bob Richards was the general manager of J&N Stone and they were doing some work on the castle. Bob was 46 years old then with five children, and he was battling terminal colon cancer.
"I'm a Christian," Bob explained, "and I believe what happened to me at Give Kids the World is a miracle from God. The more I got involved at the Village, the better I felt. The less I worried about my own health, the more my health improved. I'm cancerfree today and I think working at the Village is an important part of the reason why. Wonderful things happen to people who help at the Village."





When we were first opened, we didn't have any blankets or pillows. I gave my assistant, Jan Silver, several hunddred dollars and asked her to go to Kmart and buy some pillows and sheets and blankets. As I finished saying that sentence, a big tractor trailer filled with pillows and blankets pulled up right outside my window.
These connections of faith seem to happen all the time. Small wonders. Since Give Kids the World began, I've witnessed dozens of things I would call miracles. As I look back at my life, I can see a steady strem of events, from the survival of my sister and me, to the Mercury Years, to Give Kids the World. Miracles happen. They are real and tangible. There's no question about that. We just have to be willing to see them.
At Give Kids the World, every child, both the wish child and siblings, receives a toy each day when the family returns from the theme parks. This means that we use more than 60,000 toys each year. Because we use so many toys, I wanted to buid up an inventory. I asked Julia Hobbs to write a letter to every toy company in the country asking for donations for the kids. The very nextday , a man called from Roxbury Toys in New Jersey. He had a tractor trailer full of toys for us.

The Village provides a library of videos for the children to watch. One day, as I walked through the administrative building, I noticed our video supply was low. I asked one of the staff to call disney and see if they could send us some more videos. A big box from California waited for me on my desk. That's right, it was filled with videotapes for kids.
The greatest miracle is building Give Kids the World on a handshake and a prayer. The companies have taken the business side out of it. They benefit from the goodwill, but they remove the business from it. This is a uniquely American story.
Our foundation is unique in other ways also. No other foundation gives a vacation for the whole family. None. This is the only one in the world. Our Village is unique because it is the only place tht offers the gift of memmories for each member of the family individually and the family unit as a whole.

In 1996, our corporate sponsors will provide over $12 million dollars of services and incidentals for the families. The number of people that Give Kids the World serves continues to grow. This year, more than 4,500 families will come to Give Kids the World from 45 countries across the globe and no one will be asked to pay anything. By the end of 1996, we will have served more than 27,000 children and their families.
We have no contracts, no legal agreements. We do this in the spirit of generosity which makes America unique among all the countries of the world. Such kindness, all rooted in our collective love and caring for the children couldn't happen anywhere else.

Some things McKay did this Fall

We celebrated McKay's 8th birthday along with Daddy's 35th and Tyler's 1st with the family at the Layton Park (the duck park)

Sweet little McKay is 8!!

McKay's first day of 3rd grade. He's getting all strapped in on the bus. The bus picks him up at our drive way around 8:15 or somewhere around there in the morning and gets dropped off at 3:30 . The bus ride puts him to sleep most of the time.

This is the look he gives when he's not to sure about something. By the looks of it one would think he doesn't like his new head rest! hopefully over time he'll just get used to it. We got this one because it was time to try something different. He has gained a lot of neck strength and would constantly lift his head up and off, and get it stuck underneath it. This headrest stops him from going off the side. I think it's a great headrest....I just don't like how his little ears are always folded up. We'll give it some time and see what happens....

this is how McKay flew in the airplane! He would either lean against the plane or John. Here he looks comfortable....but by the end of the flight he was all crouched up. We tried hard to keep him comfy though.

The kids watching something on stage at Give Kids The World

On Oct. 22 we went to Shriners Hospital to get new dafo's for his feet and ankles. We also put a new headrest on. It didn't bend his ears so that was good. within the first day of him trying it out we knew it wouldn't work....he just wouldn't keep his head up. He knew how to get his head stuck behind this headrest too.

and new shoes! They are so cute!

We also picked up his back brace. His Scoliosis is about 60% curved. Not very good at all. The doctor said to plan on putting a rod in his spine most likely in the next 2 years. The brace is to help slow down the curving and to stretch him out a little. When he wears it, it makes him look so tall and older.

Meet the Oppermann family. On Thursday October 30th we officially bought our new wheelchair accessible van from this family. It was a very neat and tender experience from the very beginning. We all know that it was meant to be.

So now he's back to this head rest and actually looks comfortable. His lips also look better than they have for a very long time. I found some new chapstick that is awesome. Neosporin lip treatment LT. It's great! It healed his severly chapped lips over night.

He's all dressed up (dad did his hair all handsome) and ready to go to church. I think he looks excited.... it could be because..... He's taking his first official ride in his new van!!

Bon Voyage Party

oooooh boy!!!

When these two princesses sat next to him he started
to stretch his arms out- it was as though he knew what he was doing!

back of the star

front

McKay's very own star!

our family with the Make-a-wish group who have done all of this for us

Eli and Jordan

Grandma Linnea

Jim and his two boys
Nan and 3 of her kids

Tara

Riley

Jamie Smith and her girls

Tara poll and her kids

Todd Willey and his kids

Brett herbert and his fam
JD Hucks and his boys

Chang Family

Libby family

Here we are getting ready to raise His star.
With a little bit of team work, cooperation and family
unity......we raised it to the top! Where it will forever stay.
What touched me the most is the fact that the kids who make wishes are usually terminally
ill. Which means they have either passes on, are still living... hanging on dealing with something most likely, or made it through and are doing fine. But really, most of those stars probably represent some child who is no longer living any more. It really makes you stop and think for a second. So here we are trying to live in the moment and yet we realize that McKay will not always be with us. We understand that. When? we have no clue. I know that at sometime or another we all will pass on, but with him - it's just a little different. It is something I think about daily. I wonder how and when and why..... but I'm not going to think about that right now. For now we are just going to soak this all in and enjoy every minute of it. In 8 days we will be off! We are going to have the time of our lives!! We are going to squeeze in as much fun as we possibly can. This was such a fun night!!! Thanks to all you family and friends that came to share this with us. We love you all so much!