Birthdays are awesome. I love them. That’s why I tend to make a big production out of them. Jordan’s been lucky to spend three out of six of her birthdays at Disney World. Each time she’s had a chance to dress up like a princess and celebrate. But until yesterday, she’d never had a traditional birthday party at our house. She had never held a birthday fundraiser before. We’ve never brought our online and in-person world together on one day before. The result? An awesome day… And we raised:
 $2,355! Jordan had a blast at her party. We are both amazed and touched by the outpouring of  support you gave to Camp No Limits. Our fundraiser was an attempt to raise enough money for two more kids to attend camp next summer and you helped us raise enough for SIX. That’s huge. I know a six-year-old who is very excited and exhausted from an awesome day.

Our Winter the Dolphin party was super fun. The kids started the party watching the Dolphin Tale movie. They ate a ton of popcorn and pretzels (and ocean jello) and I even let them drink fruit punch in little cups with a straw. (Allowing kids to drink in my living room is rare!) They didn’t stay in the room through the entire movie. I offered the kids other non-movie watching activities in case they felt the need for distractions.

They watched most of it. But the thrill of playing in Jordan’s room to wear princess dressed, making dolphin necklaces and coloring dolphin pages were too much fun.

The cake was also a huge success. Our favorite cake decorator made one with a really cool depiction of Winter:
I have a thing where I hide the cake from the birthday kid so they don’t see it until we sing happy birthday. I had posted a picture of the cake on Facebook ahead of time and one of the kids at the party saw the picture before Jordan. It was kind of funny to hear one girl announce she knew about the cake before Jordan did.
After gift opening and a bit more playing in Jordan’s room, the party was complete. Jordan had a blast and her eight friends were fabulous.

Even more fabulous? You! Thank you for supporting Camp No Limits and helping Jordan feel incredibly proud of the accomplishment of raising so much money for our favorite non-profit. Camp is so special to us and the amazing number of people who pitched in to let us know it’s special to them too is just incredible.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I try to interview the kids every year of their birthday… Because it’s fun and cute to look on the years past. I’ve been much better at conducting the interviews with Jordan’s brother because we are usually in town for his big day. I’m pretty sure this year is the first time we’ve been home for Jordan’s birthday since the year she was born.

So I present to you… Jordan’s official first interview as a six year old:

If you didn’t see it earlier, I posted five tips I wish I knew when Jordan was born six years ago.

Six years ago Jordan came into our world and changed our perspective on what it’s like to raise a little girl. I’ve said this many times, but I’ll repeat it again. I asked the doctors if Jordan was okay after we discovered she was born with one hand… I looked up into Randy’s eyes and we both repeated that fact: “She’s going to be okay.” We both immediately knew this was true. I had more complications than Jordan did in the time after her birth.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t worry in the months after she was born.

She was the most beautiful baby from the moment she was born. People were drawn to her bright and beautiful eyes. I worried they would look away from her sweet face to gasp or say something rude about Jordan’s limb difference. I was jumpy and sensitive for her first six or seven weeks of life. Then I struggled for weeks after that trying to stop looking for people staring. I focused on my family and lived the life we live to show the staring people (if there are any, I honestly don’t look any more) that we are just like any other family.

I wish I could have told myself to let it go sooner.

If I was a new mom to a limb different baby, here are five things I wish I knew immediately after Jordan was born.

1. It’s okay to be sad. We all have an image of what our child will be like when he or she is born. We’re allowed to be sad.

2. Don’t let the sad run your life. Take the time to enjoy your sweet baby. The cuddly phase goes so fast. It’s the best… even if you’re sleep deprived.

3. Stop reading books and websites that tell you when standard developmental milestones take place. Your baby might hit those milestones differently. Also, he or she might come up with a way to meet those milestones differently. Make sure you have a team behind you: pediatrician, occupational therapist and physical therapist.

4. Reach out to the limb different community. It’s getting easier and easier to communicate with people online but the most powerful experiences are meeting other limb different kids and their families. Our first meeting was when Jordan was 32 weeks old. We haven’t stopped meeting with families since!

5. Answer questions honestly and in a positive way. The way you respond to questions in public teaches your child how to respond when he or she grow up.

I’m so proud of Jordan and how she’s growing like any other kid. She’s so excited for her birthday party later today.

For the last 45 days we’ve celebrated Jordan’s love of Camp No Limits by raising money for other kids to attend camp next summer. This experience has been incredible. For 45 days, you and so many others have pitched in to help Jordan’s hope for more kids at our camp next year.

There’s only one day left to raise money for Jordan’s birthday. Tomorrow’s the big day. Jordan turns six and it’s the end to our big fundraiser. We’ve raised more than $1800 in these 45 days. How amazing is that? We’ll be able to send five kids to camp with that money. But there’s still time. If you’ve thought about donating to camp but you forgot, this is one more chance. It’s tax deductible! It gives kids like Jordan HUGE smiles and a chance to learn from their peers. Both of my kids look forward to this experience. I hope every limb different kid and his or her siblings can attend at least once. (But as we’ve learned, once you start attending, you want to go back year after year.)

This is the last time I’m going to make the pitch. Thanks to everyone who have spread the word, shared funds and let more people know about camp.

Jordan says she wants to do another video after her birthday to say thank you one more time. She asks me every day if we were able to raise more money for camp. It’s very cute.

In the meantime, we’re prepping the house for tomorrow’s birthday party. Jordan made dolphins out of Play-Doh to help decorate the table. Six years old. How did that happen?

Jordan is crazy excited and I’m picking up the house like a banshee for Jordan’s first big birthday party with friends. We’re just three days away from her big day and since we’re having it at our house, I’m focused on things being clean so little girls can run around the house without finding strange piles of dog hair or magazines/catalogues/mail. Jordan has been incredibly focused on helping me with the clean up efforts because she wants to decorate!

So far, here’s the plan for the big Dolphin Tale birthday party. Jordan has a small group of girls from our neighborhood, her school and her old preschool attending. I know she’d love even more people, but I had to cap it at 8 friends. I also told Cameron he could invite a friend or two if he’d like.  We’re going to watch the Dolphin Tale movie and if anyone gets bored, I’ll have a table full of Winter the Dolphin-themed coloring pages on a table. During the movie, we’re also going to make dolphin necklaces.

Afterwards we’ll eat Winter the Dolphin birthday cake and let the kids run around and play. I’m also planning to make these little ocean Jello cups.

I don’t know how long the kids will really pay attention to the movie… I know Jordan will want to watch the whole thing, but it’s almost two hours long. We’ll see what happens!

In Jordan’s excitement, she made some Play-doh dolphins to decorate the drawing table and won’t stop begging me to put up streamers around the house. I bought dolphin plates and cups and ocean-related treat bags. I found all of them on the Oriental Trading website. I’ve been keeping track of dolphin-related party ideas on Pinterest… I think I’m going to use the drawing and coloring pages.

If you have any good ideas, send them my way. Also, we’re three days away from the end to Jordan’s big birthday fundraiser! Thanks again to everyone who has been a part of this awesome experience. The Born Just Right world comes together for wonderful reasons.

Jordan’s birthday is 46 days away! I know that sounds silly for us to start counting down so early… But Jordan and I were talking about her birthday and the many things we could do for it. She’s never had a real party at our house since we’re often out of town for the holidays when her birthday sneaks up on us on December 29th. Jordan tells me she wants to have a Winter the Dolphin birthday party. I figure we’ll watch the Dolphin Tale movie with her friends (it comes out on DVD on December 20th), color pictures of dolphins and maybe come up with some kind of craft project that involves dolphin necklaces or something like that. Jordan told me she wants to invite people from all across the country, but since that’s not really possible, we talked about raising money for our favorite non-profit: Camp No Limits.

The camp has been an incredible source of fun and learning about life as a limb different kid. Jordan has met fabulous limb different kids who have become her mentors. Jordan has also had a chance to see how to stay strong and healthy. The camp is awesome support for her brother Cameron because he has a place to talk about what it’s like to be a sibling to a limb different sister. He gets angry about it sometimes and it’s so great he has somewhere he can go where he feels safe and supported by other “all bits” siblings. Camp isn’t cheap. It takes a lot to operate the program. We attend the camp in Missouri while there are camps all over the place: Maine (the original location), Maryland, Idaho, California and Florida (where camp is underway later this week). I know there are efforts to expand the camp into other states as well. Here are posts from our first camp in 2009 and second camp in 2010.

Camp costs $350 per kid in 2011 and I’m guessing the price will go up again in 2012. Since we don’t know how much it will cost next year, Jordan and I are going to try to raise money for two kids at the $350 rate. We’re looking for your support to help raise $700 for the Missouri Camp No Limits through the No Limits Loss Foundation. This will help two more kids attend camp in June 2012. We’re raising money on Crowdrise - it’s considered one of the best non-profit fundraising sites in the country. Feel free to check out our fundraising page! (By the way – when you pay, it mentions an optional operation fee – you can click on it and change it to more or less based on what you can afford. Do not feel pressured to pay the extra few dollars if you don’t want to pay the extra cost.) Even better? It’s getting close to the end of the year where you need to make sure you donate enough money to help make up for your taxes. You’ll get a receipt that you can save when you work on your taxes next year. Not convinced yet? The Crowdrise folks have a bunch of really cool promotions you can participate in if you donate to our cause (or any cause on their website).

Visit http://bit.ly/jordan6thbirthday to contribute!

Thanks for your consideration and Jordan is really excited about this online birthday celebration. She and I plan to put together a video later this week or next week to talk more about Camp No Limits and why it’s so awesome.

In the meantime, enjoy this slideshow of pictures I put together at the end of camp this past summer:

Jordan had the birthday of a lifetime! We spent four days at Disney World and she was celebrated each and every day! She’s a very lucky girl. At the beginning of the holiday season, Jordan was nutty about opening gifts. I couldn’t understand why she was acting so crazed about the experience. Then it hit me… She only gets to open gifts across one period of the year. There’s Christmas and her birthday all within one week and that’s it. The thrill of opening gifts is a once a year thing. It can make even the calmest of children (and Jordan is not the calmest) start to get overly excited.

Ever since Jordan was born, we’ve had a tendency to extend her birthday into various family visits. So her celebration started with a birthday cake and gifts from her uncle while we visited him in Charlotte right before Christmas. She got some super cool gifts and a beautiful princess cake.

Fast forward a week later and we got to celebrate Jordan’s fifth birthday for four straight days. It started with our first lunch in Italy while we were in Epcot. Jordan got a surprise song and birthday candle with her dessert.

But the big deal was Jordan had a chance to dress up like Rapunzel from the movie Tangled, meet Rapunzel in person AND eat lunch in Cinderella’s Castle while meeting all kinds of princesses. It was princess galore. If you ask Jordan about what was the best part of her birthday celebration, she keeps changing her favorite parts.




The cupcakes and fun lastest all the way to the last night of our visit to the parks. Jordan loved wearing her birthday pin where it seemed like every single Disney cast member (also known as employee) was wishing Jordan a happy birthday saying things like: “Happy birthday princess!” or “Happy birthday Princess Jordan!” The birthday girl got very good at saying thank you to each an every person. She loved telling people she was five by holding up her hand. So many people would declare: “You’re a whole hand old!” It was very cute.

We’re exhausted and I have a bunch of stories to share and I plan to do that. But we’re back to school and I’m back to work. We have a lot to do but I don’t want to forget the stories. I took a ton of video snippets… Hopefully I’ll find time to put something together with it.

Oh – one other thing. Jordan is a daredevil. She LOVED the fast rides – at least the ones she was tall enough for. She couldn’t ride the largest roller coasters, but she did get to ride Test Track and the Tower of Terror. I caught a moment of her pure happiness on Test Track. She couldn’t stop laughing. It was awesome.

This week is Jordan’s brother’s week. His birthday is on April first… and every year you have to deal with a bit of jealousy that comes with the doting of a birthday kid. But this year was different. Jordan was honored to have a birthday brother. She signed and decorated a card and drew a picture for him. She sat and watched him open gifts. She hugged and kissed him and didn’t get whiny or need to cry. She’s a supportive sister when she gives it a try.

It seems like we’ve been celebrating for weeks, but today is the big day. Jordan and I plan to spend the day together. I’m going to take her to see Princess and the Frog. Her two closest friends might join her (the girls who attended her princess tea party 10 days ago). I even got her a Princess and the Frog birthday cake. Very exciting stuff.

To be honest… I love birthdays. I loved them before I had kids. But I love them even more now that I know all the effort that comes with making babies. And to be even more honest, I love celebrating how Jordan completed our family. One boy, one girl, two dogs and two happy (and often exhausted) parents. I also love how she brought us into a world where we’ve met so many wonderful families who are connected to us just because Jordan was born with one hand. Yes, we’ve had highs and lows. But most of those highs and lows were totally worth the extra effort of life with a child who doesn’t conform with the physical expectations we envision before our baby is born.

I love birthdays and I love how Jordan changed our lives and our perspective about so many things in this world.

Jordan got to have a surprise birthday party today!! It’s ten days until her birthday and she’s never had a birthday party with her friends… So I broke the news to her and hour before she got to meet her friends at a local theater company’s princess tea party event. My princess had a chance to get a new dress and have a fun and pampered day. Here’s how I introduced the event to her: