I have a thing for taking the kids to see Santa… It’s cute and I’m running out of years where this tradition is exciting. Cameron has figured it all out… But he and I have made a pact to keep it away from Jordan for at least this year. So when we took pictures with Santa this year, we helped her put together a list for Santa (which she wrote in pink crayon). We had a quick visit and Jordan was very happy. Cameron was sweet and willing to give a couple of really great smiles.

I have a huge week of work to do… So unless something crazy happens this week, I’m going to have to disappear a bit from the site. I’d love to spread the word about Jordan’s birthday fundraiser. Today is officially a month before Jordan’s birthday and her quest to raise enough money to help two more kids attend Camp No Limits next summer. We’re madly in love with the experience. When we have a few moments, Jordan and I want to share a video with our thanks to the many of you who have already given to her campaign. We also have a couple of really big deal milestones this week… including our search for her next arm’s fabric design.

I’m the room parent in both kids’ Halloween parties today… So I thought I’d share a Halloween story before I go to bed and rest up for our spooky day. I wanted to share a few more stories about the awesome Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party we attended last week.

The fun started the moment we walked out of the elevator of our hotel. A man asked if he could post with Cameron because he thought his costume was so great.
We headed to the park where we got our official party armband and I gave the kids HUGE Disney-themed Halloween trick or treat bags. Jordan was especially excited about that.
We met up with one of our former students who is currently an intern with Disney Sports. She brought us gifts of super cool Mickey hats. I got a new Minnie Mouse hat, Jordan got a Tinkerbell, Cameron got a Woody from Toy Story Mickey hat and Randy got a Goofy Mickey hat. Super fun.

We knew many of the kids attending MNSSHP (that’s the shorter way to say the name of the party) wouldn’t be using the big kid rides, so we headed to the Buzz Lightyear ride and all kinds of fun. Next stop: Space Mountain. But before we did that, we snagged a quick picture with Buzz Lightyear and trick or treated a little. Plus, we had to drop by a dance party in Tomorrowland. It was AWESOME. Cameron was totally into it. Jordan was a bit more hesitant. But they both enjoyed watching Stitch, Pluto and Goofy dance in space costumes.
We loved the Halloween ride emptiness. Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad were practically empty for us to ride. We LOVE both roller coasters. Listening to Jordan scream “AWESOME” at the top of her lungs is a joy that only is explained by being there. She’s a brave kid. I love it.

We ended the night enjoying the fireworks by the castle and then made sure we had a great spot for the parade by sitting down along the street in front of the castle. While we waited, we got to watch a show performed by many of the well known Disney villans. When the parade started, we watched the headless horseman ride through the streets and then a really fun parade. It ended with Goofy and others handing out candy. Mickey Mouse lollipops? Yes please!

We loved the party… Even though Jordan fell asleep on her dad’s lap between the fireworks and parade. She made it through and we have SO many Halloween memories thanks to that fun night. I can’t wait to see what kind of fun we can have tonight for the “real” Halloween!

We’re trying to catch up on life after an awesome adventure to Disney World and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. I have so many stories to tell… But first, I’ll try to summarize our adventure. The trip started differently than normal for us… We rode on a plane to Florida! We’re drivers for almost all of our cross-country family trips. So this was the first time Jordan was on a plance since she was three. She loved it.

By the time we got to Disney, it was after midnight. That didn’t stop the kids from getting a chance to check out our hotel: the Wilderness Lodge. It’s a really huge and beautiful hotel at the Disney Resorts. The Lodge is built to make it feel like you’re staying at a national park. A water feature starts inside and runs outside, down a waterfall and into the pool. It was a huge thrill for all of us… so getting the kids to sleep that first night was really challenging!

The next day we were up early and ready to open the Magic Kingdom. We took advantage of the Extra Magic Hours in the morning and evening each day… So we were able to ride our favorite rides twice or more during this trip. How fun is that?

Our first day was a combination of fun at the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We discovered Jordan was tall enough for all of the roller coasters except for the Rock n’ Roller Coaster. We had a ton of fun. So much fun that Jordan ended up falling asleep on me while we waited for the boys to ride their final ride.
 Our second day was even more exciting! We opened up the Animal Kingdom for Early Magic Hours and showed Jordan how much fun is it to ride the Expedition Everest roller coaster. It was so funny. Each time we’d go in to ride it, Jordan would get all upset and scared. By the time we’d end the ride, she was cheering and asking to do it again.
 After our fun at the Everest ride, we had a lot of fun riding the safari ride where we saw a ton of animals. We also had a chance to experience the Lion King show… which is really awesome.

We ran back to the hotel where we had a delicious lunch scheduled and hopped in the pool for a little bit. Then Jordan and I ran off to Downtown Disney where she had an appointment at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. Miss Jordan decided to get a Diva Princess hair style. It’s kind of punk rock and she loved it. We headed back to the Magic Kingdom to meet back up with her dad and Cameron AND we had a chance to hang out with some old friends who Jordan hadn’t met before. Jordan made very fast friends with one of their daughters… it was really wonderful to watch them enjoy the park together.
It’s pretty cool how a quick mention about going to Disney on Facebook made it possible for us to meet up. I love that. We had so much fun. Thanks to those Extra Magic Hours, we had a chance to hit our favorite rides once again. Some of the kids and grown ups even did Splash Mountain Falls to close out the night. I decided to stay dry. I’m wimpy like that I guess.

On our third day at Disney, we decided to go to the early hour at Epcot. We enjoyed the rides and went all the way around the countries. We have never done that before with the kids… They weren’t as thrilled about it as Randy and I were. But you can’t love every second of Disney, right? The grown ups enjoyed the chance to drink a good German beverage and the kids liked watching fun performances in Italy and Great Britain. We had a delicious meal at the Coral Reef and then headed back to our hotel to dress up! We got to go to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom!! There was trick or treating, dancing, having fun… And of course, riding our favorite rides with very few people in line! The parade and fireworks were awesome.

The next day was really special. We had a chance to meet Winter the Dolphin at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. It deserves its own post… So I’ll probably stop here and tell you more about our amazing experience very soon.

Running through the gardens.

Discovering the pool was just too cold.

Racing around a backyard too fast with Cameron pulling Jordan in a wagon.

Cameron being sweet to the younger kids during Monday night’s potluck.

Jordan reaching over and rubbing my wrinkled up forehead saying: “Get the grumpy off your face Mommy!”

Little moments that I want to remember forever and ever. I tried to snag a few sweet moments with the family this weekend. The weather went from terrible hot to incredible fall-like weather in a flash. I felt the need to be outside with the kids… but they felt attached to watching TV and vegging out. I see some merit to a bit of vegetable living. Relaxing is good. I just don’t think it needs to happen ALL the time. Plus, when the weather is amazing, I want to make sure we take advantage of it!

So we enjoyed a local garden. We went to the pool… even though the shift from summer to fall was so fast, it was really too cold to soak in the final day of swimming season. We spent time meeting neighbors we hadn’t met before at a potluck. My kids were the oldest ones there and played nicely with everyone.

I’ve thought a lot about little moments… It’s what gets me through tough days. It’s what I live for during my parenting moments when I question if I know what I’m doing. It’s those moments that got me into blogging about Cameron in 2004. He said so many tiny, funny things… I didn’t want to forget. Now I have another reason to think about it. This Friday, I get to celebrate the little things at Hallmark in Kansas City. I’m taking part in a meetup for regional bloggers as part of Hallmark’s “Life is a Special Occasion.” I can’t wait. To make it more fun, I get to carpool with my friend Kate. It’s the little things, right?

Here’s some fun pictures from the weekend:

Cam said he was "photo bombing" this picture

It hit me as I drove to work. My two kids are so very different and their challenges in life are in many ways very opposite. And the fiery sibling rivalry that roars between them is possibly fed thanks to their individual challenges.

After spending a lot of wonderful time with the special needs community online and in person this summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about physical differences and invisible differences. Jordan’s little arm is obvious. It makes people curious but you almost instantly know she’s different. Her brother Cameron has a brain that makes him brilliant at times and challenging at times. He is very emotional (in good and difficult ways), he remembers scary amounts of details from things he likes (especially media he consumes) and he often gets distracted and unfocused at school. Sometimes when he does things, I’ll get stares or he’ll have classmates that don’t want to be around him. It’s heart breaking… because his challenges are so undefined when you compare it to Jordan. We know what her challenges are and we can work on finding the support and services she needs. Cameron’s invisible challenges are uncertain and we never find a set way to help him stay on track. He’s a two steps forward, one step back kind of kid. Luckily we’re always moving forward, but it feels slow sometimes.

I have a hard time describing this challenge. But I feel like I’m in limbo – always searching to find the right ways to support both of my kids and I always wonder if Cameron is left behind. I worry I can’t understand his challenges and I’m not finding the right solutions for him while I seem to have great success for Jordan. I say this… but she is just getting started with her educational experience. I have no idea what kind of challenges await us with her when it comes to the learning side of things. Today she was learning about concepts like “over, under and on.”

Anyway – the disparity between obvious challenges and invisible challenges are verbalized even better by my new friend Rob Rummel-Hudson. He wrote a post about the disability community and the difference between the seen and unseen world of challenges. I’m reading his book about his daughter Schuyler, Schuyler’s Monsters. It’s fabulous. Rob is an honest, kinda profane (in a way I totally enjoy) guy… And I really want my family to hang out with his family… Even if they live in Texas and I don’t. I do know that there’s a fabulous community of special needs families who are getting better at aligning with each other thanks to the Internet. I feel like my support community is growing so I can better help Jordan AND Cameron. That’s a good feeling.

(By the way, the pictures I included were from a mini-photo shoot we did last weekend with my friend Rhiannon of Lollipop Photography.)

In my quest to take more time to think about all kinds of ways I can help the kids learn about diversity, I made a point of taking the kids to a couple of events in town this past week.

Last Friday, Cameron’s (and soon to be Jordan’s) school held an International Day. Each year the school holds a really cool event where the families from all parts of the globe share information about their country and culture. The kids got to eat foods from places like Korea, Libya and Guyana. They also got to try on Middle Eastern clothing and pretend to have tea in Libya. They even had their names written in Arabic.

The best part for the kids had to be from our neighbor who is from Italy. He showed us how to make pasta! Jordan and Cameron each got to help flatten and cut the pasta. It was really cool.

Speaking of cool, after Jordan’s baseball game, I took the family over to a different baseball field to watch a Challenge League game. It’s an incredible league that lets kids and teens with special needs play baseball with assistance. There were so many different types of abilities and needs and everyone had a smile. The kids thought it was really cool.

The most interesting moment was when Cameron looked at Jordan and looked over at the kids… He asked me why Jordan wasn’t playing in the Challenger League. I told him I put her in the mainstream league because she can play in the mainstream league. She has special needs but that doesn’t mean she has to do everything that’s available under that category. I wasn’t sure if I had to explain it any further.

After the awesome experience of watching the game and cheering for all of the players, Cameron tells me he wants to volunteer with the league. It makes me really proud and I plan to find out if he’s old enough to help. Jordan, on the other hand, enjoyed cheering at the game but was more focused on staying warm and chasing her dad around the stands.

There are all kinds of exciting things that come with an Easter celebration… and for the five year old Miss Jordan it wasn’t the candy or the egg hunt. It was her beautiful outfit.
Jordan was so excited to dress up for the holiday. I bought her a new pair of shiny white shoes that had a slight heel to it… Nothing pointy, but it gave a little lift. She decided that when she walked, she sounded “just like Mommy’s shoes.” Very sweet.

Of course, we also celebrated the holiday for its true purpose… But I’ll be honest, I’m not certain that Jordan really understands. But we’ll keep talking and teaching.

I do know that she ate four of her hardboiled eggs, too much candy and couldn’t sit still when we all went to a family movie. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend.

We had such a busy weekend. Saturday was our super fun family meetup and Sunday was our town’s Earth Day event. Its a chance to see how our town is helping save the earth and enjoy all kinds of entertainment. It’s also an excuse to enjoy music and dancing and romp around a park and nearby campus.

I was in a nice mom mood and actually let the kids buy wooden swords… They’re way better than any plastic ones we’ve bought at amusement parks. And wow, did the kids love it.

The kids broke out into dance during dinner tonight. Seriously. Some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen in a while.

It’s kinda hard to be five years old and not the center of all attention. This past weekend Miss Jordan joined the rest of the family as we celebrated her brother’s birthday in Kansas City. Jordan was not on her best behavior… Mainly because she wasn’t the focus. Also, I think it’s because she shared bunk beds with her brother and he was a very wiggly sleeper. The combination of both things made for a challenging kid over the weekend.

The positive side… When Jordan wasn’t focused on the “me me me” of her world, she and her brother were actually kind of sweet together. Here are a few other pictures I love from the weekend: