Last Day of School

Emma beside the Puppet Stage


Ms. Curly and Emma


Ms. Jarretta and Emma loving on each other!



Emma's favorite place at school to relax and read a book



Emma and her friend greeting each other before the party! Too sweet!



This is Emma outside the window to her room, every morning she would stop and peer in to see what they were doing, and I mean every morning all year long!

Wow! This school year has flown by! Emma has finished her first year of preschool, and I can not believe it is over. I pulled into the parking lot today for her end of the year party and it felt like it was only yesterday that we pulled in to drop her off for the first time. I will never forget that day, it was so hard yet so exciting to see her join her peers in school. She did not cry that day but I did! That day was a beginning and today was the ending of her time in Fab Room 5 as they are called. Bittersweet for me for sure. She loves her teachers so much and the thought of her moving to another room is sad, but boy has she grown and changed and we owe a lot of it to the wonderful teachers who have loved her and accepted her for who she is.

They gave us a book today of her year. I almost cried looking at it. It is full of pictures from different things they have done and different art projects they did too. To see how much she has changed and grown was so neat. There are some precious photos of her with her friends and seeing her interacting and playing with them was so touching. I have just cried looking at it and am so proud of my strong baby girl.

I am still amazed at how much she has loved school and everything about it. She is was always happy to arrive and take her place on the carpet. She knew exactly where her name tape was and would walk with me to it and sit down for circle time. When I would get there at lunch to pick her up, she would tell me about her friends and hug her teachers good bye everyday!! At home she would tell us about music, chapel, and playing outside, a few of her favorite things oh and art class. It was such a hard choice to put her in preschool, but it has been the best thing for my Rosie! She has really learned to use those wings we gave her when we walked her into that building on the first day.

Next year she will be in a new room and have a whole new experience and time, but for now, I will look at her little book of memories and be proud of her and enjoy our summer together. I have a feeling I will hear a lot of School? Mrs. Jarretta for a few weeks till she realizes she is home now. (Well two days she will be in a speech class with 10 kids, but she does not know that yet)

Love my little sleeping angel!!

Mom

One Giant Step for Emma

I have the best video in the world to show you in this post!! You will cheer and cry all at the same time. This video is many years in the making and waiting. It is many hours of therapy, determintation on Emma's and her peeps parts, and lots of prayers!! It might be just a few steps now, but wow!! So proud! It has made all those hours in therapy worth it:) SO proud of my sweet angel and am looking forward to many more steps in the future!!





I wish I could express how much this brief video means to those who know and love her, especially Daniel and Me! We have cried so many nights over having to watch her struggle to learn to: first sit-up, roll over, scoot on her bottom, finally crawl, learn to pull up and now, taking steps on her own. We pray that the wonderful wheelchair that is sitting in our garage will get to stay there for now, and that she will continue to grow stronger daily using her walker without a seat and walking on her own. (Thank YOu Joe for finally getting those braces working for her) I am amazed daily at her stregthn and determination. She is so strong inside and now outside. She never gives up and that is what pushes us to continue to drive to and from Vandy for her many therapies!! God gave her a pure heart that loves and does not believe in "I can't, b/c she will!" It is just on Emma time as we fondly call it.

My heart is bursting with joy and pride, I have dreamed so many nights of her putting her arms out to me and walking into mine. It is a dream come true and worth the wait. Sweet dreams my sleeping angel. Tomorrow is another day and adventure.

Love Mommy

Cute Photos!!

Returning to Teaching

Okay mom before you get too excited, no I am not heading back to teaching Kindergarten, as much as I sometimes long too, the time is not right. But I am teaching again. This past week, I took a long hard look at how I spent time with my child. It is so easy to say that she goes to school four hours a day five days a week, has two outside therapies and three in school therapies, that I do not need to focus to much on focused teaching with her, that playing in her room and watching Barney is fine. However, I felt that a small, (or large) voice was nudging me into another way of thinking. I feel that God was reminding me that He gave me a gift of teaching and that I should be using it more on Emma. Do not get me wrong, I always work on adding new words, working on her colors, numbers,etc while we play, but not really focused sitting down to complete a thought out project.

So, I started thinking about it and I am determined to do more teaching with Emma. We started out this week by doing a few workbook sheets on colors and she loved it. Then, we worked with my Melissa and Doug shape pictures, and today we did some glueing puzzles together. She is loving it all and I am too!! I found out she could draw lines to match items, that she is able to figure out harder puzzles then I thought, that she is actually remembering more colors by name, and that she is trying to learn to write a few letters. This is huge!! She has started learning so many new skills and I love watching her grasp new ideas daily. I guess we have been so focused on her speech and walking that we missed that she was learning so much more from school. (she is behind most of her peers but seems to be trying to catch up now, which is very encouraging)

So, now I am looking into making Lapbooks with her thanks to an on-line friend who homeschools her girls and I am looking into other fun and educational activities for Emma on her level. I have missed teaching so much and I am loving teaching my precious little girl, and watching her learn and grow. She is my miracle for sure!! I can not wait to continue researching and streaching my knowledge beyond my elementary skills into pre-k skills and lower. Emma might be slower to learn then some but once she gets it, she does not lose it, so I will help her learn to fly the best I can.

Love my little one and Thank God I am her mom everyday.

Which Way is UP??

I am in a valley and wonder which way is up and out of this deep valley??

I seem to be caught up in my own head right now. I have so many thoughts going on, that I can not make sense of where to go from here. So many things have happened in our lives lately and we are not sure where we need to go next??? Then, the historic flood hit last week and wow does it bring new perspective to life. I am so grateful for a house over my head and a dry place to lay my head at night. I am so thankful that even though many friends lost it all, they are all physically safe. Watching water flood streets near my house and cover houses, cars, and mailboxes, hearing my mother tell me three houses near them were swept away with the flood water, not being able to reach my parents by car for three days, losing power and everything in my fridge and freezer in a two day span, not knowing when we would be able to get out of our area or get to ice, milk or food, and seeing the pain on friends faces as they found out their house was half underwater, is something you will never forget or come out of unchanged. Then, helping friends gut their house of everything they own and driving down streets full of people's stuff they lost, is moving and life changing. I appreciate everything we have so much more and am trying daily to find ways to help those people.

So between the very personal crisis/situation my husband and I are trying to struggle through and the flood of 2010, I am not sure where to go now??? I feel like I am wondering in the desert with no water in sight. Yes, I know God is in Control not me, but I can not hear Him just yet. I just feel like I am drifting waiting for something to happen to make sense of all going on.

I wonder who I will be when I come out of this valley and finally make it up?? But I still do not know which way is up.. not yet anyway.

Emma's First Race

My Child may not walk





But she can run!

She may not talk



But she can start a race!


She might be a little bit slower then her friends




But she always finish's her race!

She is tiny and has to do things her own way,






But we love her for her being her and that is all that matters to us! We are so proud of you Emma, for finishing your first race and for being a great Master of Ceremony for your school. It was a day we will never forget! Thanks for being you!!

Mom and dad