Let the fun begin MAW/GKTW PTR Chase June 23-29-2010

[wish_upon_a_star35]

I forgot to say that everything is fitting wonderfully! Selah is very tiny and she actually can actually still fit a 24 month in some things. Especially around the waist...but they would of course be too short! She was a preemie and just hasn't managed to catch up yet!

 

[wishin' on a star]

Leah, what beautiful Big Gives! We got the same Wish shirts from Jill, and loved them!! And Liz already knows how special she is in my heart. Looks like you all got great packages from her. Love all the pictures...and I think it's just wonderful that the Big Givers so generously give to the whole family...because I can just tell how amazing Courtney thinks all of this is. That's awesome.

 

[llaxton]

I am so glad everything fit and everybody liked it. I hope you have an awesome time!

 

[yinyanggirls]

Those are amazing Big Gives! I love the expressions on Courtney's face. And the tears on Chase's cheeks!!! Glad to see your smiling face in there too.

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Leah, what beautiful Big Gives! We got the same Wish shirts from Jill, and loved them!! And Liz already knows how special she is in my heart. Looks like you all got great packages from her. Love all the pictures...and I think it's just wonderful that the Big Givers so generously give to the whole family...because I can just tell how amazing Courtney thinks all of this is. That's awesome.

The Big Gives have been absolutely amazing! It makes me wish I would have stuck with sewing! And Courtney is so excited!! She said that all she can think about (even while she is at school) is the Big Give and our trip to Disney!! Thank goodness there's only a couple of weeks left for school!! But honestly Courtney has always been such a wonderful young lady. She's always kind of taken to the "underdog" so to speak. She constantly makes friends with kids who normally don't have a lot of friends (one of her oldest and dearest friends has CP and is mostly nonverbal) and she loves to help other people all of the time. She has been talking about doing something similar to this at her school nonstop since the Big Give began! One of her teachers called me on Friday and told me that she would like to brainstorm with us about a few projects she has in mind that she'd love for Courtney to help her with over the summer!

I am so glad everything fit and everybody liked it. I hope you have an awesome time!

Everything fit wonderfully and that little Selah looked absolutely adorable. AND Chase is a Cars finatic!!! He talks about his Car Cars outfit all the time!!

Those are amazing Big Gives! I love the expressions on Courtney's face. And the tears on Chase's cheeks!!! Glad to see your smiling face in there too.

I hate taking pictures!! But I was so excited that I forgot all about my dislike of the camera I'm going to have to get over that because I plan on taking lots of pictures at Disney!!

 

[cantwaittoseemickey]

Fabulous BIG GIVES! I love your shirts! I see Chases tear. Heart melting for sureBless his heart! I'm so glad he did well with this surgery! Not much longer!! Your under 30 days

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Tonya, I am so glad that his surgery went well and his little eyes are starting to clear up little by little!

His pediatrician want him to have a sweat test to check for CF. Selah just had one a few months ago and it was negative. I was so shocked because she seems to have most of the symptoms. Chase does too, but I'm betting his will be negative also.

So today we got 2 MORE BIG GIVE PACKAGAGES!!!! I have to say that I might be a little more excited than the kids about all of this :lol: Also I did a little bit of shopping for our trip and picked up Mickey and Minnie mouse tennis shoes for Chase and Selah and got Courtney a few sundresses for the trip. I even picked up a couple of sundresses for myself. Too bad I look like I'm expecing!!! But with that Florida heat I don't think I will care much!!!

I just came back from a very long and overwhelming meeting. I sit on a board for High fidelity wraparound services for children who are in foster care placements and or have involvement with the juevenile justice system. I have a bit of reading to do and some emails to send out while all of this info is still fresh in my head! I'm hoping to post the pictures of our Big Give Goodies later on tonight or tomorrow!! So stay tuned!

 

[wishin' on a star]

Can't wait to see the latest Big Gives! Sounds like you got some good stuff shopping. Three weeks away!!!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Can't wait to see the latest Big Gives! Sounds like you got some good stuff shopping. Three weeks away!!!

I managed to get some really good things yesterday! I still have a good bit to pick up but I am getting there! I'm going to pick up a few more things this weekend. I think we are missing a beach towel or two and I know Courtney loves flip flops so I am going to get her a few pairs. I'm so sad that I missed Old Navy's flip flop event a few weeks ago

Yes!! Just three weeks away! We even got a cool email from GKTW! Chase is still sleeping (Imagine that, he's usually a very early riser) so when he wakes up we can explore the website and then get started with our busy day!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

We were all very happy to get more packages yesterday! One was from gcast1. She sent an awesome box full of goodies

Courtney: TinkerBell collector Card Ballpoint pen! (very cute!

TinkerBell crayon rollup! (I saw these on another Big Give TPR so I am very happy to have gotten these for the kids. Courtney is quite the artist too!)

TinkerBell playing cards
A really cute polka dot journal (Courtney is also a great writer)

Tinker bell journal

Tinker bell wordsearch

Chase:

Mickey Mous crayon roll up!
Cool Mickey pen
Mater from Cars notebook
Mickey Mouse coloring book
Mickey Mouse coloring and activity book with stickers
Disney Cars sticker book

Selah:

Disney Princess Spiral journal
Disney Princess coloring and activity book with stickers
Cool Minnie Mouse pen
Disney Princess sticker album
Jumbo Princess coloring book!

And a beautiful princess and the frog crayong roll up!!!

Can you believe all the cool things??? I am just amazed! I'm going to have so much fun packing their little suitcases and carryons! I was extremely nervous about the plane ride. Bot Selah and Chase are very hyperactive. Both of them have been diagnosed with ADHD among other things. So anytime that they have to "sit still" for any length of time, I get stressed out lol. But I think that we will be fine now!!! There's nothing like playing with "New Toys" to keep a childs attention!

Now for the pictures!!!

The kids opening their gifts!

Oooh Mickey Mouse!

Ooooh Cool!!!!

She LOVES it!

I'm so sorry, I didn't realize that I didn't fit the Mickey crayon roll up in the picture!!!

I don't want you to take my stuff until Disney!!!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

More presents!

The next package that we opened came from cjbear and family!!! It had the cutest card inside! This package was for Little Miss Selah!!! The perfect outfit for a "girly girl" like her!!

Look at me!!!

So to gcast1 and cjbear and their families we say a BIG Thank you!!! Selah's outfit fits perfectly!!! I was nervous about the measurements because I haven't had to breakout the measuring tape in forever!!! But everything so far has been perfect!! We are going to be so cute on our trip!!!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

I just noticed that my digital camera has the wrong date on it I guess I need to change that before our trip!!!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Another BIG GIVE PACKAGE!!!!

We have another Big Give package all the way from wonderful Canada!!! I was going to wait until Courtney came home but Selah already started opening the package Her and Chase were under the dining room table conspiring on how to open it and who would do the honors!!!

So I let the little ones open theirs and Courtney will open hers when she gets in from school. I will be posting the pictures tonight! Another awesome Big Give!! I can't wait for you all to see!

 

[yinyanggirls]

You've been a busy lady. I'm glad that PA allows you to be so involved in various aspects of foster care. When we lived in TX a friend of mine worked for Adult Protective Services and they removed a child from their home after deciding that this was somehow a conflict of interest. I was livid for them! They had so many problems like that, they finally gave up trying to adopt. Makes me feel lucky.

Anyway, I love how animated Courtney is. If she's faking it, she's good.

 

[visitingapril09]

Another BIG GIVE PACKAGE!!!!

We have another Big Give package all the way from wonderful Canada!!! I was going to wait until Courtney came home but Selah already started opening the package Her and Chase were under the dining room table conspiring on how to open it and who would do the honors!!!

So I let the little ones open theirs and Courtney will open hers when she gets in from school. I will be posting the pictures tonight! Another awesome Big Give!! I can't wait for you all to see!

hhmmmmmm........I'm in Canada!!

 

[cajunfan]

I'm going to pick up a few more things this weekend. I think we are missing a beach towel or two and I know Courtney loves flip flops so I am going to get her a few pairs.

You might want to hold off on purchasing those beach towels!

Lynn

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

You've been a busy lady. I'm glad that PA allows you to be so involved in various aspects of foster care. When we lived in TX a friend of mine worked for Adult Protective Services and they removed a child from their home after deciding that this was somehow a conflict of interest. I was livid for them! They had so many problems like that, they finally gave up trying to adopt. Makes me feel lucky.

Anyway, I love how animated Courtney is. If she's faking it, she's good.

Before I did fostercare, I was a children's mental health advocate. Thankfully in the county that I live in, services are abundant and we are a model county for mental health services. However we still have a loooong way to go. While I did fostercare, (after I adopted Chase and Selah I closed my home) I was still able to advocate and my passion grew stronger becasue I saw how broken the fostercare and juvenile justice system really is.

Courtney has always been extremely animated. Overly so at times she is definitely my drama queen and she knows it too!!!

hhmmmmmm........I'm in Canada!!

You sure are!!

You might want to hold off on purchasing those beach towels!

Lynn

Really!! Let me act like I didn't see that

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Here are the pictures of our BIG GIVE goodies that we got yesterday from visitingapril09!!!

Selah was sooo happy that HER name was on the package! She really gets a kick out of that!

Chase's turn!

He is concentrating HARD on getting his gift open!

I just melt when he smiles!!!

Sorry this one is so blury!

Sorry about her sad face. She was letting me know I was a mean mommie, becasue I told her she couldn't wear her beautiful dress to school!!

Courtney LOVES Tink!

Here's what the kids got!

Courtney: A really cute initial bag with tinkerbell on the letter C.
A tinkerbell notebook and tinkerbell color pencils!

Selah: An initial bag with Tinkerbell on the letter S.
A Disney Princess sticker album and The princess and the frog stickers!
The cutest Tinkerbell dress!!

*By the way...she woke me up at 1:34 a.m. this morning and asked if she could PLEASE wear her "Tinkerbell" dress to school!!! So, the dress was definitely a BIG Give Hit!!!

Chase: An initial bag with Mickey Mouse on the letter C!
A Cars sticker book with Toy story stickers!

And the nicest card from Alison who told us that her family was a previous Wish Family!! We were all very happy about that! Courtney is going to read all about Andrews Journey tonight!

So to Alison we say a BIG THANK YOU! I LOVE Selah's beautiful dress and the kids LOVE their bags!

And to everyone reading this PTR I have to say that the pictures I have taken really don't do the BIG GIVE items justice!!! The things that these ladies have made for our family have been absolutely awesome!! They are very talented!! I told the kids that these gifts were all made especially for them and they have been amazed! Well....Chase thinks that also includes the sticker Books too!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Guess what guys?????

4 MORE BIG GIVE PACKAGES TODAY!!!!!

We just got finished opening them. I'm going to help Courtney with her homework and get dinner together and I will post all of the wonderful gifts!!

I'm trying hard not to fall behind!! It gets crazy trying to keep everything together so that nothing gets mixed up!! I hope I haven't mixed anything up yet while I've been listing everything. If I have I am very sorry! It gets excitingly cahotic at "Present time!"

 

[visitingapril09]

Aww......I am so glad that everyone enjoyed their little 'goodie' bags ane Selah liked her Tink dress! I can't tell you how nice it was to sew for a little girl again. My 'little' girl is 16 and then she has 3 brothers so I love the chance to sew for little princess' (especially when I get to sew Disney wear! I am also glad that it fit ok..........and yes, what a mean mommy........not letting her wear it to school!! Thanks for sharing the photos and I am so glad it got there so quickly!