Black and White Wednesday - swing

Cool dude on a swing (with Molly watching behind him), the color version.

And black and white.

Oh to be 5 again!

It's Wednesday, so please see many more black and white's at

Lisa's "The Long Road to China."

Sunday Snapshot - Superman

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."

~ Stacia Tauscher

"To become a real boy you must prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish."

 ~ Pinocchio

Well Will has certainly got the traits that Pinocchio describes

to become a real boy.
And he is one brave little guy.

I'm truly astounded at how his recovery has gone.

He's now day 11 post-op and tomorrow has his first visit with the surgeon.

She'll removed some stitches inside his nose.

We notice that a little crease that was above his lip pre-operatively

has disappeared now. We're very pleased with how his nose appears.

Everything has healed beautifully and it's my opinion that the surgery was a huge success.

Will AKA 'Superman' has been back to his regular activities.

Which means cartwheels and round-offs ad lib.
No leaping over buildings in a single bound, please.

(These were shot on Friday for an online photography class I'm taking).

27/52 - Summer fun

Yesterday we went to a splash park and Grace brought a friend.

Nothing says Summer better than playing in the cool water on a hot day!

We went to get ice cream afterwards.

Will was with us too.

His bandage is off now and the bridge of his nose has a little bit of swelling,

but for just 1 week after surgery, I'm amazed at how good it looks.

The change is subtle.

I'll get some pics of him this weekend.

black and white Wednesday - saying goodbye

"She is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog.
You are her life, her love, her leader. She will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of her heart. You owe it to her to be worthy of such devotion".

 ~  Unknown

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

~ A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)

How can you say goodbye to your best friend ...one of your family...one of your children?

There are no words that can adequately describe the feelings of loss or diminish the pain you feel.

When you lose a loved companion, you lose a piece of yourself. That world is over and now you have to move to the next version of the world.

Dear Molly,

We love you so much. There has never been nor will there ever be, another like you.

You have been such a loyal, reliable and effervescent part of our family. God has blessed us with your presence and we are so thankful that He did. You have been there for it all ~ birthdays, Christmases, welcoming Grace and Will when they arrived home from China, good times and hard times.

 Through it all, your smile and love never faded.

The brightness of your personality never dimmed.

 I can’t even imagine coming home to a house without you.

Life will go on once you’re gone but the world will be less happy and a little hollow without you.

Thank you sweet pup!

You have made our lives richer and the world a more beautiful place.

You have taught our whole family about devotion and unconditional love.

We will miss you so much darling and can only gain comfort in knowing that you will greet us again someday in heaven.

Love always,

Mom and Dad

Molly was adopted at age 9 weeks in Feb. of 2000. She was an 8 lb. bundle of love.
Our son Nick was 14 years old.
She has been the light of our lives for 11 & 1/2 years and is a funny, kind and gentle sweet soul.

2 weeks ago today, we received the heartbreaking news that Molly has 'osteo-sarcoma' or bone cancer in her right lower jaw. We've been told the tumor has been there for quite a while and her symptoms didn't show until it was quite advanced. 

We've been spoiling our pup with treats, taking her to the dog park, rides in the car (which she loves),

and time spent in the backyard lying in the sun watching our young children play with friends.

I notice she is sleeping more and sometimes it seems hard for her to chew,

but her quality of life is still fairly good.

We're taking this one day at a time and won't let her suffer.
 I don't know if she has days, a week, 2 weeks or months left but we're blessed to have these days with her.

I know this was a sad post but it is our life right now.

All Molly's wanted is to be loved and give her love to us,
 and it's just so difficult to say goodbye.

fun on the 4th

We had a fabulous and festive July 4th.

It started on the 3rd with a cookout with friends and that dinner with our 2 families

turned into a neighborhood get together!

We truly have the best neighbors who are dear friends.

On the 4th we continued with our tradition of attending a charming local small town parade.

I think the best part for Grace and Will was getting candy.

Both  of them don't like the big professional fireworks displays...TOO loud!

So we had our own low key celebration with sparklers and then some other small fireworks Dan set off.

You would have never known that Will had surgery 5 days before except for the bandage on his nose.

He's doing awesome!

26/52 - the patient

The past 2 days have been long for all of us but Will did outstandingly well on surgery day and post-op.

We couldn't be more proud of our brave boy.

I cannot say enough about the people at the American Family Children's Hospital in Madison.

From his caring and gifted surgeon, his ENT doctor and dentist, and the nursing care he received.

As a former RN, I can say Will received medical care at it's very best.

We're happy this is behind us and hope Will's recovery and healing continue to go well.
It's going to be hard to keep this active boy from doing cartwheels but we're going to try
to get him to rest today. :)

Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers for Will yesterday, the 3 of us felt them.

And thank you to our friend Carla who took care of Grace and our dog Molly.

We'll be laying low on this long 4th of July weekend.

Have a fun and safe one!

xo

Sunday snapshot - Will

Bright  and early Wednesday morning, Will, my husband Dan and I will travel to our

nearby children's hospital that's in Madison.

Will is having a rhinoplasty of the tip of his nose (in layman's terms that's nose surgery.)

With yearly visits to our cleft team, we're following the recommendation of his surgeon.

She feels that as he's growing older, the tip is starting to point down.

I did ask that she keep the integrity of his beautiful Asian nose.
We know he'll have a few more surgeries in the years ahead related to his cleft.

The ENT doctor will be checking Will's ears and replace tubes if necessary.

Will is also having cavities filled by our ped dentist and some other dental work.

We're happy this will be only a one night stay and

Dan and I are staying with our little boy the entire time.

Post-op, he'll be receiving some surprises (a couple of new toys)
and ad lib amounts of TLC and snuggle time.

Please keep Will and his medical team in your thoughts and prayers Wednesday.

I have great confidence in these caring people and trust his wonderful surgeon implicitly.

Taken last week of our handsome guy.

black and white Wednesday - Summer portrait

At nearly 9, Grace has become my little social butterfly.

She has many close friends and truly has the nicest little group of girlfriends.

This week she started Summer school.

She's taking art and a reading/writing class.

We're already starting to plan her birthday party...and this is a girl that loves parties!
She and I have a couple of things in mind for it.
On Thursday I'm taking her down to the Chicago area
and she'll stay with her best friend Julia for about 4 days.
So far she's had a fun Summer.


This was taken at a new location I've found and I plan to return with Grace
to take some 9 year old pictures, hopefully in the next few weeks.

The color version was processed with MCP actions, "Mini-fusion" action.

For the black and white, I used Florabella's "Film" action.

It's Wednesday, so many more black and whites are over at Lisa's

"The Long Road to China," be sure and stop by!