Our Little Life

I think Madeline gets her swimming talent from Ryan because she's excelling and having a great time.

We had a nice relaxing Easter celebration at home.  

The girls were surprised with fun gifts from the Easter bunny.

We also decorated eggs together.

I really like these pictures of the girls.  They are good sisters to each other.

Claire's hair is finally long enough for pigtails!  We battle with her hair because she hates having it brushed and when it's long, it sometimes gets matted in the back where she rubs her head against the headrest on her wheelchair.  To keep things simpler, it's been short for quite a while.  Having a few people mistake her for a boy lately has inspired me to let it go a bit longer.  

Thank goodness for detangling spray!

We went to a couple of concerts with friends this month.  We saw Owls By Nature, Awkward Travis and USS at the Starlite Room.  It went incredibly late and was incredibly loud and made us realize that we might be getting too old to party that long, but it was still lots of fun.  

The week after we went to another concert: K-Os and Rich Aucoin.  Lots of fun, but we left early because...we're old now (and we actually mostly went for the opening act, Rich Aucoin).  He has confetti guns, giant parachutes, plays youtube videos in the background and gets the crowd involved.  It was great.

Daddy daughter dates are the best.  :)

And the rest of the story:

We attended a fun birthday party for my Uncle Dan and it was really nice to see family and celebrate the life of a great man.

Madeline was invited to a birthday party at Monster Mini golf (glow in the dark, spooky theme).  We'd tried to go there twice in the past and both times she was completely hysterically frightened.  So we made her promise to try it with us before she said "no" to the birthday party.  After an intensive shock therapy session, including walking around and touching some of the scary things to see that they were just plastic...she was fine.  I was proud of her for tackling something she was scared of.  We had fun golfing as a family and she had a good time at her friend's birthday party.

Ryan continues to be the on-call computer expert among our family and friends.  He attended the Calgary Expo with a couple of friends and was THIS close to Peter Dinklage.  Maybe next year I can convince him to dress up like Waldo.  I still say it's the best costume ever.

Claire got a wheelchair tune up this month and continues to do well at school.  She loves music class, rides her bike in gym class and is making progress with communication and participation.

Madeline had some fun playdates with friends this month, went on a field trip to the Telus World of Science to learn about space, had her student-led conferencing and is working hard at sitting down on the bus, being a good listener and taking time with her work at school.

We had family and friends come swimming with us in the morning because that's one of Claire's favourite things to do.

We decorated her tray with gel letters that spelled out Happy Birthday.  

They did not last long in her capable clutches!

It was at this point that Claire's mother realized that she seriously needed a haircut.

Grandma and Grandpa Patterson made an awesome playdough cake for Claire to enjoy.

She had a little help from her friends.

Claire had fun opening her presents with dad.

Claire has taught us so much.  There are some very hard days but there are also many rewarding moments.  It's so satisfying to make her giggle or to have her sit gently and quietly in your arms for a few seconds.  Those are the times I cherish in the face of difficulty.  

We had such a fun day celebrating Claire on her birthday!

They both did a great job.  

It's hard to not get emotional when you see all these kids working so hard and the volunteers that have sacrificed their time to help.  It's a beautiful thing.

We're lucky that they've let Madeline join the class because it's something fun that the girls can do together.

After a quick bite of lunch, we headed over to the museum for a sensory safari put on by the CNIB and  the Safari Club of Edmonton.  They open up the exhibit for kids to explore with their other senses and it's an event we look forward to every year.

Then we wandered through the rest of the museum because it's one of Claire's favourite places, especially the Wild Alberta exhibits.

I believe this part was Madeline's favourite!

We started with the pinata, which was a big hit.  

GET IT?!

All the kids were so excited to meet and hold the animals.  

We got so many good pictures of their reactions.

Claire really enjoyed touching the snake.

The snake kept sticking out its tongue and tickling my neck!

This rabbit was so fluffy, the kids could barely tell where her head was, except for a cute little purple bow.

Just as a note here, Claire was SO tired.  

We could barely keep her awake to enjoy the fact that she had a chinchilla on her shoulder.  

This bird absolutely LOVED Ryan.  She was grooming him and everything.  It was so fun to watch.

This cracks me up.  Madeline LOVES Michael Jackson's music.  We've watched so many of his music videos on youtube.  So Grandpa Patterson made her a couple of posters with pictures of him, and filled a memory stick with songs so she could listen to them over and over.

Madeline is such a special little girl.  She's such a good sister to Claire and I don't know what we'd do without her in our family.  She's so patient when things don't seem very fair and has become so independent.  We all love her so much and are excited to watch her learn and grow.