Thankful for Gifts

Sometimes I have these thoughts and feelings in my head surrounding Colin, Down Syndrome, our family and even my life that formulate this blog post in my head, but when I sit down to write, I have a hard time articulating my feelings into words.  I don't talk about my religious beliefs on here too much, but our faith plays a large role in our life.  Chris and I were married in our church, had our kids baptized, and have started them out in the Sunday School program.  It's important to me and I am thankful for the community of people we have found in our church.  Colin has always been treated like any other kid there and I feel really proud as they are starting to learn some of the important aspects of just being at the church.  They both walk in the door every day, greet the "greeters" by shaking hands, and say hi to everyone that they pass.  They sit *quietly* when it's appropriate and although the Sunday School thing with Colin has been a bit more of a challenge (he doesn't quite follow the same rules there that he does at school), he does have his good days where he does what he is supposed to.  

This past Sunday, on Palm Sunday, the church had some of the children walk in during the opening hymn waving their palms just like the people did for Jesus when he was entering the city.  My kids followed the rest of the group around the church and when it was time, got up to sing "Hosanna" with the choir.  My heart swelled with pride as tears fell down my cheeks watching Colin and Kailey stand up there.  As you know, Colin's communication skills are a work in progress, so I wasn't sure if he would actually sing, but he DID and he sang the right words too.  When he was born, the common thing that Chris and I were told was that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" and there was something about that saying that always bothered me.  As the years go by, it becomes even more evident that we weren't given something to handle, we were given a truly amazing gift.  God gave us a very special gift when Down Syndrome entered into our lives through Colin.  

(The first 10 seconds, the choir is still singing and then the kids join in.  I was only getting little snippets because I was enjoying watching so much....but he pretty much sang the entire thing.  In other clip I have, Kailey was up there dancing...lol.)

For the most part though, are lives are really quite normal.  There are so many times in my day with the kids that I actually think to myself how normal it is.  Down Syndrome isn't there every day.  There are things that we devote  more time to in this house to help Colin learn better, but it's much like you spend time teaching any child how to do certain things.  

I am really, really, really thankful for the blessings in my life and for the things that both Colin and Kailey bring to it from their own personalities.  

I am thankful for the adorable little sass, spunk and love I get from Kailey

Princess shoes at ALL times lately...

...and for the loving, funny spunk I get from Colin.

They BOTH make us proud in their own ways....

So tonight, my heart is thankful for the gifts I received, not because I could "handle" them but because they were true gifts....

Here's one other video of Colin singing his favorite song from public school...Mahalo means thank you.  We literally play it so much I often wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing that pops into my head are the words being sung.....Colin adds his own little personality to it though.  Please don't mind that he's on the potty (this song is an incentive) and you have to wait about 30 seconds before he really gets into it.

Finally, if you have about 15 minutes, I urge you to watch this story about a young man with Down Syndrome who amazes me.  Beautiful story...