I wanted to try something a little different today and have a little chat with Sam! Enjoy!
Author Archives: Angela @ The Mango Memoirs
{inspired} She Reads Truth
I have been inspired by so many amazing resources in the last few months, and I keep thinking, maybe a few of you in my blog family would like these as much as I do! So I’m going to try to get a handful of {inspired} posts put together for you over the next few weeks. Let’s start with one I use nearly every day.
Do you know about She Reads Truth? It’s a super encouraging website consisting of many different devotional collections and Bible reading plans for women. Each day, SRT posts a new devotional to their current series, but you can access old collections for free on their website. A few recent plans include Esther, Hosea, Hebrews, The Risen Christ, and Hospitality.
In addition to their website, SRT has apps for both iPhone and Android. I love the convenience of their free iPhone app, which includes the complete Bible in a few versions and artistic lock screens and photos with inspiring verses and quotes. The actual devotionals do cost money, but they are only a couple dollars for each series and you can then get them right on your phone. Since we’re not spending anything extra right now, I added a link to their website on my home screen where I can access the devotionals for free. Both options are great!
If you’re looking for a beautifully written, encouraging devotion to help you get in the Word every day, I definitely recommend She Reads Truth.
Do you have a favorite devotional book or resource?
Discolsure: I have not been compensated in any way for my thoughts in this post. All opinions are my own.
Graduating at Three
A couple weeks ago, I realized we are nearing a pretty big milestone in our house. At the end of this month, our sweet Sammy baby is going to turn three. Three! Does that mean I have to stop calling him Sammy baby? Because that's what I've been calling him the last three years, and I am surely not ready to let it go. He is my darling little babe who is proving in so many ways every day that he is no longer a baby.
One reason turning three feels like such a milestone is because it means Sam will be graduating from his early intervention program, which is often referred to as Birth to Three. I prefer to say he is 'graduating' rather than 'aging out,' a phrase often used in this situation. But I feel like the phrase 'aging out' has some ugly stuff associated with it, and there is nothing ugly about what our Samuel has accomplished in the last three years. He has worked regularly with a teacher, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist at different times since he came home from the hospital in June 2012. All of these resources have been provided at no cost to us through the school district. They even come to the house! However, the day Sam turns three, he will leave the Birth to Three program and enter a program for older kids in school. I just can't wrap my head around that, though. He's still my baby!
In preparation for moving into the next program, we've been busy with lots of in-home appointments with his therapists. Yesterday, we had a visit from his occupational therapist. To be honest, though, this was the first time we met her! Sam has pretty much been a rock star with his fine motor skills since day one, so we haven't done any occupational therapy through the school district. We do, however, have regular sessions with his physical therapist, and that evaluation was last week. He is growing by leaps and bounds and is almost constantly trying new things. He's crawling everywhere, including backwards, and pulling up on lots of furniture. It won't be much longer and our little guy will be standing on his own and taking his first steps!! That will be an incredibly emotional day for us all, I am sure. Next week we will meet with our speech therapist through the school district and conclude the following week with a meeting to create his IEP – an Individualized Education Program.
As a teacher, I frequently worked with students had IEPs, especially when I was teaching reading to high school students in Owatonna. They are very detailed plans mapping out an individual's goals in lots of parts of a student's life. Some are fairly short while others are quite long and detailed. It's just not really something I imagined needing to do with one of my own children, so it's a little odd to think ahead and know I will be working with Sam's teachers in a couple weeks to create one as the parent, not the teacher.
Preparing for Sam's IEP meeting and upcoming graduation, I am thankful for two things. First, I'm incredibly thankful for my teaching background. I know some, not all, of the important things we need to focus on as we prepare Sam for school. Also, IEPs are not new to me, and I can easily navigate through the education jargon used during these planning meetings. I have many friends who have not been in such a situation, but instead found themselves cornered and uncomfortable. Most teachers wouldn't intentionally do that to a parent, but it can still be a little overwhelming for parents who aren't familiar with the way these things are often handled.
The second thing I am thankful for in this process is the fact that we will likely not be in the States when Sam starts kindergarten. We hope to move just before Sam reaches that point, at which time I will fully take over his education. I will have the freedom to personally individualize his everyday learning activities to fit his specific needs. It's the dream of many teachers, really. Being able to determine exactly what a student needs and tailor the curriculum to such needs is not something I ever got to do while teaching in a typical classroom. There were far too many students and an individual personality and educational needs to go with each! But I will be able to do just that as soon as we begin homeschooling in Kenya.
Though I'm looking forward to homeschooling, one thing Pete & I are pretty excited to do is send Sam to a typical preschool this fall. We're still determining which school it will be, but sweet Samuel will certainly be going to school two or three mornings a week! Can you imagine? He's going to be so crazy adorable all dressed up for school. It will be so good for him to attend preschool with a group of kids his age, all learning to socialize and follow directions and sit in a circle for story time. I don't push those skills aside as invaluable. They are incredibly important, and I'm very happy he'll have the opportunity to learn alongside new school friends!
Through these transitions, Sam will continue to see his physical and speech therapists downtown each week. He thoroughly enjoys his time with them and has been making tremendous growth. This kid really does have big, exciting things ahead!
Hippity Hop
The thing I truly enjoy about Easter in our family is that we don’t go crazy over the activities that surround it. I love traditions at holidays, but from the time we were newlyweds, we decided to keep Easter on the quite side and celebrate with local friends. I suppose it was partly due to Pete’s med school and residency schedules, but I feel like it keeps our focus primarily on the excitement happening at church, which usually includes a dramatic, artistic service on Good Friday and a huge celebration on Sunday morning.
Again this year, Pete worked a lot of Easter weekend. While he was away, I met Krista and the boys at the zoo on Sunday morning for a great big egg hunt! Before we could even look for a single egg, though, we had to visit the skunks. Have I mentioned that Ella’s FAVORITE animal is the skunk? When she started talking about the furry animals last summer, I was sure it would be a short phase, but it has lasted to this day. We got her a little clip-on skunk tail and headband with ears for Christmas and she made a valentine in February that said I LOVE SKUNKS. So yes, when we visit the zoo, we must always see the skunks.
Even though it was more of an egg gathering than an egg hunt, Ella was excited to participate. This mama forgot to bring a cute basket, like most the kids had, but we were lucky enough to have a grocery bag in the car. So festive! Ella popped all her eggs into the bag and then traded them in to the zoo volunteers for a ticket to get a little bag of treats before leaving the zoo. Sam had zero interest in the egg gathering this year but was happy to watch all the other kids. Maybe he’ll like it more next year when he can run around on his own.
At home we painted eggs. Did you know you can bake eggs instead of boiling them? I’ve seen it a lot on Pinterest, so I gave it a whirl this year. Worked like a charm! (As opposed to last year when I burned my entire first batch of eggs on the stove. Tip: Don’t leave to give your daughter a bath after putting the eggs in the water. You will likely forget the eggs are cooking, all water will evaporate, and your eggs will scorch on the bottom of the pan. Just sayin.) Baking the eggs for half an hour worked beautifully!
Daddy found these little Q Tip-like paints for eggs, which Ella thoroughly enjoyed. She made us each our own special creation.
As we continue on our six months of very minimal spending, we decided to create Easter gifts with what we had around the house. I really enjoyed finding little things for the kids and putting them together in little baskets, also items we already had. After creating the baskets, I realized that I didn’t have any little eggs for our annual egg hunt at the house. Instead of buying the plastic versions, I jumped on Pinterest and found a free printable of these colorful eggs. To make the egg hunt a little more challenging this year, I turned it into a sort of scavenger hunt and glued on photos of different places in our house. I thought about taking actual pictures and printing them, but I kept it simple and just used random photos from my computer.
I told Ella she would find her basket at the end of the hunt and gave her the first clue. To say she liked the game would be the understantment of the YEAR. I can’t even tell you how many times we hid and re-hid all the paper eggs. Seriously. I wear a Fitbit and got in a whole lot of steps just from searching for eggs!
She searched and searched, getting a little stumped at times.
But at last, she found it! This was my favorite place I found my Easter basket when I was little.
Ella found a Spring Cutie Barbie in her basket! (A bag, rather than a basket, actually.) I would like to thank whomever gave Ella the Spring Cutie Barbie as a recent gift. At Christmas, maybe? Here’s what happened. I was cleaning the kids’ closet a couple weeks before Easter and realized I had put this doll on the shelf to save for a later time. I often do that after big holidays so we can later pull out gifts instead of playing with everything right away. I don’t know remember who gave it to her, but it was perfect to pull out for Easter. She was thrilled! She also got a few Strawberry Shortcake tattoos, left from her third birthday party.
Sam was very excited about his basket, too. He got a VHS copy of Beauty and The Beast, which I picked up months ago for 49 cents at Goodwill. The kids have a VHS/DVD player in their room from the previous owners, but this is the only VHS we have. I’m not actually sure it’s going to come back out of the machine, so we might be stuck with it for a good while! Sam shared his Easter excitement with his buddy, Kai.
Along with realizing I didn’t have any little eggs for an egg hunt, I discovered I didn’t have much in the way of candy for Easter treats. I did, however, have ingredients to try a little gummy making of my own and made these cranberry flavored gels. I tought they ended up tasting a whole lot like thick Jell-o jigglers rather than gummies. The kids loved them!
My two little loves, as cute as buttons in their Easter clothes!
The layout of this post might be a little funky since I’m posting from a blogging app on my iPad. I often write on the iPad and edit the layout on our Macbook. But alas, our dear laptop has seen its final day! We knew it was on its way out, so we got everything backed up, but we wanted to wait as long as possible before finding a new one. Even though we’re trying not to buy much until mid-July, we just can’t go without a laptop. We have a lot of Kenya-related work that has to be done on it. Until we get a new one, I’ll post this way and hope for the best!
Everyday Photos
Y’all, we’ve got all kinds of photos over here. I just haven’t been posting as fast as I’m taking them! Let’s be honest, though. I haven’t been posting much in general. I won’t hide the fact that sometimes I just don’t know where to start. I want to write, but it can be a bit intimidating when I don’t know how to say what’s in my mind. I suppose that’s the challenge of a writer, though, trying to turn jumbly thoughts into flowing words. Sometimes, it just doesn’t happen.
(And can I just tell you how many times a day the word – or phrase – y’all runs through my head? I blame all my southern Instagram friends. And the fact that it just works really well in so many situations! So I’m not deleting y’all from the top of this post today, in honor of all the southern lovelies.)
A few weeks ago, Ella and I were on our way to see the new Cinderella when Pete and Sam decided to join us. Sam’s first trip to the movie theater! He absolutely loved it. I wish I could have taken pictures of him. He sat on Pete’s lap while munching popcorn the entire movie. During a few of the scenes, like when the pumpkin was turned into a coach, he clapped and danced! It was adorable! We all really enjoyed the movie.
Sam especially liked the popcorn.
I recently added a little blonde to my hair. I had to think about it for a few weeks since we’re trying not to spend money right now. It had been six months since I last had my hair done, which is a bit longer that I tend to go when my hair is dark. It was fading quite a bit, so it was lovely to get a fresh do. Blonde! Does this mean summer is right around the corner?!
Sweet boy didn’t want to sleep the night before I was leaving for a weekend conference in Dallas. I can’t resist his charm, even when I really need to pack and it’s way past his bedtime.
While I was in Dallas, Daddy bundled these two and took them for their first bike ride of the season! We have access to bikes and Burleys through our condo association. We definitely plan to use them a lot on the Lakewalk this summer!
We’re not far down the trail from Perkins, where these sweeties shared sprinkle pancakes and root beer. Aren’t they adorable?
How big is this kid?! Crazy enough, he just keeps growing. I still can’t believe he’s going to be three next month!
Now that the ice has melted off the lake, the ships are back. It’s pretty great to see them out nearly every day again. Ella and I have been following them on the Duluth Shipping News website, where we can watch them pass under the lift bridge on a webcam. She likes to look through the binoculars to read each ship’s name when they pass the house.
I’ve been doing a bit more baking recently. Mostly it’s for the kids, but I got a little excited about what looked like an incredible recipe and forgot they might not eat something with ingredients like whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, oats, and whey. Bummer! I thought they were amazing, but the wee ones weren’t super impressed. I have to work with their tastes a little more to get them liking whole wheat flour.
We’ve been soaking in the sunshine outside! Last week was gorgeous and we were out a lot. The little taste of warm weather got us super excited to be out on the shore all summer!
Sam had a great time at physical therapy last week. He worked so hard! His favorite part? The ball pit. Always.
This sweet girl was on a date with Daddy last week when they found me writing at Caribou. I just love her!
He figured out where the rain was coming from!
Sam’s Tiny Toms finally fit! I ordered them on Zulily two years ago, knowing we’d have to wait a while. They’re just a touch big, so he’ll definitely be able to wear them all summer. Yay!
Last week, Sammy baby made a quick trip to Saver’s with me. I think he likes his new shoes, too!
These aren’t all the pictures, but it’s a start! We love sharing our days with you!
How Social Media is Impacting My Life
I often hear one of the following phrases when I ask friends how they feel about social media. “I’m on it all the time!” “I hate it. I actually deleted my accounts.” “I want to be on, but I just end up feeling horrible about myself.” I can absolutely relate to all of these statements. I used to (as in, just a few months ago) spend tons of time on Facebook and Instagram. Not long before that I deleted my Twitter account. And I have had to take breaks from all of it because seeing everyone’s apparent awesomeness was making me feel crappy. But, even with all this, there is a whole lot of incredible stuff going on through social media. And no, this is not an ad about why you should be on it, because I just wouldn’t do that to you. But I’d be lying if I said social media has no good points, because it has actually helped me become more of the woman I want to be. So yeah, social media can actually be a decent thing.
Instagram friends who are now real life friends! @thethomps & @dreambiglittleones
If you’ve not seen this side of social media, I know you could very well be thinking, “But wouldn’t this be better with someone I see face-to-face on a regular basis? Isn’t this kind of a fake relationship?” Yes and no. I would love to say that I get to see all my close friends every day, and that I know the big and little things happening in their lives. The truth is, with a busy husband, two young children, and multiple ministries to stay up on, I don’t get to spend even close to the amount of time with my dear friends that I would like. I’m terrible with phone calls and only okay with texts. Play dates can be challenging to schedule with nap times, winter sick-bugs, and tantrums (and not just from the kids, because, let’s face it, we all throw them from time to time). It gets hard to meet with friends in person. Being able to connect online fills in those gaps when we don’t get to connect in real life.
I connected with writer & mama Kelle Hampton on Istagram and then in real life! @etst
It’s not only about the people we already know, though. There is tremendous potential, as I’ve found through Instagram, to connect with countless others on a similar life journey. I began my Instagram life when I found other moms who had kids with Down syndrome. And let me tell you, those connections have turned into real friendships over the last two-and-a-half years. My Hope Spoken roommate, Andrea, for example, has been one such friend. This was the first time we were able to meet in person! The beauty of social media is that it’s almost as though the whole world is available. You can find people in the smallest of niches and actually connect with them. For example, I am now connected to Wendy, a missionary mama of nine, two with Down syndrome, living in Uganda. I would likely never meet someone so similar in my regular circles! Since Christmas, I’ve had the opportunity to meet (in real life!) four friends who have little ones with Down syndrome whom I only knew through Instagram. We were in Florida, Indiana, Texas, and Minnesota. And I’m planning more meet-ups for next month. I really do love how social media can make the world seem a bit smaller.
Andrea & I finally met last month after being IG friends for 2.5 years! @ahtharpe
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you build your community on social media.
1. DO follow accounts with topics that matter to you.
Start by searching hashtags. Some of my personal favorites are #downsyndromelove, #theluckyfew (also Down syndrome related), #thepursuitofjoyproject, #childhoodunplugged, #wildandfreechildren, Click on photos that inspire you and then click on through to see if you connect with the person posting or anyone commenting on their photos. It’s a great way to get started.
2. DO follow accounts that inspire you.
You may not have a whole lot in common with them right now, but maybe something in their photos connects with who you want to be. I follow a few writers, photographers, homeschoolers, and missionaries who show bits of life that I want to adopt into my own life over time. Another big thing that inspires me? Showing pieces of real life. No one’s life is picture perfect all the time. Even if they do post lots of gorgeous photos of their little girls playing in the garden in adorable vintage dresses or sitting in front of an incredible sunset with drippy ice cream cones, I want to see the real stuff from time to time. Like the pile of laundry that has been ignored for two days or the moment their little girl fell asleep on a lovely quilt because she was so exhausted from throwing a fit at the grocery store. Because that stuff happens! Pretending it doesn’t it a bit too fake for me, and it doesn’t do any of us any good. They don’t need to post tons of awful, real-life dramas, just enough to keep things real.
3. DON’T follow accounts that make you feel like you’re not enough.
It’s one thing to be inspired, but it’s entirely different to feel you don’t measure up. Protect your heart and your mind when you choose to follow someone. Even if you feel inspired by them today, those feelings might change next month. You’re not in a relationship (unless they are your real-life friend, of course), so feel free to unfollow them. Again, keep your heart and mind protected.
4. DON’T analyze who has unfollowed you.
It can hurt to lose followers, but the truth is, you have no idea why they’ve stopped following you. So don’t analyze it. And don’t send a message to someone who has stopped following you. That’s just awkward. Someone did that once when I decided to stop following them due to the amount of drama they were posting. It made me feel terrible.
Overall, if you choose to be a part of social media, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, or one of the many, many other options, keep in mind that you can control what you let into your heart and mind, just as Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, “I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8, The Message). Perfect guidelines for how to keep ourselves focused on the positive aspects of social media instead of getting caught up in what can get yucky.
I’d love to connect with you on Facebook or Instagram! I can be found under TheMangoMemoirs on both or by clicking the links in the sidebar.
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Do you have a favorite part of social media? Who are your favorites to follow?