It is sometimes hard to know what date is more significant in my life - my birthday, my wedding anniversary, my children’s births…. each has a special meaning and significance but it seems that over time July 17th has become the most significant. July 17th, as it turns out, was the end and the beginning.

You know the term half glass full? - well that is what I am talking about. And actually, that whole way of thinking started about 6 months prior to July 17th when my husband Phil and I were told that our first child, Cale, had pulminary hypertension and that he would not survive. Unless you have experienced this as a parent you have no idea what this does to you . I remember sitting alone shortly after hearing this come from the doctors mouth and feeling like I have never felt before. The joy of a first child was about to be taken from us - they didn’t know how long - maybe today, tomorrow, next week or in 5 years. Through the tears and saddened feeling my heart was experiencing I made a decision that for however long, it was going to be the best it could be. It is hard to look at a situation like this with a glass half full mindset - but I knew that if I was to look back some day I would want to know that we did everything possible to insure our little guys life was the best it could be - for how ever long it would be.

13 years later I do look back and remember my son and his life, albeit many days in the hospital, as a great life. A life filled with laughter and smiles - stories and love. Cale taught us what life is really about - it is not how long you are here but what you do with the days you have here on earth. It is about focusing less on “things” and more on people - relationships and finding joy in the journey - no matter what that journey may be.

July 17th was the end and the beginning. It was the end of our son’s life here on earth but the beginning of the next part of our journey. I sometimes feel like I have had two lives - the one with Cale and the one after Cale. I take from my time with him so many lessons - and a new way of being. I have two healthy children now and because of Cale, I love them more - and, I believe, am a better person and mother for it.

As we remember Cale today we are filled with sadness but we are also filled with so much gratitude. Cale has made us appreciate life- he remains an important part of our family and continues to teach us lessons everyday.

Remember - life is a journey. Choose to find joy in it - no matter what challenges you face.

Helen

If you are a scrapbooker or a wanna-be scrapper pick a day of the week to call your scrapbook day. That is what I have done and it means I do something scrapbook related every Tuesday. In the school year I try to get out to a scrapbook night and at this time of year it might be organizing photos or creating a page. I love CPO’s smilebox because it is a fun way to scrapbook your photos and share them with friends and family. Today - my goal is to simply clean off my scrapbook table.

Now that school is done and we are all getting into the groove of summer I have to find a home for some of the special momentos the kids have from this past school year. I keep a file each year with hopes of scrapbooking everything - or at least some of the memories. Stacy Julian turned me on to School of Life Albums. Read her latest book, Photo Freedom, to find out more. You can also listen to a podcast with Stacy to learn more about her book and approach to scrapbooking) and a recent purchase of School Year Kits created by Becky Higgins (love Becky!) is making this goal a reality. I am in the organization stage of my journey as the kits haven’t arrived yet. I can’t wait to have the years of school in the albums so the kids can look back on what they have accomplished so far.

Here is a picture of my daughter at the end of last year. I take pictures like this every year - it captures who they are and in this picture, how many books they had in the school year. Grade one is a great year to do a photo like this because kids tend to have a lot of paper and booklets - and often “big” projects. The photo lets you rid yourself of the “BIG” projects eventually!

Ok, so it is Monday and home day. My “home day” is all about getting the house back in order after the weekend - cleaning, organizing etc.. Right now my biggest challenge is my storage area - too much stuff! We are planning a yard sale in the next couple of weeks with hopes of getting rid of some of the stuff that is taking up valuable space.

If home organization is a challenge for you why not join the CPO clutter club. I have found so many great ideas in this club - the daily bootcamp that gets you going is the best. Summer is a great time to join a club like this because you can get the kids involved - more hands make for quick work. Here’s a link to the club if you want to check it out CLUTTER CLUB .

Hi everyone - when I started this blog I thought, “how hard can it be to post a photo each day?” Well, hard! Life gets busy and time gets ahead of you. So, I thought I would break the blog up into the same segments my week is broken up into - Monday is home day, Tuesday: Scrapbooking, Wednesday: Projects & Errands, Thursday: Meal Planning and Friday: Family Day. With that in mind I will have a focus for each day in terms of finding a photo and hopefully you will all enjoy the various themes for each day - so here goes…

It’s Friday and Family Day at the Williams house. You’ll find a video in CPOtv (CLICK HERE) to help you pull this project together but for now I thought I would share the basics and something we do each summer to make for a fun few months. Mid June we all sit down for a brainstorming session to come up with a list of things we would like to do over the summer. Our list is longer than the summer so we don’t do everything, but we come up with lots of ideas to choose from. Because I scrapbook, I pull out my scrapbook supplies and we end up with a sheet of ideas that can easily be moved from our idea sheet to our calendar. The kids love to see things move over, either before or after we have completed an activity.

To help us know what is doable we break the tasks into big - like a theme park (but not Disney!), day trips, and around the house/town. This makes it easy to pull an idea to fit the time we have available. I used different coloured paper this year but you could easily pick a different shape to help the kids identify what’s what.

We usually plan ahead and pull a few of the ideas off our sheet and stick them on the calendar but most are planned closer to when we do them as our summer tends to be a bit more relaxed and we do things as we have time and a desire to do them.

For today… Well, Emmy is off to work with her Daddy and Sam and I are home alone. Sam has been wanting to do the “fondue” we have on our list so I think we will surprise Emmy and Phil by getting it all setup before they come home. We do broth fondues and I cook the meat ahead of time because my kids are young and I don’t want them to handle raw meat. We usually have some veggies along with chicken and shrimp. We finish things off with a chocolate fondue! Yummy with fresh berries! CPO’s Tracy recently had a fondue on her patio - so I think I will plan to have ours outside tonight. We have never had it outside on our deck so it will be something different and fun.

For those of you new to fondue - watch for a special in CPO Canada Cooks in the fall. You’ll learn all about fondue and we will share some recipes too!

Plan something with your family today - it doesn’t have to be BIG - just fun!

Helen