Friday, February 21, 2020

Friday, February 21, 2020

Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2003. Mattie was 10 months old and very curious. If you look closely you will see Mattie's little fingers trying to get into a drawer where I keep serving utensils. Mattie was sitting in "tot wheels." Which was the cute name we gave to his walker. Mattie absolutely loved it because it gave him the freedom to move around on his own two feet. You would be amazed how Mattie would zoom around in that thing, never crashing into walls or furniture, which was remarkable. 


Quote of the day: Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. ~ Jacob A. Riis

Our amaryllis is blooming! Isn't it glorious. It blooms each February and sometimes it surprises us and blooms multiple times throughout the year. These flowers are short lived, so when I see them, I like to capture them. 

















March will be a busy month for me. As Peter and I are going to attend a conference in Portland, OR. Mattie Miracle is funding and hosting a symposium about the Standards at the conference. Once we return from the conference, I will be heading to Los Angeles to help my parents move. Given all of this, Peter and I have moved up the timeline for our plans for the Walk & Family Festival, so when I get back from Los Angeles, I won't be scrambling to put the raffle together and completing city permits for the Walk. 

Today we drove to Waldorf, MD to shop at the Christmas Tree Shops. This is about a 40 minute car ride each way from Washington, DC. Most of our raffle items are donated to us, but in order to organize them and display them appropriately, we need to shop for baskets and other decor items. The beauty of the Christmas Tree Shops is that you can get lots of merchandise without breaking the bank. So today, I started staging raffle baskets. 

We will have 11 raffle baskets this year and shortly all the basket descriptions will be loaded onto our Walk website. 

I love this Disney storage cube that Peter found today. The cube opens up and can store quite a bit. The cube is sturdy enough for a child to sit on it. Thanks to our annual Post-Halloween Candy drive and all the volunteers who help us, we are able to apply each year through Disney's charitable giving program. Disney rewards theme park passes to non-profits that get a significant number of volunteers together to work on a common project. Our Candy Drive enables us to qualify for free passes.  

After ten years, we decided to streamline our Walk & Family Festival logo. This is our new logo (left) for the event! The old logo is on the right. 

Our Walk website is up and operational and I encourage you to check it out, register, get involved, and help us raise funds that support our psychosocial services and initiatives. 

www.mmcfwalk.com