We have been discussing how thankful we are for so many, many reasons this holiday....and of course one of them would be our Claire. It is so amazing how you can feel two exact opposite feelings simultaneously! How could something so innocent and tiny make us flash from one emotion to the next? For instance, one of my highlights today was sitting on our living room floor playing with John, Emily, Katlyn, Billy & Camille; and there was Claire! It seemed so overwhelmingly wonderfully....normal. We were playing games, girls loosing horribly to the boys (they cheated) and we would pass Claire around to one another when it was our turn. Normal is defined as not diseased, to us, she is our norm;our standard, model and pattern. She is showing each of us in our family something so priceless, she is teaching us to set our standards high. To model ourselves in our faith and to pattern our actions not on what we see or feel, but rather on what we know and believe.

I enjoyed watching "The Bishops Wife" today on the old movies station. Cary Grant played an angel, who was sent to the Bishop and his family, and had such an impact on everyone. Everyone except the Bishop that is! This angel told the Bishop he was sent there for him, because he had prayed for guidance. It wasn't until the end the Bishop accepted this angel and received what he needed. I found it to be true in our life with Claire, each day embracing her and her life. For she was designed just as she is and brought to our family and even as hard as it is due to the fear or the unknown of her condition we are going to respond positively to this situation.

It's beginning to look a LOT like Christmas in Claire's house these days! We will post some pictures of her in the next few days of her decking the halls. She must be worn out from all of her holiday tasks because we finally had a good nights sleep last night.

Billy named this "A day in the life of Claire" and it is amazing how at the end of the day, there are not enough words to convey what her day was really about.