Three Treats

Little Shrek with A Big Shrek that we found Trick or Treating

Elmo and Hummingbird Pumpkins

Yoda and Darth Vader Pumpkins

Noah (AKA Shrek)

Noah's Halloween went well. He went as Shrek this year, which has been one of his favorite videos to watch lately. I did not try on his outfit in advance which was my mistake when I realized it was two sizes too small. So I did construction on it and cut the pants off it. I should have realized there was a reason it was so inexpensive and marketed as just "around toddler size." But I made it work, our entire life sometimes feels it's about finding ways around unexpected complications. He did okay with his Shrek hat, he tolerated it occasionally and then wanted it off completely at other times. Which is fine, it's all about his comfort level. We were invited to trick or treat with Noah's grandma at work down in Golden off of 13th & Washington. They close down the streets and let the kids go door to door at businesses. It was great fun in the early afternoon hours. And it was very busy. Lots of kid traffic. We even found a real big Shrek while we were trick or treating and we took a picture with him. So cute of big Shrek and our little Shrek.

Then we trick or treated for the second time in Noah's grandma's neighborhood because they have more accessible homes to the front door in a stroller. Noah ran into some little friends who gave him some glow bracelets and he was in awe. He got lots of goodies, that I'm sure he will share with his daddy. Then our third stop was our neighborhood. We went to only a handful of special neighbors on our block as it's all we can do to get the stroller up some of the stairs in our area. We got some interesting "treats" this year from pennies in a little purse to a nail file. Gives new meaning to make sure your check your children's candy. People were more than generous with the boys and I don't think I've seen so much candy in our house...ever. We carved two pumpkins this year - a Elmo Pumpkin and a Hummingbird Pumpkin, and Chris of course couldn't help himself with his Star Wars Yoda and Darth Vader pumpkins. They were having a war in our garage for a week with their light sabers. Sometimes you have to really bathe in the simple laughs to get through the day.

And now we get to look forward to Noah's favorite times of year, Thanksgiving and the most important his birthday followed right by Christmas. We also received news that Noah's service dog will likely arrive around his birthday or Christmas. We still owe a balance of $800, and are continuing fundraising efforts for the balance and the continued costs associated like vests, patches, leashes, vet visits including spay/neuter. We are really excited that we are fast approaching this beautiful goal of obtaining a very special dog that will help Noah with his daily activities and alert us to Noah's individual needs. It sounds like that blessing is right around the corner for him. And we are excited about this new adventure in Noah's life. It comes with so many possibilities even down to helping Noah with communication. My biggest hope is that people will be more likely to actually "see" Noah and not look past him. That they'll see a little sweet boy with a dog and turn just to smile at us. Noah needs to know he's accepted into the world just like any other little boy. Thank you all for your continued prayers and thoughts for Noah. It means so much to him and our family.

Love,



Noah's Miracle by Stacy Warden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.