I feel loved

There were no shortages of Mother's Day cards this year. I guess now that you can pretty much read and write simple words/sentences, you made me so many cards expressing what you wanted to say to me. Honestly, I'm going to treasure all these little notes and cards that I get from all of you for the rest of my life.

This was the card you made at Korean school on Saturday. You actually wrote the message in Korean!
It means, "I love you" in Korean.

You made this card from your daycare.

Such an artiste. You said we were wearing space suits. Not sure why…

Kendall even made a present for me at her daycare :-)

A beautiful butterfly painting made with her foot prints.

Kendall presenting the present to me. I almost cried.

I just love it.

Your masterpiece that you made from school.

Don't you have great penmanship?

And this was from daddy this morning. I had woken up and went to the bathroom to brush up and there
was a box of chocolates and a card left on the bathroom counter. I was so pleasantly surprised.
Daddy isn't one to get me cards (even when we were dating) so it means so much to me when he puts in
the effort to do so.

Short and sweet.

Daddy took you to Canada's Wonderland this morning (we got season's passes again this year) so I had a mother/daughter day with Kendall.

We went grocery shopping and had lunch at McDonald's.

Daddy had to leave for soccer at 4pm so I decided to have a picnic in our backyard with you and Kendall. It was a nice way to enjoy the weather (first time this year passing the 20 degree mark) without packing a ton of stuff and driving somewhere. You've always asked me to take you on a picnic so I surprised you with one. It was sooooo nice spending time outside and enjoying the sunshine.

Blankets rolled out, food ready. Time to eat!

Kendall with her sunhat and best friend- baby Elmo. She takes him everywhere!

My sunshine boy/girl.

Kendall eating Sherpherd's Pie.

You guys had such a blast eating, playing and dancing outside. We have to do this again!

I taped a cute video of you and Kendall jumping outside. I asked you how high can you jump and this is your response.

There's hope in the promise of the cross

From left to right: Cameron (9), Daniel, April, Tyler (7)

Earlier this week, while I was browsing online during my lunch break at work, I came across a story on the Yahoo homepage of a woman, April Smith, who had lost her 2 sons during a Tornado in Arkansas on April 27. Having 2 kids myself, I immediately felt a deep pain and huge sorrow. I could not imagine what she was going through. However, the story went on to say that it was only through her faith in God that she was able to be at peace. She knew that her boys knew Jesus and that they would be OK. She was in such emotional pain, but she knew that God is good and God had taken them home. 

It is through her story (which went viral, BTW), that so many people came to know God and even Christians that were wavering in their faith were able to come back to God. Amen to that!

Her friend, Jessica, posted a blog post of her friend's incredible story of faith, which I am going to link here. I know that the boys' deaths were not in vain. There are so many things that happen in this world that we don't understand, but we have to know that God is good. Jessica, in her blog post, posted a scripture verse that her other friend had shared and I'm going post is here. It's from Isaiah 55:8-11:

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.

We are all here for a purpose- for God's purpose. This world that we live in is only a temporary residence. So we have to live knowing that the world we live in is only temporary. We have an eternal home waiting for us. So we must live to serve God's purpose.

O God, please be with April and Daniel as they are healing physically and emotionally. We know your heart breaks when we suffer. When we see this world through our eyes, it's hard to understand and grasp the terrible things that happen around us, but thank you for giving April a small glimpse into your wonderful plan. We know you are good and you are faithful. Let us continue to put our faith in you that you will make everything ok. In Jesus' name, Amen.

And so it begins…

You've been complaining to me since last week that the shoes above are baby shoes. I didn't think anything of it, but today I found out the real reason why you didn't want to wear these shoes. 

We were just about to leave the house in the morning and I asked you to wear your running shoes. You said to me, "Mommy, I want to wear my white shoes, not the black shoes. The black shoes are baby shoes." I said that the black shoes weren't baby shoes and that Kendall's shoes were baby shoes and you said that Daniel B told him that it was. I asked you why Daniel B told you your shoes were baby shoes and you said that he thought it looked small and that's why he said they were baby shoes. You are pretty small for your age and it has always worried me a little, but you were visibly upset when you were telling me this. You were insistent on not wearing your black shoes. Even though your white Adidas shoes were the same size, I guess you thought they were a different shoe and that Daniel B wouldn't make fun of you anymore. It really tore me up inside. I wanted to go to your daycare and confront Daniel B and give him a piece of my mind. I also wanted to take you shopping to buy you new shoes. Shoes that you would be confident in wearing. I hate that what your peers say matter to you now. I want to protect you from everything, but I know that I can't. The whole day, this whole incident was bothering me. I haven't told daddy yet because all he would say is, "Yeah, Aidan needs to eat more. He's a runt."

On another note, I have a little bit of good news. I took your Toronto grandpa, my father, to the doctor's appointment this morning. We found out earlier this week from his biopsy results, that he had a very rare form of cancer- neuroendocrine cancer. It's the same type of cancer that Steve Jobs had. It's a much slower-growing tumour so the prognosis is much better. But today, we found out that he has another even rarer type of tumour on top of the neuroendocrine tumour called acinar. We are still finding more about this type of cancer and how the doctors will treat my dad, but it's very good news. His cancer cells also shrunk by 30%.