I'll give you the stars

The sun lowered behind the mountain. A little four year old girl and her dad sat by a camp fire. She pointed her tiny finger up at the night sky.

4 year old: "Daddy what’s that?"

Her dad glanced up then back at his daughter.

Dad: It’s a star.

4 yr. old: Can I have it?

Dad: Yes. It can be your star.

The little girl grinned and looked up at the twinkling star.

Dad: You need to give it a name.

4 yr. old: Paisley’s star!

Why can't I?

Children’s laughter carried in the warm breeze. It wrapped around a young woman who sat on a park bench. A stray piece of hair drifted across her face and she brushed it away so she could continue watching her daughter play on the slide. Two women sat down on the edge of her bench and began to talk.
“I have a surprise I want to tell you,” said one of the women.

“What?” asked the other while she took her baby out of the stroller.

“I’m going to have another baby!”

Both women squealed and hugged each other. They went on about how happy they were for each other and how they both were now going to have an even number of children.

This wasn’t a conversation the young mother enjoyed hearing. She herself had been trying to get pregnant with another child. She stood up and walked over to help her daughter into the swing. As she pushed her child, she pondered why thinking about (let alone talking about) having another child was taboo for her. Two obvious reasons why instantly stood out. She already had three children and she carried a genetic mutation that could pass to her child.

The young mother took a deep breath and blinked back tears. Even if she was blessed with another child, she’d never get the warm congratulations like the other woman. She never had. Each time she had announced she was expecting she’d gotten, “Why did you do that for,” or “Are you crazy? You already have two.”

Even though each pregnancy was a great blessing to her, nobody else felt the same way. Why? Why does it matter to everyone else? It’s not their life, their family.

The pain in her heart grew too large to bear and she let a few tears roll down her check. She asked herself why people can’t be happy for her baby too. It’s not like her and her husband just say, “Okay, let’s do it, lets have a baby.” They really think it out. They plan, weigh their options, the good and the bad. They know what chance they are taking, but it’s their chance to take. Let them be happy with it too. Don’t make them feel guilty for taking their love and creating a life together.


The young mother took a deep breath and hugged her child. She looked back at the celebrating friends and thought..... "If they can be happy about it, why can’t I?"

A Page A Day

From May 15th to June 15th, I've joined a challenge to write AT LEAST a page a day.

This is a great way for me to keep a realistic goal of writing this new manuscript. I do hope to write more than one page a day, but if I don't that's going to be okay. I'll at least wrote one page.

 My work in progress at the moment will hopefully have 250 to 300 pages. I will keep you posted every few days on my progress in hopes to have a cheering section. If I do slack I really want you guys to give me motivation to keep going.

If any of you are interested in joining in this amazing challenge, click HERE to read about all the rules and information.

CHEERS
-Laci

GUESS WHAT

Do you remember me posting about a contest awhile back? Which one? I know I post about many. This was a contest to win a book called The Long Way Home. If you're drawing a blank click here and for the original post. Well, I Won! I finally got around to having enough time to read it and it's good. This goes to show you it never hurts to enter contests.

Do you know what other book is good, well AMAZING!?!?!

SPELLS by Aprilynne Pike. It's book number 2 of the Wings seres. Do you want to know something else that's totally amazing? 

I can't contain myself!

She is coming to Preston on Thursday May 13th! Yes, New York Best Selling Author, Aprilynne Pike, is coming to talk at the high school. Aprilynne's doing this just because I asked her to. And well, because she was passing through too. So go and see her, 8:45 at the good old Preston high. (-oh and shameless plug- bring one of her books and she'll sign it.)

Woohoo for contests! Woohooo for Aprilynne Pike!

An Awesome Neighbor

When we were looking at neighborhoods to build our house, we narrowed it down to three. Country Club Estates had the luxury of living on the back green of the only golf coarse in town and the name just sounded high class. Creamy Hollow Estates had a lot of new families and the location had a great view of the East mountains and valley, and last but not least was Oakwood Estates. It was located directly behind the school, close to town and the neighborhood was populated with growing families. The only draw back, the lots were close together.
With that in mind we sat down and sorted out our options. Each had their pros and cons but something kept pulling us back to Oakwood. Something about it felt right. We made our choice and broke ground on our new home. 5 years later, I couldn’t be happier with our decision.

Yesterday proved yet another reason why we made the right choice. Seth snuck out of the back door and ran off. I didn’t even hear him get out. He figured out the one door that doesn’t have an alarm on it and slowly unlocked, opened, and then closed it without making a sound.

How did I find out he was running wild down the middle of the road? By an awesome neighbor (Nicole Martin)*cough cough* who understands and knows if Seth is alone outside, it’s not alright. This awesome neighbor got in her van and drove down to notify this scatter brained mother (Me) that her son was on the loose. (I was curling my daughter’s hair for her dance recital and like mentioned before, Houdini snuck out.)

While awesome neighbor was telling me about Seth, another amazing neighbor came to let me know he had been caught, tagged and on route back home.

I will be installing an alarm to that door A.S.A. P.!

Yes, I felt very stupid and neglectful as my role of a parent. But awesome neighbor was sincerer and understanding. Thank you Nicole and I’m glad to have you around.

A New Do!

Have you ever felt frumpy, out of style or just plain yuck? Well the last few months that's what I've thought every time I looked in the mirror. Today I solved the problem. I got my hair done!

It's amazing how a new style (little or big) can make you feel refreshed. Mine isn't a huge change. I kept the colors the same but cut it WAY short. Why, because the blonde ends were FRIED. The only way to fix it was to simply whack it off or color it dark and go through an intense conditioning protein rebuild. I don't have the time these days to spend twenty minutes twice a day, every day, applying goop to my hair then rewash it right after. One washing per day is enough for me. So long story short, I chopped them buggers off. (I know great grammar)

Here is a picture of my lifeless hair before:

Front and side view.

Can you see the frizzy ends and how there is breakage all over causing fly aways?

I CAN!

Wait for it. WAIT FOR IT!

And here is my new style.

My favorite part is the little pieces of BLING I added.

They are so sweet! They look like tinsel but can be curled washed and won't melt! It's called Hair Bling or String Bling.

 

Now I just need to wait and see what my husband will think when he gets home from work. Wish me luck.! 

What Would You Say To Your High School Self?

I read this post today on my friends blog, Shooting Stars, who first read about this on Dystel and Goderich Literaray Managment's blog.

Author Sarah Mlynowski came up with a brilliant marketing plan for her new YA novel, Gimme A Call. She asked YA novelists what they would say to their high school selves if they could. Here are some of my favorites:

Dear HS self: There are two reasons you have no girlfriend: 1. no confidence. 2. poor hygiene. #startwithnumbertwo – John Green

Dear HS self: You are NOT FAT. You will be, but you're not now, so enjoy it. – Sara Zarr

Dear HS self: Facebook will be invented. Are you sure you want your friend to take that picture? – Julia DeVillers

As for what I would say to myself:

Dear HS self: You know that so yummy dark gorgeous guy you’re dating? Keep a hold of him! He only gets better with age! (And he will love you after you're covered in stretch marks.)

Now, all of you reading this, what would you say to your high school self?

-Cheers
*Laci*

It's Something Special

I get asked how I can stay so happy and so positive while having two children with disablilites. My first answer is, "Why wouldn't I be happy?"

I know it's not proper to answer a question with a question. Well, don't you want your child to grow up as happy as they could? No matter what kind of personalities they have you plan to make the best life for them. Yes, I admit. It is hard sometimes but isn't being a parent, period, hard?

The best way I can explaine what it's like to be a parent in my situation is with one of my favorite poems.

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Funny moments at Disneyland

Today two moments from our trip kept sticking out in my mind. First was about my little girl. She wanted cotten candy so bad, but I kind of freak out about getting stiky fingers that constantly go into the mouth when the kids are still going on rides (it's like licking the germs from bunches of other hands...shiver....gag). So after two days of asking we finally baught her some on our way back to our hotel.

This was her reaction!

Yes, I feel the same way about the pink sweet goodness.

The second memory makes me laugh a little more. My family informed me that I have too much energy and they have a hard time keeping up with me. I mean I could have kept going all day at the park, but had to stop because the rest of the group were falling down dead on spot.

Here's the proof.

Really, he was fine. I only let him stay like this for the photo then moved him. But it's no lie. We stopped to get ice cream and less than 10 seconds later, he dropped, was out, zonked!

He wasn't the only one. Paisley couldn't keep up either. Luckily, she waited until we were going back to the hotel.

See, I know how to get my kids to bed on time!

Slideshow of Disneyland Trip 2010

Make a free slideshow

Disney Trip

We are back and the Smiths had a blast! Why is it that life is never the same after Disney? This year we took my little 17-year-old sister with us (it was nice to have one adult per child). The park was almost empty on Sunday makingit possible to get through 90% of Disneyland. Which was a good thing too, because we finished Disney and California Adventure Monday leaving Tuseday and Wednesday for our favorite rides. I mentioned before that it was a good thing almost finishing the whole park Sunday, well it seemed like on Tuesday and Wednesday everyone in America came to Disneyland. It was so full we could barely walk around. (Thank you Disney for giving us those special needs passes so we could go right up the exits and board the rides)

Seth got wiped out halfway through the first day and fell alseep when we took a break for ice cream and fell asleep on the cement steps. NO JOKE there are photos for proof. I got attacked by Goofy, he ran up out of no where and kissed me. Seth huged every Princess and female character (yes, he will grow up to be a ladies man). Dom wouldn't have anything to do with the girls nor characters that could be remotely prissy- AT ALL- notice he is absent from a lot of photos.

Did I mention the lovely weather? Well, it was G-R-E-A-T! Yes, very warm, very nice. Except for Tuesday morning, started out a bit chilly but warmed up later in the day. We all fell so in love with the sun that we forgot it's still winter back here at home in winter-topia Idaho. When we drove through Sardeen Canyon and hit a snow storm, the Smith family cried.

California and Las Vegas really reminded me how much I LOVE summer. And how much I miss it when it's gone.

Oh, and we had a bit of fun with the California Adventure letters to spell out my name.

How I spent my St. Patricks Day

A day of luck? Um, no! St. Patrick’s Day was always a day I looked forward to. Usually I would be showered with luck. All I had to do was wear green. But this year, that stinking leprechaun decided to take a crap on my four leaf clover.

The day started out very well, the kids all were in happy moods and excited to pinch their classmate who forgotten to wear the festive color. Then four o’clock rolled around and my pot of gold turned into a pot of—well you could only guess.

The DVD/CD drive on the computer tower broke. Did I mention I just got out of the shop literally hours before? Well, it had. The fan on our fire place broke, and we found our little treasure at the end of our rainbow in the basement. The main water line to the outside faucet blew! Really, BLEW APPART and shot water, insulation, and sheet rock EVERYWHERE!

Thank you, may I have another Sir-St Patty? (You Lil’ Green Prick!)

Umm, stay tuned for pictures of the waterfall from the basement ceiling. I’ll post them later tomorrow.
Looking on the bright side of this. At least these things happened before our trip we have planned in eight days. It could have been worse and the water line could have broken while we were on vacation and flooded the whole house. So there is my silver lining.

HAPPY FREAKING ST. PATRICKS DAY!

HELLO WRITERS!

Over on my friend's blog Shooting Stars is a GREAT giveaway!

Office Box Giveaway

An amazing give away is going on over at Cami Checketts blog. Click HERE to check it out!

My way Home

The television didn’t stay on a channel longer than four seconds as my husband surfed through the 400 stations of satellite entertainment. Out of frustration, he stopped on a show I was particularly fond of.

“There’s nothing on,” he said and tossed me the remote. I tucked the remote under my leg and finished folding laundry into piles.

A few towels later, a phrase that always made me laugh, played from the movie; “….smashing in the face of a piñata that resembles Summer Wheatley, is a disgrace to the whole Gem State…..” (I snorted, because sadly, I’ve actually heard a teacher say this before).

Our nine year old ran down the stairs and joined in on the final scenes of our hometown movie. (I think he is a bigger fan than me.) The final scene played and Seth popped up off the couch and pointed at the screen.
“Home! My home,” he said.

My husband and I laughed, because yes, in the background of the movie was our house. And, the scene was filmed at the elementary school next to us. I thought it was pretty cool that an autistic boy recognized his way home even from a silly movie.

Click here to see the scene Seth recognized his home.

To All You Writers!

All you writers out there. The blog Guide to Literary Agants is having another contest. Click on over for a chance to win and good luck to all who enter!

I Can Still See You

A tall brown haired boy flipped on the kitchen light. His mother followed him to the counter and poured him a bowl of cereal. She gave her son his breakfast and kissed the top of his head. It’s five o’clock in the morning and she couldn’t help smirk at how even the sun got to sleep in. Yet, she's up and starting her day.
The little boy snarffed down his Fruit Loops, bounced across the room, humming, and flapping his hands together with out a care in the world. His name is Seth and he has two disabilities; Autism and Fragile X Syndrome.

Seth put in his favorite DVD of Harry Potter. While waiting for the player to load, the family dog entered the room and licked Seth’s face. His mother loved the sound of the giggle Seth let out because it wasn't any giggle, but a contagious belly jumping laugh.

Suddenly, he remembered the movie but something is wrong. The DVD wasn’t playing. He tried restarting it, but it just wouldn’t work. Seth’s face wrinkled up and big tears rolled down his cheeks. He turned to his mom and uttered one word from his very small vocabulary.

“Help.”

His mom opened the tray and out slid the disc. She picked it up and found it covered in sticky finger prints. After cleaning it off, her heart sank. A crack ran all the way across the center of the DVD. Clean or sticky, it would never play. Mom returned to Seth to break the bad news.

“Seth, I’m sorry but this can’t play anymore.” His mom held up the disc. “Look at this right here. See, it’s broke.”

He didn’t understand and cried again, this time flopping down on the couch. Mom turned around to go back into the kitchen. Seth saw his shoes on the floor next to him and grabbed them.

The next thing his mom knew, something hit the back of her head. She grabbed the shoe from Seth’s hand. After a few minutes, her arms are bloody from trying to calm him down. Something shinny caught the mom’s attention from under the couch. She pulled out another copy of the movie.

Puzzled of how it even got there and where it had come from, she put it into the player. The movie started with out any problems.

Seth immediately calmed down and realized what he had done to his mother. His eyes filled with tears. Seth tenderly blew on the scratches, dig marks, and bites that covered his mom’s arms.

The movie’s theme music started to play as his big green eyes, still filled with tears, looked back at his mom. Kissing her cheek, he said, “Sorry,” and wrapped his arms around her.

“Seth, I love you too.”

This mother knows that even on the hard days when the Autism takes over, her little boy is still behind those green eyes struggling to understand his frustrations. So in those moments when he looks at her, she lets him know she can still see him.

I'm so sneaky!

My life just got a tiny bit nicer easier. I'm all about making things fair. My husband baught a new truck, well, it's not NEW NEW but new to us. To pay it off we sold his old Chevy, and that was a sad day for Seth. He cried as the guy backed out of our driveway after purchasing The Big Green Hulk (that's the name Dom gave it awhile ago). Meanwhile, I've been saving up for a laptop but the stash never seems to gain a high dollar amount. Plus, we have a nice desktop that already does everything pretty much perfectly and did iI mention fast? But having to share the computer with everyone gets kinda old, fast.

So, I am pretty good at a few things. One being, giving someone a guilt trip in such a sneaky way, you don't know what hit you until your giving in and commiting to something you would have never thought possible. Don't worry, this can only be pulled off about 3 times a year, and it's always on my husband.

That being said, guess who got a new laptop!?!

HAPPY DANCE!

So prepare yourself, you might get to see this mug talking to you via vlog post. Unless you think it might cause nightmares. If that's case I'll hold off on the webcam.  

Win the book The Long Way Home

Winning something is always good. In these cold winter months, I love to read a novel a week. When these said novels are new and pre-released, I get really excitted to start them. This book (The Long Way Home) isn't a pre-release but it's new. So, if you want a chance to win a copy click here to enter the contest.

Lucky Agent Contest on Guide to Literary Agents

Click here  to join in a writing contest.