Weekly Challenge #91

Happy Monday everyone!
First of all, as always - a few house keeping items:

• If you're NEW here (and there've been a lot of new additions to the party!) I'm working on creating some tutorials to help you out.  You can click on the links above or:  See "Getting Started"  and "Tutorials" 
• To see all the past weekly challenges - click the tab above, or follow this link
  
• Please grab the button for the Weekly Challenge (on the right  sidebar) to display on your blogs! share the fun!
• The limit of submissions to the slideshow is TWO, but please feel free to post as many as you like to your blogs.  I will take the first two presented to each challenge.
• and i want to say a very extra special big heart felt thank you to everyone who donated funds.  I continue to be amazed by the generosity of spirit of this wonderful community.  HUGS!

Good morning everyone!
In case you missed it, the slideshows for Challenge 89 and 90 have been posted HERE (89) and HERE (90) - check them out, they are awesome.  Also, so weird that Blogger decided to delete all of bloggers analytical statistics... if you'll notice, my blog hits are NO LONGER at 500,000+ which is so very sad.  Let's hope blogger figures this out soon.

What's happened this week? Well - at preschool Chewie got to go on his FIRST EVER field trip.  He had a great time. They got to ride a school bus (a first for him) to the big fancy library downtown where they went to Story Time at Pooh Corner.  

He had the greatest time!

Later that day my friend and i took our kids to the Hay Maze, like we've done every year since Chewie and Big E were born.  This year Chewie and Big E ran through the maze on their own while Jaimie and I went slower with Artoo and Little E.  I did manage to take some great pics of my boys, though it was tricky to get one of all 4 kids together.  lol

I love love LOVE this picture.

Two handsome boys.

 afterwards we went and spoiled our supper by having frozen yogurt, and it was a good day had by all.  But, i had reason to spoil them....because....

My last week of extended leave was this week.  That's right, as of this morning i have gone back to work - and i have to say that i am petrified.  I couldn't sleep the past few nights, i'd wake up feeling anxious and worried - i'm sure that Artoo will be fine, and i'm sure that I'll be fine too... it's just that great big looming UNKNOWN that gets me going... will he stay healthy? Will i enjoy being back at work? Will i hate it? Will Artoo adjust to daycare? It's a lot to think about, so I have spent the last two years NOT thinking about going back to work....

anyway...

Weekly Challenge #91: "Beads of Courage"
For those of you who have been keeping track, if i'm going back to work this week - you'll know that it must be Artoo's birthday soon!

and you'd be right.

Hard to believe that on Tuesday my little baby boy will be 2!

From 3lbs 15oz to 26 lbs! :)

For those of you who are new, Artoo has a rare neurological disorder called Moebius Syndrome.  In the past we've done a few Moebius challenges, like using the colour Purple (The Moebius Syndrome colour) or like using the Moebius Logo as a string but i wanted to use Artoo's birthday to bring another organization to your attention.

Beads of Courage is a wonderful charity that helps a child with a chronic illness or condition to tell their story of courage and strength as they take their medical journey.  Artoo has been a member of the program for a few months now, and i'm still trying to tally and track his journey since birth.

His little friend EJ is also in the program and i wanted to share this photo (with her mother's permission, of course) of her and her mom stringing together her beads:

so many beads, this little girl is made of magic.

every single bead represents something your child has done - a test, a poke or needle, a procedure, a doctor's appointment, therapy, special accomplishments, an xray, use of oxygen, mobility issues, etc.  It's incredible to see what your child has been through in a very tangible way. 

In honour of Artoo's birthday, and EJ (who turned two in September), this week's challenge is to take inspiration from this program, and these little magic babies.

a selection of a few of Artoo and EJs special beads

I will leave this challenge open to interpretation.  Here's how i did mine.

These are a small portion of Artoo's beads -
his string, as it stands, is 14.5' long (175") and i'm not close to being done tallying yet

I chose to create a string of Zentangled beads.  I'm excited to see how these beads and this program inspire you this week.  I will also post this challenge on the Beads of Courage facebook page in hopes that the families on the program will come and see all your amazing tiles!!

As a side note, if you are interested in creating glass or polymer clay beads for Beads of Courage, (Zentangle or otherwise) please visit this page to see the donation requirements.

This program relies heavily on bead donations.

If you have a blog, add the site-specific URL where your tile is posted to the linkey machine below! Don't forget to link back here so that others can join in the fun! (if you don't know how to find this, you can see my half assed tutorial here)

Also,  please feel free to come back often and visit the links of those people on the linkey machine - don't forget to leave a comment or feedback, everyone loves feedback. ;)

If you don't have a blog but still want to participate, you can email your tile to me and i will post it here. (See the contact tab above for my email address).  The deadline for each weekly challenge is Saturday night so that i can round everyone up by Sunday. What this means is that i will stop adding tiles to the slideshow on Sunday. You're still more than welcome to do the challenges and add your name to the linkey machine.

I will be more diligent with the linkey machine - by editing out the ones that don't work, the doubles, the links that lead to nowhere, the links that go just to blog home pages (this is why we need those site specific urls), and the spam. And there is some spam.  PLEASE do not put your *home* page in the linkey machine... please? for me??