Blessed to have and not to have

We really are blessed by you in so many ways. Thank you to all of you who send words of encouragement, care packages, emails, birthday, and Christmas gifts.

It has blessed my heart that my children can receive happies from you, but at the same time know that there are certain things they can't just run to the store and buy.

Recently, we started watching the X-men cartoons with the kids. Caleb is really into super heroes anyway, and to balance out the number of Barbie and princess movies we see, we decided to help the boy out.

Of course, like any good American kid, Caleb wanted a Wolverine costume as soon as he saw the show, and he wanted all the action figures he could get his hands on.

Well, there is no Wal-mart within spittin', shootin', or drivin' distance, so his sister Karis got creative.

She asked me to make her some paper dolls, and she started coloring them into different X-men. After a while, she was special ordering them from me so they would have a specific shape.

These were some of her first: Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, Night Crawler, Cyclops, and Professor X (who still needs to be colored).

Then she got braver, and asked for more detail from me:

Juggernaut (which she has self-declared "Bad" on his chest), Beast, Colossus, Shadow Cat, Jean Gray, and Ice Man.

So far, Juggernaut is the only "bad" one, but I'm sure there are more to come.

I just wonder if she would have thought to do this for Caleb if there had been a Wal-mart nearby?