Well when I saw this

great layout one of my blog friends Nicki made I LOVED IT!

I saw it was part of a challenge and I clicked on over to Color Me Scrappy where their challenge was to make a layout using these colors…I thought the colors were pretty so I checked out all of the other people who have enter the contest and thought ‘hey, why not, I’ll try it’ so I began looking through all of my stash for things that matched these colors…I will be honest, it was hard but I think that I succeeded! I am not sure the photos show that the colors match as well though so please give grace for what may have been lost between my taking the photo in bad lighting and poor color editing skills…

then somehow I found this challenge over at Creative Scrappers and thought that maybe I could merge them both together…

Now, I have never made a layout by following a template and am unclear on on the rules…including how much deviation of the template is allowed before you are considered rogue…so all that explanation to get to the final product…

TA-DA!

This is a photo from like five years ago when I worked with Early Intervention in the state of Illinois. I was a caseworker and I helped families with children with diagnoses including Cerebral Palesy, Down Syndrome, and Sensory Integration Disorder find therapists to come into their home. The subject of this layout is a little man named Michael…

He was born with Cerebral Palsey and a grade IV brain bleed. His mother was told that she should not expect him to ever learn to walk. I met his mom just months after he was born and was lucky enough to walk them through Early Intervention for the next three years…

With the help of a crew of speech, occupational, physical, and developmental therapists Michael blossomed…

and by the time I closed his case and he begain going to preschool he was able to tell knock-knock jokes…

was a little flirt…and new his address and phone number…he had also take his first steps…and had amazing control…

The last time I saw Michael’s mother she gave me this photo of Michael on a build board as the poster boy for the United Way…With tears in her eyes she asked me to show this to my other clients and she asked me to tell them that there is HOPE…that there is nothing that can not be done!

It was a privilege to work with that family and all of the families while I had that job…

Until Later…