Tille Family

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Thank you Sandra and Molly

I want to take everyone’s time again to plug another company and their product line. I’ll have a brief update on the kids in this post so you’ll have to read through it to find out how things are progressing.

I get a lot of packages at my house from UPS. As a sales rep, anytime something leaves our corporate office with my name on it, I get a nice brown box at my door the following day. It’s nice, but it isn’t quite as special as it used to be. Let me explain…when I was young, I used to think that getting anything in the mail was awesome. I never got anything in the mail, but out of the blue, some crappy sales envelope from Highlights Magazine or Sports Illustrated would show up in my parent’s mail box with my name on it. It was crap, but it had my name on it and someone sent it to me and that was awesome. I got something!!! Yeah! Maybe I’m a bit “off”, but everyone was like that as a kid, right? I hear crickets chirping…so anyway. So as I got older, anytime I got something from UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, etc; I’d think to myself “Oooo, what’s in the box and who’d send it to me?” Well, after nearly 10 years of getting boxes at my door several times a week and being totally disappointed nearly every time, you might say that the joy and excitement has worn off. Now it’s a hassle and a thorn in my side. The door bell rings, the dog goes coo-coo for coco puffs, Meredith wakes up from her nap, I gotta go grab that box, haul it in, find out that the stuff is crap for work that needs to go in the garage, I gotta haul it out there, and then deal with the chaos upstairs. This week, there were many boxes at my door, more than the usual. My job has changed a little bit recently and I’m selling a wider variety of products now. As a result, I’m getting many more samples, but one box was a bit different. That old feeling was starting to come back. This isn’t from Coloplast; it’s from Maryland…who’s Sandra Magsamen? Angela then asked who she was. Hell, I didn’t know. Now we do.

I don’t “know” Sandra, but from what I can tell from our brief email correspondence and what I’ve read about her, she’s seems like a wonderful person. Molly Lujan, a college friend who happens to live in the Minneapolis area (also a wonderful person), reached out and contacted Sandra via her company website. www.sandramagsamen.com Molly told Sandra about our blessings and asked if she could help out. Molly went ahead and did this on our behalf without my knowledge. I found out all of this after the fact. It’s hard to explain what Sandra does as she has done and accomplished so much as an author, designer, artist, plus so much more. Just look over her website. It’s truly inspiring. Here’s what she did for us: she sent us some items from her clothing line, some plaques for the wall in the nursery and a couple items for Meredith including a book. Sandra went overboard a bit, but we’ll take it! This is very nice stuff; onesies, outfits, blankets, jammies, etc. According to her site, it looks like you can find her stuff at JCPenny and WalMart. I’d like you all to see a copy of my last email correspondence with Sandra.

“Dear Heath,
Thank you for your kind note. Yes Molly did write to me and I was happy to share with your family my designs and art.

I design my collection for babies to share the messages we all want to impart with our children- a hope for a joy filled life, a wish for happiness and a dream that they will grow to be all that they can be.
Your site is great and must be a wonderful resource for your family and friends.

Please feel free to link to my site if you would like. (I asked for her permission)

I recently wrote a piece for a publication about kindness and giving and I think it is contagious so I would love to encourage others to do what they can do too.

“A basic, wonderful truth about all people is that through our choices and actions, we can and do make the world a better place.

We don’t have to do huge things to make a big difference. Even the smallest kindness has the power to resonate through this sometimes difficult and troubled world.

Individual acts of kindness and generosity of spirit change the world. Kindness is magical and contagious. A single smile brings on another smile; a good morning invites another greeting. Thoughtfulness, consideration, and care enhance our well-being and others’, too.”

All my best to you and your beautiful BIG family.

Sandra”

As Angela and I have gone through this journey over the past several months, we’ve met and dealt with some wonderful people. Sandra and Molly are two of them. Thank you both so much.

Now…the kids…they’re all doing awesome! Weights are up and continue to climb. The staff at Children’s was talking yesterday about trying a couple of the kids in a different type of bed; one where the top could be lifted off if they maintain their body temp well enough to not need to be in an isolet. I guess we’ll see today when we go in for a visit. All of them had their first vision test yesterday. At this time, there are no major issues with the vision of any of them. God has been smiling down on us. Their eyes are still premature and issues could still develop, but it isn’t likely at this stage. They will have another vision test in two weeks.

Lastly, I’d like to give everyone a little perspective on the kids. I put some new pictures of all of them on the site earlier this week. They look so good and they’re starting to look like babies instead of aliens, but they’re still incredibly small. When you look back at some of the pictures, please notice the size of the pacifier compared to their heads. That’s a regular pacifier. There is a little toy in each of their beds. Emma has the pink pig. That toy is only 5 inches tall and it looks as big as she it. I only share this to give a little dose of reality to the situation. I don’t want the pictures to be misleading. My brother Brad told me a couple weeks ago when they were here, “Babies aren’t supposed to be that small.”

Anyway, now that I’ve blown my personal 1000 word rule that I have when writing these posts out of the water, I’ll let you all go. Please note that I will be working on changes to the site, hopefully this weekend, to have info on the “how to help” page about volunteering when the kids come home.

Until next time…