My First One.....

     After much thought and prayer, I decided to join in the blogging phenomenon.  As my first official post, I'd thought I'd first give a more detailed background of the Donley family! 
   First and foremost, we love the Lord and do our best to follow Him in everything we do and say.  Of course, we are not perfect, but our goal in life is to lead our children (and hopefully others!) to Him by our example in our everyday lives.  We don't lead a charmed life (as you will learn if you decide to follow my blog!), but we know that "all things work for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose."  (Romans 8:28).

     The head of the Donley family is Jeff....

     He's a 5th generation farmer in the same area that his ancestors settled in 1871.  He's a workaholic and a great father and husband :-)  After farming fulltime for 2 1/2 years, he went back to being a machinist at a local factory in a neighboring town and farms in his off time.  He's been back at his town job for almost 3 years.  He likes it, but he loves farming more and our goal is to farm fulltime again in the near future.  Unfortunately, he works second shift, so the kids and I have learned to have our own afternoon and evening routines without him.  Basically, his life consists of 40 hours a week at his town job and 40 hours a week on the farm.  Needless to say, we have no hobbies, no social life and very little downtime, but we don't mind.... usually!

I, of course, am the second in command.

       My oldest daughter, Elisa, is in the picture with me, because I have absolutely no pictures of me alone!  I'm always the one behind the camera :-)  I have been a stay-at-home mom since my twins were born.  I was raised on a big farm a few miles east of where we live now.  I loved living and working on my dad's farm and always wanted to marry a farmer!  As I've gotten older, my interests have included nutrition, herbs, gardening, cooking from scratch, raising animals for meat and eggs, and autism.  I would have loved to have been a pioneer woman back in the 1800's!

This is our son, Reece Jefferson.

     He is the oldest of the twins (by 4 minutes :-)  His main love in life is farming.  This kid can sit on a tractor or combine for 8 hours and never fall asleep or act bored.  He absolutely loves to go anywhere and everywhere with his daddy or his Grandpa Jim (Jeff's dad, who farms the Donley farm fulltime).  Reece had a rough start in life with an 8 day stay in the NICU and a year of physical therapy.  After he met all his baby milestones on time and "tested out" of physical therapy by his first birthday, we were sure the worst was behind us.  Unfortunately, we were very wrong!  Our autism story isn't much different from everyone else's.  We noticed around 18 months that he'd quit talking, but other than that, there were no major warning signs.  He was in speech therapy at age 2, but it wasn't until he was 3 1/2, that he really spiraled into autism.  Overnight, literally, we lost him.  He began stimming incessantly and refused to make eye contact or interact with any of us.  After waiting months to see a specialist, we got his official diagnosis right around his 4th birthday.  He's considered mildly autistic, but, I've learned, that to a large extent, autism is autism, no matter how mild or severe.  We love our little guy dearly, but its been a very difficult journey.  We have very few resources in our area to deal with this disability, so we and the school do the best we can.  I still have hope that someday Reece will be able to live a normal life and I even pray for his future wife :-)  That's why I chose that verse to be in the heading of this blog.  I know, without a doubt, that God has given Reece a hope and a future.  You will learn so much more about Reece and our struggles with autism, but we try so hard to not let autism rule our life.

This is Elisa Ray, Reece's twin sister and our oldest daughter...

     This girl is my right hand man and I don't know how I ever got along with her!  She is so smart and helpful :-)  She's very creative and her number one interest in life is art.  It seems like she's always in the middle of some creative project.  She's wonderful with Reece, too.  She and Lindy (our youngest) are best friends and are always using their imaginations!  We started homeschooling her a year and a half ago, when she was halfway through kindergarten.  We missed having her around and poor Jeff would go all week and not see her, due to his second shift schedule.  Throw in the fact that she was ahead of her peers academically and was learning and picking up things that were very un-Biblical, we decided homeschooling was a better option for us.  She and I have so much fun "doing" school together!  She's one of those self-motivated learners and can't wait to get started everyday.  She also loves to bake and since she can read now, she bakes cookies, brownies, rolls, whatever she wants, without any help from me!  

And last, but definitely not least, is our "baby", Lindy Sue...

         Pictured with her, is her newly acquired Indian baby that she bought while on our recent vacation to the Black Hills.  This girl is in LOVE with baby dolls!!! She has been obsessed with playing mommy since she was 10 months old (she started walking at 9 months, so she subsequently, acted much older than her actual age!).  She really wants a real baby in our family so she can take care of it, but, I told her, that unfortunately, that won't be happening :-(   She also is into Polly Pockets and making up elaborate stories.  It wouldn't surprise me if she's a writer someday....  Lindy acts very old for her age, most of the time, which I think comes from being around her older sister.  She's into all things GIRL and for the last year has refused to wear any other clothing, but dresses!  That is soooo unlike her tomboy mother :-)  She has her own opinion about everything and she is very much a mama's girl, although, the older she gets the more time she likes to spend with her daddy.


     So, that is the end of my first post and I hope you've got a good handle on what our family is all about!  I don't know how often I'll post on this blog; I'm guessing it will vary a lot depending on what's going on around here.... so, talk to ya later!!!