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Hopewell mom builds snowman in a wheelchair for son with muscular dystrophy

Posted at 9:52 PM, Jan 26, 2016
and last updated 2016-01-26 21:57:27-05

HOPEWELL, Va. -- A Hopewell mother built a snowman for her son, who can’t go outside in the winter.

"I usually do a little something so I can take a picture and take it inside to show him," Rhonda Acord said, speaking of her son Tyler Shook.

Her son Tyler has muscular dystrophy, a terminal progressive disease which affects his muscles and left him wheelchair bound when he was just six years old.

A Hopewell mother built a snowman for her son, who can’t go outside in the winter.

A Hopewell mother built a snowman for her son, who can’t go outside in the winter.

"The weather would freeze his hands before he even really got out the front door,” Rhonda said.

Rhonda headed outside after the weekend blizzard to build him something, but halfway through she stopped. She didn’t want to just build a typical snowman she said.

She started on a  second snowman, which was much more difficult to build.

"It's a snowman in a wheel chair, basically something to make him feel like he's a part of it," she said. "It was just basically to make him smile." 

A Hopewell mother built a snowman for her son, who can’t go outside in the winter.

A Hopewell mother built a snowman for her son, who can’t go outside in the winter.

CBS 6 Senior Reporter Wayne Covil first met Tyler 19 years ago, when Tyler was 10, and the Make A Wish Foundation sent Tyler and his family to Disney World.

Tyler is now reliant on a ventilator to breathe, and although confined to the house in the winter, it hasn't stopped his love of snow.

Tyler, when he was 10, and the Make A Wish Foundation sent him to Disney World

Tyler, when he was 10, and the Make A Wish Foundation sent him to Disney World

"We haven't got snow like this in years,” Tyler said.

The construction of his snowman took more than two hours.

“Cool,” Tyler said.

The snow sculptures the mom built for her son

The snow sculptures the mom built for her son

"I just thank God for people like her, that love their children so much they would just do what ever they could do so they could enjoy the snow,” next door neighbor Mary Easter said.

"When I looked at it, my face lightened up, cause it was very very cool,” her other son Roman said.