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Holidays

Christian, Holidays, Thankful

6 months

Sweet Christian, 
Tomorrow, it has been 6 months. The time is crawling by, and I miss you terribly. These last few weeks have been sad for me. We set up the Christmas tree and I lost it. My heart screams “you should be HERE! Ripping the ornaments off the tree, tearing open wrapped presents, making this Christmas the merriest…” My mind knows God knows better. Your brothers ask about you and continue to talk about you. In fact, they say they are thankful for you. And they want to get you a Christmas gift. Halle is obsessed with babies, specifically little ones that are sleeping. Sometimes I wonder if she is looking for you. I want to tell her you are no longer a baby. At least not ours. But still, I think about what you might look like, what you would be doing.  You would most likely be crawling, making funny faces and loving your new found food. What you are enjoying right now is far better than jarred carrots, and a life here.  
Mine and your daddy’s prayer, before you were born, was that your life would make an impact for God’s kingdom. We assumed you were this miracle baby that we would have a lifetime to watch grow up and hopefully make a difference on this side of life. We never thought for one minute it would actually be your death, that would take hold of the microphone so to speak.  You have not been taken from us in vain. You see Friday, God gave me an abundance of love and strength to do what I never thought was humanly possible. Share my testimony of Salvation, life after loss, and what and where our true hope is, with other mommy’s in a big group. By His grace, I was able to stand up and share how good our Abba is. Amidst all the trials, pain…it was losing you that is the most devestating. God has been faithful to show us some good that has come from you crossing the threshold into eternity, before us.  
My love, you have forever changed my life. For the better. Through grieving the loss your life, and seeing the fruit that is coming from you going to be with God, your daddy and I have an unspeakable peace. It is not the peace that comes before entering a trial. It is the kind where we are continually riding the waves of grief, but we are in a boat now, protected from the despair and fear grief brings. The waters are no longer murky and deep, we can see a little further down and forward. We can taste the calm. These past few days I have taken mental inventory of the countless good God has graciously given us. We are so thankful for so many reasons, but today sweet child, I am thankful for the way God has eternally blessed me by your life and homecoming. I miss you always, and love you more than will ever know.
Mama

friends, Holidays

4th of July

Whoops. Late. We had SO much fun that day, amd I had so many cute pics Big Stink had taken, I wanted to make sure it made the blog. We of course failed to get any pictures at our sweet Jer & Melindas-bah.

 Boys decorated their own bikes, so proud of themselves. (Ok, Chad MAY have helped align the stars for his overly anal wife. MAY have.)
Craziness! The parade was a huge hit. I have missed it 3 times now due to being the only barefoot contessa wannabe. 

 Our sweet neighbors Carlo and Zyrna and their baby boy Matthew…..everyone say, “awwwh” He is a cutie!
 Basically, I want to steal this kids ATV. I need one.
 More mayhem.

      Part 2: @ the Kents. The boys showing their manly muscles as they rock their chicken skin.

 Weather decided to surprise us with rain….on the 4th of July. Sounds like my kind of year;)
 Brayden just had fun climbing all over the backyard….again and again and again….
 Weeman locking down his spot in the hot tub. 
 Cuties!

 Aaron and the other dads took one for the team. It. was. freezing.

 Sweet Shannon and Emily!
 Tammy, who so graciously opened up her home. She just had her 4th baby girl. 4th! 

Entirely too much fun for one day!
Holidays

Memorial Day weekend {fashionably late}

The weekend kicked off to a fun start by shopping at the outlets. Chad pulled me away kicking and screaming just in time to get to our hotel in Indan Wells for some pool time. We welcomed the tornado that came along with that special time in the water. Windy pool time with a lightweight stroller and baby was a BLAST.
The next few days were much more pool friendly. We were able to spend some time and meet up with sweet family,  jump on hotel beds, and do some family bonding while sweating like race horses.

 And she slept like a good baby.
 A good reason I shouldn’t be doing anything involving editing a photo. 

 WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE IS NO BINKIE.
 Setting up game #147 of Candyland. The new baseball. 
 Eating so many goldfish his button popped open. He is his mommy’s kid.
 Beautiful for so many reasons. 
 Can you believe the day is finally here when I can have fun in the pool with my squirts? Me either. Thank you water wings.
 Halle’s a fan.
 He’s a keeper yo.
Precious. And creepy. Did we know Weeman sleeps with his eyes open?
 Mamabear and Halle. We like wear hats because someone said it’s a good thing. 
Whatever you do-DON’T take off the goggles. Putting on goggles with one hand makes me sweat in regions I don’t think are legal to write about. So they listened. 
Holidays

Memorial Day Weekend

Always seems so grand, no? We had big plans for a weekend of unreplicatable awesomeness. I had dreams of tanning, letting kids play on the beach, not growing leg hair at the rate of a wildabeast,  and warm weather.  God had another plan. We had been looking forward to family camp with about 200 of our closest church family. Pt. Magu was a wee bit irritable. Maybe she suffered from indigestion, or IBS. I don’t really know. I do know that the weather let us all down. Wind+dirt+kids+OCD about dirt mom=A BLAST FOR Big Stink. I am not sure if it was the cold showers, snakes or dirty pillows, but I have decided I am not a what you call a “trooper”. I have come to realize I am high maintenance, and pretty A-ok with that. I like to not have dirt under my toenails. And not to constantly watch out for deadly snakes, spiders and other unknown bugs that can kill you that may or may not exist.

The main point of this post was how amazing it was to endure the conditions of the weekend with church family. The point was to come together and fellowship and glorify God. I think we did that. I say we with a little more emphasis on the other people, including my husband. He held me together. {I pretty much failed at doing anything fruitful this weekend, other than whine like a loser}. We leaned on eachother, laughed with eachother, ditched camp for the outlets together….oops, I blew your cover L;)  The planning was impeccable-catered meals, (yes please), coffee at all hours, plenty of food, chairs, campfires 24/7,  EVERY detail was thought out, it was a beautiful thing.  Best of all, little stink and Weeman had too much fun. Upon leaving, B was crying and moaning his life away b/c we were leaving our “new home”. Uhm, No B, playing indians is not going to be your lifelong aspiration. I love you enough to say cowboys are always the better option.

Other items of note? Ashley’s water breaking IN THE CAR, and delivering baby Connor within minutes of getting to the hospital, no epidural!!!!! Bananas birth story. So proud of you Ash!!  And missing sweet Baby Cole’s 2nd Birthday. WAH! The weekend ended with a wonderful dinner at mamabird and Steve’s house with the fam.  And overstuffing myself in true turkey fashion. Perfect ending to a {fill in the blank} weekend.

Holidays

Easter

Started off like this:

 Bananas for the monkeys
 Yep we are the dorks taking pictures while driving. Ahem, ok! I am the dork…
 Mom’s mad skillz.
 B hiding behind large objects snaking about 30 jelly beans and a bowl of malt ball eggs.

 Bah! Almost.
 sweet aunts and uncles
 Awhhh. They goin to be paaaaarents!!!!! t-4 weeks. Weeeeehhhh!

 I can’t even explain.
But, I love the man under the diaper more than he will ever know.