Just Catching Up

My guest post for 12 Days of Christmas with you in Heaven posted today at Small Bird Studios.  I wrote out our Christmas Stocking Project and how much it has blessed us at Christmas time.  I think I will do this again this year...

Jakin's first birthday in Heaven (aka Thanksgiving Day) has come and gone and I haven't had a chance to post about it.  It was a hard day.  Much harder than Shyla's first was.  Maybe because on her first we had the hope for him...I'm not sure...but we did spend much time together as a family.  I cried when I needed to cry and we took him a balloon and visited the cemetery.  I also spent most of the morning making the Christmas saddles for their rocks.  Complete with white poinsettias (and a pink and blue one too!) glitter and a sparkling dragonfly each.

 It was a long day and honestly, I'm kind of glad it has passed. It is so much easier to look on the holidays with Joy after the hardest days have passed and I know that that day was the hardest.

We got our Christmas tree on Sunday and putting the ornaments on is always such a rush of memories.  This year was no different.  Each ornament was placed with love and a smile.  We have so many ornaments from Shyla's first Christmas in Heaven and a few from Jakin's last year as well.  Also adorning our tree are ornaments Ethan has picked out every year and a picture from the day he was born.  I now also have many of the ornaments from when I was a child.  It was a beautiful night decorating the tree (except when the beautiful live tree took a nose dive on me!)

Anyway, I'm still here and I plan on updating again soon.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are preparing for a peaceful Christmas season.

Much love.

November in Review

I've been in kind of a rut lately, but I really want to get back into blogging.  I don't guess not writing for 2...well, 3 weeks is considered being out of blogging, but I feel like I need it.  It's like therapy to me.  Writing and putting myself out here makes me accountable with my emotions and helps me see things from a different point of view.

So, in an effort to get back into the swing of things. I'm going to do this ridiculously random post.  Ready?  Here goes...

First off, 11-11-11.  We had fun with carrots and home made pizza sticks. And we wrote a whole lot of ones.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we did lots of fun Thanksgiving-ish things that week.  Mostly with food.  Have I mentioned just how much I love pinterest?  These are all photos of creations I copied from ideas I found there.

(found this idea here)

(found this idea here...but I like how our colors turned out better)

(and found this idea here and made some adjustments to what we had at home.)

We also had our "Thankful turkey" in our kitchen.  Every night we would all write something we were thankful for on a feather and add it to our turkey.  These were just some of my favorite feathers written by Ethan...

Thanksgiving Day (November 24) was also our third child, Jakin Isaac's 1st birthday in Heaven.  One year ago on the 23rd he passed away in the womb and on the 24th he was born.  My brother and sis-in-law sent us flowers to let us know they were thinking of us.  It was a pretty hard day, to be quite honest.  But we spent it with family and I spent the morning making the Christmas saddles for Shyla and Jakin's rocks.

Lets see, what else was going on in November...Ethan finally got to watch Cars Two and loved it.  He has rekindled his love for his toy cars and has been playing with and drawing them like crazy.

I learned how to make cinnamon-sugar donuts.  And they are yummy.  And I made them again this morning.  And (enter guilty mommy voice here) Ethan ate two and about three donut holes for breakfast this morning.

I also started working on LOTS of handmade gifts that I will just have to wait until after Christmas to post because you just never know who might come across this little ol blog of mine before then.

I guess I'm about all caught up!  Except to say that we have had massive issues with internet and computers and it has taken me 2 days to write this post.  And now I remember why I haven't been posting as often!  Hopefully we can get this all resolved soon and this can get to be much easier and more enjoyable again.

Be sure to check back soon, because I have several posts in the works.  An update on my dad, a giveaway, an interview and an adoption post.  And we will probably throw in a fundraiser somewhere in there for good measure!

Thank you all for your love and prayers!

(source)

I woke up at 4:00 this morning.  And I couldn't go back to sleep.  First my mind went to some Christmas gifts I need to make.  Then on to my to-do-list today. Then I couldn't help it going where it has been going lots lately.  To my littlest child.  Jakin's first birthday in Heaven is next week.  I grieve that I feel like we will not celebrate his life the same way we did Shyla's.  We had a beautiful celebration for her 1st.  Jakin's first is on Thanksgiving Day.  I know it wont happen.  I know there will be very few that think to speak his name that day.  

I laid there this morning and asked my husband a "why" question.  I knew he wouldn't have the answer...and I really give an honest effort to stay away from the "why"s.  I asked him "Why did he have to die at Thanksgiving? Isn't it enough we buried two of our children?  Shyla's original due date was Thanksgiving too. Double whammy.

I'm having a harder time being at peace now than I was when we were approaching Shyla's first.  I wish I could keep from comparing them.  But I can't help it.  Don't we all try to treat our children fairly?  What we do for one, do for the other(s)...

I really need some prayers to help me focus on God and his peace right now.  I know that those things can be found only in Him.  I need His strength, and I need him to carry me through.  I have no doubt He is near, but sometimes the grief is just stronger than others.  

And now is one of those times.