Spring Break Pictures

Finally, the pictures from the highlights of our Spring Break! As most of you saw in my earlier post, I had a few bad days during Spring Break, and that is going to happen. You just hope for time to bring more good days than bad, but I wanted to share the pictures of our good moments during Spring Break. I figured out how to put them into a slide show this time instead of having you scroll down the page forever and ever :) To explain what is going on in the pictures: Mason and his buddy got to spend some time together playing outside and pretending the basketball goal was a motorcycle, they also got to have a fun day at JumpZone (as you can see, the mommies had fun too), we spent one day at the park with our cousins, and to end the week we celebrated Granddaddy's birthday at the lake and Mason had a blast driving the boat, spending time with family, and fishing (he caught his first fish on his own). I hate there are so many pictures, but I wanted to share all of the events that happened during our week off together. Thanks.

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Tender memories

Wow, so much has gone on since my last post. I previously spoke of wanting to write about the highlights of my Spring Break, but other emotions were getting in the way. A memorable date was soon approaching. Yesterday, March 25, marked two occasions in my life. Not only was I entering a new decade, and we will not discuss which decade that may be :), but it also marked the one year anniversary of when I found out Allie had Trisomy 18. I had so much anxiety built up about this date. I don't know if any of you do this, but I had assosiated certain emotions with this date, and I was expecting something bad to happen again. The memories of this date are still so tender on my mind, and to be honest I really didn't feel like celebrateing my birthday this year. Everyone was absolutely wonderful though. They kept it simple, and I received many beautiful gifts. Some good teasing came along with the new decade, which made it fun and helped to take my mind off of the tender memories. I made it through the day with the help of many prayers, and hopefully I will get to post those lovely highlight pics. from our break soon. Thanks to all of you that said an extra special prayer for me yesterday.

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7 months

Happy 7 month Birthday to my sweet little angel in Heaven. Can you believe that my baby girl would have been 7 months old today. I am consumed with thoughts of all things she might have been doing if she were still here and did not have T18. When I look around at all of the other babies around Allie's age, I get a deep pain in the pit of my stomach. I am reminded of how much I miss her and of all the things that I will never get to see her do. If she were still alive and healthy by now she would probably be sitting up, crawling, cooing, smiling, laughing, and doing all of the other wonderful things that a baby should be doing. I should be snuggling her in my arms and kissing her sweet little head. It hurts so bad not to be able to kiss my sweet baby. The pain is unimaginable, and I would give anything to feel her soft, fuzzy hair nuzzled up against my cheek again. I'm so sorry to lay it all out there, but as I guess you can probably tell, today has been really tough and it helps me to write out my feelings. This time of the month is always so emotional for me because her Angel day is only 5 days away from her birthday. I am filled with grief, and a lot of days I am not sure what to do with it all. Most days I keep my mind away from the memories because I feel that if I am not thinking about it, then I will not hurt as much. Not too sure how well this is working out for me because if I ever sit still and allow my mind to be filled with all of the memories, then I have a complete meltdown (Like today). Oh well, I don't think there can be a perfect way to deal with grief. For the most part, you find a way that you are most comfortable with and you push yourself to just keep going. If it helps you to put on a fake smile and tell everyone that your fine, even though your devastated on the inside, then so be it, you made it through another day. Time will help, and I have slowly began to realize that it is okay to let yourself escape the pain from time to time. I can tell that I am starting to heal little by little, because I have recently found myself getting engrossed in conversation with others and actually truly laughing (I think this is a HUGE step). Mourning for your Child is an extremely difficult journey, and the one thing that I know for sure is that it cannot be made without God.

I will post soon about my Spring Break, because even though it may not seem like it today I have had a good break and shared some wonderful moments with Mason and other family and friends.

On a technical note~ I have had several people either tell me, email me, or post on Allie's Trisomy page that they are not able to leave messages on the blog. I am not sure why this is happening, but the only advice I know to give is to maybe try clicking the bubble next to one of the other choices besides Google account. Had anyone else experienced this, or do you have any advice to share? I would greatly appreciate it.

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Allie's prints

Yesterday I received a very special gift from my friend Katy and her family. As most of you know, due to the T18, my little Allie's hands stayed in the clinched position and two of her fingers overlapped, making it almost impossible to get handprints. Well, while Allie was still alive Katy and her sweet parents had the ceramic hand and footprints done for me. Wasn't that so thoughtful? It was definitely a challenge, and I think it took three people to get the task accomplished, but it was more than worth the while. Katy delivered them to me yesterday, and I just blubbered like a baby. (It's okay, she knew it was because I absolutely LOVED them). Oh, how I adored those precious, precious handprints. The tiles are not actually glued in the frame yet, so I just clung to them like I was holding her in my arms again. I observed and traced over each tiny detail of those sweet little hands and feet. Words cannot even begin to explain how grateful I was to be given such a priceless treasure. Yesterday was already an emotional day since it was Allie's two month Angel Day, therefore receiving the gift made my day.

Two months~ Wow, two months seems so little in most situations, but it feels like an eternity to me. For some reason I thought the two month anniversary would be easier than the first month, but it wasn't by any means. I almost want to say that it was more difficult, and I am not sure why. Maybe it is due to the fact that I have recently had to face many milestones like: picking out her marker, going back to work, and etc.... I still miss my baby girl tremendously, and I still find myself taking things one step at a time.

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Allie's Marker

Today we picked out Allie's marker. This was a rather difficult task, and I guess that is why it has taken us so long to complete. We had previously met with the memorial place, but we had not been able to commit to a design that we liked. Basically, we were stalling because it seemed so final. Even though we know it is final, most days I think we try to trick our minds into believing that it is all just a bad dream. That is what we want to believe, but since that is not possible we learn to accept reality.

After coming up with many ideas for Allie's marker, we finally agreed on one that we both liked and made an appointment with the memorial place. I still couldn't help feeling that I shouldn't be there, and even on our first visit the person asked, "Is this for a mother or grandmother?" It felt so wrong to reply with, "No, it is for our daughter." Our visit today was very surreal, and there were tons of decisions to be made. We didn't mind because we knew that she deserved the best, and we wanted to make sure that it was perfect for her. The cemetary where she is buried requires flat markers so we had some restrictions, but I think that it is going to turn out really pretty. It will take about 4 to 6 weeks to come in, and I cannot wait to have that for her. I visit her site almost every day, and I find it very comforting. I know it sounds silly, but I like to think that Allie can look down or hear me from Heaven. Therefore, her site is a place where I like to share my thoughts with her and God.

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Snow in the South

What a fantastic weekend! We went from splashing in mudpuddles on Saturday to playing in the snow on Sunday. I know those of you that are not from the south are laughing your heads off at us right now, but getting snow in the south is a very rare occasion so we get extremely excited when we finally get snow :) We had a blast!!!! Saturday the boys, this includes Mason's 'buddy', did what all typical 3 year old boys would do when they saw a mudpuddle. They jumped, ran, and splashed in the puddles until they were completely drenched from head to toe with mud. I mean, they literally rolled in the mud like little pigs, and enjoyed every second. We thought our fun had reached the ultimate peak until Sunday morning arrived. Our yard was covered with SNOW!!! How excited we all were! We had snowball fights, we went snow sledding, we built snowmen, and we had hot cocoa. We truly enjoyed ourselves, and there were a few moments when the adults were begging the kids for one more slide. My face muscles were actually sore at the end of the day from smiling, because it has been so long since I had used them. Of course, the rest of my body was aching also, but we will not go into that discussion. Let's just say that it has been a while since we have had a good snow in the south, and I was a lot younger the last time I played in the snow. This past year has been quite difficult, and recently we have been so depressed, and I was thankful to finally have a moment of true happiness. Allie was still on our minds throughout the day, and we each had some moments of sadness as we thought about what she would have done in the snow and wishing that she could have made it to see her first snow. As our snow day ended, we visited the cemetary and built a baby snowman for Allie to see from Heaven. It was a wonderful, winter, weekend, and I am grateful to God for the small moments of joy.

Dorrie's first snow. She didn't know what to do at first :)

Best Buddies!

Phew, at least we had the slide to stop us.

Maybe I will try ............

Nope, he's not as young as he used to be either.

I think we made it.....

Awww... Wipeout!!

Yes, the water was ice cold and maybe I am regretting letting the boys turn that spot into a huge mudpuddle the day before. Those layers and layers of clothes I had on were no match for it :)

Sending a snowman to Heaven

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