6 month Angel Day

Wow, 6 months. Our precious baby has been in the arms of Jesus for half of a year. I know I'm not supposed to, but it is really difficult most days to suppress my feelings of jealousy that she is not in my arms. Well, I guess it is more of a longing to hold her again rather than being jealous. I really miss her. Some days are still harder than others, and I cannot always pinpoint why, but I have realized that time has allowed us to have more good days than bad days. We are getting ready to make another beach trip and I am hoping that this will do us some good. I'm trying to focus on the positive instead of the negative things that depress me, like: How much I would have loved for Allie to be going with us, thinking of the things she might have been doing at the beach at almost a year old, thinking that family beach photos will never be the same, etc... My heart just hurts and I wish that things didn't have to be this way. We will be away for her 11 month birthday and I will not be able to post, so I am going to go ahead and send some more birthday butterfly kisses her way. Happy 11 months baby girl in advance, and I wish you were here with us to celebrate it at the beach! Thank you again for all of her Birthday Butterflies. They are absolutely spectacular! You have all been so sweet helping us through. We have one month left for anyone that still wants to send Allie a butterfly wish for her birthday. Just click on her button to the right to connect you to the post with all of the details. Thanks again.

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Great Fourth

Well, I have been keeping myself so busy lately that I haven't even had a chance to post about our 4th of July Holiday weekend. Honestly, prior to the holiday I had built up a lot of anxiety, but like I have stated so many times before, "God is Wonderful!" He knows our every need and exactly what to do to take care of us. Throughout our entire grief process with Allie, He has allowed our emotional struggles to see-saw back and forth so that one of us could be strong while the other was falling apart. Of course, I have done most of the falling apart while Michael has been the strong one, but lately God has been with me and allowed my emotional breakdowns to take a back seat so that I could be strong for Michael and help him.


The week before the fourth did cause my emotional see-saw to fall down again, because as I stated before I had some anxiety built up about this past weekend. For those of you that do not know, I had several baby cousins that were born around the same time as Allie, and this was going to be the first time I had seen them since Allie passed away. Please let me remind everyone that I do not get upset because there are other babies. Babies, especially the ones that are Allie's age, just remind me how much I am missing her and how much I wish she was still with me. Anyway, I had this horrible fear that I would not be able to contain my sorrow and wind up ruining every one's holiday. God knew better. He was with Michael and me every step of the way, and we had a fabulous 4th of July. Michael and I talked about how much fun we had, and how emotionally beneficial it was for both us. It has been an extremely long time since we have felt happiness, and it felt so good to be filled with laughter and surrounded by family and friends that love us. It was an awesome day, and we didn't take a single picture. Guess you will just have to take my word for it :) I hope your fourth was as great as mine!

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Blog Button

http://michaelandsusanbrewer.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-button.html

Look what my sweet, sweet friend Robin did for me! She created me this beautiful button to add to my blog to let everyone know about Allie's Birthday butterflies. Isn't she just the best! Now others can "grab" the button and add to their blogs for all to see. The wonderful response that we have already received has completely amazed us. We have received such gorgeous butterflies and birthday messages for our precious Allie, and we are so grateful to everyone that has helped with this special birthday memorial. We cannot thank you enough.

For those that do not already know about Allie's Butterfly Kisses, and would like to participate, I have included the instructions below. Our precious baby girl passed away January 14, 2009 due to the chromosomal disorder, Trisomy 18. We were able to share 148 glorious days with her, and we thank God for allowing us enough time to get to know and love her. Our theme with her life was butterflies, so we felt that it was only appropriate to do a butterfly release on what would have been her first birthday. We also decided that we would like to release virtual butterflies on our blog, the day of her birthday, so that butterflies from all over could be released in her honor. All you need to do is send us an image of a butterfly, or an image of a butterfly item, etc... to the following email address: alliesparents@gmail.com Feel free to send Allie a birthday message as well. If you do not wish to leave a message or your name, we would like to at least know where the butterfly comes from because we are wanting to incorporate the messages and locations with her slide show as well. Thank you all so much for your help with this special Birthday memorial.

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Sending Birthday Butterfly Kisses up to Our Little Angel

Happy 10 month Birthday, Allie! Wish you were here to celebrate. Wow, she would have been getting close to a year old by now. Just think of all she might have been doing at this age. My arms would love to be filled with that little cutie patootie again. She was such a joy and blessed our lives to the fullest. It is indescribable to express how much we miss her each and every moment, and I have the battle every morning of getting up and facing another day without her. It is extremely difficult constantly fighting the urge to just want to stare off into space each day (I'm not really sure where, but I guess it just wants to go where my mind is most days). These are the moments I am most thankful for having God in my life because when I tell myself that I cannot walk He is there to carry me. It is only through Him that I am able to conquer these battles.

Some of you may remember a previous post about needing your help with something special that I wanted to do in remembrance of Allie. I thought that it would be appropriate to post about it on her birthday since it is something that I am planning for her one year birthday. Her one year birthday is approaching soon and I have pondered, and thought, and racked my brain for ideas of special things that I can do to honor Allie's one year Birthday. I will be releasing butterflies on her birthday since I was unable to at her funeral, because it was in January. Another idea that I have thought of adding is releasing butterflies on the blog as well. If you have noticed, butterflies happen to be the "IN" thing all of a sudden (Every time I turn around I see butterflies). I was going to take pictures of butterflies, or butterfly objects, etc... and show a slide show of all the butterflies on her Birthday. This is where you guys come into play. I thought it would be neat to let others send pictures of butterflies, things with butterflies, butterfly objects, butterfly images off of the computer, etc... so that butterflies could be released from, not only us, but from all over. If this is something that you would be interested in doing, we would greatly appreciate your help. Just collect your butterfly pictures and email them to me at : alliesparents@gmail.com Feel free to be creative, and please spread the word to others if you like. If you don't want to leave your name, we understand, but we would love to at least know where they are coming from. Thank you so much for your help with Allie's Birthday Project.

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5 Month Angel Day

Today marks five months since my precious Little Angel spread her wings and entered Heaven. She has now been an angel longer than she was with us here on Earth. Something about that thought disturbs me. I'm hurting and missing her terribly today. My fear, of course, is forgetting the details. All I have left is her memories, and oh how grateful I am that God gave us enough time to create those wonderful memories. I miss snuggling with her at night, I miss rubbing her soft hair against my cheek, I miss seeing her smile, I miss holding her, I miss feeding her in her unique way of eating, I miss seeing the look on her daddy's face when he held her in his arms, I miss seeing her big brother smother her with hugs and kisses, and along with many other things I miss constantly kissing her sweet little head. Having the memories still doesn't take away the pain of missing her, but we are thankful for them because they were all memories that we were never supposed to have. We miss you baby girl, and we are thinking of you today and always. We love you.

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A much needed beach trip

I find nothing more relaxing than a nice beach get-a-way. We had a mother, daughter, son beach trip this past weekend with our friends, and it was absolutely fabulous! We tend to do the usual Gulf Shores trip, like I read on Robin's blog the other day under the "You must be a Southerner" list (Hey, Robin, loved the list by the way!) So, yes, I am a Southerner if you haven't already figured that one out. Anyway, we decided to head to Destin, FL this time and it was beautiful, much different than I remember as a child, but beautiful. I recommend staying at Destin West if you are wanting other things to do besides just the pool and beach. We had two days jammed packed with fun, and the boys had a blast! On the first day we went to the pool, the on site splash park, the beach, out to eat at the Crab Trap, the on site lazy river, and night time crab hunting. So maybe I am contradicting myself when I said that it was relaxing :) You know what I meant. It was lovely getting some extra bonding time with my son, my mother, and my friends. This did get me to thinking about my sweet Allie though and how I would have loved for her to have been with us. I remembered how much she seemed to enjoy the beach last fall, and it would have been so sweet to see her in the pool. I wonder what her reaction would have been to the sand (Mason hated the sand on his first beach trip, but as you can see below he doesn't have a problem with it anymore). I also thought about the special bond between mothers and daughters. It was so nice having the opportunity to take a trip with my mom , which made me think of never getting that opportunity with Allie. Let's face it, when Mason gets older he's not going to say, "Come on Mom let's go to the beach for some bonding time!" :) I guess I can dream. Hope you enjoy the beach shots.

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Summer Kickoff!

What better way to kick off summer than having a good ol' marsh mellow roast! It was so nice relaxing by the fire and having fun with friends. As you can see, the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Summertime is here, and I am filled with a mixture of emotions. I am so thrilled to have some time off, but I know with this extra time comes down time to think of and miss my sweet Allie. It is so hard not to think of what my summer would have been like having both of my babies home with me. I just think of all the fun we could have had. She would have been close to a year old and probably pulling up and trying to walk or something. Anyway, I do have several projects that I am wanting to complete to honor My Little Angel like: her butterfly garden, shadow boxes, her blanket, her scrapbook, hanging more pictures, etc.... Of course, I will be doing many activities with Mason as well, so I am planning on staying busy. I will be blogging soon about a memorial project that I have had in mind on doing for Allie's one year Birthday, and I'm going to need some help from all of you. So I will keep you posted, and I hope all of you have a Fabulous Summer!

P.S.
The twins are doing well. Their names are now Catty and Chompers ~She rightfully earned the name :). Mason thinks that it is hilarious. We are still in the process of getting our dog to love our new kittens. Not having much luck with that, so if any of you have suggestions we are all ears :) Thanks.

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