Happy 1st Birthday to Our Angel in Heaven

Dear Allie,

I told myself that I wasn't going to cry today. Well, at least not a lot anyway, because I wanted to remember that today was the celebration of a joyous occasion. One year ago today God sent us one of his most precious angels. I can remember everything so vividly, as though it were yesterday, and I remember Dr. Ballard giving us ALL of the reasons that we had to induce (because she knew that I wasn't for it). I couldn't choose a day to induce, because I thought that I would be choosing the day that my baby was going to die. But, one year ago today, you proved the whole world wrong. You came into this life a little fighter, and we did not have to say goodbye on your birthday like we had all thought. Therefore, the reason I want to remember your birthday as a happy day. You were so precious and the tiniest baby your Daddy and I had ever held. I remember trying to quickly wipe away my tears, as I held you in my arms, because I wanted to make sure that I could see every inch of you clearly. I remember your Daddy's precious smile as he held you in his arms for the fist time. I remember how proud your brother was to finally get to kiss and hug you. You were a blessing from day one, and the number of lives you have touched is countless. It feels like an eternity since I have held you in my arms, and most days I just don't know how I am going to make it, but somehow I manage. I wish so bad that you could have been here to celebrate you 1st birthday, and I want to kiss your sweet little head more than anyone could ever know. The pain of knowing that you have a sweet, precious baby that you cannot hold or love on is almost unbearable. Big brother still asks about you a lot, and he continues to get confused from time to time. He wanted to know the other day when you were coming back since God made you better. I hope that you are having the best time up in Heaven and sharing some cake with all of your other angel friends. I wish I were there to witness your first steps, and tell you how much I love you, and give you lots of hugs and kisses. Until I can hold you in my arms again, I'm sending plenty of butterfly kisses your way. We love you and miss you tremendously, Allie. Happy 1st Birthday Baby Girl! We release these butterflies in memory of you on this special day.



"As you release this butterfly in honor of me, know that I'm with you and will always be.Hold a hand, say a prayer, close your eyes and see me there.
Although you may feel a bit torn apart, please know that I'll be forever in your heart. Now fly away butterfly as high as you can go. I'm right there with you more than you know."

~ Jill Haley

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Summer Ending

This has been a fabulous summer for me. I kept myself busy, basically, playing the entire summer away with my son. God gave me strength and allowed me to have longer periods of time in between my valleys. As the summer draws to a close, I find that I am flooded with a flashback of feelings. August is here, and I have dreaded this month all summer. August is always a little sad for teachers returning to work and ending the summer fun, but it will now forever be a difficult month for me because of it being Allie's birth month. I hate that these two coincide with each other, because the emotions and stress of starting a new year is tough enough without having additional emotional stress put in the mix.

I have to put up a fight every day just to make myself get out of bed, act as normal as possible in front of people, not to have a nervous breakdown, stay strong for my three year old, and etc... but there are some days when I can no longer put up the fight. This weekend was one of those moments. There is still so much grief that needs to escape this body of mine, and I am sure that this meltdown was brought on by the flashbacks that I have been having this week. I close my eyes and I am there (every image, every sound, every smell, every thought, every plead with God to heal my baby). As I begin my new school year that also nears what should have been her 1st birthday, I am overwhelmed. It is as though I am reliving last year all over again. My mind is clouded with the thoughts that were in my mind last year at this time. I remember all of my fears that seem so minuscule now. Will my brain always relate starting school with those feelings? Is it just because it the first year? Maybe. I've been thinking a lot about my Little Allie recently, and I have had a rather tough weekend/week. I'm sure this is not the last of it with her birthday approaching, so please say an extra prayer for us. Thank you again for everything you do.


P.S. Don't forget about Allie's butterflies if you want to send her a birthday message. Just email me a picture of a butterfly with your message to her. I'll leave you with this video of butterfly bubbles that Allie's Gamma sent. Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Bubble Butterflies

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Always an Adventure

Sorry it has taken so long to post about our beach trip, but I have been trying to soak up all of my last little bit of summer fun before I start back to school next week. We had a really good trip and it was very meditative for Michael and me. We also managed to do a few special things in memory of Allie on her 11 month birthday. Gamma bought a gorgeous butterfly kite that we flew on the 19th, and it was such an amazing site! Others were stopping or standing on the balconies and taking pictures as well. We will save those photos for her butterfly slide show :) Michael and I were just not up to taking a family photo like we usually do when we head to the beach. Instead we took pictures of Allie's name drawn in the sand and a few of Mason by himself. I love the shot of Mason's toes at the top of her name. His curiosity got the best of him :) As always we packed in a lot of fun, and as you can see we even stopped by the airplane museum. We were actually headed to watch the Blue Angels practice, but when we arrived at the gate we discovered that it had been cancelled. His little heart was so disappointed. You know that is what he wants to be when he grows up :) Even though many of our activities were planned, there was one activity that we did not plan to happen. As we were heading home, our car decided that it wanted to stay at the beach. We were stranded! Of course, if I am going to be stranded anywhere, then I definitely want it to be at the beach. We made the best of it though. My parents were able to borrow a truck and trailer from some wonderful friends, Patty and Brice, (Thank you so much!). We walked to a nearby zoo, killed some time there, then ate lunch at a seafood restaurant next door, and headed over for all you can play putt putt golf afterwards :) So I have to say that our vacation/adventure was a wonderful trip, and I cannot wait to go back soon :)

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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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