Emily's B'day photos

Here are pics from Emily's Birthday dinner. We had Michael's mom, brother, sister in law and nieces over to celebrate. Emily loved her presents and her cake. Thanks Tarry for the cake idea!! (look familiar?)

Memory Monday #2 - Martha's Vineyard

This is my second Memory Monday (a vehicle of my own creation to help me remember and record my good memories before I forget them!)

When I was growing up, we used to go see my mom's aunt and uncle on Martha's Vineyard. We called them "Dop" and "Pop" and they were quite a pair! Dop was the more no-nonsense of the two, while Pop was quite sentimental and LOVED a good game of Scrabble. I remember eating cinnamon raisin bread there and that smell always reminds me of their house.



This is a picture of their house with me taking their flag down for them. They lived on a hill called "Heather Hill" and they overlooked a bay. I could run down the hill, across the highway and into the water in less than 2 minutes. And I did, frequently! :-) There was a lot of seaweed off the dock, which scared me at first, but after I got used to it against my legs, I didn't mind at all. We had to wear our shoes in the water, anyway, so I would float with my sneakers peeking out of the water. Pop loved to take pictures of that!



Every visit, we would get fresh lobster and have lobster races before boiling them. As I said, my great aunt was very no nonsense, so I had to put my own lobster in whether I was upset by boiling my "pet" or not.

They lived very near Jackie Onassis' estate. My mom and I once kayaked over to that area and accidentally landed on her beach. We were very quickly escorted off the beach by men in suits. I will never forget the men with the suits and sunglasses on the beach in early morning. It was very eery.

I loved going to the dump with Pop. We would sing "to the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump, to the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump" the WHOOOOLE way and I thought it was the best. It was also the kind of dump where you could actually FIND cool stuff. We would go there and bum around finding cool "treasures" to take home.

In my first three years of school, we lived in Denver. My best friend was a girl named Karyn. We stayed in touch through college. When I was in my teens, her family moved to Cape Cod. She would come over from Cape Cod to the Vineyard and we would get to spend time together. Her family had a beach house on Chappaquidick, too, which was fun to visit. She and I went snorkelling quite a bit and our favorite beach at which to snorkel was the one where they filmed many of the scenes from "Jaws."

It was a lot of fun getting to the Vineyard from the mainland. There were two options: the ferry or the extremely small plane. I enjoyed both of them although I think I liked the ferry better. I have always had a real liking for boats and a boat that you could drive cars on fascinated me.

Dop died first and Pop died more recently. They left their house to their three daughters who sold it and split the assets. One of the daughters very kindly sent me a silver tea set from their estate, knowing how much I enjoyed my time there. Pop gave me my love of Scrabble and Dop my appreciation for no-nonsense people. There's something to be said for Yankees... you always knowing where you stand with them.

Leaving Jacob

Today we went to visit Jacob's gravesite.

It was a little rough. Emily, who until now has been too little to really understand, fell apart at the site and cried that she "missed him." Brittany was fairly stoic, as usual. Kaedra was running around looking at the other babies' flowers. Michael went and sat on a bench for awhile. I put Jacob's new flowers in and arranged them.

As we were walking away, I felt like something was wrong. I looked behind me, sure we had left one of the kids behind.

Of course, we had.

Smart Habit Saturday 5/5/07

My habit this week was Bible Reading and Prayer.

I did much better this week! There were two things I did that helped.
1. I just focused on one habit
2. I made a place in my planner to record my habits (Though I was only focusing on one, I wanted to write down the others if I did remember them!)

I did Bible Reading and Prayer everyday but one. I am going to keep working on that one and add back in Kaedra's food schedule again. This week is still going to be a little busy (though not as busy as last week) so it will be a bit of a challenge. We are also hoping to get a referral to a nutritionist for her next week. If we can get that then we will hopefully be changing her food schedule anyway. But, until then, I need to get this down.

Here is a recap of my goals:
wk 1: praying and bible reading yes
wk 2: referring to planner everyday almost
wk 3: get off computer at 9am and off for rest of day some days I did good on this, others not so much
wk 4: new laundry schedule and laundry put away every day nope
wk 5: stopped caffeine --habit
wk 6: added fruit to breakfast --habit
wk 7: added veggie to lunch --habit
wk 8: portion sizes --habit
wk 9: writing down what I eat every day --didn't do at all, not even sure I want to
wk 10: walking every day did once
wk 11: re-working on everything
wk 12: getting Kaedy bug fed on time didn't do good this week, we had a very busy week
wk 12: making a schedule and sticking to it didn't even work on it!
wk 13: no TV during day for kids nope


I can do this! In fact, I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.(Phil 4:13)

If you are interested in seeing more people's SHS check out Lazy Organizer's site. Feel free to jump in and join us at any point!

Day Before

Tomorrow my son Jacob should be four years old. Instead, he is awaiting us in heaven...these words are just me spilling over onto paper...

I didn't mean to hurt her feelings tonight. I remember when she used to say we had one heart. I think, tonight, that she's right. My heart is hurting with hers. The worst part is I was being mean. I knew that part and didn't think of the consequences. And I was being honest even though honesty is not an excuse for such a breach. I told her that I shouldn't have shared something with her. And in truth I love sharing with her but she has gone this far not knowing about this weak part of me so why should I burden her with it now?

And maybe it's just this week. Maybe everything is because of this week. I'm still surprised when it hits me like it does. I'm surprised at my tears ...but what am I expecting? Wouldn't most people be surprised more at a lack of tears? And I wish everyone could know but no one would talk about it. But I don't want that either. I want to tell his story. But only if I can shut off my heart while doing so. I guess there's no way to get over it. (in more ways than one) I feel sorry for myself and I hold it against myself that I do. I emotionally blackmail myself to try to keep from feeling. I don't let myself think about him the rest of the year. Or at least only in the most clinical terms. Then I'm hit over the head with the reality as the day gets closer. And I am hard on myself. And I am tired of the cliches I tell myself and others only because I don't really know what to say or do. And neither does anyone else.

And I don't know what I want. Do I want to be alone or surrounded by loving people? Do I want to keep busy or spend time talking and thinking about him? Do I want to be quiet or do I want to scream? Do I want to forget or open his box and touch all his memories? Why does it still have to hurt so much? And why can't I figure out what I need? The problem is that what I need is a never never. What would make things better awaits me in heaven. So many people thought this year would be better because we have Ethan. I think it makes it harder. We missed out on all of this with Jacob and it hurts doubly so.

I know that God is here with me, hurting with me, surrounding and covering me with His love. I know that she will forgive me, because she is just like me and she understands. I know tomorrow will be hard but things will eventually clunk back into normality. And I know I need to be easier on myself but I don't know how.

Happy 6th Birthday Emily!!

In honor of Emily, whose 6th birthday is today, I wanted to write about her. I seem to have lost my creative juices temporarily and I have been struggling with this on and off all day. So, for the sake of still giving her a blog entry, I decided to use the Thursday Thirteen idea and I am writing:

13 things about Emily

1. we tried for over a year to get pregnant with her
2. I found out I was pregnant the day my homeschool group started. I was then sick for the next 6 months and didn't see them again until the new year. They still threw me a shower!
3. Although the doctor said she was a girl, I didn't believe him until she was actually born. (I even decorated her room blue and got her a blue stroller)
4. The doctor almost didn't make it in time for her arrival. Although he was less than a mile away, his clutch broke and he had to repair it with a rubberband and a paperclip.
5. When it was time to push we called my father in law and asked him to bring Brittany right away. Because he didn't believe us, he took his time and they showed up almost two hours later. I wouldn't let the nurses take Em until Britty got there, so they weren't very happy with me. They let us keep her for 5 minutes more after B got there and then they took her away.
6. She was a spittin' image of her daddy until she was about 18 months old.
7. she was very colicky and we had to dance around with her to keep her happy, especially in the evenings
8. She was the apple of her Paw-Paw's eye during his last year and battle with cancer.
9. She has an Eyore-ish personality.
10. She wants to be a rockstar/doctor when she grows up
11. she is very good at taking care of people and trying to guess people's needs
12. Although she is a riot to be around, she doesn't usually like to be laughed at/with. And if she laughs too hard she gets confused and ends up crying.
13. She gave me the gift of teaching me I had room in my heart for more than one child with more than one type of personality.

I LOVE YOU EMMY!!! Happy Birthday!!



(I just went back and looked at last year's post. It has almost all the same info!! She hasn't changed much in the last year either...especially the last paragraph. Oh, and she still wants to marry Jacob)

Wee!!

A couple of weeks ago at church, I took Ethan to the nursery to feed him. While in there, he tinkled all down the front of me. I was wearing a light colored dress so it was quite noticeable. As it was the beginning of the service and because we live so close, I decided to go home really quick and change. I asked a friend of mine to go ask Michael for the keys. She went into the service and quietly explained to Michael why I needed them. Not too long later, I came back to church a little fresher.

We have a family that is fairly new at our church that just moved here from England to go to Rhema Bible College. The mother had been sitting next to Michael when my friend asked him for the keys. After the service, she approached me and said,
"I hear you were baptized today!"
Having already forgotten about my little excursion, I looked at her questioningly.
"In WEE!" she said.

In wee, indeed.
(This is a story you will never live down, little man. We might have forgotten it, but you can thank a cute lady with a great accent for making it more all the more memorable.)

Prayers for other please

Heather is having her surgery tomorrow. Please keep her in your prayers.

Josh's son Ephram is trying to make an early appearance. Please keep them in your prayers as well.

One of the best things about the blogging world is the way we all come together and support each other, especially with prayer. Thank you all!

End of Organizational Challenge

I finished the organizational challenge. Because of the rules of the challenge, I put my end pictures and thoughts on the posts I had already made. If you are interested, here are my final posts:

Under the Kitchen Sink

Garage

Thanks for all your encouragement! It was lots of fun and I love having it all done!

Get outta here!!

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