Birthday's and check up's...

We had a few big things happen around here last week. The first was that this little cutie turned SIX!!!

 

He is growing up so fast (I know we all say that don't we?). He is settling into his new role as big brother and has become way less overbearing/smothering of his new little brother and has become quite the big helper around here. I always knew he would be a great big brother, and he most certainly is. I thought the adjustment to no long being an only child would be fine because he is so much older... but I was wrong. Turns out when you've been the only child for almost 6 years and suddenly lots of attention goes to this new little baby, it's pretty tough. But he is adjusting as we all are and doing so well. I just need to be sure to give him his own individual time and attention everyday when I can. We had fun with his birthday, and I think it came at the perfect time. He was ready for the day to just be about him ;). We are sure grateful to have this boy in our family!

The next big thing that happened is that I had my 3 1/2 year cancer appointment. These things always sneak up on me, and I really hate doing the check up's twice a year. I'm just so glad that life has moved on and that I am no longer living in "that place" anymore. It's hard to get checked with that little thought in my mind that everything could change so fast... and go from pretty great to pretty crappy. I had a chest x-ray done, which I was supposed to do in April but did not due to Baby G cooking inside. Thankfully that came back totally normal. My doctor said that my blood looked amazing, especially considering I'd just had a baby two months before. And especially with the blood problems I had having that baby. Even though my body has been through some tough stuff, it really has bounced back fast from all it's gone through. For that I am super grateful...

With all this on my mind, my baby boy turning six, my cancer check up, and this new little guy who is bringing so much joy and happiness into my life... it was an intense week. In the middle of it all I got a message in my e-mail from a dear friend of mine who left a comment on my old blog. The one that I poured my little heart out on while going through those tough times. Her comment read:

I just want to tell that Meg that I love her and give her a big hug. "Hang in there, it's hard, but I know what happens later!". That boy is so sweet.

I went back and read the post that she had written this on and my oh my... it brought back so many emotions. I remember that place so well, that dark, sad, fragile place that I was in. I'm grateful for the hard times because they have made the good times in my life so much sweeter. Anyway, I wanted to share the post on here... and I am grateful to know what happens later too! I wish I could have told that Meg exactly what four years later would hold. This was written November 2009...

Not too long ago I had a little mini breakdown... Lucky for me it came right when it was time for Blue to take a nap. So I put Blue in his crib (oh how I miss that...) and shut the door... and let it all out. Blue heard me crying and after a few minutes I hear...

"Meg... you sad. Meg... you sad? Meg..."

How could I ignore that? So I broke my cardinal rule and went into his room. He was standing at the side of the crib looking very concerned. I'm not sure why but for some reason I decided to try and explain what was going on with me to him.

Me - "Blue, mommy is sad. Mom just wants to have a baby... I don't want to have cancer."
Blue - Confused look for a minute... "A baby? A baby? BABY!"
Me- "Why on earth am I trying to explain this to a two year old?!?! Go to bed."

Ya, the conversation was an interesting one wasn't it. It's been an experience in itself to have this little boy who is the center of my world have no clue what is really going on here. He is who I spend 95% of my waking hours with and he is just too young to even begin to understand any of this. I think that it's a real blessing honestly. He doesn't let me sit around in a pity party for too long. He wants to play and have fun and have a fun mom to do those things with. He knows that he gets to go and play with his friends every once in a while and mom disappears... but what's so bad about that? He knows that mom doesn't have any hair but he just thinks it's "funny". He knows that mom likes to sleep a lot, and when dad is home mom is usually "sleeping". He likes to sneak into my room and crawl under the covers and pretend to sleep with me for about two seconds before he decides that it's a lot funner to jump on mom instead.

I'm so grateful to have this little boy. I'm reminded every time I look into his sweet little face what it is I'm really fighting for. Even when I'm feeling awful and I just want to lay in bed until March, he doesn't let me. He needs me to take care of him and I'm so grateful that I have him to take care of... someone to take my mind off of everything that is going on. He makes me smile every day. Hopefully, he wont remember any of this and the day will come when I will just tell him how much he saved me during this crappy time. I'm so grateful for this little boy.

I am so grateful for this boy!!!!! He is still my sunshine on the darkest day. The time is getting closer when I can sit down with him and try to explain just how much he saved me during that time. I think he still needs to be a little older before we have this talk though. I've just started telling him about my having cancer and what that was like, because he doesn't remember at all and doesn't really understand what cancer is still.

Thank you, dear friend, for the reminder... of just how lucky I am and how sweet life really is.

Adjusting...

We're adjusting to this new little guy and finding our groove as a family of four. It's so different to have a newborn again. I'd forgotten just how much work newborns are. It's been hard to figure out how to take care of these THREE boys and still find time to do something for myself. Here are a few things that I've learned in the last six weeks...

:: Waking up and taking a shower in the morning is something I no longer have the luxury of doing ;). So I'm learning that if I want to shower I need to do it the night before.
:: I feel much better in the morning if I've gone to bed before 11 the night before. If I don't get to bed until after midnight I just don't get enough sleep to be a half decent mom and wife.
:: Everyday I try to either do laundry or do the dishes. I've yet to find the time to do both in the same day.
:: I'm starting to understand why so many of my friends and family members who are mom's to lots of young babes can't survive without diet coke. I've been tempted, but I just can't bring myself to do it. But oh... I totally get it now ;).
:: That whole "put your air mask on first" thing applies to motherhood. I'm much happier if I take the time to take care of myself first. Such as make sure I eat breakfast (or any meal), get dressed, look presentable, get something done that I want to get done. Even if it means let the baby cry for a minute when I finish up what I'm doing.
:: We all feel better if we get out of the house at some point of the day. Being cooped up isn't good for any of us.
:: Most tasks only take a few minute. Such as folding a basket of laundry, vacuuming the floor, cleaning the toilet, etc. If I have a few minutes to do something productive I feel much better afterwards than if I just waste my time on my phone or something like that ;).
:: Cuddling my other two boys during the day make for more helpful boys.
:: When I get overly emotional and feel like I can't handle this, I feel a lot better if I just take a nap (thankfully my husband has been helpful with this).

Something fun that happened this week is I took Baby G in to the doc (that part wasn't fun...) and they weighed him as they tend to do. My boy has almost doubled his birth weight in the last 6 weeks!! He weighed in at 10 lbs 7 oz!!! That was a proud mom moment for me. All of this nursing around the clock and trying to fatten this little guy up is working!! It reminded me of when Blue was 10 lbs and I found the picture I took of him in his car seat with this silly "10 lbs club" badge that we had. So I tried to take a pic of Baby G in his car seat too to see how similar they look at the same weight...

They aren't in the exact same position, but it's fun to see how alike they are in their looks. They look different in a lot of ways, but those lips, and cheeks, and cute little noses... little clones of each other.

Blue...

I don't like to use my little boy's name on this blog. I don't know why... I don't know that I've ever used his name on this blog, I just call him "my boy" for the most part. I realize that most of the people who read this already know what his name is, or if you want to know it's not hard to find out. But I just prefer to not use it... I feel better blogging about my little minor child that way.

But with another little boy on the way I don't think that I can keep calling him "my boy". So I've decided to give this guy his own blogging name. From here on out my oldest son will be known as Blue on the blog. It wasn't a hard name to come up with... I mean... look at these eyes I get to gaze at everyday...

I hope that they new baby gets these dreamy blue eyes from his dad too. Also, I'm not planning on using the new baby's name on this blog... so hopefully we can pick something suitable for him when the time comes.

Brother's day...

Wednesday the 15th marked 4 years since we had baby Clayton. I can't even believe that it's been that long! I forget sometimes how close he and his older brother would have been. Here we are getting ready to send our kiddo to kindergarten this fall and Clayton would have been the next year.

 

I decided a few weeks ago to switch OB's for this pregnancy (more on that later...) and had to change around my big ultrasound day. I think that it was a good sign that I scheduled it on Clayton's birthday and didn't think twice about it. I realized later that day when I went to put it on my calendar. Then I had a little panic set in, should I switch it? Is it weird to go have an ultrasound of your new baby on the day that your last baby died? Sigh... oh well. We were just going to do it! I think it was really nice to have something great happening that day instead of dwelling on the past.

 

Also, at the last minute something important came up that took my sweet husband out of town... so he missed the whole day! I cried a little over that one. I knew that it was just the way that it worked out and there was nothing I could really do about it. But I was sad that he couldn't be there for the ultrasound and to spend the day with us. So we decided to make it a brother's day and do something for all three of these little boys that day!

 

First up... this little dude got to come to the ultrasound with me and see his little brother! He did really well. He is a wild kid, doesn't sit still very well, but he was on his best behavior and did great! The doctor gave him two suckers, one for him and one for his baby brother. He thought that was pretty cool. The baby looks absolutely great! He had his hands in front of his face the whole time so we weren't able to get a super great profile shot. But he is measuring exactly to my due date and is a whole 1 lb 11 oz right now. He's almost double the size that Clayton was when he was born so that made me feel good.

 

 

Then we headed to my boy's favorite spot... the dinosaur park in Ogden. We had a few hours to kill between ultrasound and doctor's appointment due to some scheduling problems, so we went there for a while and explored. He's been begging me to go since we went last summer, but most of it is outside so we needed to wait until it warmed up. He had fun running around seeing all the dino's. And mom got a little camera happy... it was brother's day after all!

 

 



There is a mystery trail there that we hadn't seen before that we wandered down (a few times). I almost hate to say that this mama dinosaur protecting her little babies pulled at my heart strings a little... I blame it on the pregnancy hormones. It turned out to be the boy's favorite part of the park too.

He did not want me to take this picture... he was pretty scared of standing at the mouth of a big dinosaur about to eat him! I let him throw a rock at him before hand to make sure it was really just a statue.

We finished off the day driving down to the cemetery to visit Clayton's grave. We picked up my mom and had her come with us. There was a little storm that blew in and it started to rain a little while we were there. But it was nice to come and see the tangible proof that this boy really did exist for a short time. I don't like coming to the cemetery because is makes me sad to think I have a child buried in the ground. It makes me sad to think about what we've lost and how our lives could have been. I usually only come on his birthday because if his own mother doesn't come then who will? But it felt really good and peaceful there that night. I let the boy pick out some flowers for his grave and he picked three beautiful sunflowers. It felt very fitting since we grew big sunflowers last year. The three were for him, his dad, and me.

As I left the cemetery I felt really warm and peaceful inside. I don't know that I've ever felt Clayton's spirit over the last 4 years, but that night I really felt like he was smiling down on us. I'm in a good place right now. I think that being pregnant again and having this new little life growing inside of me makes all the difference in the world with that. I was told after we had Clayton that the best way to overcome losing a baby like that was to get pregnant and have another baby. I get it now, it really does help heal these wounds to be looking forward to another baby.

As we drove home exhausted from our long, full day we saw a beautiful rainbow covering the Salt Lake Valley. It was a very fitting end of the day and it felt like a little gift...

"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh." - Genesis 9:14-15

I know this promise is about not flooding the earth again like was done in the times of Noah... but to me it felt like my own little promise. Four years ago a cloud and storm came into my life, and flooded me with so much sorrow and took away my son... but the waters shall no more become a flood and destroy all flesh. He's not going to take away my son again, it's going to be okay. This time, it's going to work out. I felt a lot of peace driving back home, watching the rainbows circling the valley. It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful day filled with reflection and hope.

This boy...

This boy tried my patience to the umpteenth degree today...

He went through three pairs of pants. Two because they were completely caked with mud, and one because he decided to draw the number 9 on them with a Sharpe marker (his best pair none the less).

Even though my fuse was increasingly short by the end of the day, I decided to go to the store to pick up a few items for tomorrow. My boy decided he needed to touch every.single.thing in the store.

"Don't touch that! Keep your hands on the cart... Dude knock it OFF!!!"

Someday I wonder if I will ever get my kid to listen to me. I try to explain to him why he needs to keep up with me and not touch everything, but my words fell on deaf ears.

Then his curiosity got the best of him when he lifted a 25 lb kettle bell off the shelf and dropped it right on his big toe.

Ouch...

I do feel bad for the kid. I don't know if his toe is broken, but his purple toe nail does not look very good. The rest of the night was spent with his wailing and crying over his toe.

But I don't feel very bad for him. The "I told you so..." in me hopes that he learned his lesson, but I don't know.

I feel bad that I don't feel bad about it. I feel bad that my kid wont listen to me. I feel bad that I am so impatient and have a hard time being a mom sometimes. I feel bad that I get worked up over muddy pants and Sharpe markers. I feel bad that I yell. I'm a yeller, and I feel bad every time. I worry that I wont be able to handle two wild and crazy little boys...

Ahhhh... motherhood. It is trying at times isn't it? I think that tomorrow instead of saying, "No... Don't... knock it off!" I'm going to try to spend some time cuddling, and loving and giving attention to my boy.

And cross my fingers and hope for the best... cause 5 years into this I still don't know what I'm doing most of the time.

Five...

Well, birthday season is officially over in our house. This little dude just turned five last week {he posed himself for that picture btw...}. Gosh, I don't know how times flies so fast! He is such a sweet little boy. Very active and adventurous as always.

He wanted to have a "yes day" where we did whatever he wanted to all day long. So we played mini golf, ate lunch at McDonald's, got him a treat at the gas station... and he didn't want to go to bed all night. So we stayed up until 11:30 PM watching Ninja Turtles till he conked out on the couch ;).

We had grandparents over for homemade pizza (cheese for the birthday boy) and cake. He wanted a Wolverine cake and so I made it happen. I don't think I will ever make a fondant cake again, but I'm happy that he liked it. Even though the hand coming out of the center just looks like a big blue blob (because it was...), I'm glad he was happy!

So happy to be his mom. Love you little boy!

boy + box...

 I was tired of the TV being on the other day. So I gave the boy an old, old box and some scissors and told him to make something.

He made an airplane...

I loved his two passengers buckled into the back seat with tape.

 

 

Complete with handles under the wings to hold onto when he's flying around (dad helped with this part). I love happy playtime like this!

 

Beaver hunt...

We went on a beaver hunt the other day at our friend's cabin. My boy has been obsessed with beavers lately (?... not sure why). He keeps saying that he wants a baby beaver for his birthday. We've seen beavers in this area before so we set out on a beaver hunt. Our friend had seen a big beaver lodge on the lake nearby so we waited until it was getting dark in hopes to see a beaver out on the water.

Our first clue, as the boy would say, was this tree. A beaver had been here...

Clue #2... the beaver lodge. This thing was huge!! Set up on the side of the lake, these beavers had been busy building their home .

And just as it was getting too dark to really see anything, we heard a loud splash. A beaver was swimming around in the lake and would whack his tail on the water before diving down. It's really hard to see in this picture but this is the beaver swimming.

It was a fun little hike to see the beaver. I tried to explain to my boy that beavers need water and trees to live, they wouldn't live well in our home and probably wouldn't make a good pet. It was a fun adventure though to see a real live beaver.

I hope that moments like this are what he remembers about summer. The fun adventures that we try to go on. Learning about the world around us. Seeing things in nature that are amazing and beautiful.

Bedtime snack...

My boy wanted a little snack before bed. A hard boiled egg and orange juice was requested. I got his food ready and then laid back on the couch and listened to my boy and his dad have a little conversation.

"Dad, what does nervous mean?'... Dad replied, 'It means being scared about something or worried about something."

"Oh, I'm nervous about kids not sharing toys with me." A fitting response from a 4 year old.

He ate up his eggs and drank his juice, all while fidgeting in his chair and talking non stop to dad. I just laid back and took it all in. My little boy... saying words like "nervous" and understanding what that meant. Wanting a healthy snack late at night instead of ice cream. Actually being able to sit in a chair for 10 1/2 minutes without getting up. He's growing up so fast.

One thing about having one child is being able to just soak in every moment of him that I can. From the first words that come out of his mouth in the morning to his last mutterings at night. I get to focus on him, for all of it. I'm trying hard to not spoil him, to not let him have his way all the time, to remember that he is a kid and not one of the adults. But he has his dad and myself wrapped tight around his little finger, and we just adore him.

He asks everyday when he's going to have a sibling. We can't see a baby without asking if we are going to be able to take them home with us. Someday my boy, someday. But I'm rather enjoying our threesome right now. There isn't much I can do about it so I'm going to enjoy and savor every moment of "us".

We are in a time right now of no diapers, no waking up at night, no more help with socks and shoes, no more say in what he wears. But with this phase comes more time to focus on other things, and I'm excited to see him grow and learn more everyday.

Seeing my boy sit tall in his chair, carry on an adultish conversation, and munch on his egg, made me so grateful that I get the privilege to see him grow. It is a privilege, and I am one thankful mama for this moment tonight.

The Barn...

For the past few months we've been trying to find my husband a job, him being a brand new nurse and all. It's proving to be a very difficult task. We knew that it would be, but it's so frustrating, really. Who wouldn't want to hire a 6'4", strong, handsome male nurse who graduated the top of his class? I know that it's a very competitive job market, but we are really hoping that something works out soon. So our days right now consist of filling out applications, going to interviews, and trying to fill in the rest of our days with something semi productive. You know that saying, "Work like everything depends on you and pray like everything depends on the Lord." Yup, that pretty much sums up what we are trying to do right now.

After Christmas ended and life wasn't so full and festive anymore, I decided we (okay - mainly he...) needed a good project to fill up some of this time we have on our hands. We decided to make the barn I've been dreaming about for quite a while.

We are lucky in that we are staying with my in laws right now (they are so so great!) and my father in law had most of the stuff we needed in his garage. All of the lumber we used is stuff that he had sitting around. We used scraps from the canoe he built over the summer for the trim work and fences and the main structure of the barn was made out of a piece of plywood he had leaning against the wall. The only stuff that we bought was the red paint ($3 sample can at Home Depot) and the hardware. It came to less than $20 to put this barn together.

And here it is...

There is a barn that we drive by a lot out here that has a ram skull over the door and I love it! Husband found this bull skull that is suppose to be a ceiling fan pull. My boy was scared of it until I told him it was going to scare all the Gremlin's from coming into the barn (yes... my husband let my 4 year old boy watch Gremlin's and life has not been the same since). Now he's okay with it.

We made it as a tri-fold where the sides open up at the back. The back wall is all open windows. The windows on the side work really well as handles to move this big barn around.

I also love the roof. The shingles are not individual shingles glued down, but rows of faux shingles that my husband made. But I love that we got the look of individual shingles without the hassle of doing it that way.

Here is the inside when the barn is opened up.

I thought about painting the inside but then husband pointed out that barns are never painted on the inside. They are usually left just raw wood. So I just painted the fencing that we did to make it stand out more. I actually like that you can see the black stamped words that were on the plywood.

We did three stories. Two with stalls and then an upper loft. Some of my favorite features are:
- The hoist in the center to pull the animals up to the second level.
- Real tree branches that we used as support beams for the different floors.
- Rope with little hooks to keep the animals in their stalls.

We had a great time making the barn! I absolutely love it. It was a lot of work, but so worth it to have this awesome barn for my boy to play with. We need to gather some more barn animals and little hay bales for it but that will come with time.  We are also going to build some little fences that can be used on the outside of the barn.

I found myself staring at it on the floor the other night, so happy with how it turned out. It reminded me that if you work really hard at something that you can make your dreams a reality. That may sound corny, but I have been dreaming up this barn for a while and now it's here. We are fighting hard to make another dream of ours a reality. We aren't giving up on our dream to live back in Utah with our families again yet. We've given up a lot to try and make this work. I don't know if it's going to pan out the way that we want it to, but we aren't done fighting for it yet! Fingers are triple quadruple crossed that someone will take a chance on my sweet husband. I mean, the man made a beautiful barn out of scraps of cast off wood. He is such a great hard worker. He works hard at everything he does, and whoever hires him will be so lucky that they did, I'm 100% sure of that. Until then, I need to figure out a new project for us. Or just enjoy playing with my my son's new barn for the time being.

Mr. Claus...

I think my little dude is excited for Christmas this year.

 And I'm excited that he asked Mr. Claus for a $15 pterodactyl toy... yes, that is totally doable little man.

We are going super low key this year. All of our Christmas stuff is in storage, so no tree or decorations for us. But we have lots of Christmas excitement going on with this little guy. Kids always seem to make holiday's more fun don't they.

Cowboy...

Speaking of barns... my little dude was a cowboy for Halloween. We went pretty low key and borrowed most of the outfit from my sister in law. The vest, bandanna, belt and chaps are from her. It's nice having sister in laws who sew... I have to say.

We got his hat from the dollar store, boots from Savers for $5, the shirt he already had. We borrowed this stellar horse from a friend...

He was a cute little cowboy. He loved it! I like it when they love their costumes and try to play the part.

The craft of baby making...

Stealing a kiss from my {not so little} boy...

I layed in bed with this little boy yesterday... nap time. Naps are always better when mom is there.

I don't take naps with the boy very often, but I caved this day. It was his birthday after all.

Every now and then when I give in to the pleading I usually just stay until he falls asleep and then try to sneak out to go do my own thing. But this time he had wrapped his little arm around mine and I was sort of stuck there. So I stayed.

As I layed there I tried to remember what it was like 4 years ago when I held him for the first time. It was a hard day, after laboring for 20 hours and pushing for 2 before being wheeled into surgery for an unexpected c-section. I had never thought that I would ever have a c-section... I don't know why. My mom or sister hadn't had a c-section, why would I? Needless to say it was a rough day. A rough day, that was one of the best in my life. Because I became a mom.

I had tried for a year to get pregnant with this boy. At the time I didn't understand why we couldn't get pregnant. What was wrong with me? Why did it seem that everyone else was able to get pregnant so easily and I couldn't? I realize now the wonderful design of Heavenly Father. I'm so grateful now that I have a four year old. Not a five or six year old, but a four year old. That he was so little when we went through that crazy time in our lives. Too little to know anything, but how to give hugs and kisses. Too little to be influenced by the worries of adults, that he was just a sweet, innocent two year old who smothered his mom with love. This little boy who is so full of love... saved me. He saved my life. Though drugs and potions could spare my physical body for now, he spared my heart.

I'm grateful now that he is four. That he has two years before he will start kindergarten having that late birthday that he has. That hopefully I will be able to stay home with him soon and spend some much longed for time with him before he has to grow up a bit and go to school.

As I layed there with my sweet boy I thanked my Heavenly Father once again that I get to be his mother. And I thanked him for giving him to me when he did... not when I thought it was a great time to have a baby, but when he knew it was the right time for me to have a baby.

I've been thinking about the craft of baby making recently. Some women are able to have babies any time they "want", and have perfectly spaced out children whenever they feel the time is right for them. Other women can't help but get pregnant, and are swimming in a sea of kids because they just keep coming one after the other. Other women have a hard time getting pregnant, they can't get pregnant when they want to. Pay lots of money and spend so much time and energy into trying to grow their family which sometimes works and sometimes... doesn't.

I think that most women would like to fall into the "get pregnant when they want to" category. However, if that's how it worked out all the time for everyone... if we all were just able to have children whenever we wanted to... where does God come into the picture? Where does faith come in? Because it's really not about us. It's really not about when it works out for our "timing", but it's about his timing. It's not about making sure they are each in a separate grade, or that this year we could use a better deductible on our taxes, or that we want to run a marathon before we have another one. Or that our car seat is going to expire so we should fit one more it there... It's about his timing.

And sometimes his timing works out much better for us than our timing would have. But we don't know that until we see it down the road. I really loved this talk from conference, I really spoke to me at this time in my life.

I'm really trying to embrace this right now. And the more I think about it, the more it makes perfect sense. In those moments when I feel sad because I want to have more babies... now, I will remember the beautiful four year old that I do have, and had exactly when it was "right".

Post written October 17, 2011

Dragon...

What started as a dinosaur costume turned into a dragon... apparently dragons are cooler than dinosaurs. He loved his wings and it was cute to see him showing his dragon wings off to everyone.

I'm glad that I started it the beginning of October because it took me that long to get it all put together. If I were to do it again I would have just skipped the foot part and just done elastic on the bottom of the legs. The feet would never stay where they were suppose to and he was just stepping on them all night.

Cutest little dragon I've ever seen...

Dinosaur...

My little boy is going to be three this Halloween. So this is the first Halloween that he has really had any clue as to what is going on. I asked him what he wanted to dress up as without hesitation he said, "DINOSAUR!"

He's always been interested in messing with my sewing stuff much to my dismay... so I decided to make this a fun project for us to work on together. I took him to the fabric store and let him pick out what fabric he wanted (I did sway him a little... I didn't want him to be a light pink dinosaur). I've also been letting him help me when I pin the fabric together. He sits quietly on my lap when I sew the pieces together and pulls out the pins when it's time and puts them back in the pin cushion.

It has been so cute to have him help me do this. It's a bit frustrating at times when I would like to just get something done and he slows down the process... but I'm learning to be patient just as he is learning about working on a project from start to finish.

I love working on projects with my boy... I highly recommend it.

365...

It has now been 365 days since I learned...

...what it meant to have my heart broken in a million pieces.

...that not all prayers are answered the way I would like them to be.

...that it's still possible to be happy and have a good life even when things don't go the way you would like them to go.

... that you can lose a baby even if you've made it past the 12 week zone.

... that Heavenly Father's plan is perfect, even if I don't understand it all the time.

***

White daisies wrapped in brown paper seemed like the right combination to lay on the newly sprouting green grass on his grave.

***

We sure love and miss you little Clayton.

Love, Mom

Ties...

Back in the day I used to dream about having a little girl... I would dream of all the cute little dresses I would sew for her to wear to church. With little matching bumpers. She would be such a darling little girl with all her homemade frills...

Well, I have a boy. Maybe someday I will have a girl, but I have a darling little boy that I love beyond belief. But honestly, I have not done my part in dressing up the little boy for church. He's just sort of worn whatever hand me downs we had. I just have never had the same desire to deck out the little guy for church.

Until now... I'm repenting.

I love this little tie pattern from Make It and Love It. I had to cut down a few trees to print it out (40 pages!!!) but it really is such a great detailed pattern. I loved picking out the different fabrics and colors for the ties. So cute! I've decided that sewing for a little boy isn't that bad. It's just different than what I had pictured. But no worries, I've already picked up a little suit pattern... maybe for Christmas? He's going to be such a stud at church...