MARCHing into Spring

This month is a busy, busy month for us. Full of so much goodness and love!

First, the big kids have started their Spring sports. Rylan's doing t-ball this year (and Jim is coaching, which will be interesting since he's used to coaching high school aged players). And Karleigh's taking on soccer. Her first game was this past Saturday and even with only having an hour of practice, ever, she scored two goals!!!

This was the best photo that I got prior to her first goal, I was too busy cheering and totally forgot about the camera in my hand!

I'm really happy with the team she's on right now. It's great for a first-timer. A good number of her school-mates were on the two teams that were playing next to us and seriously? The parents were so intense. It actually made me sad for the kids. Luckily, we won't be playing teams like "The Crush", Saturday we play "The Kickin' Kitties". Sounds good to me! ;)

After the game we quickly came home, did the dishes and cleaned out the van in preparation to pick up friends who came over from Australia. If you've read along since early on and ever clicked on my side-bar blogs, you know who I'm talking about. Brooke and I "met" right after my Eli and, a week later, her Caden were born. There are many things that are different about us, about our situation, but the core of 'who we are' has always been very, very similar and I've always felt like we just "get" each other. It was so nice to be able to give her a real, live, hug. To kiss her rainbow baby. To be in the same moment instead of 18.5 hours behind her. I could go on and on.

They brought gifts including a very special bear for Stella. Interestingly enough, Australia's Stillbirth Foundation has a special, light purple bear. It matches Stella's coming home from the hospital blanket exactly. All the proceeds of the sales go to the foundation. And, if you haven't already jumped to guessing it... the bear's name... is Stella. {insert goosebumps here if you so choose}

Stella loves Stella-bear!

They also brought a beautiful tile for the boys' garden which will be going right next to the orange lilies that I have planted in memory of Caden. I will, of course, post photos when the garden wakes up a bit more.

The kids got along great! We sat around and chatted and let them get used to the time change at their own pace and try to catch up a bit on sleep after such a long set of flights.

On Sunday, we headed out to the gorge to Multnomah Falls and then drove up to Vista House for a great view of the area even if it was overcast, it wasn't raining!

We also took an unplanned detour to the ER for Rylan to get seven stitches in his eyebrow after he fell into the corner of the van door that I had open while changing Stella's diaper. It was quite the blessing that we had extra adults there. Jim did a quick switch-a-roo with the car seats and Kim was able to ride in the back seat with Rylan to help keep him calm. Karleigh was totally grossed out by the whole thing (drama queen, though it was impressive at first) and Kim was calm as a cucumber! Plus, Rylan wanted to be tough for her. As soon as I got to the ER with Brooke and the other kids, he was tired, coming down from the adrenaline rush and full of tears. A day later though, he was back to his good ol' self. The photos are on my 365 blog.

Monday was sweet Edan's Second Birthday!!! I couldn't help but think of the excitement and fear filled email that Brooke sent to me with her positive pregnancy tests. Pregnancy after a loss is filled with so many emotions but her end result is just adorable!

Edan even shared his most very favorite birthday gift, Nok Tok!

Naturally, the visit seemed too short but I would take "too short" over "not at all" any day!

And that's just the beginning of this month! We've got more great things just around the corner and then *gasp*!!! Stella's First Birthday party! I'm so ready to welcome Spring, and while I'm a bit sad that the newborn phase is long behind us (except for that pesky sleep thing) she's so much fun these days!