E... Easter Baskets

Easter baskets. Christmas stockings. They are things that I waited, and waited, and waited to do until we had our family completed. Sure, we had things that worked or that were good enough for now but there are things that I had my eye on and it feels really good to be able to get them.

We picked up the Easter baskets that I've been eye-balling for the last few years. I, however, wasn't really loving any of the liners. I wanted them to coordinate but not be exactly the same, blah, blah, blah... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Long wordy story, finally to the point: I picked out some fabric yesterday and after a play date and some graphic design work today, I was able to take some time, cross my fingers, and sew up a basket liner - not an easy task while crossing fingers!

I was pleasantly surprised with how Rylan's turned out without a pattern:

and the kids are thrilled that they got to pick and choose their fabrics from the stack that I purchased.

D... Dreary

Oh. My. Goodness! This weather is slowly killing me. Drowning me. It's a bit out of control. I know my friends across the country are still dealing with snow. But snow? It's white. It's clean. It's bright.

This never ending rain is just a soul sucking gray.

Don't get me wrong. I love, love, LOVE the pacific northwest. But even I am getting really, REALLY, tired of this. It makes me feel agitated and tired. Sad and gloomy. Totally uninspired.

Seriously, this weather is so bad that for the first time ever, the soccer club that Karleigh joined, pushed back their entire season for a month. Guess what? The fields are still in bad condition. Plants are weeks behind. As I sit here and type, I look up to the wall in our living room to see pictures of happy, bright, cheerful pink, blue sky backed cherry plum blossoms from the trees in our yard. They were taken the very beginning of March last year. This year, this moment, I look out and see the trees finally blooming. Sort of. With a dull gray sky as the backdrop. *le sigh*

I'm thinking the garden will probably not happen this year. With eternal optimism (I try!) I'm listening to "Here Comes The Sun", unfortunately, in a hilarious (can you sense the sarcasm?) twist of irony... here comes the rain. Again.

Dreary, dreary, dreary!

C... Childlike Courage

"I can do it myself!"
"Let me try!"
"Watch what I can do!"
.
.
.

"What if I fail?"
"I don't want anyone to watch me."
"It's not going to work anyway."

Wikipedia defines it: Courage (also bravery, fortitude, or intrepidity) is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.

At what point do we lose our bright, sunny childlike courage and crumple into self doubting balls of adults? Surely it isn't as we drive off for college with a skip in our step and a flick of our wrist as we wave out the open window. So, perhaps it happens as tears of uncertainty cloud the new roads ahead of us and the familiar ones in the rear view mirror. I have the courage to say "I don't know."

And that's OK.

When I look in the mirror, I would like to, but I don't see a courageous person looking back at me. However, when I think back at how I got to where I am right now, in this moment, I realize that it was either A) courage B) stupidity or C) divine intervention. I'm going to go with D) All of the above.

Picking up the broken pieces of my heart wasn't an easy task. I'm still working on putting them back together. But you know what? It has to be done. I'm a 'bit' of a competitive person. At least I used to be. Now, I tend to compete solely with myself which I suppose is a good thing, right? Only I win. But at what costs? Did those around me lose while I spent so much time finding the courage to keep fighting? I am so very thankful for the courage that was instilled in me to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep on keeping on so, in the end? I feel so fully justified in my fight when I look at Stella. And everyone who meets her says the same thing "You know? She's great in your photos but she's so much more when you meet her!"

I also know that it takes even more courage to make a bigger change, the courage to say "I can't do it anymore. I need to move on. I need to move forward." I was so close to that point but I didn't have enough.
Not enough courage at that point.
Although, perhaps again that's where the divine intervention came in, pushing me forward one. more. time. Because I cannot imagine life without Stella.

But now? I've been given the courage to move on. Move forward with our three children. And I need to find the courage to let the hurt of the past three years slide into a little envelope, carefully folded and tucked away in a special corner of my heart.

Courage to live the best life possible!

B... Birthday Bash!

We celebrated Stella's First Birthday a tad early and it was ah-may-zing! We stayed at home which ended up being the best plan possible because the weather has been just bizarre this Spring. Today we had dry spells, rain, hail, snow, wind, and lovely bright sunshine. She did great right up to the very end where we were pushing nap time. We celebrated with lunch, presents and cake and Auntie Lacey, Uncle Mark, my parents, and our friend Jamie and her kiddos Kaden and Marissa. So fun and people she's really comfortable around.

We are so blessed... and tired! So, tonight I'm going to let some of the pictures do the talking. So, in no particular order, a little (or large) share from Stella's First Birthday Party!

A... Absolutely Adorable

It's all I can think of for "A" tonight. Absolutely Adorable.

Challenge

Hey, I'm nothing if not a follower!

So, since I have been really slack at keeping up with this blog... I think I posted once in February and this is woot! woot! my second post of March... I figured I'd hop on with (so far) 776 other people, I linked up at lucky blogger number 777, and do the A-Z blog challenge.


I think this will be a GREAT way to get me back into blogging here a bit more and a nice way to try to introduce some new topics into this blog that has, admittedly, been kind of stuck. Go ahead and join in too!

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!