30 Days of Thankfulness: November 2, 2012

November 2, 2012

Today I'm thankful for my amazing husband.  We've had our problems through the years, and I'm sure we'll have plenty more, as NO ONE is perfect and NO COUPLE is perfect, but he's been the one constant in my life the past twelve years.  He gave me two beautiful little boys.  He provides for our family, so I'm able to stay at home with them and watch them grow up.  He's funny and constantly keeps me laughing (or rolling my eyes depending on the joke, lol).  He's smart.  And, he's my best friend.  I couldn't imagine living my life with any other man.  I love you, babe!

Henry's 2nd Birthday!

I've been putting this post off for a little while now.  Henry's second birthday was on October 14, 2012.  We held his birthday party the day before on the 13th.  It was the last day I spent with my sister, so as happy as the day was and as happy as all the memories are, it's so hard for me to remember that day.  I'm not sure how I'll get through his birthday every year now, or how I'll manage to celebrate it.  It's hard to believe one month could be the best month and the worst month all rolled in to one.

Anyway, I want to put aside the anxiety I feel when I think of that day, so that I can document all the fun we had.

This was probably the first birthday party I've thrown for either child that I just had a BLAST planning.  I started searching pinterest for ideas MONTHS before his actual party.  Like, I think I started back in JUNE!

I got most of my ideas from Sally's Stories blog.  She had so many awesome ideas, so I used a few and tweaked them just a bit to fit our needs.  But, I think the party turned out really cute!

Here's the banner I made, and the directions for it are here.

The food:

Donald's Dogs (mini corndogs):

Goofy's Goldfish:

Mickey's M&Ms (the party favors):

Chip n Dale's Chips n Dip:

Clarabelle's Cheese Dip:

Butch's Beverages:

Here is a picture of Henry's cute Mickey ears that my mom brought back from Disneyland last year, and I bought paper ears for all the kids to wear, but most of the adults wore them instead.  lol

 

 The back ...

 

And, here is the only good picture I have of Henry with his ears on. He was not having it, but Ashlee helped me get them on him for one quick pic .. that's her hand in the upper left hand side ...

 

I love this picture because Henry had just brought his plate into the living room and plopped down, like, "I'm ready for some presents!" lol

 

Here's all the ones of him opening presents .. I'll post the ones that have Ashlee in them separately ... she was ALWAYS on the ground at their parties helping them open their gifts. Such a wonderful, loving, HANDS-ON Aunt, she was.

 

 And, here we go getting into the ones that have Aunt Ashlee in them ...

 
   

 And, after presents we headed outside so the kids could play with Henry's new truck for a bit ...

   

 Next we did Henry's birthday cake, which I absolutely LOVED! We got it from BJs.

 
 
 

 And, I even got a few pictures of Henry playing his new drum set from Aunt Ashlee and Uncle Mike. :)

 

30 Days of Thankfulness: November 1, 2012

I try to do this every year and then end up losing steam halfway through and never complete it.  This year, more than ever, I need to try to remind myself that I have a lot to be thankful for, so I'm starting this today and hoping, hoping, hoping I can complete the entire month.

November 1, 2012

Today I'm thankful for all the amazing friends and family God has blessed me with.  It might seem corny for that to be my first "30 Days of Thankfulness", but it is entirely true.  Over the past two weeks I've learned what true friends are, and I'm so thankful to have each of you in my life.  My family has all pulled together in this sad time in our lives too, which makes me eternally grateful for all of them.  :)

Reading Corner ~ Book 9 of 12

I made the goal to read one book a month for the year and so far I've done nine of the twelve.  Not too shabby.  I haven't blogged about them all, but I'm starting back up with that now, so here goes.

Flowers on Main - by: Sherryl Woods




When her last two plays are dismal failures and her relationship with her temperamental mentor falls apart, writer Bree O'Brien abandons Chicago and the regional theater where she hoped to make a name for herself to return home. Opening Flowers on Main promises to bring her a new challenge and a new kind of fulfillment.

But not all is peaceful and serene in Chesapeake Shores, with her estranged mother on the scene and her ex-lover on the warpath. Jake Collins has plenty of reasons to want Bree out of his life, but none of those are a match for the one reason he wants her to stay: he's still in love with her.

Jake might be able to get past that old hurt if he knew Bree was home to stay, but is she? The only way to know for sure is to take a dangerous leap of faith.

This is the second book in the series.  I started it in May and it took me until the beginning of October to finish it.  Not because it's a bad book or series.  Not at all.  But, because we had so much going on over the summer I just didn't have the time or energy to read.

Anyway, this WAS a good book despite how long it took me to finish it.  It had a pretty predictable plot as they all seem to, but I love the setting in a small town off the Chesapeake Bay.  It's kind of a local setting to me, so I love it just a little bit more because of that.  And, I'm starting to really feel connected to the characters now, so I can't wait to see what happens in the next book in this series.  It's gonna be a series that I'm sad when it ends, I can already tell.

My grief ...

My grief comes from all different angles.  First and foremost, I grieve as a sister who just lost her younger, and only sister.  My ONLY sibling is gone.  It's a hard pill to swallow, for sure.  I also imagine what my brother-in-law must be going through right now, and then I try to put myself in his shoes as the spouse, so I grieve as what it must feel like to lose a spouse.  I pray to God I never find out.  And lastly, now that I'm a parent myself, I imagine how my mom must feel, and I grieve as a parent who just lost their child.  I don't know how I'd ever get through the day if that ever happened to me, so again, I pray to God I never find out.

My mom, aside from the night this all happened, has been a total rock.  She wept some at the funeral home for the viewing and then again at the funeral, but other than that I've barely seen her cry.  I know she has to be holding herself together for my sake, but part of me wishes she'd just fall apart, so I know I'm not the only one who still feels this huge void and this huge weight on their chest.

I don't want to turn this blog into a sad one full of posts about grief because it is still our family blog meant to document our lives together, however writing has always been my outlet.  My therapy.  So, as I work through my grief I'll be writing here my thoughts and feelings to hopefully help make some sense of everything.

I'm calling my doctor tomorrow to hopefully get on some sort of anti-depressant/anxiety medication as I was dealing with some pretty hefty depression BEFORE all this started.  But, I also need to see if they can refer me to a grief counselor or therapist of some sort, so I have someone to talk to who is qualified to help me work through my grief.  I know I need some medicine, but I also don't want to only rely on that as it's only going to mask the pain.  I need someone to help me navigate everything I'm feeling.

Sunday would have been my sister's 30th birthday.  We're planning a celebration for her that I'll blog about later, but please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers this day.  It's only going to be the first of many hard days to come as they say the first year is always the hardest.  Thank you.

Henry turns TWO!

I'm trying to get caught up on all the blog posts I want to write ...

On October 14th, Henry turned two!  Hard to believe it's been two whole years already.  The day before his second birthday we had his party.  There will be a separate post on that.

Henry recently started talking more.  For awhile there I was starting to worry, but then about a month or two before his birthday, his vocabulary just started to take off.  I'm going to try to list all (or most) of the words and phrases he knows.

Mommy = Ma-ee (and sometimes it actually comes out "mommy")
Daddy = Da-ee (but most of the time it comes out "daddy")
Jacob = Gay-kob
Gee
Pap = Pa
Nana
Baba = Bottle (yes, he still takes a bottle at bed time and nap time)
Kitty = Key
Doggy = Da
Bye-bye
Hi
Thank you
Love you
Ball
Shoe
Boobie = Beebee (haha!)
Where
Go (these two words are usually used when he's asking "where mommy go?" or insert a person's name in place of mommy)
Boo boo
Juice = Jew
Baby
Doll

I know there are more words, but I can't remember them all now.  :(  I'll have to keep coming back to update the list as they come to me.  I tried so many times to start a list over the past month, but I just kept letting it get away from me, and now I can't even think of all the words he says.

On the 19th, Henry had his two year well baby visit.  He's growing great and meeting all his milestones pretty much right on target.  Here are his stats at his two year check-up:

Weight: 30lbs 10oz (75th% - 90th%)

Height: 36 1/4" (75th% - 90th%)

Head: 20 1/4" (95th%)

Life is so short.

I've put off writing this blog post for a week now, so I guess it's time.

One week ago, on Saturday, October 20, 2012, the world lost the most amazing woman, but Heaven gained an angel.  My younger, and ONLY, sister passed away from sudden heart failure at the young age of 29.  It was seriously the worst day of my life.  I couldn't breathe.  I started hyperventilating, and just wanted to throw up.  I've never felt pain like that before.  I thought I had so many more years with my sister, it makes me sick to know that that part of my life is gone forever.

Now that we've buried Ashlee, I've had plenty of time to sit and just .... think.  I probably sit and think way too much for my own good because I can't help but think of the "what-ifs".  Then I start thinking of all the things I should have done when she was alive that I didn't do and I feel guilty.  I should have said "I love you" more.  I should have made more of an effort to go see her when we were in PA.  I should have called or texted more.  I feel like the crappiest sister alive and I wish I could have a do-over.  I'm seriously contemplating therapy because of all the guilt I carry around now.  I definitely need to get in to see my doctor because I was already dealing with depression before all this started, but now with all this grief has come paranoia, fear of things I never used to be afraid of and this very dazed, fog-like state that I can't seem to shake.

I'm paranoid of losing someone else in my family or someone that I'm incredibly close to.  It seems to consume me and is all I think about most of the time.  I hate feeling this way, so I keep thinking if I had someone to talk to about it maybe I wouldn't feel like this anymore.

I'm afraid of being alone to the point that while we were in PA this past week I slept on the couch every night just so I didn't have to sleep alone in the guest room.  Tonight John is finally sleeping in our bed for the first time since his surgery, but if he wasn't I'd be sleeping on the couch again tonight just so I don't have to sleep alone.

I am also having a hard time sleeping.  I guess that's pretty normal, but it still sucks all the same.  The nights I've taken Unisom I've gotten a decent amount of sleep, but I'm afraid to keep taking it because I don't want to get addicted to it.

And, the dazed, fog-like state I walk around in most of the time, I'm sure is also normal, but it still is so hard to deal with.  I feel like I'm missing out on things because I just can't find the true joy in anything.  I know I need to give myself some time, it's only been a week, but still ... I just hate this and I hate feeling like this.

I also want to thank everyone who has reached out to us during this very difficult time.  Everyone who came to the viewing and/or funeral.  From near and far, there were so many of you there and for that I, and I know the rest of my family is also, very thankful.  Ashlee touched so many lives in her short 29 years, I'm glad all those touched by her were able to come to pay their respects.