Spring Updates!!

Today was such a beautiful day!!!  We took advantage of the warmer temperatures to do some landscaping!!  We have so many ideas of what we want to do around here but have just been waiting on the weather to cooperate!

Scott has been wanting to sink the trampoline in the ground since we moved here.  We have done that at a couple of our other homes and love it!!!  Today he rented a small excavator and got a good start on it!!

Plus, it was handy because we needed the dirt from the hole to help us on another project!!  We made a couple of new retaining walls and needed tons of dirt to fill in the space! 

We had the whole family out there, the kids ran and played all day, the dogs laid in the sun, grandparents were laying bricks and raking.....it was a great family day!!!!

Undescribable......

The other day as I was driving past the cemetery, where Zachary is buried, something I saw shook me up a bit.  I drive past a couple of times a week, checking to see if they have his headstone in yet.  We were told due to the time of year, it might take them awhile because of the ground temperatures, moisture in the ground, etc. 

But as I slowly drove past, checking to see if it was in, I noticed that they had prepared the spot, right next to his for a new grave.  It made me catch my breath for a second. Seeing that tiny little spot, dug up, with chairs next to it, waiting for the family to arrive, brought back so many emotions.

I immediately felt a sorrow for this unknown family that had just lost a child.  I remembered what it felt like to drive into the cemetery that day to bury my child. 

There's a club we were initiated into the day our sweet Zachary passed away.  It's not a club I ever thought I would join, nor is it a club that you get to choose your membership into.  It's the club for parents who have buried a child.  My heart went out to the newest members of the club. May your sweet child rest in peace and may you find comfort from our loving Father in Heaven, who will keep your child in His care until we meet again.

Hello March!!

I'm not really sure where February went but, welcome March!!  I'm so glad you're here!!

February was full of basketball games!  Levi plays on the varsity team at his school.  They went undefeated and ended up as Conference and District champions! Very exciting!  They went to State and won the first game but ended up losing the next two games.  They are a great team and won the Sportsmanship award for their division!  They are a great group of guys and we enjoyed having the privilege of feeding them team dinners in our home before their games!  Here are a couple of great shots of Levi!

He is a lot of fun to watch and he plays with his whole heart!  It will be fun to watch him play for the next two years of high school. 

We got to see Sam, Colt and Calvin in February!!  It was so great to see how much Calvin has grown since Thanksgiving, when we last saw them!!  A couple of days after they left our place, Calvin broke out in Chicken Pox!!!  Poor lil' bug!  The crazy thing is that through it all, he was so happy and was quite the trooper!

He's doing fine now and we're waiting to see if any of our four youngest will start popping out spots!!  The last time we had kiddos with chicken pox, Scott had just sent my and a friend to Hawaii for a much needed break.  Just after we left, 5 kids popped out with chicken pox!!  Scott was the trooper and he took care of them all week while I was having fun!

We are so glad to finally be feeling some Spring weather!!  After a freezing cold winter, that never seemed to end, the 57 degrees we felt today felt like Heaven!!! 

Well, I am going to be better about posting......my laptop crashed last month and I was completely out of the technology loop for too long!  Which is unfortunate because I had so much to say!  Haha.......

Oh Dear.......

You know how you have your whole life on your phone??  Millions of text messages that you have saved, contacts of people that maybe you met once but need to keep their number, "just in case" or maybe people you have known forever, dear friends, old neighbors, relatives, etc.....what happens when they are suddenly gone??

A sweet little child gave me that experience last week!  It was not planned, it was not asked for but it happened.  In less than 5 minutes, my entire log of texts and all contacts were deleted!  Also 2 calls were placed to 911!  My background was changed as well as a few of my other settings!!!

I don't even know how to do any of that!!!!!  Let alone in that amount of time!!  I could figure it out but it would take a few more minutes than that to do it!! 

I was so frustrated.  I had not saved all my info to my SIM card (don't even know how to do that), nor had I linked it to my Gmail account (the only other way to retrieve contacts).  Text messages are gone forever so there was no way those were coming back regardless but those are what I miss the most. 

I had messages on there that were funny, inspiring, sad, special in some way.....but now they are gone. 

I'm not your normal pack rat.  I don't keep material things, I like things in my home to be neat and tidy (a place for everything and everything in it's place!) But when it comes to notes, drawings, pictures of my family, etc., I keep it all.

So for now, some of those special texts are tucked away in my mind and heart, I know they will fade with time but I'm glad for the experiences that brought them in the first place and I will move on from there.

Slowly I am getting my contacts back....I think I have 8.......I used to have a few hundred.  Sigh.....it will all work out in the end.  :)

Where Are You Sunshine???

It has been a long time since we have seen the sun.....and grass for that matter!!  It's very unusual for this area to be so cold for so long....our 85 year old neighbor said it hasn't been this cold since 1865 (or somewhere around there....).  People everywhere are talking about the weather and how out of character it is for this area.

While all of that makes me feel a little better that this isn't normal, it doesn't change the fact that this dumb snow has been here since Christmas day.  I'm a "have it snow today and be gone tomorrow" type of person!  I love the snow, it's so pretty coming down and makes for a fun snow day but then let's just move on!!!!  And when temperatures drop to 1,2 or 3 for a month, that's just too cold!!!

We saw the sun a little bit yesterday and it melted some ice but then the snow started back up last night.  And as if to make my point, I just glanced outside as I type this and.....you guessed it.....it's snowing again!!!

Well, it can't last forever....right???  I could sure use a tropical vacation right now!!!  Who's with me????

New Beginnings

With the start of a new year, comes new beginnings.  So much has happened this past year.  When I think back to this time last year, I had no idea the changes our family would go through.  I had no idea the ups and downs, the joy, the pain, the immense love we would feel for a tiny little angel, the heartache we would feel from losing him, the joy we would feel with the birth of our first grandson, the happiness watching our 2nd oldest graduate from high school, watching our children adjust to a new area/schools/new friends, etc.,

I'm so glad we don't know the future.  If someone had told me what this past year would hold in store for our family, I don't know if I would have believed it.

How thankful I am for new beginnings.  How thankful I am for a loving Heavenly Father, who has so much trust in each of us that He allows us to experience things, hard things and then He stands by with outstretched arms, waiting to comfort us, waiting to encourage us to persevere.  He knows we can 'do all things' if we will seek Him out.  So many times this past year, I tried to do it by myself.  I thought I needed to be strong and get through it by myself. When I would fall to the lowest point, I would remember I needed His help.

When I look at each of our children, I see just how much they have grown.  They experienced a loss of a sibling this year, something that most children their age will never experience.  They have cried tears of pain and heartache and loss, they have laughed together as they remembered good times, they have had to step up just a little more than most kids as they have worked through their feelings and sadness.  They are going to be alright. They are strong.  They are not afraid to talk about things they are feeling.  They have taught me so much as we have gone through this process together.  They have given me extra hugs when they knew I needed them, they have helped me laugh and told me funny stories.  Yeah, they're gonna be alright.

So, here's to New Beginnings!  I can't even begin to imagine what this year holds in store for each of us!  But I'm excited to experience it all!!!

Hair....It's What We Do!!

Christmas break at our house always means 'hair'.  We are taking braids out and putting braids in.  You need a couple of days to complete the process and that means a couple of days of Mom doing nothing but hair.  That translates to "the house gets left behind".  Laundry, picking up, vacuuming, etc. gets put on hold.  Even meals are affected (thank goodness for "Taco Tuesday at Del Taco! $15 bucks buys us 45 tacos! Just enough for dinner!!) 

But I'm happy to report that Talisha's braids were taken out and her hair was relaxed (a special thank you to Sabrina for relaxing both Talisha and Vanessa's hair!!).  She loves having 'straight hair that isn't poofy!"  Vanessa's hair got relaxed and then I spent hours plaiting her hair.  She went from super short afro to shoulder length plaited hair!  She loves it!!!!

I have been trying to post pics but blogger is having issues....so I will just post this for now and will keep trying to post their cute pics!!