Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! We have so much to be thankful for - God, salvation, family, friends....the list could go on and on. My side of the family was all here to celebrate so we went to my sister's house for the big feast. Also included during the weekend were shopping trips, the Christmas tree lighting and tons of family time! I also had a chance to visit with some friends and go to the Nutcracker.

Heidi enjoyed helping Mama make the Oreo creme pie!

 Putting a puzzle together with cousin Olivia

Downtown for the Christmas tree lighting and dinner at Tubby's on River Street.

Fun time with mama's friends!

Tired from all the playing over the weekend!

The girls at Mellow Mushroom after the Nutcracker. 

Heavy Heart

I have so many unpublished posts and posts written in my head that need to be written. Between the dates of the posts we have been living life. Life that has not yet been documented on the blog, but life that we are living to the fullest. Right now all I can think about is the Behm family. One of the pediatricians that Heidi sees recently had a little boy named Thomas. Sweet Thomas was born with hypoplastic left heart. For two weeks he lived and underwent surgeries to heal his heart. Last night this little boy said goodbye to his earthly body and joined the other precious babies who left this earth too soon.

I am filled with so much sadness and reliving my own loss again. Time after time I have made a vow to stop reading all of the blogs and sad stories of children dying, kidnapped, abused - anything sad about children. I can't handle reliving my own grief each time I read the story of another mother suffering. It takes too much out of me mentally and leaves me emotionally exhausted. Then this happens and I am once again surrounded by the familiar sting of tears and heartache. Dr. Behm is Heidi's pediatrician, we go to the same church and have many mutual friends.

Last night when I saw the news my heart dropped and the tears fell down my cheeks. Not only did I relive my own heartache, but I felt the grief of this family. To have their sweet boy live for 2 weeks and then to die. Its still so hard to understand why children have to die or why we, as parents, have to endure such grief.

Sometimes I just want to shake my fists and scream why. I want to beat something or pound something. Then the moments flees my heart and I am filled with a peace from God. I am filled with the promise of a new day when this pain will leave my heart.

Today on my way home I started going through my schedule for the next month and realized that Heidi has a check-up in a few weeks. I wondered if she would be seeing Dr. Behm or Dr. Stone. I began to tear up thinking about seeing her face. It will be as if looking into a mirror. I am not sure if I am ready to face that mirror. I still have so much to learn in my own journey - how can I possibly be strong enough for this woman? Will I cry? Will I tell her about our sweet Hudson? A part of me wants to meet with her, but another part of me is scared to death. I keep repeating to myself this verse to myself:

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

2 Corinthians 1:4

For now, please pray for this family that they will be wrapped up in the God's arms. They have been so faithful and strong during this time - we all need to be faithful and strong backing them up.

Doctor - Take 1

Post written - November 24, 2011
Tuesday I spoke with Judy at Dr. Odom's office. John and I have decided that we are ready to start adding to our little family. There are still so many things to think about in this decision. Heidi is still nursing and my concern would be with all the medicines I have to take while pregnant. I have to go into the lab for a few tests (pre-pregnancy) to check my levels and then we will go from there.

Due to the costs of medicines, doctor visits, and potential freak-out visits we have a "plan" {although I do snicker a little bit when I think about "my plans" knowing its all in God's timing} to have our pregnancy within one calendar year for deductible purposes. Then with John and his job during the holiday season and mine during tax season we have decided that August-October is the best time for us to deliver. Basically we have a couple of months to work with in our "getting pregnant" plan. If it doesn't work in that timeline it will be okay too.

Of course in thinking about a future pregnancy the worries and anxiety are already coming about in my head. Will this pregnancy "work-out"? Will I be able to love this child as much as I do Heidi? How will I spread my time? Can I handle more than 1 child? Will I even get pregnant again? Will I be planning another funeral instead? If this one is a boy will it be harder emotionally?

I have decided to keep a lot of the details private as the pregnancy plans move along. Not because I do not want to share {because I will, just later in the journey, not as it goes} but because with Heidi I was so overwhelmed at times. When we found out at 9 weeks that something might be wrong it added to the anxiety that everyone knew what was going on. I know I will probably change my mind because if something does go wrong I want to have as many prayers as possible, but at the same time....its a no win situation.

There is also so much anxiety because so many of my friends are expecting. I think I am worried something is going to happen to one of us. I don't think I could go through it again and I definitely do not wish it upon anyone else. My sister-in-law and her husband are preparing to work on making an addition to their family as well. I know that she is so excited to have a little one and she has been getting things ready for months - reading books, purchasing items, and already starting to set up a nursery. I guess I am so nervous for them and I am praying that everything goes smoothly for them. It makes me nervous that she has everything all ready for a little one and they aren't even pregnant yet. I would hate for it to be tough for them getting pregnant or something go wrong and she has all the baby items to be a constant reminder. I just have to keep telling myself not to worry and it is all going to work out the way it is supposed to work.

For my own sanity I do feel grateful that I do not have to purchase very many things for our next little one - whether boy or girl - before the arrival. I remember how anxious I was about cutting price tags and washing new items while I was pregnant with Heidi in fear that I would need to return everything.

Heidi - 17 Months

Heidi - you are now 17 months!
*photos by Molly Elizabeth Morris Photography*

You say "please" when you want something and "thank you" after we give you something, or really after just about everything :) "Thank you" is your new favorite phrase.

You love to help out in anyway that you can - closing doors, feeding Hunter, taking your things to your room, taking my shoes to the closet. Sometimes its like free slave labor - ha!

You fold your hands right before dinner so that we can say the blessing. In fact we were someplace where the people we were with did not say the blessing and you looked at me with your hands folded with a strange look on your face.

I think you are starting to show interest in the potty - not necessarily you going potty, but with the toilet.

You take items to the trash when they are "all done".

Your favorite theme song is from A.N.T Farm - doooo-do do

You love to talk on the phone to whoever mama or daddy has on the other line. You really just want to hold the phone and laugh.

You had such a fun time trick-or-treating!

Things you are taking an interest in: counting, ABC's, all your animal sounds

You love to be involved in everything we are doing.

Comments

So, I feel like I should know how to do this, but apparently I do not??? How can I reply to comments with e-mail directly from a comment? I never seem to be able to reply to comments because I have no idea how to do it from my e-mail....any help??

Thanks!!

Weekend Recap

I had a huge weekend - a very busy Saturday - planned out, but it failed. The shocker? I am okay with that :) I guess the falling out started on Thursday when I was driving home from dance class.

**sidenote**I could not find my regular CD's for class so I had to bust out the old ones. I mean OLD, well, not that old because they are from like 10 years ago. I was looking through the case of CDs and seriously, I have the strangest collection of music. To name a few - Broadway Favorites, NSYNC, Backstreet, Britney, The Kelly Family {bet you have no idea..}, DC Talk, Bon Jovi, Missy Elliot, a few random CDs I burned...yeah it was an interesting class to say the least.

On the way home from class {as I was jamming out to my CDs - where I learned I still know every word to every song on Jagged Little Pill} I started thinking about my schedule for Saturday. I had signed up to run in the Rock-n-Roll marathon for the half. I did this months ago and I never got to train. I kept thinking I would, but I never got to with the way our schedules worked. So, I was definitely not prepared. Not only that, but I had a wedding to be at that started at 5 PM which was about 3 hours away. When I got home I told John and he kind of agreed with me to maybe not run. 

Friday I packed Heidi and Hunter's things up to go to my parents - thinking I might still run. Friday afternoon I went to pick up my packet and holy moly - it was crazy! People were everywhere and it took me hours to get to a place that normal took 20 minutes. I guess when 27,000 people are running in one race it will get crowded! That was kind of my tipping point to leaning towards not going. I knew that with the shuttle situation that I would not be able to make it in time to the wedding. So, I decided to enjoy my night off as mom {Heidi and Hunter stayed at my parents} and sleep in :) My cousin and his wife did come over that night to stay because they were running the race. I was tempted to give Alicia my chip to "run for me".

Saturday I woke up thinking I needed to let Hunter out. Wow. The house was so quiet. Not a fan at all of the quietness. I did hang out by myself for a bit and then I got ready to leave for the wedding in Douglas. I jammed out the whole way screaming Hanson and a few other favorites. The wedding was for one of my sweet sorority sisters Katherine. Its actually quite funny - a few years ago we had our ADPi 50th celebration and Katherine had brought Jess with her. I think she had only known him for a couple of months and she wasn't even sure why she brought him. I guess it went up from there! They really are such a sweet couple and I am so excited for them! Here are some pictures from the night!

The sweet couple

 Jemina, Emily, Katherine, and me

 Me, Em, and Jem

ADPi Diamond

 ADPi Ladies

 So I love when people that I may or may not know tell me they read my blog {its so cool!!} and in the picture is a friend's wife that I met at the wedding. Parks {my friend - John's fraternity brother} posted his wife's blog on facebook one day so I started reading it. Its funny - she sat next to me at the church and I said "Hi, I'm Kimberly - I read your blog." You should check out Ashley at Splash of Ashley.

Now I am home and taking care of a poor sick little one - oh, and myself and husband as well. We all have a little cold :( I hate being sick, but I really hate for Heidi to be sick - such a helpless feeling.

VLOG - Still Life With Circles

Yes, I am here - I still exist :) Taking part in Angie's blog - still life with circles - and posting a VLOG (video blog?) where we are to read a post from a time in the past. I picked a post from July 2009 when I was participating in a weekly devotional type of blog.

A few sidebars:
- The camera does not like me.
- I have no make-up on and I look scary. I may rethink the strike against make-up.
- I make strange faces when talking to a camera and my mouth makes weird shapes.
- My shirt is too small so I will definitely be getting a larger one on Friday before I run in the Rock-n-Roll marathon....

Part 1

Part 2 (because I was videoing from my phone and my husband called and I had already done about a billion takes and I didn't want to start over again!!) HA!