This Makes Me Happy!

Credit: Simplicity by Christy

Is that precious or what?!

I haven't had pictures taken of my two girls together since Lily was itty bitty. (We tried to do a studio picture last Christmas but Santa walked in, AC freaked out and even though he left, she had a pained fake smile for the entire shoot with red, puffy eyes and tears streaming down her face. Needless to say, we didn't buy any).

This year I decided I wanted to do studio Christmas pictures WITHOUT the jolly old man.

Through my friend Stephanie's blog, I found Christy's blog of Simplicity by Christy (thanks Stephanie!!). She was booking Christmas photos and the Christmas pics on her blog from last year were adorable. I called her and she found a spot for us.

We went last Saturday and I couldn't be happier! She was so awesome with the girls. It was just such a positive experience for them and they had a great time. I got the proofs today and they are great.

And I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture!!

Pray for Kensley!

I was getting ready for bed Sunday night when I heard a story on WHNT that broke my heart. A 5-year-old girl from Madison County was critically injured last week in a car wreck on I-10 in Florida. She was traveling with her family from Disney World to Gulf Shores. She is in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola with a traumatic brain injury.

This story just stopped me dead in my tracks. I am a mother and watching the story of this beautiful little girl who was injured in this wreck with her family just broke my heart.

Then they showed a picture of the family and I said to my husband, "Oh my goodness! I just read her blog last week!"

We are all somehow connected in this blogosphere. I read blogs of people who I have never met, and some of you who read this blog have never met me. But we are all connected somehow. Just last week, I was checking the traffic feed on my blog which tells me how people get to my blog (which I had not checked in months, by the way). I saw a link to a blog I had never seen before and I clicked on it.

It was Melissa Kelly's blog - Kensley's mother. She was blogging about their upcoming trip to Disney World and how excited they were to go. As I re-read it now, I get chills. How could they have ever expected that the trip would end like this?

I don't know the Kellys, but my friend, Stephanie, is a friend of theirs and she has posted on her blog about this precious family. They seemed to be just amazing, Godly people.

More importantly right now - they need our prayers.

Please join me in praying for Kensley and her family. Stephanie has set up a blog called "Praying for Kensley" and you can go there for regular updates. There is also a fund set up at Redstone Federal Credit Union to help the family or you can donate directly on the blog using PayPal.

Put yourselves in their shoes. Can you imagine the vacation you had dreamed about ending up like this? Can you imagine watching your beautiful, vibrant 5-year-old hooked up to tubes and machines in a PICU in a hospital that's far away from home?

I don't understand why things like this happen, and as I prayed for Kensley and her family the other night, I told that to God. After all, we are human and things like this just don't make sense.

But I do know this. I know that we serve a God who loves us more than we can imagine. I know that he can heal that precious little girl. I know he is holding Kensley's hand and holding up her parents during this time. And I know he hears our prayers.

So please send them up on behalf of Kensley.

Happy Thanksgiving!

No, I am not confused or looking at the wrong month on the calendar.

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving!

And in honor of my husband's heritage - and 1/2 of my daughters' - we celebrated!

It's actually a great deal for our family because we get two Thanksgivings - and all the yummy food that goes with it.

I cooked a meal for us (AC called it "a feast" - she's easily impressed) and we all gave thanks.

In other news, here are girls in their cute Bama shirts that my friend Kera made. They wore them Saturday as we watched the Bama - Ole Miss game (and apparently they were good luck because we won!). If you like them, hop over to her blog and check out her cute shirts.



Happy Thanksgiving!

The Gift of Grandparents

Is there anything more special than the bond between a grandchild and grandparent?

Not to me.

I want my kids to be close to their grandparents. I want them to develop that bond with those four special people that God put in their lives. The love between a grandchild and grandparent is so special. After all, they've raised their children.

Their job now is just to love and spoil their grandchildren.





My mother's father passed away before I was born. I never had the chance to know him. As a child, I always wondered what he was like. I would ask my mother all kinds of questions because I wanted to somehow "know" this man who I had never met.

I had a wonderful relationship with my other grandparents and I was especially close to my mother's mother. Whenever my parents went out of town, my grandmother would come to our house and stay with me and my sister. She LOVED playing board games and always carried dice around in a Bufferin bottle in her purse. No matter where we were, she was ready to play!

Her favorite game to play was a board game called "Aggravation" (wonderful name by the way) and there is no telling how many hours she and I spent playing it. It is - without question - one of my most special memories from childhood.

All of my grandparents have passed away, but I was blessed to have had them in my life for so long. My grandmothers both passed away when I was in high school and my sweet, precious grandfather passed away a couple of months after Lily was born.

This special bond is so important to me and Chris that we named AC after both of her grandmothers and LB is named after Chris' grandmother, who is such a precious woman and who filled the "grandmother void" that I have had since my grandmothers died.

All this to set the scene from last night. AC and LB wanted to spend the night with Mimi and Poppy (my parents). After we ate dinner, we bathed them and then I took them to my parents' house.

As soon as my kids walk into my parents' house, they head for the candy jars. Doesn't matter what time of day it is or whether they need to eat dinner or lunch, they get whatever they want.

And you know what?

That's how it should be.

A grandparent's home is special. I remember when I saw AC drinking coke for the first time. She was about one and my dad was giving her soda. The neurotic mother in me is thinking, "She can't have soda yet!! She's only one!!"

But the mother who wants her children to have that same relationship I had with my grandparents says, "Go ahead. Do it."

So as I walked out last night, I left my parents and my children sitting at the dinner table. As mom and dad ate their dinner, the girls were eating Lucky Charms (only picking out the sweet charms, mind you) and drinking Dr. Pepper.

Would that ever happen at my house at 8 p.m.?

ARE YOU SERIOUS??!!

No way!

But at Mimi and Poppy's house, it's just fine.

And that's the way it should be.

She Drew Melissa

As I picked up AC from class at church this morning, she showed me the picture she had drawn.

The Bible verse at the bottom said, "You made the world and everything in it. Genesis 89:11."

There were three stick figures and I knelt down and asked her who they were.

"Well," she explained, "that's God. That's Lily Baker and that's Melissa. See I drew an 'M' next to her."

I was completely overwhelmed.

My eyes filled with tears and I put my arms around her and hugged her. She got up and jumped to hug Lily Baker, but I knelt there for a moment trying to keep my composure. I finally got up and we left.

I just felt so overwhelmed with emotion the entire way to the car. Once we got in, I asked her to tell me more about what she had learned at church. She told me they had learned "light and dark" and I figured it was about how God created the light and the dark.

"Why did you draw Melissa?" I asked.

"Because she's very special to me," she answered so matter-of-factly.

"Yes, she is," I said and began to cry again. As I drove, I wondered: when am I going to be able to handle these things without crying?

I don't always cry when I talk about Melissa. Some days I can think about her and talk about her without shedding a tear. Other days are harder.

But where Ann Catherine is concerned, I just feel so vulnerable.

Lately, AC is talking a lot more about Melissa. She is acknowledging her more and saying her name.

Don't get me wrong. I love that. In fact, my prayer has always been that our girls will never see Melissa as this person who was part of our family but is now gone. I want them to see her as someone who is part of our family, but who just isn't with us physically. I feel, to some extent, we are accomplishing that.

Melissa's name is spoken in our home. We talk about her and we answer Ann Catherine's questions about her.

But sometimes I am just so caught off guard. When I asked Ann Catherine who was in that picture today, I never expected her to say Melissa. So when she did, I just broke down.

But strange as it may sound, I didn't just cry tears of sadness. Yes, I cried at that moment because I miss Melissa so much and it just seems so unfair that she was drawn on that piece of paper, when she should have been running out of that room holding Ann Catherine's hand. Yes, I cried because it just plain stinks that Ann Catherine has to deal with such a devestating loss at such a young age.

But I also cried because of a simple reason: Ann Catherine thinks of Melissa.

When she sat down and started drawing, she drew Melissa. I didn't encourage her or lead her to do it. Something in the Bible lesson triggered her to think about Melissa. In turn, she put those feelings on paper.

By the way, the picture of Melissa was right in the middle of the paper - and it was the biggest thing she drew. That told me everything I need to know.

Melissa isn't here. But she is an undeniable part of Ann Catherine's life. That sweet little 4-year-old is too young to understand everything that has happened, but she knows that Melissa is someone who is special to her. In the midst of my tears, I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

Scarecrow Trail

Today Ann Catherine had her first field trip - and Lily Baker and I got to go, too!

We went to the Scarecrow Trail at the Botanical Gardens. AC was so bummed last night because I explained to her that it was supposed to rain Friday morning and if it did, the school was going to cancel the trip. The first thing she asked me when she woke up was, "Is it raining, Mommy?" Luckily for us, the rain had already passed through and we could go!

It was a little chilly when we arrived, but the girls didn't mind. Plus, they got to wear their new Halloween shirts for the first time, and you know how exciting that is when you are little!

We had such a great time and LB thought she was so big hanging out with the 4-year-olds!

Here are some cute pix. After you look at them, scroll down for my "are you kidding me?!" story of the day. :)



















Okay, here's my story. We're walking along the trail and I notice that Lily is walking on her tip toes. At our house, that's the sure sign for "Oh no! Lily has to poop!"

So I ask her and she says no. However, she wants me to pick her up. (That's another sign.)

So we are walking along and all of a sudden she gets THE LOOK on her face.

"Lily, do you have to poop?"

"Yes!" she says with this look on her face that says "Mommy, you're a day late and a dollar short!"

So I say, "Okay, I'll find a bathroom, but please, please, please, don't poop in your pants Lily!"

Now let me set the scene. We are in the middle of the Botanical Gardens. Wide open spaces everywhere, but no bathroom.

So I grab AC's hand and we take off running. I have no idea where we are running. I think I was hoping a bathroom would just magically appear.

Oh wait, I see a house ahead. Let's go girls!

And we run to that house (all the while LB's eyes and watering and she is trying with every fiber (no pun intended) of her being not to poop. And it ain't looking good.)

We finally get there and guess what? It's not a house. It's this open atrium looking thing. With no bathroom in sight.

"AC, where is a bathroom?!" I ask her. Then I realize she is four and has only been here once.

"Let's go this way!" I say and off we go.

Finally I see a real house in the distance. And I see what appears to be a bathroom door.

We get there (after what felt like a mile of running - I swear I thought my arm was going to fall off from carrying Lily) and yes, there is a bathroom!! LB does her business (while AC, ever the cheerleader, claps for her and tells her how proud she is of her) and off we go to rejoin our friends.

That's our family. We can't just go somewhere like normal people. There's always a story with us.

Oh, well. We had a great time! Maybe next time LB gets the urge we'll be in a closed building with clear signs pointing towards the bathroom! :)

Show and Tell

Ann Catherine is just having the best time in her class this year! Her teacher does such a great job of making learning fun. I told you last week how they had a pajama party and picnic to help them learn the letter "p." In a few weeks, she gets to dress up as something that starts with "t." They do really neat things to reinforce what they are learning.

One of the neatest things is the Show and Tell bag. Each week a student gets to take it home. They fill it with things and then take it back to school to share with the class.

When I picked up AC yesterday, she was holding the Show and Tell bag and was so excited that it was her turn!



I told her on the way home that she needed to choose things that were special to her. She came up with the following:



First off, her Lamby. This is her security. I can't tell you how much she loves her Lamby. She has had it all of her life and it comforts her. Lamby is part of the family.

Next, her Squeaky bear. She made Squeaky at the Build-A-Bear Workshop when she was two and it's just like her cousin Ally's bear (which is also named Squeaky). She loves her Squeaky!

Next, her Melissa angel. When you squeeze her belly, she says:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
May angels guard me through the night
And keep me in their blessed sight. Amen.

And lastly, her puck. Not just any puck, but the one she got to drop at this year's Melissa George Night at the Huntsville Havoc game.

Her bag was full this morning!



Also, as a added bonus she wore her Canada shirt that Uncle Geoff and Aunt Lisa bought her while we were in Canada in August.



Her teacher told me that her Show and Tell choices led to an interesting discussion in class today. I'm not sure if she was showing her Melissa angel or the puck when she said this, but her teacher told me that she told the class, "I have a sister who looks just like me. But she's not here. She's in Heaven."

When her teacher told me this, I began to cry. AC can put in such plain terms what I struggle with sometimes. I was surprised that she could explain it so easily to her friends. I guess we as adults "overthink" it. She knows the truth and she is okay with it.

She is my hero.

Her teacher told me that the kids were confused because they know Lily Baker as her sister. So the teacher explained to the kids that AC is actually a twin and the sister she was talking about is her twin, Melissa. Then the teacher went on to tell them about Melissa's Fund and how it helps babies who are born sick.

She said you could have heard a pin drop in that four-year-old class.

As we drove home, I was filled with emotion. AC will never know how much strength she gives me. So often, I grieve that Melissa isn't with Ann Catherine - I know she is in her heart, but I mean physically with her. Melissa should be in that classroom, too. She should hug and kiss me when I drop her off in the morning. She should run and hug me when I pick her up.

But, you know what? She was there today. Her spirit was there and it lives forever in Ann Catherine.

I am constantly amazed at God's goodness. He just gives me so many blessings in the midst of my grief. He allows Melissa's spirit to live on in the lives of those who love her.

Ann Catherine is living proof of that.