Grief Exposed

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. I have decided to participate in Carly Marie's Capture Your Grief 2012. I have been having a really really rough time lately and I think this will be a good opportunity for me to outlet some of my emotions. Each day has a subject and the goal is to capture a photograph of something that represents each day of the month.

Carly has made an outline of subjects for each day in October.

Day 1: Sunrise
Day 2: Before Loss Self Portrait
Day 3: After Loss Self Portrait
Day 4: Most Treasured Item
Day 5: Memorial
Day 6: What Not To Say
Day 7: What To Say
Day 8: Jewelry
Day 9: Special Place
Day 10: Symbol
Day 11: Supportive Friends/Family
Day 12: Scents
Day 13: Signs
Day 14: Community
Day 15: WAVE of LIGHT
Day 16: Release
Day 17: Anniversary/Birthday/Due Date
Day 18: Your Family Portrait
Day 19: Project
Day 20: Charity/Organization
Day 21: Altar/Shrine/Sacred Place
Day 22: Place of Care/Birth
Day 23: Their Name/Photo
Day 24: Siblings
Day 25: Baby Shower/Blessing
Day 26: Age
Day 27: Artwork
Day 28: Memory
Day 29: Music
Day 30: Your Grief-Tell The World
Day 31: Sunset

I am on the verge of tears just thinking about the detail of each one of these. My love for Reese and Scotlyn is so powerful, it overwhelms me sometimes. I miss those girls so much! I am taking advantage of this opportunity to let my love for them shine. Stay tuned.

Story Time

We started story time at the library again today. We have done it a few times and I was a little nervous Brennan wouldn't be as interested because he is older, but I think he was more interested now than when he was younger! 

This is a really fun and interactive story time. They read 3 stories with songs in between each one to keep the kids engaged.

Then there is a puppet show at the end to go along with whatever the theme is that week:)

Zoo Day

We took another trip to the zoo Tuesday! I wanted to go one more time before they closed the sting ray exhibit. 

My mother in law came with us and we had a lot of fun:) She kept saying no to petting the sting rays, but when I finally convinced her to, she didn't want to stop!

They had a blast!

If you get there the first hour the zoo is open, the sting ray exhibit is free!

This one is huge!

Then they started feeding time while we were in there!

Then we made into the Children's Zoo in the first hour for free too:)

He had to sit on the froggies:)

"Ribbit"

Learning about sea otter fur. It dries almost immediately when they get out of the water!

Climbing the hill to go down the slide.

As tall as a pygmy goat!:)

Outside the insectarium.

One of our favorite stops is the butterfly house. This poor butterfly could not even fly because it's wings were broken:( The workers were keeping a close eye on it and keeping it off the ground.

There are signs everywhere saying not to touch the butterflies, but they let us hold this one:)

Note: Mamaw is carrying the purse we got her when Brennan was about 9 months old-see the picture of him:)

I couldn't even believe these two matching beauties flying around us. They were in sync for the longest time and I captured them flying together:)

I had planned to go to the sea lion show because we didn't get to do it last time. I think it was sold out maybe, so I really wanted to go this time, but now they are only doing them on Friday and Saturday:(

It was still fun to go through the tunnel:)

Here is my goofy boy in the bathroom. He is obsessed with these dryers-he always sticks his head under them!

Orangutan

Watching the monkeys. 

And acting like monkeys ourselves!

They were quite playful.

I debated posting this-it seems the expression on Brennan's face might portray his reaction to seeing what is behind him, but thankfully he was spared the view. How do you not know half of your behind is exposed to extremely cold temperatures in the penguin house??

Learning about different cat fur in Big Cat Country. We did see quite a few cats-leopards, tiger, lion, jaguar, but apparently I didn't take any pictures of them.

Toward the end, he needed a little relax time.

Brennan knew what this was one day and told me, he saw it on Diego. It was fun to see them in person:) Oh by the way, it's a Marmoset in case you're wondering!

It was fun to do something like this with mamaw (as Brennan calls her)!