Happy First Birthday In Heaven

Today is Reese and Scotlyn's First Birthday in Heaven. I really can't believe it's been a year, but I also feel like I've lived a lifetime without them. I have never felt as much pain from losing them in the last year than my whole life combined. It's excruciating and I wish that no one ever ever had to feel that pain. Unfortunately, I've learned a lot about life and death and I now realize how very real they are. I have done a lot of thinking about this world and life and I still just don't know what to make of it at times. The reality of today is that my two beautiful daughters were born on this day one year ago. I was terrified for them to be born on this day one year ago, but it was out of my control. I never imagined what would follow and how hard my next days, weeks and months would be, but I was forced to continue. This morning I wished I was preparing my two 1 year olds for their first birthday party with cupcakes they would eat instead of in their memory, but today I celebrated and remembered them with very close, special members of my friends and family. It was as perfect as could be without them here with me. I have had the most amazing support over the last year, it's really overwhelming to think about.

My very best friends ordered the most special balloons to release for Reese and Scotlyn's special day!

I had this little flower cupcake made for them, I am just in love with it. I also made mini cupcakes with their initials on them.

Renee made the sweetest little bears out of the leftover material from making their quilt. The one with small polka dots is made from their crib sheets and the bigger polka dots is from a blanket my best friend, Kate, gave us as a gift. The rest of the material is from the blanket as well:)

She also made this quilt out of Reese and Scotlyn's clothes, my maternity shirts, Brennan's big brother shirts, blankets, their crib sheet, and the shirt I wore at their funeral. It turned out more amazing than I ever could have imagined! She did an excellent job, and it was her first one-you would never know!

We also released a few more balloons at their grave site this evening.

Chef Brennan!

Recently we went to a little event at a church in town and they let the kids make their own pizzas:)

I love the chef hats!

A week of swimming!

I officially have a little "fish" on my hands! Brennan took 14 weeks of swimming lessons at the YMCA to prepare for summer. He learned some basic kicking and arm strokes, but they taught nothing about breathing while swimming under water. Recently our kind neighbors invited us to swim lesson night at their house and one night made a world of difference in Brennan's swimming. This teacher is awesome! She gets right down to what kids need to know and pushes them to move up to the next step. I cannot believe what some of the other kids (younger than Brennan) are doing! So one swim lesson and Brennan was putting his face in the water and his swimming has just excelled from there.

These are pictures of him going under water and swimming, he is doing amazing considering the first night of lessons with the new teacher when we made him go under, he kept saying " I don't want to do that again." Now he loves it! We have gone swimming every day this week to practice

It feels so good to be making these great strides in swimming for him. I don't know what I would have done if we hadn't met our neighbors and started these lessons. I think he would still be floating around with his floatie on whining that he didn't want to get his face wet.

I hope we can make quite a few more of these lessons so by the end of summer he is really swimming like a champ...not that he isn't already!

Happy 4th of July!

Zoo Friends

We went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and its sad that I'm just now getting around to posting it:( We have been very busy this summer. We usually have something planned every day and every evening! We have done various things, such as going to the zoo, going to the movies to see Cars 2, play dates, a Little Gym camp, T-ball, swimming, the list goes on and on:) We also enjoy our days at home playing around the house too!

This trip to the zoo was a little different. Usually we go to the Children's Zoo first, then to see the bugs and butterflies, penguins, monkeys, etc. This time we went to pet the sting rays first. It was the first time we had done this and it was so much fun! The day we went was a very nice breezy day, not too hot so it sort of felt like we were on vacation. Brennan loved it! We stayed in there for quite a while until he was ready to go. He also pet the nurse sharks you see in the picture above. They had a species of hammerhead sharks in there too and Brennan loves hammerhead sharks so he was very excited about that! He really wanted to pet that one, but they never got quite close enough-maybe next time! I think that will be something that we visit every time we go:)

Every time they would come up on the side he could touch them, he would get so excited!

Of course the penguins are always top on our list. This day they weren't quite as entertaining as usual, but we still enjoyed them. I told Brennan they were still trying to wake up:)

Brennan insisted several times that we go see the fish. The St. Louis zoo used to have different aquariums set up inside one of the main entrances, but they don't anymore so I was lost at where to find the fish. If he wasn't so persistent that it was one thing he really wanted to see, I wouldn't have tried so hard to find them. We were directed to a general section of the zoo and stumbled across the hippo tank which is sort of underground and that was the ticket. Brennan was satisfied with looking at the fish swimming right in front of him:)

We did look at the hippos for a bit, but you know they really aren't all that exciting:)

We saw the elephants too. There was a baby elephant that was born last month. They have a naming poll on the zoo's website so Brennan and I went on and he voted for the name he liked:)

He had a little lesson about bees outside the insectarium, he told me later that bees won't hurt you unless you do something to them...he must have been paying attention:)

Spending my days with this sweet little boy=Pure Joy!

Happy Father's Day

This is a little late, but I wanted to share and it's never too late to show our love and appreciation to Casey for being the best daddy!

I sent this picture into the newspaper for father/son look alikes for Father's Day:)

The kind and caring folks at St John's Mercy Heart Prints did not forget that Casey is a special daddy to two special little girls in Heaven. They sent this little gift and poem to Casey. If you click on it, it should get bigger so you can read it better.

Four Years!

Four years ago today the sweetest baby boy was born to me. The ultimate gift. Brennan had a very rough start, but has fought through everything and I am so proud that he is my son. He was born at exactly 29 weeks due to me having severe pre-eclampsia. He weighed 2lb 12oz and he was 15 inches long. I will save his birth story for another post, but I did want to share a few pictures from birth. It is so unreal that four years have gone by since I had him, four years. Wow.

Casey's wedding ring..

Two Weeks-July 1st One Month-July 23rd

I LOVE these pictures. I can't believe how much he changed in 22 days. We were so proud of every little ounce he gained in the NICU!

Here he is in his car seat coming home. He was around 5lbs when he came home.

Our first day home. I can't even tell you the relief I felt coming home after spending 6 weeks in the NICU. You would think I would be scared to bring home my preemie, but all I felt was this huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Looking through these pictures brings back all of those feelings and memories.

Brennan was almost 2 months in this picture.

He will get a kick out of this picture of him when he was a baby wearing spider man! That is the theme of his party this year:)

Brennan's due date-September 3rd. My mom made this cake for him- "Brennan is Love"

First smiles in October:)

October Pictures

Christmas/Winter

Sitting big in the bumbo:)

February with his friends Bella and Brody:)

March on our trip to Arizona

Easter:)

Here he is in May at 11 months. I had a really hard time getting his hair cut for the first time, can you tell??

His first birthday was Cardinals themed. Everyone wore their Cardinals gear and we had ball park favorites to eat:) I made Brennan's baseball cake. I try to make his cake every year, I guess it's something special to me. This year we're just doing cupcakes, but they are very much Spider Man theme and I made them with lots of love:)

This is Brennan when he was 14 months old soaking up the sun in Florida:)

His second Halloween he was one of the three little pigs with Brody and Bella:)

16 months

January 2009

Ice Cream cone on his 2nd birthday:)

Brennan's first two birthdays we celebrated at the zoo, including this one when he turned 2. Last year we went to see Toy Story 3 because I was pregnant with Reese and Scotlyn and was already swollen and miserable and would not have survived a day at the zoo. This year, his birthday is on Saturday so his celebration is his birthday party.

Wizard of Oz Halloween 2009 with Brody, Bella and Clara.

November 2009

Getting some kisses from my baby:)

Christmas 2009

Spring 2010

3rd Birthday-Mickey!:)

Here he is this morning on his 4th birthday. To me, he is the most amazing, most precious, sweetest, funniest, smartest little boy! He is my whole world.