Goodbye Gucci

After almost 9 years of playing chase, long walks, and lots of cuddling, we had to say goodbye to my first "child"  and Scott's "adopted child" yesterday, Gucci. He was such a good dog even with all his neurotic behavior at times! Gonna miss the little guy.

Celebrating Mom

Mom celebrated a milestone birthday at the beginning of October. For privacy sake, I won't post her age! :-) Dad and I were excited to throw her a surprise birthday to celebrate the occassion. I had fun decorating for the event. Loved the red, black and white color scheme. (Totally forgot to get pics of half the decor though!) It was a great time celebrating with friends and family, which is what it's all about. Here are a few pics from the special event.

The Birthday Girl

The Liberty Crew-known each other or over 20 years

 Sweet brothers with Mom---Yes that's a 80's family pic on the mantle. I had framed a bunch of pics from mom growing up, etc. that were sitting around.

Love family!

Love friends!

Cutest guest of all time!

Enjoying catching up 

From your favorite grandson....Happy birthday Precious!

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day

October 15th was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day....in my naive, rose-colored glasses mind, I never thought this day would include me. Not that any woman ever thinks they'll be part of the statistics. Miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death will affect one in four women. Wow!

After Lila's death, I was amazed at the women that I never really knew their stories of loss, through miscarriage or other death. Hearing so many of their stories made me so blessed to be able to say...We had a daughter. Her name was Lila. She lived 16 days and I got to hold her. It breaks my heart for those women that never knew their child because of an early miscarriage.

This day held so much meaning to me. It was our family picture day. If you know me or talked to me in the last few weeks, you knew that I had these pics planned out to the last detail. From what we would wear (which changed several times), to how we would honor Lila in the pics, all the details had been thought out. I'm sure many of you thought I was just trying to get a cute pic so I could post it on Pinterest and be one of those people with the beautiful family pics. :-) That wasn't it at all....This picture was our first family pic that we had really taken since Lila. A picture that she should have been in with her little pink bow. A picture that I had in my head since we found out we were having a girl. A picture of the family that I had dreamed about having since I was a little girl....So when those dreams were shattered I knew that this picture would mean even more to me.

A simple pink balloon...That's all we had to represent Lila in our pictures. Breaks my heart but she's part of our lives and she had to be in the pictures.

I received an email from my aunt a few days before this national day of rememberance. It was about a woman in the area who was doing a baloon release in honor of the children she had lost and those children others had lost too. I sent her Lila's name and her name was placed in a balloon and released that day too. Here's a video and the ladies' story. (Lila's name is the second name that scrolls through on the bottom row).

http://destinyinbloom.com/beautiful-things  Go to the link and scroll down to view the video.

Praying for those today who have lost little ones.

Griffen Jey---21 Months

Sadly this is about the extent of the pictures that we were able to take this month with our big camera...Why you ask?....3 words...21 month BOY!

Notice this pic is of him strapped into his highchair...no where to go!

This one I caught him off guard when he was innocently reading in his room.

 This was our FAILED attempt at a 21 month picture. Oh well!



Guess we'll try again next month! :-) I wouldn't change it for the world though.

21 Month Highlights:
-about 26 1/2 pounds
-size 4 diapers
-size 18 month clothes, although he can still wear some 12 month shorts
-new words: help me, ball, choo choo, hi, balloon
-active from sun up till sun down!
-very cuddly lately
-enjoys going to the park daily
-doing MUCH better in the church nursery. Praise the LORD!
-very good helper
-loves to help with laundry
-dances any chance he gets
-loves anything to do with "Old MacDonald", goes around saying "EIO" so you'll think he's cute and let him play the game on your phone!