Apron and a couple of Christmas things

I received this DARLING apron in the mail from the amazing Summer Driggs. She makes all the fun scrapbook paper for free. She also is the one that dedicated the "Ring it in kit" to me and Wyatt. So, so sweet of her. Her mom passed away 3 years ago and when she read about Wyatt and the butterflies she sent me this apron. Her mom collected aprons which makes this apron that much more special. If you notice there are also butterflies on the darling fabric. I LOVE this apron. I think of Summer, her mom and Wyatt each time I put it on. Thank you Summer...what a tender mercy for me. Thank you for your generosity!

Wyatt's grave this past Christmas.

In November the cemetery took away everything that was on Wyatt's grave and threw it in the garbage a week before they said they would. I was not happy to say the least. I cried when I saw it. Many of the things on his grave were from friends and family and they meant so much to us. Also, I had some things on there that I had spent some money on that I wanted to have for a long time. We just can't afford to buy more stuff. I couldn't handle having his grave with nothing on it though. So, thanks to All a dollar we were able to go as a family for family night and pick out some stuff for his grave. We had the Christmas tree from last year but were able to get a few other things. I still can't believe the cemetery. We knew they would be clearing the graves but to do it a week before they posted it was not right. We tried to complain but weren't able to get a hold of the guy...I guess we weren't the only ones upset. Anyway, still can't believe I even have a purpose to write about this. Wish we didn't know what we know about the cemetery!

I want to quickly post about our experience with "The Forgotten Carols." Derek and I had the opportunity to go to the Forgotten Carols for the first time. We have listened to the music for years and LOVE it. So, this year when we heard it was coming to our town we decided to get tickets. I'm so glad we did. It was amazing! The best part for me though was at the end when Michael McLean came out and sang "Together Forever." I had no idea he did that. That song is the last song on Wyatt's video...it means so much to us. I was of course in tears thinking of Wyatt. Then Michael McLean started talking about those loved ones that have gone to the other side and he asked us to sing to them. The spirit was so strong. I sang to Wyatt and I'm sure Derek did too. I know Wyatt was there with us. I could feel his love. I look forward to the day when we will be Together Forever. It was such a neat and emotional experience. I'm so grateful for beautiful music and for those that have been gifted to create it for us to enjoy.

So grateful for yet another tender mercy in my life.

A new favorite picture and so glad it's over....

This is one of my new favorites of Wyatt... actually each and every picture I have of Wyatt is my favorite but this is my most favorite right now. I remember this moment very clearly. He was scared of the flash on the camera and about started to cry. He is such a sensitive little guy. I remember consoling him and trying to get him to smile. I did finally get a couple of pictures with a small smile that I cherish. These were the last pictures I took of him.

I'm sooooo beyond glad today is over. We as an entire family had to speak on eternal families in church today. BEYOND hard for me. Such a tender subject for our family to have to speak about. So very proud of my kids and husband, they did a great job!

This past week has been one of the worst weeks I've had in a LONG, LONG time. The grief hit me like no other and I've felt like I've been drowning all week long. I'm hoping that now that this is over I can crawl out of the pit I've been in and carry on. Oh how we miss Wyatt. That will never change until he is in our arms. We love him too much to not miss him.

I have so much to post but this speaking thing caught me off guard. I'm now going to have to try and get my house and life back to order. Hopefully I can find some time this week to post some of the things I've been wanting to post. Hopefully since I've gotten so many emotions out this past week I will have a few good ones in return.

New Years

Emily with her cousins

We had some family come into town for the week after Christmas along with New years eve. My sister and some of the cousins came after Christmas. I didn't take any pictures of those days...not sure why not but for the record the kids had a blast playing, swimming and hanging out with their cousins at the condo. After they left cousins from the other side of the family came for New Years. We had a fun time playing games, eating and ringing in the new year with sparklers, pops and pan lids. It was fun being able to spend a week with our amazing families. Here are some pictures of New Years eve.

SPARKLERS...I love sparklers they bring back many memories as a child. The kids had fun swirling them in the air.

Hayley a little cautious with the Sparkler.
Not sure what she is wearing...it's always changing by the hour. :)

Banging pans. Happy New year!

The group.

Blog 2 Book

This is what we gave my parents for Christmas and we also made one for ourselves. I wouldn't have given it to anyone but my Mom said she wanted one. I was quite amazed at how big this book turned out. It's the blog from day one to Wyatt's birthday this year. I was very shocked to see how thick it ended up being. I couldn't believe I had written that much because seriously, I really don't enjoy writing and I don't feel like writing is something I'm very good at. It ended up being 266 pages long. Wow! It's amazing what grief will do.

As I look at this book I see the thousands of tears that were shed as I wrote and posted each post and each picture. I look at this book and see what it has done for me to help me through the journey of grief. I look at this book and marvel at all the amazing people I've meet through the blog. I look at this book and see the love that people have shown me and my family. I look at this book and see my little boy that my heart aches for and will until the day I die. I look at this book and wonder how much longer I will continue to write. I look at this book and wonder if anyone will ever read it. I look at this book and wonder if someday it might help Tyler, Emily or Hayley as they miss their little brother and go through their moments of grief. I look at this book and hope my kids know how much I love their little brother and I how much I equally love them. I look at this book and see what a blessing it has been for me. I look at this book and see the many tender mercies that I've been blessed with. I look at this book and hope that anyone that might read it will know the deep love and gratitude I have for Jesus Christ and for the incredible amount of hope he gives me. And most of all I look at this book and hope anyone that sees it will know how much I love Wyatt and how I will always miss him.

I used blog2print.com. If you are wanting to edit anything in the book than I would not recommend this site because it was really hard to work with and I really wasn't able to make any changes. But if you just want to upload and print, it works great. I did not feel like I had time to go through each and every post and edit those I wanted and those I didn't so that is why I used this site. It was simple. I did add a dedication page but other than that it starts from day one and goes to the end. There are not very many options as far as the front cover goes, I would have liked something different but all in all I'm glad with the way it turned out. I've decided I will print up the blog each year from Wyatt's birthday to Wyatt's birthday.

I'm not sure how much longer I will blog but for now it's recording my journey with grief along with some of the things our kids are doing. And I think it helps me feel like Wyatt is not being forgotten. Also, it's a way to record those tender mercies that continue to come into my life. And who knows, it might help someone along the way. If Wyatt's story and my personal journey with grief might help someone enjoy life more fully or help someone cherish those simple things of life it makes it all worth it. Because you never know how quickly your life can change. Enjoy those things that matter most!

Christmas 2009

Wyatt's stocking and his gift to the family.

I didn't really take very many pictures of Christmas day. Not like me at all. I guess I took a break or I gave my kids a present. I think they get sick of my camera at times.

We had a good Christmas. After opening presents we had a yummy breakfast. The boys went golfing in the afternoon. Hayley and Emily played with their toys and I took a nap. We then went to my cousins house for a yummy dinner. All in all it was a good day. Of course we thought of Wyatt and ached for him and what we were missing out on not having a 2 year old in the house. It's hard not to think about what he would be doing and how he would have reacted to the magic of Christmas. The above picture is of Wyatt's stocking and the gift from him to the family. Yet, another tradition I started last year was to get something we could do together as a family and make it from Wyatt. The last two years it's been a game. We like playing games together and that is what the gift from Wyatt is all about...doing something fun together and hopefully creating fun memories as a family. I think Wyatt would want that from us. Here are a few of the not very good pictures I took that day.

Coming up the stairs...oh, the excitement!!

Hayley opening a present...love the hair!



Emily fixing her hair. :)


Tyler with his i-pod.

So many more posts to post..."The Forgotten Carols", New Years, Wyatt's grave(oh, so upset with the cemetery), a lovely butterfly apron, a butterfly blanket and much more.

Christmas Eve 2009

We were grateful this year that we were able to go up north and spend Christmas eve with family. We were able to drive home that night so we could have Christmas at our house. It made for a long day but it was worth it. The past few years the weather has not let us do that so we were glad it worked out this year.

Since we were not going to be home for Christmas eve dinner I decided to do our Christmas eve traditions for family night on Monday. We had our annual Christmas eve dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and Christmas drink(sprite and Grenadine) I looked forward to being able to set a place for Wyatt. Each Sunday as I've gotten down the nice dishes there is always one plate left up in the cupboard. The plate I bought special, right before I had Wyatt so that we would have enough plates for everyone on Sunday dinner. It's been a painful reminder all year when I've had to leave that plate up in the cupboard. I'm so grateful for the inspiration that came to me last year to set him a place each Christmas eve. It does my heart good to at least set him a place once a year.

During dinner we were able to talk about our "No Empty Chairs" family motto. Just like we did last year. We talked about how Wyatt didn't have a chair at his spot because he has filled his chair in heaven and is waiting for each of us to take our place at our family table there. We talked about what each of us needs to do so that we don't have any empty chairs in heaven. We know all too well how hard it is to have an empty chair. I personally look forward to the day when there are no empty chairs. It will be so wonderful. We also talked about how we still set a place for him at our Christmas eve dinner because he is still a very big part of our family. I truly feel he is with us more than we could even imagine.

After dinner we had a little family home evening lesson on the Savior and listened to a really neat CD with prophets and apostles testifying of the Savior. It was hard not to feel the spirit when you hear the voices of so many great men testifying of our Savior. We were able to talk for a moment about the gratitude we have for the Savior and the gift that he has given us of the Resurrection and Eternal life. After our lesson we went to Wyatt's grave and sang "Silent Night" and put a lamp on his grave. At that point I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. Oh, how we miss him and love him. We then came home and took Wyatt's stocking down and filled it with gifts to Jesus.(we wrote down something we could improve on this year) We also got out our "No Empty Chairs" box and reviewed the gifts we gave Wyatt on his birthday.

I'm mainly writing all of this down for my own self so I can refer to it next year. I'm grateful I did it last year so I could remember those new traditions we are creating since Wyatt died. How grateful we are to be a forever family. I'm especially grateful for the many memories we have been able to experience this Christmas. We truly enjoyed many, many nights of Christmas movies, treats, going in the car and looking at the lights, reading Christmas books around the Christmas tree, lots of Christmas music playing, candlelight dinners and drinking lots of hot chocolate. It was a very peaceful and fun December. I really tried to have as much done before December so we could truly enjoy the season. I think it was pretty successful.

One of the highlights of the month was doing something for someone in need in memory of Wyatt. I hope that will be one of the things that my kids will always remember. I'm grateful for the inspiration I received this year in regards to this new tradition. I feel we experience the purest joy when we do something nice for someone else.

The table with Wyatt's chair missing.

Ty

Em

Hay
Wyatt's place Our yummy dinner...delish!

Kids by the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve at my parents house

Hayley in front of the Train. My dad has a fun tradition of letting the kids run the train. They have to be able to go forward, backward and stop at the right spots. If they pass they get to pick a candy bar from the train. The kids look forward to this tradition every year.
Emily with the train.

Tyler and the train. Emily and Hayley at their spots. Kid tables

Adult table.

The nativityTyler and Emily got to be Joseph and Mary this year. Hayley was the littlest angel.Angels

Wyatt was the star. This part was retired last year and dedicated to Wyatt. I'm so grateful that he will always have a part in the Christmas eve traditions in our family.
My mom and dad sent us an identical star to put on Wyatt's tree. So grateful for their thoughtfulness.

My grandmas Christmas cactus was in bloom...just beautiful and neat to have a part of her with us that night.

Kids in their PJ's before leaving for the drive home.

And one more last tradition we re-started this year. We re-named it the "Wyatt" star. I found this star a couple of months ago. It was from a story I had a few years ago. I really can't remember the story that went with it but I remember what we use to do with it. Since we moved 5 years ago it was put in a basket and I didn't find it again until this year. I don't feel like that is a coincidence. Stars have so much more meaning to us now and remind us of our Wyatt. The star is a "service star". We would rotate it through the family by doing acts of service for each other. Once we did something nice for someone in the family we would leave it on their bed. Then it was their turn to do something nice. It didn't go around as fast as we would have liked but I think it brought a special spirit into our home. At the end of the season we hung this star on Wyatt's tree...ready for next year and the tradition of the "Wyatt" star. I'm sure Wyatt is happy any time we are serving each other and bringing the spirit of love into our home. I hope this new/old tradition will do just that.

Amazed

Wow, I'm completely touched by what I just came across. A couple of days ago I e-mailed this amazingly talented lady that makes digital scrapbook kits. I found her site(Summertime designs) and fell in love with the stuff she comes up with. She makes the cutest stuff and then gives it away for free. Well, I decided to e-mail her about how she does her scrapbooks because I want to learn how to do digital scrapbooking instead of what I've done in the past. She we so very helpful and gave me all the information I needed. I guess I had put the link to this blog at the end of the e-mail and she went to it and started reading. Well, tonight I had a second between games with family so I went to her site just to see if she had posted a new kit. I was completely shocked and touched that she made a butterfly kit dedicated to me and Wyatt. It's absolutely adorable!! Click here to enter her site and her post. What a tender mercy for me...seriously, there are such GOOD people in this world. So grateful I get to be touched by these amazing earth angels that I've never met but have done such sweet things for me. Thank you Summer! I absolutely LOVE this kit and can't wait to use it. Maybe I will be making a scrapbook with Wyatt's pictures using this kit. Thank you Summer for the "Wyatt moment" today. Can't even express how much it touched my heart.

Christmas Tree

Here are some pictures of our Christmas tree this year. Wyatt was with me when I bought the big snowflakes and some of the other stuff. I'm so grateful for the memory of shopping with him that night in January 2 years ago. So grateful for each and every memory I have with my little boy. Whenever I look at the snowflakes I think of that night with Wyatt and my cousin.

Thank you everyone for the sweet comments. Grief can be such a hard thing to have to go through but it sure helps when you have supportive people to help.

I love the smell of fresh pine. We have artificial trees so we don't get to have that fragrance in our home during Christmas but this year the company that Derek gets his insulation from gave us this fresh pine wreath. I LOVED having that smell in our house during the holiday season. It just made things even more festive for me.

My Grandma's chair...love this chair and the memories it brings to me.

Missing him

Nothing new...just missing him. It's amazing to me how it can hit me and hit me so hard. I have moments when I think I just might make it through this and then the grief hits me and I'm left crying like it was the day he left us. It's just plain hard this roller coaster of emotions that I'm sentenced to. I feel like I'm saying the same stuff over and over again...which I am. That is the world of grief...and it's no fun!

This Christmas season has been a good one for the most part. We have had many good and memorable moments as a family and I really enjoyed things I didn't think I ever would again but it has hit me the last couple of days and my arms just ache...ache to have my Wyatt here with me. I just miss him and there is nothing that can be done. I wish so badly I didn't have to know this pain, this longing and this ache. It's truly the worst! I have many pictures to post and many memorable moments to add but for tonight I just want to add a couple of pictures of him because I MISS him! Love you Wyatt!

Christmas two years ago.

Wyatt as baby Jesus.

Random picture Tyler took.

Beautiful/ Tender Mercies/Longing

Note: Trying to catch up on the past few weeks...here are a few posts. I have so much more to do....
Beautiful is a perfect word for this ornament we received yesterday. The picture just doesn't do it justice to how incredible it truly is. It's made of thick glass and is heavy and is such a beautiful blue color. What makes it even more amazing is the person that gave it to us. Someone we don't know but that has been reading the blog for a year. She e-mailed me last week and told me that she had seen this ornament a few weeks ago and thought of our Wyatt but didn't buy it. She passed by it again a week later and just felt like she needed to buy it for Wyatt's tree. Words truly can't express the gratitude in my heart for such thoughtfulness in our behalf. Truly amazing. So grateful for the tender mercies that continue to come into our life and for the evidence that there are some amazing people in this world. Thank you Michelle. It will be cherished always. It's simply BEAUTIFUL!

Again, these pictures just don't do it justice to how truly beautiful it is.

We received this beautiful butterfly in the mail yesterday as well. Actually two of them to put on Wyatt's tree. It's from the heart group we are a part of which makes it that much more special to us. We will never forget the heart walk and releasing those beautiful butterflies in September and the great experience we had that day. We will always cherish these sweet butterflies for Wyatt's tree as well.

I will be forever grateful for our "Wyatt moments" with butterflies. I have not even scratched the surface with telling about the many, many "Wyatt moments" I've had. I do believe in tender mercies and if we are willing to look for them they will be given to us. I don't believe in mere coincidences...I believe there is purposes in all things. There are times when I will actually pray for those moments to happen when I need them most and usually my prayers are answered in some way...if I'm looking for it. Michael McLean has written a song about "Tender Mercies." It's a beautiful song that speaks great truths on the matter. I love Elder Bednar's talk about tender mercies as well. Along with butterflies I continue to have shooting star moments. Besides the butterflies and shooting star moments I've had other moments that continue to show me evidence that I have a loving Heavenly Father that watches over me. I also know that I have an amazing angel boy that wants his mom to know how much he loves her and continues to be by her side. I feel so blessed each and every time I experience a tender mercy that brings heaven and earth together.

Though I'm extremely grateful for these moments because they truly help me I continue to know first hand how hard and challenging life can be. I'm trying to learn how to cherish those simple things in life and seize each moment for what it is.

I also continue to ache for Wyatt. That longing for him to be physically in my life I believe will never go away and why should it? I will be a 90 year old women aching to hold my little boy again(I sure hope I don't live to be that old) but that's a whole other topic. Not being able to buy him gifts this Christmas and write his name on the name tags was especially hard this year. I shed tears as I wrapped presents knowing I wouldn't be wrapping any for him. Though we were able to do something nice for someone else in his name it's still difficult and I don't see that changing too much as the years go by. There is not a day that goes by where Wyatt is not in our thoughts. Our arms continue to ache for him day after day. We long for the day when our arms are filled and we get to experience his sweet smile again. It will be glorious! We miss him, love him and cherish the memories we had with him.