I feel as though I have posted this before?!

We have been a little den of sickness lately. Actually, most of this past month has been filled with viruses. Yuck. Started with the never ending chest cold we all four came down with. Finally Matt ended up on antibiotics for his because it was going on a solid month. Then, just as I was getting over my cold I got the stomach flu last week. This is the 3rd year in a row to get that gem, and both previous incidences were in Jan and Feb. Weird.

Anyhow, Matt had to hold down the fort while I recovered, then exactly one week later he got it. Double ugh!

Well, last night he came home with a raging eye infection. It was pretty disgusting. So he went in this morning to find out he has severe pink eye (awesome) and then the dr decided to get an x ray done on his chest, which revealed he has pneumonia. Poor guy.

Brooklyn has finally recovered (almost completely) from her chest cold, Benny got one more round of it which seems to finally be tapering off.

I have been cramming vitamins down everyone's throat multiple times a day.
Sheesh! I am truly ready for some health! I sweat I do disinfect our house. Truly.

Other than all that, we are good =)

xoxo from our sick little house to yours.

a new year

Happy New Year! What? It's almost February you say?? How, how, how?

So...I still need to do a Christmas post, and everything in between. Very behind on the old blog these days.

Brooklyn had a few weeks off from pre-school over Christmas break and she was ecstatic to start back up again. She truly loves her school and I love it equally as much. There is so much love from her teachers and all the staff, and there is not a single day I pick her up and she doesn't tell me something she learned or discussed about Jesus. Pure awesomeness.

Matt started school again :( It's going well thus far, I think he's in a law ethics class. So probably going to be a lot of reading. We have one year left!

Benny is 14 months and is a total toddler! He continues to show his personality more and more each day. He's not lacking in that department.

Quite the temper at times:

Here he is getting jiggy wit it at the winterhawks game the other night, and yes that is MC Hammer's "too legit to quit" he's dancing to.

Last video, this is our favorite past time with Benny Boo. For some reason we just crack up when he shakes his head "no".

Brooklyn is becoming less and less of a toddler and more and more a little girl.  She just blows me away. The things she thinks about and wants to discuss are a cross between hilarious and truly thought provoking. She takes everything very literally, and has reached the stage where her feelings can truly be hurt. For instance, if she says something funny and Matt or I laugh at her, but she's being serious, she gets this very sad face and/or says "stop laughing, it's not funny!" at which point we have to apologize and assure her our laughter was not directed at her. Is this the right course correction in an instance like this? Your guess is as good as mine, this is both of our first time parenting a 3 1/2 year old. I sure hope so!

She continues to have a major soft spot for helping others. Almost daily she is offering up things, anything from a movie to a half eaten sucker, to give to a child who needs it more than her.

She woke up a little later than usual this morning (7:45) and Matt was gone. She looked at me and said "did daddy go to work again today?" I said "yes" and she said "so he can buy electricity, food and dresses for us?" Exactly sweet girl. What a gem.

Laying in bed tonight she was telling me that she had a sick horse when she was an older girl. We were reading the story of the plagues that God sent to Pharaoh, and the locusts were swarming around a man and his horse. This spun off into a whole gamut of thought on the horse that she had in the meadow with the flowers when she was an older girl and the horses name was Millie. Huh? She's a keeper for sure.

ornament

Warning: long and rambling post

What joy I got to witness on sweet Brooklyn's face when we put up the Christmas decorations this year. Yes, this was a magical Christmas because of the view through those beautiful, wondrous blue eyes.

While putting our ornaments on the tree Brooklyn asked me what this one said.

 

It says Luke.

I bought it the beginning of December in 2007. Four months after losing Luke. My heart was still in a million pieces, and one day while attempting to be "normal" and shop for gifts at the mall (really just wandering aimlessly) Matt and I stumbled upon the coolest ornament shop. I have yet to see that again since that year. It's like it was there just for me. Much like this ornament was, and I bought them all, all three they had and gave them to our mom's and kept this one for us. To say it is precious to me is an understatement.

Brooklyn unwrapped it gently from the tissue paper and looked at me with wide eyes as I explained for the first time why this particular ornament touched me so much. My eyes filled with tears as I slowly and delicately explained that she had a brother that was in mommy's tummy, but God needed him to be with Him, so he got to go live with Jesus. She truly listened, to every word I spoken, she didn't try to rush the conversation or change it, she just smiled at the prospect of having another brother.

She has since asked several times about her "older brudder Luke who is in heaven". Wonderings such as "when can I see him" or "I used to play with Luke when I was a little girl" or her most recent "mom, can I see my brudder Luke in heaven on Saturday". I know some people probably think this is weird, that I would talk so candidly to her about a brother she never knew, one that no one ever had the chance to know, but he was as real to me as she is, so I want her to know what a gift it is to have another brother waiting to play with her in eternity. There are still days I cling to that hope!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that a huge part of my heart has been re-opened over the past several months. I have had the privilege of getting to know one of the kindest, most amazing women I've ever met, under the saddest circumstances I could have ever imagined. She lost her one month old daughter, and has had to learn what it means to truly start over, to come home to an empty house and re-build what it means to be "normal". We were connected through friends, and I immediately felt a strong connection to her. Our stories are very different, yet our outcomes were the same...empty arms and broken hearts (and right before all the holiday hoopla). I just ached for her, truly, grieved when I heard her story. I found myself sobbing tears for a stranger, because I knew her heart, her pain. I have had the honor of talking with her, reassuring her that life will change, morph, sometimes good and sometimes bad, grief will come in waves, some scars will be there forever, memories will soften, but the love she feels for her daughter will only strengthen...even with the growth of their family.

It has brought up some truly raw emotions for me, ones that I knew I still had, but didn't realize how much I could still taste and smell them. How real they could still be. On Christmas eve I took Ben to the store with me and found myself just wandering the aisles for nothing in particular at all. I was lost in thought. Pain, knowing what my precious new friend was going to be experiencing on what should have been her daughter's first Christmas, and memories of that Christmas where I was buying an angel ornament instead of "baby's first" for Luke. It shouldn't have been this way...yet here I sit with hindsight on my side. I can look at this mama, this sweet broken hearted friend and promise her she will have no regrets on the other end of her journey. There is never going to be the promise of "easy" again. Her next pregnancy will be hard, the delivery of the next baby will be hard, but the result of all the pain will be worth every single hard moment. The joy of knowing that there is an angel waiting for her, no one can ever take that away. To say that is joyous is...well, weird. There is nothing joyful about not having your baby in your arms, but clinging to that HOPE, is.

So, Christmas, per usual brought a mixed bag of emotions, but I feel like each year it's more feelings of thankfulness, for Brooklyn and Ben. More feelings of appreciation for my imperfect story. I love this broken story, because I firmly believe that when my life is done here on earth, I am going to have VERY full arms in eternity! I am so thankful to have this opportunity to share Luke with this friend, to have her nod and say, yes I understand, but man oh man, I would give anything in the world to take her pain away right now. All I can do is nod to her and say, it will be different... you will find a "new" normal. She's beyond amazing, so I know God has big plans for her story; and I love that He has chosen to use mine (and Luke) to help her.

What a mysterious and beautiful God we serve.