A New Kind of Easter Eggs, Tradition and Mess

Easter morning as a child in the Hinson house meant getting dressed in our best, most floral and puffy dresses (usually matching ones) and attending church with our entire family. Then home to crowd around the kitchen table and decorate easter eggs, followed by an egg hunt on the lawn, and candy filled easter baskets to sugar us up before we crahsed out for the night.

Now, to clarify, Easter became so much more than this to us as we grew older. The reality of the true meaning of Easter, that Christ died so that we might live, the GREATEST story of Grace....that all came along at an early age as well in our house. We've already started Easter traditions centered around the story of the Cross with Liam so that he too will know it from very early on.
But let's be honest....the part kids really remember from the first to say their 4th or 5th Easter, is the eggs. Eggs filled with candy, eggs filled with money, decorating and dying EGGS!!
And that's okay, their just babies! And I love family traditions! Those times we shared with all of my 7 cousins, crowded around my nana's kitchen table to take turns dropping eggs in dye were priceless.
And oh the messes we made!!
The spilt dye, the smashed and stinky eggs! I want Liam to have the experience of dying eggs but until he is older and can participate in the "mess", I thought up a new way. A more permanent route (because let's face it, noone keeps those stinky eggs!).
My new way--Wooden Eggs.
We found them at Hobby Lobby--go figure--for 40% off of $3.99 for a four pack.
Liam enjoyed painting them just like I recall enjoying dying Easter eggs way back when.  I think every year I'll use them in our Easter decorations around the house. Even though eventually we will switch to dying real eggs, maybe we will just start doing both and add to our decorations each year. With a little modge podge they are sealed for life!
A new Atkinson tradition of our own, along with sharing the story of Grace at 5 a.m. cuddled in bed with mom and dad with a picture book. Oh and the floral dresses, suits and candy filled Easter baskets. ;)

The Insomniac Toddler

I look at this blog title and just laugh today. Nap-time. Who gets nap-times anymore? (I've tried enacting nap-times at work with no luck thus far.)

These past few weeks, Liam has forgotten that he is a toddler and not a newborn anymore. He's decided he prefers a newborn's sleeping pattern, and I've decided to never have another newborn again.....KIDDING!! 

I have decided to wear ear plugs at night though, and maybe sleep with my head under a pillow. 

Or just sleep in the yard. 

Preferably in a tent.

Just saying.

Anyway, this insomniac Liam has got to go. Our night night prayers with him have started turning into "and wake him with the morning light.....but not until the morning light. Preferably closer to 7 than 5."  The following have all, ALL, been tried (and failed) in an attempt to regain our sanity sleep.

• Pick him up and rock him. --Even though everyone and everything told us "don't pick them up!!!" We did, we regret, let's move on.
• Leave him lying and pat/rub his tummy/back. --That's if we can keep him lying down at all.
• Sit in his rocker across the room and sing/shush him.. --Insert nap in the chair here.
• Put him on the couch with us because we refuse to have a "only sleeps in our bed" relapse.  --Insert hours of squirmy giggles and demands for tv time here.
• Let him cry it out. --This used to work like a charm on Liam when he truly was an infant.  "Used to" being the key word here. 
• And my least favorite....stern voice and a spank on the behind. (Always carried out by his dad.)

After last nights 2 hour 47 minute nights sleep nap, I feel as if I've lost what sanity I may have had left. (Also "may" being the key word.)

Tonight, there will be Benadryl, Benadryl for everyone!  All those in favor say "I", all those opposed say you'll be at my house from 11pm to 3am tonight.

Any takers??  I thought not.

One Month Later

This morning when I woke up my heart was very heavy. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone, all alone, the entire day.... But arranged weeks ago was a day full of things I had to do and attend. I know God knew well in advance that today would be long and dreary for me, so he made sure to fill it packed full of my closest family and friends from sun up to sun down. And I truly wouldn't have it any other way.
It started off with this beautiful reminder that his mercies are new every single morning.

Lunch with my two boys, a three hour car ride with my sweet sister and bro-in-law to enjoy my oldest friends wedding and dinner with my sweet family.

Tonight my heart, though missing a tiny piece, is very, very full indeed.

Our Sandlot

Hello from our sandlot!!
Liam is having a blast playing in our "sandlot" or I should say sand circle, before we cover it up with last years pool!
(It was our poor attempt at leveling our patch of yard for the inflatable pool!)
For right now it's his new domain. Kids and sandboxes go together like ants and sugar.....moms and sand however.... well we go together like lent on your toothbrush.... Impossible to remove!!!

Braille Blocks

We have been making and selling Braille blocks for home decor! Any words in any colors! Both blogs (throughliamseyes.com and amymeredithatkinson.blogspot.com ) will both be posting new ones as we craft more and more! For purchasing please visit Amy's Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/amymeredith

All proceeds to charities for kids with albinism!

The Most Valuable Piece of Jewelry I Own

My charm necklace.
It's been a growing work-in-progress of my favorite charms, for three or so years now.
It started with this single, solitary diamond heart, from my wonderful husband, on Christmas morning while I was pregnant with Liam.

 I don't remember ever taking it off until the second charm came about, my first Mother's Day, just two weeks before I delivered Liam.  It was perfect!

Then came the third and fourth charms just this past week.  Sometime, during the weekend when I told Brian he was going to be a dad again, he mentioned he would soon have to add another charm to my collection.
And so he did.....Not in the way that we expected, but in a way that's close to my heart....The happiest memories of our joyful giggles of excitement captured in a simple charm, of the day we found out about sweet baby #2.....A gentle reminder every day that this world is not our home.

A Box Full of Memories....

I think a part of me is still in shock....still expecting to wake up nauseous, to crave BBQ chips 24 hours a day, to start feeling flip flops and summer salts in my lower abdomen...but none of it is coming...
I never thought I would long to feel nauseous 24 hours a day, long to nibble on saltines and ginger ale all day as much as I do right now.
BBQ chips should have been the BIGGEST sign a month or two ago, as I have never in my life liked BBQ anything, but the past few weeks I have lived on it.
I wish I had that craving back now.

The day I flew off the handle at Brian and Liam, and then turned into weeping within seconds it hit me. I waited until the next morning when they boys were in the kitchen fixing breakfast...laid in bed for almost two hours holding it... then poof, two little pink lines. When I was pregnant with Liam, I wasted no time before I started talking to him though he didn't yet have ears to even hear me....this was no different. Our joy spilled over for our new growing family, and we spared no time telling almost EVERYONE!
One week ago today, the morning it all went wrong, we were on the way to my hometown to tell the last bit of my family. We had them all gathered in the same small town with Liam decked out in his "ONLY CHILD, Expiring September 2013" shirt when we found ourselves racing to the ER. All we wanted was to hear "her" (wishful thinking because this pregnancy was COMPLETE opposite of Liam's) little heartbeat for the very first time as we had yet to make it in to the OB office for our first ultrasound.
The minute the nurse turned the ultrasound monitors away from us, shielding their discoveries, I knew we were not going to hear it at all.
A few hours later we walked out of the emergency room into the cold air, and there we stood not sure what to do so we wept. We have wept for days since then....
It has been a week but we are still in shock... still wishing it was all a dream.
I know it's a subject well debated, but in our house we believe that this sweet baby of ours, even if we never heard a heartbeat, is still ours...he or she just went on to be with Jesus all too soon....but even in this, God has a plan. Through our sadness He is still great, and He still has a plan far better than the one we could ever imagine.
 Small as a blueberry our sweet baby #2 left an imprint on us and our hearts the size of a mountain, and a few weeks of joyfulness will be what we hold onto until we are all together again.
I think this may be something hard to imagine to a lot of people, so many different views on it for sure.... Our ER doctor was confident "this too shall pass as you have more children" but I know for me at least there will always be a small hole in the back corner of my heart that I gave our small baby.... after all he or she is the only other human being that has shared my heart and soul from the inside other than Liam. Our sweet nurse who led us out of the ER said it best to me when she told me, "no matter what anyone says, it was a child and it was your child, so you should grieve because you have lost your child weather you met them or not. Don't forget to allow yourself time to grieve, and don't feel guilty if you don't."

So today, one week after, we box up a few weeks worth of joyful memories into a small wooden box, tucked away in our Hope Chest, and tucked deep in our hearts. He has blessed us with peace and comfort this past week like we have never felt, and we trust fully in his plan and his timing for our little family of four.

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all."
Psalms 34: 18
"BEFORE I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..." Jeremiah 1:5