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

Project 52: A Photo A Week-- Mommy Style

There is this thing going around, you may have heard of it, called Project 52 (or the 52 Project, 52 photo project, 52 portraits, etc) that so many people are participating in in 2013. The titles and themes are different but the idea is all the same...One photo per week in 2013, that's 52 photos based on a different theme per week. It's so easy when you think about it, most of us have smart phones and take at least one photo a week--if your an overly proud mama like some of us *cough* *cough*, you probably take more than one a day!
So the idea is for everyone to upload their photos to the same flicker account each week, but since some of us *cough* *cough* don't care to share their photos with millions everywhere just more of their dedicated readers :), you can also post the pictures on your blog or website to share with friends, family, and readers. I decided I wanted to make up my own themes that would force me out of my box for this project, and am incouraging my other mom bloggers to partcipate too. Come January 2014 I can't wait to look back at the year in review, one week at a time. So here are my first three weeks worth....more to come people, more to come!

Here are the first 13 weeks, if you have any suggestions for the next 13 weeks by all means give me a shout!! I may even try to feature pictures from others participating as well!
Week 1: The True State of Your House
Week 2: Playtime
Week 3: Candid Shot (including yourself)
Week 4: Affection
Week 5: Photo of a Photo
Week 6: Scrumptious
Week 7: Your Morning View
Week 8: Current Favorite Object
Week 9: Find Your Happy Place
Week 10: Time with Your Kids
Week 11: The Giggles
Week 12: Inspirational
Week 13: Nap-Time

Week 1:

 

 

 

 

 

WEEK 2

 

Week 3:

Organizing Cards

I'm a pack-rat by nature. So I love finding good organizational ideas, especial those that get rid of a whole drawer or trunk full of junk. Something that always gets shoved into drawers around our house: cards. When Liam was born and on his first birthday, we received so many sweet cards- not to mention those from our baby showers- and I couldn't just throw them away. Until now they were scattered throughout our house, but with two simple rings and a hole punch, they are now nice and neatly kept together on our bookshelf. I even used card stock paper to decorate a cover sheet, and put Liam's name in Braille.

(I think I'll do another for our Christmas cards and one for the cards from our wedding/bridal showers.)

Feet Art

Okay we have all seen the hand and foot art that kids do in preschool, usually for the holidays: a turkey hand, a foot butterfly, a foot candy corn, a hand leaf, or maybe a two handed turkey/peacock. The list goes on and on! Teachers have been getting so crafty with these projects, and they are all adorable. But, until now, I have not had the urge to recreate one of these at home with Liam while he is still of pre-preschool age. I was sure one would eventually get sent home with him whenever he starts to school in a year or two (yes, they do start early at the blind school). Then I saw one with a little baby's footprints that made my little mom heart melt. I decided I needed to do one with Liam, while his feet were still (somewhat) tiny, to hang on my wall. I must say, it took several attempts--and lots of stain remover for my bathroom floor--but capturing this small moment in his childhood was more than worth the mess!

Right above our bed it hangs with Liam's first piece of art.

The Nursery to Toddler Room Transformation Part 1

Slowly but surely, we have been turning Liam's nursery into a toddler's room. It started when we moved into our new house, I knew soon we would need more storage space for toys and less space for things like a changing table and containers of Desitin. So I procrastinated and saved his room for last to be worked on. Now that I'm finally getting around to working on it little by little I think I'll share bits and pieces here and there. 

So piece no. 1 

The owl art has been removed from over his bed (though I painted it and loved the tree branch, I hated my owl) so here's what replaced it....

(Side note: we have kept his owl theme minus the old piece above his bed.)

These frames were so easy and cheap to make! I purchased $5 photo frames at Walmart....

And after removing all the mat, glass and backing, I painted them blue with few streaks of dark brown mixed in to my paint-careful not to mix the colors more than necessary. (Also, dipping a cloth in dark brown paint/stainer and strategically rubbing it along with the wood grain were needed does the trick as well!) 

After I got the effect I wanted with my paints, I attached the wires along the back of the frame. 

Then using mini clothes pins, I hung my pictures and was done!! 

Up next for his room update: 

A toy bin padded bench

Changing table into a night stand 

Pallet made bookshelves 

New bedding

At Home Coffee Bar

We have a serious problem in our new house... It's called a lack of kitchen counter space. It's very serious too as my hubby is a major chef and spends lots of time in the kitchen. He's one of those "use every pot and pan on one meal" kind of cookers too.
So what to do when you have less counter space than your used to?
Well keeping lots of appliances on them is totally a bad idea as we have found. These appliances usually end up sitting out of the way in the laundry room or dinning table were we eventually have to move them right back after clean up, and clean up never happens the same night.
Part of our kitchen appliance clutter=our two coffee pots (not his and hers, more like coffee pot and cappuccino/expresso machine). Yes we are major coffee snobs and we are totally okay with that.
So to get these off our counter top and provide the master chef with a little more room, we made a coffee bar out of our old china cabinet. All it took was a $6 board from Lowes, a $0.99 bottle of white paint which we already had, two $5 bracers, $1.99 hooks and a handy dandy husband to install it all. Five minutes later ta-da!!
Clean counters = cute coffee nook.
Cute coffee nook = clean counters.
It's what we call a win-win.