5 months, 7 months....

Yesterday was Christian's 7 month birthday and the Sunday before that was the 5 month mark of him leaving our family.  We visited his memorial marker yesterday.  It got installed in February, FINALLY, wow, what a loooooooong process that was.  But it is finally in and it looks very nice.

we put flowers there for February...here it is in February....

here it is yesterday...March 18th

oddly, maybe, our kids have always liked cemeteries. kendall takes them on jogs, and i think that's what it stemmed from...they jogged by a cemetery once and wanted to go in and look at the graves and flowers and flags...and then every time they jogged by for a while they went to visit that cemetery.  so they are very comfortable with cemeteries. i was originally worried about how they would react going to visit Christian but i knew it was something we needed to do as a family...but i shouldn't have worried. they always surprise me, and most often adjust faster than i ever could.

the most challenging part of going is just making sure that Blake leaves the ornaments in the vases of the different graves.

 we are doing okay. i am a conflict in terms, i want our family to never forget but still be able to move forward. not move on because we will never move away from him. we will always have Christian with us wherever we go, he's part of us and always will be. i want other people to not forget too, but then it's hard to talk about still. i avoided my bank for a while after Christian passed away. they talked to me about him, smiled at him, talked to him etc. so i was afraid that they would question where he was and so i went to a different branch. but then i felt like enough time had gone by so i started going back, and it was just more convenient. i went to the bank last week on friday, and the lady who helped us saw the kids running around...
 her: you have three kids?
me: yes
her (pointing to blake): how old is he? ( i could tell she was confused)
me: he's two (getting ready to deal with this situtaion)
her: but he's not the baby, i remember you had a baby....
me: no, our baby passed away 5 months ago...(try not to cry in the bank...)
her: i'm so sorry.
me: me too.

and then we were done and could leave. so at the same time that i am scared people will ask, i am scared that they won't ask. does that make sense? i earned four children, i worked hard for them, it was work to get them here, and there are only the three precious ones here. sometimes i feel like i should wear a sign "i really have four"

 anyway, just some issues for me to work out. but i feel like time is helping. at the same time that i hate the distance from the time that Christian was with us, i can feel that i am healing, slowly but surely. some days are better than others, of course.  i really appreciate the sweet emails and texts that i have received randomly from friends and family. it helps us know that we aren't forgotten and that people realize that this pain is large and deep and is not ever really going to leave us.

we love you Christian, thank you for being such a sweet, darling boy.

i love green...

i love green. i really do. i should have a pinterest page just for green. and i've never really had a lot of St. Patrick's day decorations...does this make sense to anyone? no! so this year i got inspired with all the rainbows paired with green shamrocks that i'd seen around...so here's some of what i did....

my seasonal shelf...the sticks are the long ends of paint sticks that we cut off of for the turkey heads of this craft (that's my version of the turkey, scroll down in that post to find her).

i saw an idea online with wide boards painted rainbow behind things and so decided to do my own take. the LUCK is a wood cut out i ordered from Pick Your Plum (LOVE them), the shamrock picks and hanging shamrocks are just felt i cut out. i have A LOT of green felt left over from Christmas.

more shamrocks, this time in a banner form, the printable is from here and the large shamrock is again an order from Pick Your Plum...we did them for an impromptu (kind of) craft group, guess what we covered them with? Napkins!!! so fun, simple, economical...i am looking at napkins now where ever I go! just don't make my first mistake, remember to peel the white back off the napkin and THEN cut out the design to be mod podged on...i didn't the first time..it wasn't pretty:)

 wreath for the front door (wrapped a dollar store green foam wreath in muslin strips and then wrapped the colored strips...gluing beginning and end of the strip with hot glue. then i attached the shamrocks)

pretty much anything in my house that could have some shamrock bunting draped from it...does.  this mirror, my bulletin board.  i have one more project in mind that i want to do...a la Brian Regan seriously, listen to this clip from YouTube...funny man.  also, if you never have delved into his comedy, look on YouTube and put in Brian Regan (pop tarts, emergency room, little league, walked on the moon...it's all funny)

show time...

i was a vendor at The Glitter Academy event that was just in Chandler last week (happily i figured out the venue was right down the road from me, score!).  it was really fun, and because i have now done a few of them, i knew that chances are i wouldn't sell everything i made (cause let's face it, i made A LOT of stuff), but i had a great time handing out business cards, hearing people say the stuff was cute (even if they didn't buy any) and meeting some new crafty friends.  Don't get me wrong, I did sell some, and i am thankful for that!  all around, a fun time was had by all:)

pictures of my table...

one of the other vendors said, "your table is busy!" and i said, "yep, that's the way i like it"

traditionally you want to have not so much going on, but fun, happy, bright colors is what i do, so that's what this is...

hopefully not too overwhelming:)

my mom-in-law asked me the other day for some pictures of the kids that they could add to their picture wall, and we were looking for pictures...and i realized i don't have many of Ethan...it's not that i don't take them, i just don't have very many "good" ones, where he isn't moving a hundred miles an hour or making a silly face in every.single.picture.   see pics below....

and then blake and avery decided to join in the craziness

and something i did for Valentine's day that i didn't post yet...i made these little boxes

in bed by 8...

so the other night, i was feeling all great about our bedtime routine, because kendall was home and we had the kids in bed by 8pm.  we are usually around then, but i was just feeling like, "hey, we might know what we are doing!"

then avery came out...she had to go to the bathroom.

a few minutes pass, i can hear blake singing/talking to himself but he usually does that so not worried about it

ethan comes out...he has to go to the bathroom, i am sure his little sister is standing in the hallway....

they each get a "mulligan" and are told to go back to bed, no more freebies...

about 10 minutes pass, kendall goes to work out...

avery comes out, she argues with me for a minute and finally says she has to go to the bathroom again, number 2.  she takes care of that...

10 minutes later...ethan comes out again and says, "what would happen if you try to read in the dark mom?"  like i can't figure out what he's trying to do.....

me: go to bed ethan
him: but mom i really need to know what would happen!
me: just go to bed!
him: but mom!!! just tell me!!!!
me: you'll hurt your eyes but you shouldn't be reading anyway, so just GO TO BED!

radio silence for about 3 minutes...

here comes avery..."mom, blake is singing the itsy bitsy spider to himself..."

me: avery, that's cute, now GO TO BED!

i go up there and tell them they have lost computer privileges for tomorrow and if they get up again, they'll get in deep trouble....seemed to work since they didn't come out again, but come on! it's about 9:30 by then...and i thought we were doing good at 8:)  oh well, some nights are like that huh?

other news...finally stabbed myself with my exacto knife...it was bound to happen. i have it in a small flower pot by the phone (so my kids can't get it) but i was looking for something else in the flower pot, and i picked it up and forgot about the the hole in the bottom of flower pots...it fell right out of the hole and stabbed my foot! ye--ouch!  so now it's all bruisey and still hurts a bit.

this is the face i get when i ask blake to smile these days...what a ham!

happy love day....

we can't all quite make it into one picture, but we do wish you the best of love days today...just a day to share love with those around you...i know not everyone is hip on valentine's day or the commercialization of it all...but we like it around here...we decorate, give gifts...the whole shebang..but if you don't, just love somebody:)

we love you guys...thanks for all the love you give and show us!!!

look what i made!

hey have you guys ever used picnik? well, i'd used it before, but then i saw this tutorial on how to make printable signs with picnik and i thought i'd give it a whirl...but don't fall in love if you do use it...it's going away april 19th...merging with Google + i think.  anyway...i made these today, just for fun and because i kind of really love the movie Tangled and because i definitely believe it's never too late to be what you might have been (thanks George Eliot) (click on them to see them bigger)

yes, they all say the same thing but i got carried away making color changes and i liked thema ll so i couldn't pick a favorite:)

these are funny to me...

i don't love Ryan Gosling, but the idea behind these "Hey Girl" prints...really funny...find them all here

of course, i'd like them better if they had my husband's picture...hey...maybe i'll make some as a gag gift for him before Picnik closes! that'd be funny