Catching Up

Just wanted to post some pictures from our days and weeks from the past month and a half. Sometimes it has felt as if we were standing still and someone had pressed the fast forward button for everything and everyone else around us.
But we have still been making memories..................

Here is Miss Meg in "the" dress.

My Aunt Donna brought this back from Austria when I was little.

I have loved getting it out for each one of my girls to wear.

We took a three day trip out to the Oregon Coast. It was much needed I think. We all had a great time making memories. We went to:
The Portland Jewish Museum
Hatfield Science Center
Yaquina Bay Lighthouse
Fogarty Beach (great tide pools)
Lincoln City Beach

Astoria Column
Captain George Flavel House (Queen Ann Victorian House)
Bumble Bee Tuna/Salmon Factory
The Lightship Columbia (which is basically a boat/floating lighthouse)

This was the view from our hotel room in Astoria.

We got to watch big tankers being guided in under the bridge at night and in the morning.

View from the Astoria Column.

  

 This was from the Bumble Bee Salmon Cannery (Peir 39). There were so many sea lions.
Meg loved hearing them bark.

 This is the Lightship Columbia. We had saved our tickets from when we went to the Maritime Museum in the fall of 2013. It was too stormy to go on the ship at that time, but we got to go this time.

 
 Myles trying to pull up the chain.

Meg loved the fish at the Hatfield Science Center.

 Aeva took this picture of part of a dock from Japan that made it's way to the Oregon coast when the Tsunami happened.

 The kids loved getting to touch the starfish, sea anemones, and cucumber slug. Even Meg liked it.

 When we went to the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse a storm was coming in. This is us pretending we are getting blown away.

 Looking out at the ocean from the Lighthouse.

 We had fun taking along lunches with us...........one day it was PB&J's and another day it was Lunchables.

 Swimming time!!!! Meg and I just dipped our toes in the hot tub. The other kids loved getting in three swim times at the hotels followed by warm showers and hot cocoa.

 

 

 And this is what happens sometimes when you make dinner in your hotel room. We were planning on having chips and meat with nacho cheese. Unfortunately the nacho cheese exploded, and there was none left in the jar. Yep................making a memory. This is one that will make us all laugh for years to come......The time Mom exploded nacho cheese in the hotel microwave.

 Hmmmm.....I wonder who this is???

 Ha, ha.................this is Dipper, Aeva's paper friend who came along to the beach with us.

 Myles was watching his shoes sink into the sand. It was a very funny feeling.

 Meg loved the sand!

 

 This Queen Anne Victorian House was gorgeous on the inside. We learned about what a bar pilot is, and the history behind this house and the family that lived in it.

 

 Meg resting her head on Christopher's head. So sweet.

 

 Time to load up our luggage.
 
  Pictures of my sweet Elsa.

  

One Sunday we took a nice walk at dusk at Lewisville Park.

 Meg had on her walking shoes.

Andy, a boy from church, asked Rhaevyn to the church prom, which is at the end of April (so she'll be 16). He came yesterday to drop this off.

 

 I didn't take a picture of Rhaevyn's response, but she bought some Hostess Ding Dongs and put a note on it that said "Thank you for asking me to the prom. I'd be a Ding-Dong if I didn't say yes."
Now we get to go prom dress shopping.

For Valentine's Day Chris said he'd paint the living room for me. He painted it the first weekend in March for me. I sat in the rocking chair sometimes crying and sometimes giggling as I watched him and the kids paint for me. More memories made.

The finished product.

Myles and I made one hour dinner rolls. They were super easy and were eaten under 10 minutes.

 

 

And I'll end with some pictures of Meg and her blowing a kiss :)

I Choose to See the Blessings

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise
'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

 

Flowers from my Papa

I absolutely love that song (I shortened it for blog).
We have experienced such an outpouring of love from so many family members and friends over the past several weeks. All the prayers have been gratefully appreciated.

Spencer W. Kimball said “God does watch over us and does notice us, but it is usually through someone else that he meets our needs.”

I know this to be true. We've had so many earthly angels that have met our needs over the past month.

Elaine S. Dalton said,  "We can do hard things, and in the strength of the Lord, we can do all things.” 

I believe this wholeheartedly. For without my Savior I don't know how I would have made it through this past month, or the months and years to come.

 Jean A Stevens said,  "Not every prayer is answered so quickly. But truly our Father knows us and hears the pleadings of our hearts. He accomplishes His miracles one prayer at a time, one person at a time. We can trust that He will help us, not necessarily in the way we want but in the way that will best help us to grow. Submitting our will to His may be difficult, but it is essential to becoming like Him and finding the peace He offers us." 

This gives me peace and hope.

Gordon B. Hinckley said, "Those that move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out."

This is what I am trying to do each day; to move forward with a happy spirit and put my faith in Heavenly Father that in the end it will work out :)

I have learned so much from this trial. I have learned that as hard as this is I wouldn't want anyone else's trial. I have learned that my Heavenly Father and Savior know and love me perfectly, and that I am not alone It has taught me to have more compassion for others going through trials, and more patience in more ways than one...........patience in not judging others, patience in not being offended. I've felt closer to my Savior and Heavenly Father. This event has shown us how much we are truly loved. And this has taught me to have faith and hope in my Savior, the atonement, and his enabling power. It has taught me to look outside myself and my heartache to see how I can serve others. This has made us closer as a family, and Chris and I have grown closer as husband and wife.
As crazy as it sounds I would not want to give up any of the things I've experienced and learned from this and all the miracles and tender mercies we've witnessed. That is not to say that I don't still have tender moments where I cry and my heart feels like it could break into a million pieces, or that I don't
long to hold my sweet baby in my arms and stroke and kiss their sweet cheek,  or wonder what color eyes and hair they would have had.

But I know Heavenly Father has a plan....................
And I know Sunday will come.....................

"Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.

On that day we will know the love of our Heavenly Father. On that day we will rejoice that the Messiah overcame all that we could live forever.

Because of the sacred ordinances we receive in holy temples, our departure from this brief mortality cannot long separate relationships that have been fastened together with cords made of eternal ties."

                                                                                                              Elder Joseph B. Worthlin

Yesterday we buried our sweet baby's body.
Chris dedicated the burial spot.
He made the little casket, which looks more like a time capsule, but I love it. It's extra special because he made it with love. It was very cathartic for him to make it.

 

 

Myles put in a daffodil, which I thought was sweet.

 

 Then we planted our remembering tree.............a white cathedral rose tree.
Myles and Elsa helped put the dirt in while I held the tree upright.

 

 This is what the roses will look like when it starts to bloom.

 

 The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live. When words cannot provide the solace we need or express the joy we feel, when it is simply futile to attempt to explain that which is unexplainable, when logic and reason cannot yield adequate understanding about the injustices and inequities of life, when mortal experience and evaluation are insufficient to produce a desired outcome, and when it seems that perhaps we are so totally alone, truly we are blessed by the tender mercies of the Lord and made mighty even unto the power of deliverance (see 1 Ne. 1:20).

10 Perfect Tiny Fingers and 10 Perfect Tiny Toes

 "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven. But for those that embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God, and believe in good things to come."  (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland)

 

 

"When we are resurrected, “this mortal body is raised to an immortal body. … [We] can die no more.

Can you imagine that? Life at our prime? Never sick, never in pain, never burdened by the ills that so often beset us in mortality?

The Resurrection is at the core of our beliefs as Christians. Without it, our faith is meaningless. When the Savior rose from the tomb, He did something no one had ever done. He did something no one else could do. He broke the bonds of death, not only for Himself but for all who have ever lived—the just and the unjust. 

When Christ rose from the grave, becoming the firstfruits of the Resurrection, He made that gift available to all. And with that sublime act, He softened the devastating, consuming sorrow that gnaws at the souls of those who have lost precious loved ones.

I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.

On that day we will know the love of our Heavenly Father. On that day we will rejoice that the Messiah overcame all that we could live forever.

Because of the sacred ordinances we receive in holy temples, our departure from this brief mortality cannot long separate relationships that have been fastened together with cords made of eternal ties."

                                                                                                              Elder Joseph B. Worthlin

It's amazing how such a tiny little baby can leave such a big whole in one's heart.
I'm so very thankful for the knowledge I have of the gospel, that we will see our sweet baby again one day.
I'm grateful for the Lord's tender mercies that he has sent to us over the past several weeks.

We've found peace and comfort in our Heavenly Father and Savior, and from wonderful talks by our current apostles and prophet. Serving others has been good therapy, as well as finding the blessings all around us has brought some sunshine to our dark days. 
Thank you to everyone who has offered kind words, thoughts, hugs from far away and near, prayers, flowers, and helping hands. The Lord has truly blessed us during our time of sorrow.