October 15th...pregnancy and infant loss rememberance day

I was just remembering my lost angels today since it is once again October 15th. I wrote this letter last year and it really helped me so I thought I would add to it today.....

My sweet angels,

Wow here it is another year gone by. It's just another Thursday to most people here on Earth but today is a special day to me. It's the day to remember all the lost babies around the world. I unfortunely have three reasons to think of today as a special day, not just a Thursday.

6 years ago to the day pretty much I was finding out I was expecting you, my first angel. I cannot believe how much time has passed since that moment but I remember so much of that day and that time was like just like it was yesterday. I still even have the pregnancy test and I also still have the hospital band I wore the day they took you from me. This past June 17th I thought of you, my baby, on your should have been 5th birthday. The start of this school year brought back another sad reminder that you are not here with us. You would have started Kindergarten this year. You should be learning to tie your shoes and learning to read. Instead you are in the heavens above.

My little girls, Hope and Faith, you would have turned 3 this year. Did you get the balloons your sister sent up to you on your birthday? I tell her about her sisters, although I don't think she fully understands. I want her to know of you but I'm pretty sure she already does. She was talking to someone a few months back and I asked her who and she said those two girls over there. I didn't think of it at the time until Daddy said something but I think it was you two. I know you are there with her, watching over her. I am sure you are looking after your brother too. It's still so hard to not think of what I've lost in you two. Your sister is a constant reminder of where you would be and what you might be like. You would have been with her in preschool this year and you would be in her gymnastics class with her. I can just picture the 3 of you together rolling around on those mats and it makes me smile. Oh what should have been. It just breaks my heart. It's still so hard to see anyone with triplets or identical twins. It's just a terrible reminder of what I lost and will never get the chance to experience.

I just wanted you to know that there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of you. I hope you know how much you are missed and how much I wish we could have all been a family here on Earth. I know that is not ever going to be and it just makes me feel so sad that I never got to experience knowing the three of you. I hope you know how much you were all wanted and how much it hurts that I don't get to be with you. Since I can't be there please take care of each other and please continue to look after us, my angels.

Love always,
Mommy


My dearest angels,

Today is October 15th, 2008. It is pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day . I just wanted to write a letter to my angels to let you know that you have not been forgotten today or any day.

It has been almost 5 years since I lost my you, my first angel. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was so excited that after so trying for so long it was finally real. I was going to have a baby!! I couldn't contain my excitement and everyone pretty much knew right away. I bought a crib and a changing table. I couldn't wait to find out if I was having a boy or girl so I could decorate your room. I was almost out of my first trimester when the news came. It was the worse day imaginable. It was two days before Thanksgiving, November 25th, 2003. That was the day I found out I lost you. That day changed my life forever. I would never be the same person again. I could not understand why God would take you from me. Why would He bring me such joy to only rip it from me? Lots of days and tears later I still do not understand this. I never got to find out if you were a boy or girl but I think you were a little boy. Your due date was June 17, 2004. Every time I see a little 4 year old running around I think of you and smile. I picture you doing the same up there in heaven.

We decided to try again for a baby. After two months we were back on the drugs and praying for a healthy baby. Another year passed and nothing so we tried some other things. Those didn't work either so our doctor referred us to Dr. Doody in Dallas. We had lots of hope and just knew IVF was going to be our answer. On our second round of IVF we got great news. Not only did both embryos take one had split into identical twins. We were having triplets!! After the inital shock wore off we were so excited and that God had given us 3 babies. I was doing great, and as the first trimester ended I started to feel more confident that I was going to be a Mom of triplets. I had a sonogram at 13 weeks and you were all in there bouncing around and kicking. I felt one of you move at 14 weeks and the other at 15 weeks. It was the best feeling in the world!!! Everything was going perfectly and I couldn't wait because we were going to find out what you were really soon. February 13th, 2006 was the big day. I was so excited!! That excitement turned to fear when the sonographer left to go get a dr. I had been here before I knew something was wrong. Two doctors came down and looked at you. Both of you, little girls, had passed about a week earlier. I couldn't believe that God would do this to me again. I was so angry and couldn't imagine what I had done so wrong in my life to make God so angry with me. I wanted nothing more than to have all three of my babies with me again. That night I could not quit crying. I just wished it all was a bad dream. I awoke the next day, Valentines day, to it not being a dream. Reality was that you were gone and nothing I did would bring you back. I spent that day in with a specialist. He told us that you had passed from a condition called twin to twin transfusion. The doctors didn't know what to expect from there since your sister was still alive. I know that you both were there looking down upon you sister and I to help us get through the rest of the pregnancy. It was a rough road but on June 27, 2006 I had 3 babies, 2 were born sleeping. We named you Hope and Faith. I really wish I had asked to see you and get to hold you. I didn't know what to expect so I decided not to and it's a decision I regret everyday. It was a bitter sweet day for me. I look at your sister and wonder if you would have looked like her. I watch her play and picture what it would have been like with her sisters to play along with her. You all would have been the very best of friends I have no doubt. Every milestone, every smile she gives, every tantrum she throws I think of you. I wonder constantly what it would have been like to have all of you here together. I know your sister misses you. Always since day one she has to sleep touching something because that is what she was use to. I hear her laugh in her sleep and I just know that it's because you two are there making her laugh. She is a lucky girl to have two guardian angels looking over her.

I just wanted to let you, my angels, know that I think of you all the time. I wonder if you can hear me when I talk to you? I wonder if you know how much I miss you? And I want you to know I am no longer angry at God. I know he took you for a reason. As hard as it is for me to accept, you all have a purpose and it isn't here on Earth. Even though I will always miss you I know that someday He will bring us back together again. Until that day I will enjoy the life he has given me here on Earth and just know that you all are there with me everyday. And when that day comes I look forward to meeting my children waiting for me in Heaven.

Love always,

Mommy

HAWAII

Hawaii was beautiful. It was a bit stressful at times because of the kids but was still nice.

The flight there was killer. 8 hours 10 minutes. It went not too bad actually but the last couple of hours seemed to drag by. There just needs to be more room on those planes with such long flights!!! I swear I was going to hurt the man in front of me. He slammed one to many times into my knee with his seat!!! I'm not that tall so I feel sorry for tall people riding in coach!

The condo was nice and a great location. The view was AMAZING!! Our balcony was 12 ft. long and overlooked the ocean. I could have sat out there forever!

The kids loved the ocean. Gabbie fell I don't know how many times from the waves and got to taste saltwater a couple of times. Zachary just wanted you to chase him down the beach and splash in the water. No relaxing laying on the beach for us with them two. In fact I don't think I look anymore tan :(

One day we climbed Diamond Head. It was described as a .8 mile hike up and .8 down. Didn't seem that bad sounding. We decided to give it a try. We took the city bus there and it dropped us off on the other side of the mountain on the street. We had to walk at least a mile up the mountain, threw a tunnel and across the crater to get to the ticket booth!! Then the hike begins. It starts out paved and not too bad. Then the pavement ends and it is rocky and not even at all. It wound round and round up the mountain and then you hit the stairs. There were like 200 something stairs up including a very steep set of 99 in a row when you are all tired at the top. After you get up those there are spiral staircases leading to a bunker you had to crawl out of...then more stairs. Finally when you got to the top it was a really pretty view of Oahu. It was a workout. I'm glad I decided to start working out beforehand. My poor Mom thought I was trying to kill her. Did I mention we had no stroller or backpack for the kids???? We carried the kids all the way up and back down. Although Gabrielle climed the stairs herself...what a big girl! Yes, in the pics we have on our swimsuits because the plan was to snorkle afterwards...hahaha. Anyways, we decided once we got down that we would take a cab home..LOL.

We did a dolphin encounter for the kids at Sea Life park...a mini seaworld. It was right next to the ocean so it had really pretty views from the park. At the dolphin encounter they kissed and danced with dolphins..well that was the plan at least. Zachary was falling asleep in the pool with the dolphins! This is the boy that sees a dolphin and gets so excited and he fell asleep. I couldn't believe it! Gabbie was scared once they came up to her. They did at least pet them. We also caught a sea lion show, looked at the aquarium and saw the dolphin show. The dolphin show was a pretty good one and they had a wholpin...part dolphin part whale.

That night we went to the luau. It was nice except in the picture once again Zachary was asleep! There was a 5 hour time difference so his little schedule was all messed up :) Gabbie was a hula expert and they pointed her out for her dancing and gave her a lei. I was a proud mama.

We did the island tour which was nice but LONG. It lasted 8 hours so the kids were antsy. I enjoyed what I could hear. No waterfalls which was a bummer but lots of other beautiful things to see. Did you know that it takes 18-22 months for a pineapple plant to make a pineapple!!!???? It makes 3 over it's life, 6 years. That's just crazy to me. No wonder that they are so expensive. I tell you though the pineapple in Hawaii was awesome!!! The pineapple ice cream not so much.

Me and Thom did a snorkle in the ocean that was pretty cool. They took us out to snorkle with turtles first. Then we found some dolphins and snorkled with them however the water was murky so we never saw them under water. We did get to see pacific bottlenose dolphins which apparantly is rare since the water is shallower where we were. We let them surf the waves and got some really great pics. It was really neat to see them in the wild instead of captivity. There was a guy on our boat to take pics so we got some awesome shots. I haven't deleloped my underwater camera but I'm pretty positive that my shots cannot compare!

The flight home was miserable! This time only 7 1/2 hours and the kids slept most of it which meant we slept for maybe 1 hour total. I had the biggest crick in my neck and I did something to my tailbone so the sitting that long KILLED me. Again more room would have really helped. I guess I might have to check out first class next time.

Overall it was a good time. It was stressful but for me traveling anywhere outside the comfort of your own home is when you have young kids. I guess vacations will just be stressful for a while since we plan on more vacations and have no intentions of leaving them anytime in the near future. Neither one of us can imagine leaving them yet if ever. They are our world!!!

Thanks Mom for a trip we will always remember :)

P.S. Sorry the slideshow is so long. I had 900 pictures so it was hard to choose :)

Gabbie's first day of preschool

Gabbie started preschool on September 8th. She did really well and didn't cry until I came to pick her up and she couldn't get to me. I really think she was just overtired since she needed a nap. Second day she cried because she didn't want to leave. The next week we missed because we went on vacation and yesterday she did awesome!!! The teachers all say she is doing wonderfully but tell me everyday that she is so loving. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a problem since they tell me it EVERYTIME I pick her up. I never really thought about the conseqences of my loving her up all the time but apparently she is thinking it is totally normal to want to hug and kiss EVERYONE she comes into contact with. OOPS! I guess we need to do some talking to her about boundaries :)

Here are a couple of pics from her first day.

Easter 2009

I was so excited for this Easter. It was Zachary's first Easter. Last year since it was in March he was still living the good life in my belly. I was curious to see what he would think of it all. And this is the first year we've started the egg dying tradition. Gabbie is almost 3 now so I figured it was a good time. She was excited but I think I was more excited. I've waited a long time to dye Easter eggs with my kids!! The dying went well except I read the directions wrong and added wrong amounts of water. Thank goodness she is only 2 so she didn't care yet. We drew with the magic crayon on the eggs and she didn't understand why it wasn't showing up but I think got the concept a little more once they were dyed. It was a good memory.

Easter day didn't start off quite as expected. That morning we awoke at 6am to a screaming child, Gabbie. Apparently she was afraid of the Easter bunny. It took a good hour to calm her down and convince her he wasn't going to harm her and had infact already come to visit.

After hunting the eggs and empting their baskets the kids got all dressed up and looked so adorable in their matching outfits. I just wish it would be easier to get a picture of both of them actually looking and smiling at the camera at the same time. I settled for at least both looking in the right direction. Thank you to whoever invented the digital camera!! I would be going broke taking pictures with film!!!

Here is the kids all dressed up and a couple of the egg hunt

Zachary turns one!!!!

My little boy turned one on Saturday. It's so bittersweet. He is such an amazing little man and it is so much fun watching him grow everyday but sad to know my baby is one step closer to not wanting and needing me as much :( He's such an independent little guy already.

We had a baseball themed party for him to celebrate his rookie year. We had lots of fun, he got lots of fun presents and got to try some new foods. He LOVED his cake and ate about 1/3 of it before we pried it out of his icing covered hands. He played in our bouncehouse for the first time and he LOVED it!!! He had a smile on his face the entire time. I guess we will be breaking that out a lot this summer.

He had his one year pictures made on Tuesday too. He did really well for the photo shoot to my suprise. Usually he sees the camera and it's smile gone but that day he was all smiles. Afterwards, ordering was a bit challenging. He wanted to run out of the studio into the store, push the chairs around, climb in them and stand up. He is such a little dare devil. He wants to climb and stand on EVERYTHING!!!

Yesterday, he had his one year checkup. He weighed in at 23.6 pounds and was 30 3/4" tall. He is only in 50% for his weight now since he is so darn active. He doesn't stop moving ever!!! His height and head remain at 75%. He is getting all 4 molars so he is a drooling machine. He goes though a shirt an hour it seems.

It's hard to believe how much they change in one year. I took a picture with the stuffed frog every month on his birthday to watch his growth. I'm glad I did it but glad it's over. It was gettting really challenging to get him to be still long enough for a picture with the frog.







HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LITTLE MAN!!!

Snow day!!!!!

Finally we've had a snow worth writing about!!

Now I know some of you reading this will think this is crazy but hey, I live in Texas and here getting this much snow if a BIG deal. I've been waiting for a good snow like this for a long time. I couldn't wait to build a snowman with my kids!!!

On Thursday night they told us to expect a blizzard Friday. I didn't know if I should believe it or not. I've lived here for 8 years and yes, it snows but the most ever was like 6". I decided I better do a few errands before the snow came. First, I went to Sam's to order Zachary's birthday cake and that store was packed!! Later that night after dinner I went to Walmart for some groceries. I should have gone earlier they were wiped out of everything!!! No bottled water, no meats, no veggies, no chili making supplies. It was unreal. Now there are a lot of smaller towns around us that come here for supplies but it's not like we were having a hurricane or something that would cause power outage?? I am not sure what the big deal was. They even canceled the schools that night. I worked for this school district for 5 years and not once did they cancel school. We went no matter what the weather. Heck, maybe this storm was going to be worse that I thought.

Anyway, the next morning there was in fact some snow and it was blowing like crazy. I tried to open my back door and chunks of snow fell on my floors, tried the front door same thing. Not much was sticking because is was just blowing around but it found it's way and stuck on the doors and windows. We decided to go out after naps. We bundled everyone up only to hear Gabbie say too cold, go inside. I think she was scared because snow was hitting her in the face and the wind was blowing so hard still.

So this morning we wake up to it all already starting to melt. We hurry up and eat breakfast, go through the bundling routine again and finally make it outside. There were areas so deep where more than 1/2 of the fence was covered. I stood in one area and wasn't even on the grass and it was up to my waist. We played for a long time out there...we built the snowman I couldn't wait to build, Thom built a tunnel to crawl through, we sled, we ran, we through snowballs, we made snow angels and I even just chunked Gabbie into the air to land in the snow...she didn't like this as much as I did...LOL. She did however like getting nailed with snowballs.

A couple of hours later most of the snow is already gone except for the areas where the snow is really deep. The tunnel colapsed and the snowman's head fell right off. Kinda sad but it was fun while it lasted. We have pictures to remind us though.

Update

So it's been awhile since I've updated this. I had good intentions when I started it but life can just get so hectic. Our household has been filled with sickness that has kept me pretty busy. Thom has had something since January and it turned into bronchitis and then onto something that looked like mumps??!! He was banished to the basement for several days since we weren't sure what it was and I could still here his coughing through the kids monitors from down there. The kids managed to get what he had, then they managed to come down with the flu. I managed to somewhat avoid it and just got a mild cold but right after they got better my back has gone out. I went to the Dr. finally and found out I strained muscles in my lower back, I have psoriasis and a bladder infection....LOVELY.
On top of all of this my little baby boy is having a birthday in a little over 2 weeks. I've been party planning and making him a montage that is consuming my life right now. In fact it is after midnight right now. I should be in bed since no one is sleeping well anymore and I'm up at all hours of the night for the last two months.
I had to come brag on my babies before heading to bed though...

GABRIELLE IS POTTY TRAINED!!!! WOO HOO!!! I've been waiting to say that for a long time!!!! Now if only I can keep little Z from playing in her potty. One down, one to go.

Zachary continues to learn something new everyday. He runs everywhere anymore and he is climbing everything and anything. He stands on his little ride on cars like they are surfboards and he climbs whatever he can. This boy doesn't stop from the moment he wakes up. He is go, go, go all day....why is it I can't lose this weight???? He has the cutest little dance anytime he hears music. He is just too much. He FINALLY started saying mama on Saturday so now he can say Dada, mama and hi. I cannot believe he will be 1 soon. It is amazing how fast time goes once you have children.

Having children is the best thing I've ever done by far. Every night when I put them in bed I just think what amazing blessing they are. It still just makes me overwhelmed with emotion when I look at them. They are unbelievable and the love I have for them is so indescribable. I can still remember the days of crying myself to sleep wondering what I did so wrong in life to make God punish me for not being able to have babies. Now I wonder what in the world I ever did so right to be able to be the mother of my two perfect little miracles. I still don't know what it was but I do know that I'm so thankful for them!!!!