November 4.

Today, November 4th, our middle child turns 21 years old. This is unreal to me. I can not figure out how time goes by so fast. Sure wish I could flip a switch and slow it down.

This will be a hard birthday for all of us to get through. The first birthday of Carly's siblings, without Carly. The first of many that we have to figure out how to get through. My heart breaks that she will not be here to join in with the birthday cake and ice cream. She loved her "bubba" very much. And cake and ice cream were a big hit with her too.

We will face today as we face each day; walking through grief, as there is no way around it. We'll eat cake and ice cream and sing to our middle child. Just as we always do. Although it will not be the same. We will do it. We have to.

Today is Brad's day. The focus, on him today. Happy Birthday Brad!

Here's Brad on his 1rst birthday.

And here he is today...well, recently!

Halloween memories.

The following picture's are from last year.
I'm very happy to have these Halloween memories with Carly.

But, I'm very sad that there will be no more
Halloween memories made with her.

Last year was the first Halloween that Carly really got "into" carving pumpkins.

Normally, she would have sat and watched her "Paul" while making

faces of disgust when he pulled all the goopy seeds!

Not last year though!

Last year, she got into it.

Big Time!!

In the above picture, I can still hear her "ugh" sounds

as she scooped out the inside of her pumpkin.

She was still a bit unsure of all the goop,

but she kept right on going.

The next day, we sat the freshly carved Jack-O-Lanterns out on the porch.

We usually did silly face Jack-O-Lantern's for Halloween.

Carly would always giggle after they were complete.

I so wish she would have sat down with those Jack-O-Lanterns,

but she would have NO part of it. She stood with me, in the

yard as I snapped the pictures.
I'm not complaining tho., because we have many
wonderful, Halloween memories.

Fathers Day

Father's Day came and went, just as Mother's Day did. We tried hard to find some kind of joy, but it was very much nonexistent.

Again, just as Mother's Day, we visited our sweet angel at the dreaded cemetery. We trimmed her grass, which is unreal how her grave is completely covered with fresh new grass. We noticed this rapid growth of grass as being somewhat odd. Looking around the cemetery, we noticed graves from a year ago, with nothing but very sparse grass, most of it being crab grass. It leaves us in awe each time we visit Carly. Her grass looks as if it's been there forever. Nice and green and always needing to be trimmed with the weed whacker.

Soon after Carly passed away, I received this very treasured gift. Paul really wanted one too. At first I wasn't sure he'd really wear one, but Ashleigh insisted we get it. And so, he got one for Father's Day. He was beyond thrilled. Although, sad too. Kind of a bitter sweet gift. It hasn't left his neck since he put it on.

Later that evening , we went to my parents house. Where my dad received a gift from me and Paul. And then he was handed a gift bag from the kids. He pulled the card out to read it. It was a card with a monkey on it...(which is what Paul and Ashleigh always called Carly). And then he started to pull the tissue out of the bag. The gift inside; a framed picture of my dad and Carly that was taken about 1 1/2 yrs ago on my dads birthday. The frame that Ashleigh put the picture in said, "I Love Papa". Carly never called my dad grandpa, even tho all the other grand kids do! Not Carly, he was "Papa"! I m quite certain that we broke my dads heart all over again. He cried and cried and cried. And thanked Ashleigh over and over. Needless to say, we all were in tears. This is the picture. Sorry for the small size. My mom emailed it to me and for some reason, it came to me teeny tiny. It's actually a regular sized 4x6 pic!


I talked to my mom the other night,,,, I talk to her every day. But, the other night she told me that every time my dad looks at that picture, he breaks down in tears. He loves the picture and misses Carly so very much.

Ashleigh's letter to Carly

This letter was written by Ashleigh and given to our Pastor, just before Carly's funeral to be read aloud. None of us had read what Ashleigh had written before the service. I don't think that there was a dry eye in the entire funeral home.




Hopefully, you all can click on the letter to make it bigger and make it easier for you to read.

I will share more about the beautiful service another day. And beautiful it was.

To the circus we went..

Sorry for lack of posts. I've been so busy the last week or so. Spring is vastly approaching and I've been trying to do some spring cleaning/down sizing.

We did take time out last Sunday to take Carly to the circus. She loved it. She was a little upset though, because she wanted to see "giraffes"! They didn't haven any. Aside from her asking a million and one times to see the giraffes, she enjoyed herself.

Carly really like the Ariel Artistry.
I was surprised these girls did this stuff without nets
under them.

This lady was really good.
When she was done, Carly wanted "more mama, more"!

This little guy was making his first Circus appearance.

Ahh, the dancing girls. Another of Carly's favorites.

These white tigers were beautiful. They had a female trainer. Which for some reason really surprised me. No way would I be in the ring with 6 tigers!

The pony rides. Carly was a little nervous getting on this pony. She refused to let go of Paul for one second.

We had a very good time. Carly really enjoyed herself. Paul and I were very impressed with the show this circus put on. It was really something. It lasted forever... close to 3 hours. But, Carly did just dandy. She sat in her seat and watched the entire show. Although, Saturday, when I finally told her where we were going on Sunday, she kept telling us we were going to the "zoo". I guess she figured, you see animals at the zoo... Silly kid!

Teeth. Sissy and missing poppa and grandma.

..Carly's complaining of a tooth ache. Remember this post?

Carly's teacher has sent me a note home on Wednesday and Thursday, telling me that Cary was complaining about her tooth hurting. Ugh! I have checked her teeth out each day. Even using a flash light. I wanted to make sure there was no abscess going on. Everything looks okay. To me anyway.

Yesterday I broke down and called the dentist. I didn't call the one we went to the end of Aug. That place was just too uncomfortable. Not to mention their receptionist was probably one of the most unpleasant persons I've ever come across. She was full of smart little comments, that stung just a bit. You can click here, for a refresher.

Anyway, I found a local kids dentist that sounds like she is wonderful. The receptionist was bubbly and sweet. Hopefully, this time at the dentist Carly will come out without tears streaming down her little face. I did some pretty intense searching this time around. I called other dentist offices in the area asking for recommendation for a pediatric dentist. I mentioned we had been to one in a nearby town. Each time I mentioned that dentist office, I was told, "Oh no, were not recommending them". Hmmm, I wonder why???

Come next Tuesday morning, Carly will be heading off to the dentist to see if any of those damaged teeth are in need of a root canal. I'm praying all checks out. I'd even be happy with a cavity at this point. Anything would be better than major dental issues.

Carly freaked out just hearing me talk to all the dentists offices I called yesterday. Poor kid. She is terrified of the dentist. Thank you Dr. J, for scaring the holy H out of my daughter. Needless to say, I'm dreading next Tuesday with a passion.

**********

On a brighter note. Ashleigh is coming home for a visit tomorrow. To say that Carly is happy would be an understatement. She is on could nine! We're all pretty anxious to see "sissy". We haven't seen her in over 7 weeks. Carly has been telling us all the things she and "sissy" are going to do. Here's the run down so far: puzzles, read all books (as Carly says), paint, color, play games, build with blocks, write letters and numbers...Yep, they're going to be busy sisters this weekend!

Another thing Carly is looking forward to next week. My parents will be coming home from their winter in Florida. They should be home by the 14th or 15th. Carly is missing them awful this year. In fact, she woke up twice this week, very early and I mean early, like 5 am early, asking for "poppa and grandma". She even shed tears. Poor little girl.

Happy Birthday (a day late) to Carly!!

Happy Birthday Carly!

Only a day late in blogging about it. I wasn't feeling too well, therefore no blogging yesterday. I did edit pictures very late last night. It was after midnight and I figured I may as well wait on the whole darn thing!

click to enlarge collage

I can not believe that our little gal turned 8 years old!! Although, there are times that I feel she is much older. Given all she has been through during her first 4.5 years of life.

We had a quiet, small little birthday party for Carly. Just our family of 5 and my parents. Simple, but sweet. Carly prefers smaller gatherings anyway. We've decided that we will give her a big ole birthday bash in 2 years. When she's 10. That's not very far off. Yikes!

The collage above is made up of birthday pictures, of course ;o) . Carly and her favorite, Ashleigh (who left today, to go back to her life in Kalamazoo). In one of the pictures, Carly is showing us how old she is. She is trying very hard to master 8. That darn left hand/fingers just don't cooperate for very long.

Carly is having quite a hard time tonight. She is already missing "sissy". She wants her back home. We told her that sissy went back to her house. That was the wrong thing to tell Carly. She had a livid fit. Wish us luck the next few days, while Carly goes through "sissy" withdrawals!

The second time around...

Yesterday, Dec 17th, was our anniversary. It was our 10th year. The second time around! For those of you who don't know our history. Boring to some and interesting to others...here it goes. Paul and I started dating while in high school. I was 17. Paul was 18. We married in May 1986, the first time around, at the tender age of 20 & 21. Ashleigh was born at the end of that same year. Bradley came along in Nov of 1989.

Fast forward to 1991. Paul and I divorced. We sold our brand new home and went our separate ways. The kids with me. I rented a small house that my parents owned. Paul moved to the Detroit area.

Moving right along to 1997. By this time, our anger toward one another finally started to subside. Our kids were constantly begging both of us to go with them to the fair, movies, school activities...etc. We both caved each time they asked both of us to do things with them. Eventually, Paul and I decided that we were getting along very well. After many conversations and spending lots of time together, we decided to try living together. Our thoughts were, if we could get along so well, we owed it to our kids to at least try one more time. And so we did.

By the time Paul moved back in. I had bought some land and had a modular home put on it. The kids and I had been living here about 1 year. We all were together again. Boy did we have one happy little boy. Bradley was in HEAVEN having his daddy back home. Ashleigh was too, but it was just different for Brad.

December 17, 1999. Paul and I headed to the court house with my brother and sister in-law as witnesses, and got married...the second time around. The kids knew we were getting married again, but opted out of going to the court with us. It was Christmas time and their school parties were going on that day. Plus, they thought it was cheesy!

Now, here's a question for you all. Which anniversary would you celebrate? We really don't celebrate either. Maybe because we aren't sure which one we should be celebrating! HaHa! At any rate, the second time around for us, has proven to be so much better than the first time around.

The best result of our getting re-married is of course CARLY! I think Ashleigh and Brad would agree also :0)

Busy, busy, busy!

So much going on these last few days. I've been busy shopping and wrapping Christmas gifts. I'm nearly done! WOO WHOO!! Paul and I are meeting at the mall after he gets out of work today. My hopes are to get DONE! Honestly, I don't have much left to buy. I have our kids done. Which is a huge accomplishment for me. I even have all their gifts wrapped already. Another HUGE accomplishment for me. My goal is to get everything bought and wrapped this week. Then, next week, when Carly is off for Christmas break, we can bake and make cookies.

I will likely be absent from blogging over the next several days. We have so much going on. Not just finishing up with all the shopping. I have Carly's Christmas party at school on Friday. Saturday we are heading to Kalamazoo, bright and early. Ashleigh graduates from WMU at noon! Then we're all heading out to eat and celebrate. Which reminds me...I need to get her a graduation gift. Sure hope I can find a Congratulations to the Graduate card this time of year.

The following recipes are a couple that Carly and I will be making next week.

Golden Caramels

1/2 lb butter (2 cups)
1 lb sugar (2 cups)
1 C light corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 C broken/chopped nuts

Melt butter and add rest of ingredients. Stir constantly. Using a candy thermometer, allow temp to reach 240. Remove from heat and add nuts and vanilla. Pour mixture into buttered pan and cut into squares. Wrap each square in wax paper.



Turtles

2 pecan halves on un-greased pan. Place a caramel (store bought, not the above caramels). Place in oven at 325 for 5 minutes. Pull out of oven and press down on the caramel with the backside of a buttered spoon. Work quickly. Then place a Hershey kiss on top!

Back into the swing of things. And My menu plan, returns!

It's Monday. Time to get back into the groove of things. We had a great time enjoying our family. My mom and dad did Thanksgiving dinner at their house. As my kids feel is a "tradition". Which it is. But, my parents are getting older. They wear out very easily. Not sure how much longer we can keep this "tradition" up. You know that old saying, "Everything tastes better at Grandma's house". My kids believe that 100%! And I'm a good cook!

The run down of our weekend went something like this: We ate too much. Did some laundry. Watched too much TV. Went shopping on Black Friday. Did TONS of Ashleigh's laundry. Did some online shopping. Did some more of Ashleigh's laundry. Made a couple of batches of Christmas cookies. They weren't the homemade kind though. Paul saw the Pillsbury Sugar Cookies at the store. The one's that have imprints of a Christmas tree and a reindeer and he just knew Carly would love them! She did. But, daddy loved them more! Long weekends are great. But man they really throw me off.

On Saturday, I made a turkey. Paul's boss gave his guys each a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. He purchased them from a turkey farm. So it was a fresh turkey, not frozen. I decided to just to go ahead and make it. That way, Ashleigh would have plenty of left overs to take back to school with her. I must say, that turkey was delicious. The stuffing was yummy. The gravy so tasty. We even had cranberry/orange relish...Mmm! The only real difference in our turkey dinner, and the one we had at my mom and dad's, was in terms of potatoes. My kids requested that I make Hash brown Casserole.

Carly is home from school today. Actually, she was home on Wednesday of last week too. I had gotten a note from her teacher, last Monday, that Carly had been pulling her right ear quite a bit. She also told the teacher it hurt. Although, she didn't seem to be bothered too much by it on Monday night. I sent her to school Tuesday and already had planned on taking her to the doctor Wednesday. By Wednesday Carly had developed a nasty sounding cough with runny nose...Sure enough, she had an ear infection and junky sounding lungs. The doc put her on Omnicef for 10 days. She is doing much better. Still has a nasty sounding deep cough, but the coughing isn't coming as often. I expect she'll be back to school tomorrow.

Now that things are beginning to settle down a bit with the school. I can get back to my menu planning. It really is so much easier to have a menu in place. I've missed it. Although, through the next month, I will only be doing it weekly. Too much going on to plan out that far ahead.

This weeks menu:

Monday Chili and corn muffins

Tuesday Pork chops, wild rice & candied carrots

Wednesday Hot turkey sandwiches

Thursday Potato soup, rolls & salad

Friday PIZZA!!

Saturday Baked beans with franks (hot dogs), fried potatoes & veggies

Sunday Crock pot chicken, oven roasted potatoes & veggies

I leave you with this recipe of my roasted potatoes. Keep in mind. This is my version of roasted potatoes. Meaning it's totally made up, by me. Oh, but it's so good!

Get out your 9X13 baking dish. Spray with Pam, or whatever cooking spray you use. (you can, and I do quite often, use EVOO to 'grease' the baking dish. In stead of cooking spray).Wash several (like I said, I made this up) red baby potatoes. Leaving skins on. Sometimes, I chunk these up. Other times, I leave them be. Dump some EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) into a large plastic Ziploc storage bag. I sprinkle in quite a bit of Sea Salt, (We love the taste of the Sea Salt and EVOO combo) Pepper and Italian seasoning. (I use McCormick) Seal the plastic bag. Shake up contents. Pour into baking dish Sprinkle a bit more Sea Salt, Pepper and Italian seasoning. Place in oven at 325 bake until potatoes are tender. You will need to drizzle a tad bit more EVOO on the potatoes during the baking process. I usually do it a couple of times. Being these are baby potatoes, it doesn't take long for them to bake. These are delicious. I came up with this due to the abundance of these yummy little red potatoes from our garden.

Have a great Monday!

I am Thankful.

"If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get".
Frank A. Clark

Each year, as Thanksgiving approaches I seem to reflect back. Back to the beginning of our journey with Miss Carly. A journey that I wasn't sure I was ready to handle or even if I were going to be able to handle. Carly brought me through any and all doubt. Isn't that funny? She brought me through. For that, I am thankful.

Sure, I reflect back often. You've read much of that reflection on this blog. Each anniversary of each of Carly's health crisis' are forever etched into my brain. But this time of year. I look back and realize just how lucky our family is. I am thankful. Thankful to have this little girl our lives.

As we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, I will do as I have done the past 7+ years. Look at this little gift that God gave to our family. Watch her gobble up her turkey with all the fixin's. For that, I am so thankful.

Update.

My mom went for her appt with nephrology yesterday. She was suppose to have an ultra sound done of her kidneys. The doc said this would tell them the loss of function and if it were both or just one kidney. He suspected both, due to the results of her previous tests.

Imagine her surprise when she walked in to his office yesterday and he told her, "no need for the ultra sound, you're A-okay"! She was shocked and very happy. This specialist did another work up on her 2 weeks ago. All her levels that were very concerning (blood levels) are all NORMAL now!!! He is not concerned at all. Says she may have had a UTI going on and that may have thrown everything off. Safe to say, my 71 year old mother was doing the happy dance!


This picture is nearly 2 years old. It was taken Christmas of 2007! Sadly, my mom and I are usually snapping the pictures, so we have very few of ourselves! Which tells me, I need to snap more pictures of my parents. My mom in particular!

Thanks for your prayers. Mom's words last night were, "prayers work"!