Memorial Day

Today, I am reminded of my Grandpa Ford. I miss him so much. We went to a cookout and swim in the pool for Memorial Day and it just isnt the same without him there. I miss seeing him watching the kids playing in the pool and reminding everyone just how blessed we are to have such a close family. He also served for many years in the Navy. What a sacrifice he made serving our country and spending so much time overseas and apart from his family. I couldn't even imagine what that would have been like. We had fun goofing off at the cookout and pool and then we went to the cemetary to visit Grandpa. Earlier in the day Maddy and I went and got new flowers for Tyler and then I told her, "Ok, do you want to pick a flower for Grandpa Ford?" She said, "Yeah! (which by the way is one of her favorite things to say). She picked some white daisies and then later picked them up and said, "Papa!" My heart melted! I am going to always make sure that Maddy knows all about her Grandpa and how much her loved her.

Tyler's 3rd Heavenly Birthday Celebration

This past weekend we celebrated Tyler's 3rd birthday in heaven. We choose a fishing theme and had the party at Castaway Island, a local state park that is right on the intracoastal and has a dock for fishing etc. Unfortunately on the day of the party it was REALLY low tide so there wasn't any fishing! We still had fun though! (My mom got these adorable mint tins made that say Tyler Matthew Gray, Walking with Jesus, I love them!!!)


We choose a simple menu with hot dogs as the main course and then lots of people offered to bring sides. I also borrowed pools from 2 friends to fill up and let the kids play in. This was a fiasco! I checked the day before to see if the park has a hose we could use to fill up the pools with, they didn't so I had the not so bright idea to bring lots of jugs of water to use to fill the pools then we could keep filling the jugs up with water from the bathroom which was right beside the picnic table. Well... let's just say that didn't go so well. I never realized just how much water goes into those little pools!!!! Luckily Roni went looking for a facuet and found one! Yay!!!! The guys made a couple trips with a HUGE cooler and filled them up! I have to say once filled it was a success the little kids loved the pools!

We also had a bubble machine and water balloons! All the kids loved the water balloons but they were gone sooo fast!!!
Then we did a few art activities, I had little wooden fish for the kids to paint and magic water color fish paper. They turned out cute I thought!

For dessert we had dirt cake- I made mini dirt cake/fishing pails with the worms hanging out of them for the little kids and a large one for the adults and we also had cupcakes that me and the girls made together the night before with blue icing, and a pretzel and goldfish cracker made to look like a fishing pole with a fish on the end.

To end our day each family got a balloon to write Tyler a message on. Maddy was writing on her balloon and it escaped so we got her a new one. Matt gave her a marker and said, "Here you want to draw a picture for Tyler?" Maddy was so cute she said, "Yeah, I draw a boo!!!" She is all about the Disney Halloween dvd right now and anything Halloween related she calls "boo!"

Then we walked down to the end of the dock and did a balloon release, sending the balloons up to Tyler! Maddy loved the ballon release, as we walked back to the car she was telling me all about it. She said, "I balloon up, sky, I bye-bye!"

I cant say that the day went perfectly cause it was a little unorganized and crazy at times but it was still a fun day and I feel so thankful for all our friends and family that were there to remember Tyler along with us.

Separation Anxiety and teething, oh no!

This week has been a LONG one! Maddy has just not been herself lately. I'm not exactly sure what it is but I think that it's a combination of 2 teeth coming in and the beginning of a case of separation anxiety. She has just been VERY irritable, and just falls apart at every little thing that goes wrong or when she doesn't get her way. She flips out when I leave the room and doesn't want to be with anyone else if Mommy is around. And she only wants mommy to help her do things. For example she wanted a drawer opened at my mom's and when my mom tried to open it for her she said, "No! Mommy do!!! Mommy do!!!" Meaning she wanted me to open it. I am like whoaaaa... what in the world???

When she gets mad she has been screaming and has even thrown a few things. She hasn't been eating good either. It has just been a really hard week and I feel defeated! I hate it when Maddy is unhappy and grumpy like this and I don't know what to do to make it better. Because I cant just give into her every whim and have to discipline her when she acts like this. I don't know if it's just teething and separation anxiety, terrible 2's or what? I don't really think I need to take her to the pediatrician because other than a runny nose she seems to be fine. Oh boy, hoping it will get better soon!!!

Little Miss Mad's

Wanted to do a quick update about Maddy and new things going on with her. She is doing better on her talking! Yay! She has therapy once a week for 30 minutes and it is so neat to see her interact with the therapist. She now is starting to string 2-3 words together and last time we were in therapy she said about 5 2-3 word sentences just during the 30 minutes we were there! I am so proud of her! As a Mom I am beginning to notice how much I just immediately try to always have her needs met. this is I think this is something that is natural for parents to do! You usually know what they want without them needing to tell you and give it to them. This is something Matt and I are going to start doing, waiting for her to ASK for things instead of just giving! That will be a hard adjustment! : )

Mad's has been saying things like, "ove you" for "love you" and it just melts my heart! She says "please" and "thank you" and when she wants something instead of just saying "want that" and pointing she is starting to say WHAT it is she wants such as, "I want bubbles." When she wants to do something she says, "I want to do" this is one of her new favorite things to say now because she is getting into that stage where she is wanting a little bit of Independence! She has also added lots of single words to her vocabulary such as cheese, pig, up, down, bridge, sky, house, car, baing uit (for bathing suit), go, those are just a few!

Now that the weather is heating up we have been making frequent visits to Grandma Ford's pool and I was amazed by what a little fish she is! Last year in the water Maddy wasn't near as confident but this year we put on her little vest and she swims all around!!!! She also loves to stand on the side of the pool to jump in to water to you! I bought her some little arm floaties and I hope to be able to teach her to swim by herself with them on by the end of the summer.

There is only a few more weeks of school and subbing left until summer and I cant wait!!!! We have quite a bit of things coming up, Tyler's birthday celebration on Sunday, Will's birthday, and our summer trip- we are going to go for a week to Myrtle Beach! And I'm sure we will be planning lots of different day trips! I am also hoping to really get my house decluttered and ORGANIZED this summer!!! I want to decorate Maddy's playroom and paint and redo our master bathroom, and get caught up on my digital scrapbooking. I am soooo behind! So, we'll see what all I get to! I love summer!

Happy 3rd birthday my little Tyler

So today has been a hard one. Today is Tyler's 3rd birthday. 3!!!! I cant beleive it. It has been 3 years since I last held Tyler in my arms, three years that I have been without him, 3 years of memories that I have missed. Three years without my precious little boy. I wonder so many things about him.... What color hair does he have? What are his favorite things to do? What does his smile look like? What does his little laugh sound like? I wish that I knew these things.... I wish that I was there for him every single to day to share in his milestones and be his mommy. I wish that I could have saved him... kept him here with us but instead I have to spend birthdays at the cemetary full of so so many questions as to WHY??? WHY did this happen? WHY did God choose to take him from us? WHY??? And how am I going to explain that to Maddy when she get's older?
I wish I could say that today was an inspirational day filled with great moments but the truth is, it was hard. Really really hard. Even after 3 years it was still gut-wrenching hard. We began the morning going to a few stores to get the last items for the memory boxes we are making and donating in memory of Tyler. I am happy that this year we are doing something positive to remember him by and to help others. Then we went to the church to pick up the altar flowers from yesterday that my mom and dad got in memory of Tyler. They are so pretty.

After that we went to the florist and picked out some flowers to take to the cemetary. I choose blue and white flowers, blue delphiniums, white roses, and white gerbera daisies. We drove to the cemetary and Maddy was excited when we pulled up. It seems so weird that she get's excited to go here. She is so little she of course doesnt understand what a cemetary is. She knows exactly where to go to Tyler's place all on her own. As we got closer I was surprised to see that someone else had been there and left something. It was my mom and dad! They left a beautiful statue of God's hand holding a baby boy angel. I just LOVE it! And also a card saying that Tyler is probably in Heaven right now sneaking a lick of icing with Grandpa Ford! They also had brought a little ceramic sign that said Happy Birthday! We began arranging the flowers with Maddy of course helping she albsolutely loves to put them in the vase and was so proud of herself. We stayed for a while talking to Tyler and then we headed home for lunch and a nap.

We got home and I saw a gift at our door! It was from a close family friend Lee. She had the cutest little painting made! It is of a family of little birdies. A daddy, bird, a mommy bird, a baby girl bird, and in the cloud a little boy bird (like an angel) complete with reddish hair! I just adore it and am planning on hanging it in the playroom.

We also recieved lots of emails abd phone calls from friends and family letting us know they were thinking of us. I dont know how I would have gotten through today without all of them! We spent the rest of the day at home just us with lots of tears and heartache. We will always miss out little boy and we will always wish that he was here with us.... until we meet again our sweet little boy Tyler. We love you sooo much!

*Venting post*

*****Sigh***** today is just one of those days where I feel like I have 1001 things to do and no time to do it! (and yes I realize I am bloggin right now instead of cleaning but I need to take a minute to relax) So I am in the mood to just vent a bit! Feel free to stop reading now if you dont want to hear it! Lol! : )

I am sitting in my room on the computer looking around on the floor at the massive piles of clothes that need to be hung, Matt is sound asleep beside me with the dog and I am nowhere near ready to go to sleep. It amazes me how men can just sleep when there are so many things still needing to be done around the house. It's like there are no cares in the world! During the day it seems like it's go, go, go, and after Maddy goes down for bed I need time to just chill you know? I am getting ready to wrire one of my infamous to-do lists because I have too many things going on in my mind that I need to write all the things out that I need to get done. Cleaning, bills, getting ready for Tyler's birthday/celebration, laundry, cleaning out my car, go through Maddy's toys to declutter, etc, etc, etc. I kinda need a day to just stay at home all day with no interruptions and get most of it done BUT I dont want to do that! I want to play with Maddy and spend time with her! And tomorrow we have a busy day planned so there's another day gone without getting stuff done.... Hmmmmm.... Any suggestions? What do you do when you get overwhelmed with too much to do but also dont want to miss out on time with your little ones?

I was here for a moment...

.... and then I was gone. Tonight we watched the movie, "The Lovely Bones," Oh my gosh that movie was so sad. It was confusing and sad, leaving me in tears many times and bringing back memories of right after Tyler passed away. When the parents of the little girl were holding each other right after finding out their daughter was gone he father said, "We will get through this." It's weird how certain things bring actual scenes back in my mind. I could actually see in my mind so clearly the day we came home from the hospital, laying in a ball in bed, crying and I remember Matt telling me the same thing. At the time I didn't beleive him. I thought that there was no way I would ever be able to go on without Tyler. No way that I will ever be able to leave my house and do anything normal again. No, at that time my life was over, I didn't want to go on. I know that's scary to think of now, how low of a point I was at but it's the truth. And what I've been through is a part of me, a part of my life, and even though it was the best and worth time in my life, meeting our first born son and then saying goodbye, I wouldn't change being Tyler's mom for anything.

Garden fun!

One of Maddy's new favorite things is watering flowers in the garden. Oh my goodness does she LOVE this! We have Tyler's garden in our backyard that she likes to water and now my Grandma Ford and my Mom are starting a garden with tomatoes and things at my grandmas' house. My mom has been taking the kids over there during the week while she is watching them and they have been having a great time watering the flowers, checking out the little tomatoes that are already growing, and getting their hands dirty in the soil! Here are some pics from last week when we went to Grandma Ford's and in Tyler's garden as well! ps. because she is loving this so much I talked to Matt and we are also going to try to find and plant a lemon tree!!!! How cool would that be?!

Big news!!!!

I got a job for next year! I am so super excited! I was planning on going back to work teaching full time next year and yes, I was pretty much dreading it. I love being home with Maddy and missed her soooo much when I was working full time for those 12 weeks! I knew that if I had to go back to work full time I would do it BUT really wasn't looking forward to it.

But then a job opportunity came up at the school that I took the long-term assignment at. It is for an "interventionist" which is a new position and something that I am really interested in! I have always loved working in the inclusion classroom with the special needs students. For this position I will be exclusively working with different students who are low, struggling in school, have learning disabilities, etc. and I will provide interventions to try and help them succeed! Soooooo I talked to the principal about week and a half ago and then followed up Thursday about the job and I got it!!!!!

Yay! The best part? It's only part time!!!! 3 days a week but I will still be getting my teacher salary! It's the best of both worlds! We will have more money coming in AND I'll get to be with Mad's! Yay!!!!