Summer fun!

This summer has been in full swing! And I have been a terrible blogger! We have been spending ALOT of time in the water since it has been sooooooo HOT here! This week the highest temp was 108!!! Yikes!!!! I am getting to the point where if there isn't water of some type involved I want to stay indoors! We have had fun swimming in Grandma and Grandpa Ford's pool, making lots of trips to the Adventure Landing water park, playing in the sprinkler, playing in the kiddie/family pool we got for the backyard, and the other day we washed the cars with Maddy for the first time. Oh my goodness she loved it! Her favorite part was getting to squirt the hose and trying to squirt her Daddy! She thought this was hilarious and just laughed and laughed! We have also recently went on a few little outings, we went to Marineland one day to see the dolphins and then took a ferry accrooss the water to a fort and then went another day to a different Fort about an hour away. Maddy went to her first movie. We also went to storytime at the library, hands on kid's museum, another kids play place, going to the parks, day trip to a water park, etc. It would take me forver to post all the pics so I just picked a few of my favorites from each outing and made a slideshow instead!

This slideshow made with Smilebox

Memory Boxes

When Tyler was born at 20 weeks he was very little (and perfect!) I was so worried that we wouldn't be able to find something that would fit him, my mom, Grandma, and Aunt got together and made the most adorable little outfit for him to wear since we counldn't find anything. So ever since then I have always said one day I wanted to make and donate little gowns for other parents facing the same thing. This year I was so excited to start a project to do in memory of Tyler instead of just focusing on the fact that he is not here with us, although that of course is always on my mind. So I began planning and thinking of things I could put in a memory box to donate to the hospital. I contacted the hospital chaplin at Baptist Downtown (I know her from infant loss support group meetings that I have attended) and told her my idea which she said would be very welcomed.

My Mom and I began by looking online for patterns to make 4 gowns made to fit babies weighing under about 4 lbs. It took forever but we finally found 2 patterns. My mom and I went to the store and bought all the materials to make them. Since I am not the most handy person my mom did the sewing and then she left the buttons for me to sew on.

Next we had a girls night to work on the memory boxes. We sewed on the buttons, made teeny baby bracelets that said, "baby" and "angel", made little pink bows for the girl boxes, and made 2 scrapbook pages to go in each box to place the babies hand and footprints. Then a friend of mine Kristis who chochet's made 4 teeny hats for me! She was so sweet and did this free of charge! They turned out just perfect! My friend Kelli ordered brochures from Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, this is an organization that comes to the hospital and provides professional infant loss photography free of charge. They create such beuatiful images for the families to cherish forever, I wish that I would have had them come out when Tyler was born, this is something that I will always regret. Last, I went to the store to get hand mold kits, and the boxes to put everything in.

I finally got everything completed 2 nights ago and I am going to be delivering them this week. Here are some pictures of the boxes and I few pics from the night that the girls came over to help! Thanks girlies!