Each Life That Touches Ours For Good

I had the privilege to speak at Trisha's funeral. I am scared to death to speak in public and would normally run the other way, but I would do anything for Trisha, anything. Although she came into this world mentally and physically challenged, Trisha was one of those people who never cared what the world thought or what the latest trends were. She loved life and was truly happy with the simple things. If Trisha knew you, she loved you plain and simple. It didn't matter how long she knew you or what you had done you could feel how much she loved you. She had many great loves, one of which was babies. Even though she was never to have a real baby of her own she loved her nieces and nephews with as much love as we did. As my brother so greatly put it she was blessed with bionic arms and could hold a baby for hours, loving every minute of it. She never complained, she had a joy for life. I learned so much from her in the short amount of time that we had with her, I just hope that I can live my life close to the way that she lived hers. Giving love freely and finding joy in simple things.

Trisha

My sister Trisha had a heart attack Thursday morning. After three days of letting her heart rest as much as possible to see how strong it was (or wasn't) it was decided that her body could not take the invasive surgery that she needed, nor could she withstand (or understand) the intense rehab and recovery that would be needed for her to have her normal life. She passed away at 8:58 this morning at St. Marks hospital. My parents, sisters and I were able to be with her all night. Her funeral tentatively is set for Thursday at 11, dependant on family's ability to get here. And I couldn't make this post without saying thank you to the wonderful ICU nurse, Carolyn, for her wonderful care of my sister and my family as a whole during this most difficult time.

For Jake

I was hoping that Abbie would wait to walk until Jake got home, but she has proven again that she does things on her own time table... she is only 10 months 17 days old.

St Patrick's Day Fun

While the kids were outside playing I hid some shamrocks around the house for them to find. Nothing spectacular but they had fun finding all of them.

Since it is Tuesday I have my nephews, so Josh got to search too.
Even Abbie got in on the fun.
And here they are with all the shamrocks

Birthday party...

Tonight we went to the Presser/Christiansen family birthday party for all March birthdays. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast playing with all of their cousins. Good food, lots of laughs, and even more kids; it always makes for a good time. Just wish Jake would have been able to be there.

It's Official...

Jake will be starting his new job in April, when he gets back from his military school. While I am excited (and proud) that he got a promotion at work, I am a little apprehensive about what this is going to mean for our family. You see, his new job is in Moab.... I really don't want to move there permanently. It is a fun place to visit, lots of awesome National Parks to explore and lots of other great outdoor activities for us to do as a family. But not very many places to buy things, there isn't even a Walmart there (the closest one is in Grand Junction, CO). And don't get me started on the number of tourists that flock there every summer. Schools aren't that great and the cost of housing is expensive. The agony of selling our house in this market verses the pains of renting it to someone else just makes me want to scream. But somehow we will make it work. The plan for now is for Jake to commute back and forth on the weekends (right now they are only working 4 10's so he can be home 3 days a week) while we stay here and let Lexie finish the school year, and figure out what to do with our house. The stress is building............

Just like Dad

I was going through some pictures that I got from my mom's camera today and I found this picture of Ashton at Halloween and I can't believe how much it looks like Jake. Maybe part of it is the uniform, I don't know, but Jake would even pull this face. He really is a miniature of his Dad.

Better Late than never...

I bought these really cute heart shaped cookie cutters at Target just before Valentine's Day and I told the kids that we would make cookies with them for Valentine's Day. Well Valentine's Day came and went and we never made the cookies. I did use the cookie cutters to make heart-shaped french toast on Valentine's Day so my purchase wasn't totally in vain, but Ashton just wouldn't let it rest, he wanted to make cookies and decorate them. Well it just keep getting later and later in the month and then Jake left and then another week went by and we were running out of month, so finally last Monday I decided that if we didn't do it that night we just weren't going to get around to it. So it made a fun FHE activity. Here are some of the pictures, it was really dark and apparently my camera didn't like it very much cause the pictures aren't very good....(that's probably just the photographer in me talking :)