Zachary's headstone

Zachary's headstone was finally set last week. I was so worried I wouldn't be here when it arrived. It took me a long time to order it and to decide what I wanted it to say. It was never anything I had given any thought to before--designing a headstone for one of my precious children. That's also how I felt when, less than 24 hours after we lost Zach, I had to sit down and write his obituary. How do you even know where to begin, or what to say? I was so grateful for the help I had that day from a dear friend.

One of the things that kept going through my mind right after I lost Zach was, "I don't know how to do this." I don't have the wisdom, the experience, the strength. I'm not like others, who always seem know the "right" words, reactions, perspectives. So how can I do this?

What I learned over the next few hours, days, weeks, and now months is that a way is always provided. There has been someone literally holding my hand through each of my darkest moments, each of my impossible tasks. To list people individually would be a mistake, but I hope my savoirs know who they are. Have I said "thank you" enough? Have I expressed enough gratitude for all that has been done for me? I think not.

Gratitude has overwhelmed me almost as much as the grief. I've never been good at the "thank yous"--each year it tops my list of New Years Resolutions. How can I ever help people understand what they have done for me? What their love, support, and especially their prayers have meant. I've have thought a lot about sharing some of the amazing things that people have done for my family, and maybe I will sometime, but for now I just want to tell everyone and anyone Thank You--and hope those words carry the profound meaning that is intended.

So now my little boy's resting place has a name and a face. It turned out just as I hoped it would. It feels very final to me, like a period on a sentence. And again, I am grateful, and so very sad.

We have a house--again.

A week ago I was telling people who asked, "We bought a house." Dave even sent out an email with pictures and the address to our family. So here we are a week later, and we bought a house--with a different address. We got the house that we wanted! We got the house that I fell in love with a few weeks ago--the house that someone bought right out under our noses. In the past couple weeks as we have looked at other homes, I have been so depressed. I couldn't find anything I liked as well as that first house. Maybe I idealized it a little in my mind--you know how that goes--I was throwing the word "perfect" around with wreckless abandon. But I did feel like it was my house--and the right house for my family. So now it is my house--or it will be in a few weeks when we close. I absolutely acknowledge that there were unseen forces involved in making this happen--I'm not a big believer in coincidence anymore.

So here is my question. Why was I blessed with exactly what I wanted while someone else (the previous buyer) was not? I'm sure they are good people. I'm sure the owners of the other home we put a contract on--and then backed out of-- are good people too. Yet, now they are both out of luck--just so I can feel a little bit optimistic about moving. How does that work exactly? Anyone, anyone? Maybe I don't want to know the answer. I'll just accept this as a big fat blessing from the Lord--and hope that no one wants to egg our new house after we move in.

Our new house in Keller--knock on wood.

5 reasons why I'm tired, stressed, and grateful

1. We sold our house. In fact, that was much easier than it should have been. We put it on the market a week ago--and it sold this past Monday. What a huge relief! (By "easy" I am referring to actual amount of time I had to keep a perfectly spotless house. I am not referring to the past week and a half of cleaning, packing, organizing, weeding, planting, painting, decorating, etc. that we (and others) have done).

2. We put an offer on a home in the Dallas area while we were there last weekend. Earlier this week, the offer was rejected and the counter offer was pitiful. We gave up on that one.

3. We then put an offer on our number two choice. We negotiated back and forth and finally our offer was accepted. So we have a house--we thought.

4. Last night, our realtor called and let us know that the first house that we fell in love with two weeks ago, might be up for negotiation. So we jumped on it, and are now attempting to get out of our previous contract and negotiate this third house--which is actually the first house. I'm feeling quite guilty for attempting to reneg on the 2nd house--they are probably relieved, like we were, to have sold it. But not guilty enough to not make an attempt for our favorite house. Trust me, I'm confused too.

5. This morning, during the scheduled home inspection of our home, the buyers whole family--and a few friends---showed up too. I was expecting just a guy with a clipboard--not an additional dozen men, women, and children. Needless to say, I was not prepared. "Not prepared" doesn't even cover it. If I described the kitchen, Claire's room, my bathroom, and myself--you'd be embarrased for me. So I'll spare us both.



So in the past few days, we've sold our house, and put in three offers on three homes. That's the grateful part, and the stressed part. Oh, and the tired part. Plus there's some guilt and some excitement mixed in there.

5 months

Today was the 5th month anniversay of the day we lost our Zachary. I am so afraid of forgetting the special things about him--his personality, his laugh, his smile. There are so many people that I care about who never got to meet him. So I thought I'd share a few special things about Zachary.

Zachary loved to give hugs. If you picked him up, he would often put his arms around your neck and give you a hug. Even when he was really young--like 5 or 6 months old. He also really loved to play with your hair. I loved to feel his little fingers running through my hair when he gave me one of his special hugs.

I hope Timari will forgive me for posting this--it was the best example I had of his "hugs".

Zachary was almost always happy. Really. He was the happiest baby we ever had. He had a smile on his face from the moment he woke up in the morning, until he went to bed at night. (Although I got to witness a couple of "tantrums" after he turned one--for the most part he was just happy to be here.)

Zach was so easy. He just went with the flow. Since he was the youngest of five kids, I had to cart him around a lot. He never seemed to mind our lack of schedule. He slept on the go, ate on the go, and was always interested in his surroundings. If I had to wake him up early from a nap, it was fine with him--sometimes he would just fall back asleep in his car seat or stroller.

Zachary loved walking. He was so proud of himself when he learned how to walk. He just walked around from room to room with the biggest smile on his face. He thought he was pretty cool. Once he learned to walk, he never reverted back to crawling, no matter how many times he fell--and he fell a lot. I was a little sad that I missed his first steps, but was so grateful that he shared them with two people who loved him so much--his aunt Rachel and uncle Ben.

Zachary loved to be outside. He loved to feel the wind in his face. Last summer, we spent a week camping on the beach. Zach was so happy most of the time, to just sit in his stroller and enjoy the ocean breeze. At home, he loved playing in the backyard--especially when someone pushed him in the swing.

I loved how happy the kids were to have him. They literally fought over him. Each one of my children loves and misses this little guy.

It's hard to imagine that 5 months have past since we lost him. In some ways it feels like a lifetime. My life is forever changed with this enormous loss. I'm so grateful for the knowledge that one day I can have him again. I wish that were enough to take away the pain right now. But it gives me hope. I just miss him--today, and every day.

A birthday, some fireworks, and a rainbow

Still catching up on some random stuff--

Justin turned 11 a couple weeks ago. On his actual birthday, Dave was out of town, and it was Sunday, so it was just pretty much a regular day with the addition of a lemon cake and 11 birthday candles.

Oh, and a pink wig.

The next day, when Dave got home, we had a little family party with the Lewis's and Ben and Rachel. By "party", I mean cake and presents--which is all he really cares about, after all.

He was excited about his presents--especially the new electric razor scooter, a surprise gift from our friend Kelly. He also got a pretty awesome microscope from his parents, but apparently that wasn't photo worthy.

The other day he said to me, "I just can't decide what I want to do for my "friend" party." Sweet kid, he still thinks he's getting a party. I guess he doesn't understand the concept of "We're moving to Dallas and there will be no more fun, ever." (Or at least until we sell our house).

On a sappy note.... I love this kid. He's had it pretty rough this past year--losing his baby brother, roommate and best friend (who he wanted so desperately) all at once. They had such a special relationship, and brought out the joy in eachother. For 14 months, I had the wonderful experience of seeing Justin truly happy. Justin had to witness and experience just about every horrible moment of our tragedy, and has felt more sorrow and grief than any 10-year-old kid ever should. I will forever be grateful for that last day that they spent together, when I kept Justin home from school for no apparent reason, and he just spent the whole day playing with Zach. He has overcome a lot these past few months. I love this 11 year old boy.

Justin and Zachary

Okay, back to random stuff....

4th of July was not the fun day that the kids were expecting. It was all work and no play--except for the 5 hours we spent at the baseball game with friends and family, eating hot dogs and ice cream, and watching fireworks. Do you feel sorry for us? We actually did get a lot of yard work done during the day--which was sort of fun to work on together as a family. Of course, if I had taken pictures of that part, no one would look like they were having much fun.

Sadly, this was the best picture I got of our fireworks. They were actually pretty great, but this place is no Washington, D.C.

On to our house hunting trip to Dallas. Thanks to Cara, Kelly, and Kaylynn for watching our kids for us--on practically no notice.

It was nice to get away for a little while--although there wasn't much relaxing happening. We saw about 15 homes in several different areas--and attended two different wards. It was hot and humid and emotional (somehow that makes sense). We did find a home that we fell in love with. This was the perfect home for us--it seemed. For the first time in a long while, I was feeling optimistic. This was a beautiful, perfect home with a beautiful, perfect yard. We attended the ward on Sunday, and loved it. So guess what happened? This home, my home, that was just sitting there waiting for us to buy it for six months (that's right, it was on the market for 6 months), was just snatched out from under us while we were at church. (Does anyone have a couple dozen eggs I could borrow?)

Anyway, we drove home that day feeling pretty defeated. Like, really, really defeated. Miserable, sad, sorrowful--should I go on?

As we were driving, we looked out the window and saw a pretty amazing sight. It was a giant full double rainbow. A beautiful enormous complete double rainbow, for crying out loud!!! Now if that wasn't a sign from above, then I don't know anything. It was truly beautiful. Unfortunately, our crappy little digital camera could only capture part of it--through the window--as we were driving--but use your imagination to envision the whole thing.

Okay, sappy again--

Sometimes while I'm going through all my grief and self-pity, I fail to notice what's right in front of my face. Little symbols of peace and comfort that let me know that I have not ever been left "alone". My life is absolutely being guided by someone who knows and loves me. This rainbow was a little reminder to me that after the horrible storms of life--there will come the peace, beauty, and joy that can only come from a loving Heavenly Father. It will be okay, of course it will.

Catching up on random stuff--Monster Blog

It's been an action packed summer so far--and not in a good way. Just kidding, I like to add "not in a good way" onto everything I say for some comic relief. I'm usually the only one who gets the joke--except for maybe my sister Amy.

I've missed posting far too many exciting events during my extended trip down depression lane--and so now I'm playing catch-up. Really what I should be doing right now is organizing closets but they're just too messy--and not in a good way.

First, I was going to include more pictures of our fabulous family reunion--since we took so many. Then I read my sister-in-law Jessica's blog and she did all the blogwork for me--so check out the play by play of our week at http://mjfam.blogspot.com/

Here are a few of the portraits that Dave took:

First the 9-year-olds (who I refer to as LEA--Lily,Emma, Aubrey)

Then there's GCA (Gabe, Claire and Abby--also my initials--that just came to me)


Notice how happy Gabe is to be wearing "church clothes"

This is CA--or Clabby

This is just the rest of them--does anyone else notice how the older kids get, the less you take pictures of them?

This is just a bunch of kids wearing orange. I recognize a couple of them.

This is me just bravely posting pictures that have not been edited, cropped, enhanced, altered

When you see this on our Christmas card this year--the visible backdrop will have mysteriously disappeared.

Okay, so while we were in Phoenix, we spent a day and night with our awesome friends, The Allens. We had lunch, went to a Diamondbacks game, and had a great time catching up.

Lauren and Lexi

Justin and Tate

Me and Tami

The Aubreys

Ashlyn and Claire--together again
The whole gang

Moving right along--after our awesome visit with the Allens--Lauren and Lexi talked me into leaving her in Mesa for the week. I'm such a pushover. I also let Claire stay with Ashlyn for a couple days, then she spent the rest of the week with Gabe.
We did a little spur of the moment "cousin swap" --we brought Lily and Daniel home with us for a week and left Claire at the Mannings. I definitely ended up with the better end of that deal. Here are a few highlights of the week: movies, swimming, restaurants, pedicures for the girls, arcade for the boys, night at the drive-in theater, a lemonade stand, ice skating, and of course, late nights playing Wii.
Somehow I talked my brother-in-law Ben into driving all the way to New Mexico to "trade back the kids". Thanks also to Britt for meeting up with him with Claire and Lauren.

Hey, is anyone still there? Just checking.

Next--the day Claire and Lauren got home from Arizona, my sister Jessica and her family came to visit on their way home from Utah. More good times. We wish they could have stayed longer.

The night Claire, Ashlyn and Elena were going to sleep on the tramp--but it only lasted about one hour--while the adults got to enjoy some "Arrested Development" inside.

This is baby Sophie--the human one. Not to be confused with the puppy Sophie who resides in our backyard.

This is little Melanie--who looks far better than me in a swimsuit.

You know when you call someone and you get their answering machine and you leave a ridiculously long message--but you still have more to say--and the machine hangs up on you midsentence. I think that's what is happening here with this blog. I'll have to finish my random stuff later--like Justin's 11th birthday and my house hunting trip to Dallas. Plus, I'm getting pretty tired--and not in a good way.