Top Ten Tuesday: Things to be thankful for in times of grief

My blog has been silent for over a week - I had more important things to tend to.  My husband lost his father to cancer last Tuesday, I lost a wonderful father-in-law and our children lost the best grandfather they could ever ask for.  But through our stress and grief, we have found many things to be thankful for.  Better in-laws do not exist and the Seger extended family is top-notch.... they are simply the best.  Period.  How extremely lucky am I...


Thus, my top ten things to be thankful for in this time of grief.

1.  The coming of Spring.  Even with our loss, a new season and new beginnings are at hand.  To everything, there is a season.
2.  A large, strong, enveloping support system of family and friends who are always at our side.
3.  God's small miracles.  The 8th Seger grandchild was born exactly two weeks before my husband's father passed away.... and was named after him.
4.  God's great miracles.  Our family was told just before Christmas that my father-in-law's cancer had disappeared.  We enjoyed a joyful holiday season together and celebrated birthdays and new births with less stress and worry.
5.  Feeling the calm and peacefulness of prayer before and after our loved one's death.  To feel God's warmth around our hearts as we held hands and prayed together each day by passing day.
6.  The first thunderstorm of spring.  My father-in-law had hoped that it would storm or rain.... and miraculously enough it did.  We cracked a window, turned off the lights, and listened to the rolling thunder and pitter-pat of the raindrops together in silence.
7.  A new appreciation for those we take for granted.  I have the greatest husband in the world.  (sorry ladies.)  The past couple of weeks have only reinforced my belief in his outstanding character, faith and inner strength.  
8.  Reminders of how precious our family is to us. Time spent with each other is now more important than ever.  The past few weeks have given our family time to spend with one another, more time than has been possible for years.  Previous priorities now seem trivial.  "The most important thing to hold on to in life... is each other."  
9.  Reminders of how precious life is.  To live as though each day will be our last.  To hug our spouses and children a little more tightly at both the beginning and end of the day.  To say "I Love You" just because we can.  To know how great of an impact our lives have on others.
10.  Witnessing the miracle of death... the passing from one life to another...a homecoming to the glory of God.  Experiencing this miracle together has changed us...for the better.  And that in itself is something to be thankful for.

For more Top Ten Tuesday posts, visit ohamanda.com

Decision, Decisions...

So now that our Jake will be turning 2 in a few weeks we've getting this question a lot - "so when are you having another baby?" After our eyes would roll into the backs of our heads (sorry everyone...) we would of course say, "I don't know." And that has been the honest truth. Alan and I have known that we had an extremely important decision to make. Do we take the plunge and have a third child? Our blended family complicates things - and makes an already tough decision even, well, tougher. Would Marissa feel left out if Alan and I had another child together? She's not with us half the time and might feel as though she's a fifth wheel... this concern by the way, was brought up by my absolutely wonderful husband who I truly feel is more thoughtful than I am sometimes.... I have given A LOT of thought to having another child - I even talked to my ob/gyn about the idea and charted when the best time to conceive would be. I have thought about how it would effect my graduate work toward my master's degree and how our time / stress / family dynamics and finances would change. Do we even have the money to have a third child? Could we afford to have three children experience and do what we hope to expose them to during their childhood and beyond? The thing I think I have been most concerned with is the blatant fact that Jake lives in a dynamic where he is treated as an only child 1/2 the time. Would this get better or worse over time? How would this effect him long-term?

So as you can see, we struggled with many questions and concerns that surrounded this decision - and after countless discussions, sleepless nights, and even hilarious attempts at bartering, Alan and I came up with two choices for ourselves. We could have another child or we could get a dog. So what did we decide? ........................

Meet Kaity. She's our new addition to the family and she is not a human baby but a canine puppy. Let me tell you, at almost 12 weeks old she's about as much work as any baby would have been but she's adjusting to our family and home well. We love her to death - she's the sweetest puppy we could have asked for. Alan expressed his love for black labradors very early on in our puppy search and we hoped to get lucky enough to find one at either an animal shelter or adoption agency. Boy, were we lucky! Just before closing time a couple weekends ago we strolled into our local PetsMart hoping to just look around to see what was available, price pet supplies, etc. You know me - always trying to be prepared and such. In the back of the store a pet adoption agency (Rescue Me, Inc) was corralling their animals to leave. There, along the side was an entire litter of black lab / blue tick coonhound mix puppies in a shopping cart. Their foster mom was getting ready to wheel them out of the store. Alan headed over to the cart immediately and started asking questions about the puppies. After holding the lone all black male of the group, the foster mom pointed out one of the puppies that was feverishly trying to get out of the cart and into her arms. "This one," she said, "is the sweetheart of the group. I even call her 'sweetie." Alan picked up the black, tan, and white puppy and she curled up in his arms and just shook like a leaf. We all instantly fell in love with her. After asking if we were going to adopt her, the foster mom began to cry saying "if I could have kept any of them, I would have kept her. She's going to make a fantastic family pet." She then dug into her bag and grabbed a tied up piece of wired ribbon and mentioned to us that Kaity loved to play tug of war with the toy and that she wanted us to have it. She then gave her a big hug and kiss and, still wiping her tears with her shirt, wheeled Kaity's brothers and sister out of the store. And so we left with a puppy, and all of the supplies we didn't have at home which ended up being pretty much everything!


Here are a couple other photos of Kaity. She's going to be one large puppy here soon, so we'll try to keep up with the pics of her growth in the weeks/months to come. I hope to post an update with her interactions with the kiddos, obedience and house training progress soon.

Look for one more addition to our Christmas card photo this year! :)

They're Heeeeeere....

The Terrible-Twos have made and early, and unwelcome appearance in our household in the form of a Jakey-Monster. Our cute, angelic, easy-going little boy has turned into a frustrated, tantrum-throwing monster overnight. I've written a post on this ugly topic on EverythingMom I'm not sure what it is about this stage of development that exhausts and stresses me so much! You can give me a screaming infant that stays up all night and I'll be as happy as a peach.... but a toddler yelling "NOOOO!" or "MOMMAAAA!" a hundred times a day makes me feel the need to check my blood pressure!

You can click here to check out the post. Keep us in your thoughts as we push our way through this tough phase! :)

Time Keeps on Slipping...

Marissa, my little Marissa girl, graduated from preschool this past Friday night. She and her classmates were dressed in white caps and cute little white capes. They sang songs they had learned throughout the year, watched a slideshow of special moments their teachers had captured, and presented all of us lucky mommies with beautiful roses. It was a night that I will hold in my heart forever. It seems as though a page has turned in our family's life... our oldest child has closed the door on one chapter in her life and is on the doorstep of beginning another. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was walking her around the house at 3 a.m. in a desperate attempt to lull her back to sleep at two months of age? Marissa has always been what some would call a "challenging child" or a "handful." But her challenging temperment has turned into a blessing as she has grown into a vivacious, full-of-life 5 year old who somehow always seems to be the pulse or the heartbeat of our family. She is always willing to lend a helping hand, play a game of "bay-bowl" (i.e. baseball) with Jakey, or immerse herself in whatever lessons Alan and I are trying to teach her on a daily basis. She loves life and she loves learning. I can already smell a teacher's pet in our midst...

And I can't really explain why, but sometimes when I step into her room late (way too late) at night on my way to bed, I watch her sleeping and begin to miss the 3 a.m. "walkathons" in our little living room... when it was just her and I, quietly walking our routine path back and forth, back and forth. I didn't realize it at the time, but those were some of the most peaceful moments of my life.

Congratulations sweetpea, I am so very proud of you.








Marissa on graduation night with her teachers.











Marissa receiving her diploma. Sorry the picture is pretty blurry - Alan accidentally had the camera on the wrong setting! :(