Christmas trees

Just thought I'd share some photos of our Christmas trees.

Dan and I put the lights on the trees... but the kids did all the decorating with ornaments. The tree in our foyer has a bunch of silver and blue ornaments all on the lower quarter, front portion of the tree. Oh, and some candy canes... same location.

The tree in our TV rooom now has ornaments spread all over it from top to bottom. Initially, all of the ornaments were spread across the bottom third, but as the kids rip ornaments off the tree... Dan and I replace them up top.

The trees and the white lights definitely lift our spirits around the holidays and put us in the holiday mood.

We're very much looking forward to Christmas and all the excitement and joy that comes when the kids discover Santa dropped in during the night.

We wish all of you a peaceful and very Merry Christmas!

Oh... and a few photos of some super-cute kids:






















And totally in line with the holiday theme... here's my little BatLady and Tiger.

Prayers for another twin mommy...

If you have a moment, please send some prayers out to the Harrison family. They have been heavily on my mind since a reader alerted me to the loss of one of their 20 month old twin daughters, who died peacefully in her sleep.

My heart aches for them and for Evie's living twin. Their lives are forever changed.

I hate the fact that I know the difficult journey they have so tragically started.

Their loss seems to mirror ours in many ways.

I know for a fact Evie's mommy could use any extra prayers, words of encouragement, and love from anyone and everyone. She is probably consumed right now with trying to help Evie's twin deal with the trauma and shock of not having her sister with her constantly throughout the day.

At 18 months, I recall Rocco being completely beside himself for two weeks straight, asking where Tao was, pointing at his crib, crying when he'd look in a mirror, meltdown after meltdown... constantly wondering and not understanding where his best pal and buddy was.

I also recall it killing me inside, repeatedly, seeing Rocco alone. And, knowing exactly what the two of them would have been doing and should have been doing, together, throughout the day.

So, if you have a moment... send a prayer up to the sky for this family. They will most certainly need all the prayers they can get.

Flooding in December?

It has rained a lot here since Saturday. And, I mean... a LOT. So much in fact, that roads are actually flooded over.

When you grow up in Minnesota - you know crazy weather. You actually appreciate it and anticipate it in a way. But after living in CA for the past 11 years... well, I went a little soft. Still getting used to actually checking what the weather will bring tomorrow, etc.

So... November brought us snowflakes. Two inches of snowflakes where we live and LOTS of snow in the mountains. The weather theme developing for December is flooding.

I took these photos of the big kids at the bottom of our hill this afternoon. This is a road that we usually drive on at least twice a day. Today, I had to find an alternate route to get Gabby to school. So crazy!

This river is usually about 50 meters wide, and flows nicely under the blue bridge that you can see in the back of these photos. I would estimate that the river has swelled to almost three quarters of a mile or a mile wide.

Sure will be interesting to see how long it takes to dry up. And, I think more rain is in the forecast this week... yikes!

If I meet a man named Noah, who just so happens to own a very large boat with a long line of animals trying to get on... then I'll start to worry.

The Great Tree Hunt!

We went Christmas tree hunting last weekend and had lots of fun! We went to a tree farm, so we actually had to cut the trees down ourselves. And, by we - I mean Dan. And, Daniel did a fabulous job of cutting down our trees.

Yes... trees. Plural. We decided to get two trees.

You see... in California, we would spend $150 for an 8 or 9 foot noble fir the weekend after Thanksgiving. And here, we were able to get two very similar-looking trees (that's code for I can't recall the name of the trees we got) for half the price. Each tree was $35. Total bargain, right?! One of the trees is approx 9 or 10 feet and the other is approx 11 feet. One sits in our entry way and the other sits in our TV/family room that connects to the kitchen.













We don't have a ton of Christmas decorations... so this works out perfectly because the white lights on the trees seems to make the main floor of the house really magical. The kids love it.













Gabby was SO EXCITED to decorate the trees. I think her and Rocco decorated the family room tree (the front, bottom half, of course) in less than 20 minutes.













I'll post photos of the trees in one of my next posts. Until then, here are some photos from our tree hunting experience.

Giving Thanks

Our family spent the Thanksgiving holiday this year in a new home. In years past, we have always enjoyed the holiday with our CA family. So, we were definitely missing them this year!

Instead we spent the holiday with wonderful, longtime friends of ours, Christina and Taylor and their darling 1.5 year old twins. Good friends, laughing kids, a full table and lots of food and drink made for a very nice evening. And, to top it off, we all have a LOT to be thankful for, right?!

Snow was still blanketing the yard making it a winter wonderland outside and a snowman stood watch over the front door. There certainly is something about having snow on the ground that makes you anticipate an evening inside with your family and friends.

This year I am thankful for my three living, healthy children. I’m thankful for my loving husband and the best daddy in the world. I’m thankful for the good health of myself, my family and my friends. I’m thankful for the roof over our heads and our jobs. I’m thankful for the things I've experienced and have seen in this life. I'm thankful for all of the people who have reached out to us in so many different ways over the past 17 months. And last but not least, I’m so incredibly thankful for having been able to be Matteo’s mommy, and having known him for the 18 short months of his life.

And just like that… I’m not sure I really like Thanksgiving anymore. No mother should have to say “I’m thankful for having known my child for 18 months”, or 18 years for that matter. I hate that I'm a mommy that has to say that. I hate that I lost him. I hate that death entered my home unexpectedly. I hate that I held death in my arms. I hate that it changed my life completely, in every possible way. I hate that my kids lost their brother. I hate that I know this deep, dark thing called "grief" and I hate that I am so sad, so often. I hate that whenever I look at our family photos… I can only seem to focus on what’s missing. I spend so much time thinking about and wondering where Matteo would have been sitting or standing in these photos and what he would have looked like.

He was so cute. So. Cute. Sun-kissed skin. Huge brown eyes. Curls that wouldn’t stop. And, a big, cheeky smile that melted my heart.

It seems to me that when you've lost a child, this time of year burns you the most. It starts around Halloween and continues through the New Year. Days that are supposed to be festive and fun seem to have a sadness strewn about them. I wake up wanting to cry, but I put on my happy mask and do the festive and happy things that I'm supposed to do so my kids and family feel happy and get in the festive mood for the respective holiday. Meanwhile... my heart continues to ache with sadness. Always missing my handsome, curly haired, forever 33inches and 28lb little dude.

Marshmallow World...

It's a marshmallow world in the winter... all the snow comes a tumbling down... la la la la la la, la la la la la la... you wish for it the whole year 'round. (love that song)

My kiddos got to see, touch and play in snow for the first time in their lives this week! It was SO MUCH FUN! The excitement and joy that it brought to the house was... well... awesome, for lack of a better word.

Gabby spent as much time as possible playing out in the snow with Rocco, Maria and when they weren't outside with her, then she was outside with the neighbor girls. She couldn't get enough of it and would start screaming and cheering with delight whenever she saw snow falling from the sky.

You'd have thought there were mountains of snow... because the entire metro area was sort of shut down. But, we only got about 2 inches... and that seemed to be enough because it shut this city down. Schools closed or had delayed starts, no gymnastics classes, etc. SNOW DAYS!

The snow started falling on Sunday... and I asked Dan if he got a snow plow or blower attachment with the tractor mower he recently bought. He looked at me and said "No babe... I bought that leaf blower. It's REALLY powerful." Hmmmm.... SUCH a California boy. This could be a really LONG winter. A leaf blower? Really? HILARIOUS!!!

As it turns out... we didn't need to pull the "leaf blower" out because all the snow started melting on Thanksgiving Day. Thank God.

By mid-day on Friday, this is pretty much all that was left of the snow:

New Home! You can run... but you can't hide.

So... we FINALLY moved into our new home approximately one month ago!!
















Since we moved in, I feel as if almost every waking moment of the day I've been unpacking boxes and organizing "stuff". When not unpacking, I'm still nursing an almost 10 month old, making dinner every night (we've only eaten out once since we moved in), finding a new pediatrician and school for Gabby, twice weekly gymnastics classes, at least 50 visits to Target, hitting the grocery store at least 4 times a week and squeezing in 3-5 mile runs for my sanity.

If I've learned anything in this big move... it's that we have way too much STUFF!! Oh... and that it is a much bigger pain in the butt to finalize a loan than it was 8 years ago.

Only a few things were broken in the move... a glass pitcher, a frame, and of course the new TV that we gifted ourselves with for Christmas last year. Yup... that sort of sucked.

The kids were SO ECSTATIC to finally see and move into their new home. They spent that entire day running through the house screaming with excitement, playing hide and go seek, exploring their new yard, the forest and playhouse behind the house (with real electric lights and everything!), and cheering every time we opened a box with some of their long lost toys or belongings. The kids have truly been enjoying the freedoms that come with living in a house that has a big yard to run and play. They ride their bikes and scooters freely and sometimes for miles every day! They have met 9 new kids in our neighborhood. Two of the girls have become Gabby's newest best friends, and they also play so great with Rocco. And, there is a little boy across the street who plays nicely with all of them as well. And, he has identical twin sisters who are just a few months older than Rocco.

For Dan and I, moving into the new house came with a big sigh of relief. We had been floating for a few months and it was so nice to know that we were on our own turf again and able to once again create some routine and structure in our lives again. We are in love with the house and having a big yard (4.5 acres... ~ 2.5 acres being forest) for the kids to run and play. We have met a lot of the neighbors and they're all so nice and have been very kind and given us warm welcomes. We also were so happy to be reunited with some of our things... like our own bed. It's SO comfy... love it. The best part of being reunited with our stuff though was the feeling that comes along with being oddly close to Matteo again. I love having all of our personal photos decorate the walls of our home... and we have a LOT of beautiful photos of Matteo. And, I love having his urn within our care again, and his precious chest gifted to us by his God parents that neatly stores all of his sweet and short little life's favorite and most memorable possessions. It sits in our new family room, and nicely displays some of our favorite photos of Matteo. Gabby and Rocco gravitate to this often and love to talk about Matteo and look through the priceless items in his chest.

It would have been completely naive of me to have thought for even a moment that moving from our house in CA would take away the pain and loss that one feels constantly throughout the day when you lose a child. But, I wouldn't be honest if I said I didn't somewhat hope that it would relieve us of a tiny bit of that pain and constant feeling of loss and emptiness.

While I'm not having to constantly walk past the specific places in our CA house where I held Matteo dead for the first time... or went screaming down the hall, or watched Dan try to do CPR on him, or watched the medics work on him, and where I held him, sobbing and in complete shock, as he lay dead in my arms. I still find myself replaying all of those things a lot every single day. I guess I wished somehow that my mind would stop doing that to some degree.

This big move was to be a fresh start for us. And, in so many ways, it has been. Mostly good, of course! And, we do love it here... it's breathtaking and beautiful. The weather has been great... much cooler than we're used to, but I'll take that over the heat any day! Perfect running weather. But, I still have days where I miss Matteo so much that I feel completely paralyzed by the pain. I hurt so much. I miss him so much. I am so angry that he died and feel as I should have been the one to have prevented it... that somehow, I failed completely on my parental duties the night he died. I sometimes feel like I can't possibly live another day without that little guy.

He would have loved it here... finding and catching caterpillars with Rocco and Gabby. Finding and watching gigantic banana slugs making trails across the driveway, seeing snakes, hearing the coyotes, etc. I wonder sometimes if we've lost his little spirit along the way or if he's followed us... of if he's just taking his own sweet time to show us a strong sign that he's still with us. A few times when I've needed it most here... Matteo's gifted me with a sky full of stars, or at least sightings of his big star in the sky... situated right near the moon.

Is it awful that I still look at what are our current family photos... and I focus on what is missing. I wonder where he would have been standing or what he would have looked like.

I guess it's true what they say... you can run, but you can't hide.

Halloween Fun!

Here are some photos from our first Halloween at our new home. This year, my little ones decided to be Ariel, Batman and a Ladybug.

In years past, our Halloween festivities have always included a trip to a fabulous pumpkin patch that has all the bells and whistles like hay and train rides, corn mazes, fabulous food, music, mountains of pumpkins, and an assortment of other rides, etc. Then, we would have our annual Pumpkin Carving/Spooky Food Potluck/Dan's Birthday Party on the 30th with some of our neighbors and close friends. And then of course, Halloween night means trick-or-treating as long as the little people can stand it.































This year, we were so busy unpacking that our pumpkin patch visit became a last-minute, last ditch effort! So sad! But, we did it anyway. We went on 10/29 and it had rained for a few days before so it was cold and very wet and muddy! ACK! Had we gone even one week earlier, it would have been a much more enjoyable event! Sooo... I think we all jumped out of the car, the kids complained of being cold or stood there frozen like statues... we took a few photos, and threw some pumpkins in a wheelbarrow for Dan to bring to the register while Maria and I ran with the kids back to the warm car! My CA kiddos were literally shocked by the cold. Two weeks later, of course, I bought loads of cold weather gear for the kids.

On 10/30, we had Dan's annual pumpkin carving/birthday bash with some good friends who just happen to live near our new home. The kids first went trick-or-treating in town (which is an annual tradition in our new city), and then everyone came back to our house for pumpkin carving and food. Good times.








Halloween night meant bundling the kiddos up tight (again... missed our warm CA Halloween!) under and over their costumes so they could brave the cold and go trick or treating at the homes in our neighborhood.

Dan and I have decided we officially like Halloween in California much better! ha!

While it was a nice Halloween, it is always difficult not having Matteo with us to celebrate these holidays. He should be here making fun memories too... and while it hurts and stings every single day... holidays seems to accentuate that pain and rip your heart out all over again. I imagine Matteo would have also been some sort of superhero this year... maybe Spiderman.