Eighteen | Indulge

"Life is too short, so eat dessert first."
~unknown



Because sometimes you need to indulge with something so sinful, but completely delicious. I don't make things like this often, but when I do, I enjoy every bite. And it makes my day so much better!

Seventeen | Goodnight

"Kiss your children goodnight,
even if they are already asleep."

H. Jackson Brown, Jr




Every night before I go to bed I sneak into their bedrooms to tuck them back in and kiss them goodnight. Almost every night we find him in a new position in bed, and it's never with his head on the pillow. Some days it just makes me giggle how he sleeps. And it reminds me why he has his own bed to sleep in at night, because I'm pretty sure I don't want feet in my face while I try to sleep!

Sixteen | Little

"So let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little."
~Lonestar

Because they are only little once and they grow too fast. I want to capture all the silliness, laughter, and crazy things they do!

Like trying to get a picture of all 4 of them together...




Because this is what his idea of "smile for a nice picture" is.


Because right now at age 5 this is one of her favorite things to eat, Peanut butter and chip sandwiches.



And I don't want to forget any of it.

Fifteen | Reflection

A daughter is a beautiful reflection of God's grace.
~ Lynn A. Pena

I wonder when she looks at herself if she realizes just how special of a girl she is. I wonder if she knows how much she's grown and changed. Every day she amazes me more. I thank God each day that he trusted us to be her parents.

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Fourteen | A half birthday

"If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand."

This week I finally got around to taking Oliver's six month pictures. Thankfully before he turned seven months! He was in a good mood and I had lots of 'helpers' to make him smile. It melts me every time I see those chubby cheeks and toothless grin! Here are some of my favorites.

Thirteen | Hero

"You don't raise heroes, you raise sons.
If you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes,
even if it's just in your own eyes."

~Walter Schirra, Sr.

There is no doubt that Daddy is his hero, in uniform or not, but some days he loves to put on Daddy's hat and pretend he's a hero too.
What he doesn't know is that in our eyes and heart, he already is one!



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Twelve | Wonders

"The world is filled with undiscovered wonders.
Come, little one, let's find them out together."

EMILIE AHERN

Wonders like what adventures these little feet will go on someday. But for now we are happy with just smiles, giggles and playtime. Everything has gone into Oliver's mouth lately.
Including his favorite fish.

Eleven | Homemade

"Happiness is homemade."

How do I relax? I retreat to my kitchen. I love cooking and baking, it's soothing and comforting to me. I love to get creative and some days it can be a good way to take out my stress. I even blog about it here. This week was taking an adventure in homemade yogurt. Is there anything better than feeding your family with true love from the kitchen?


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Ten | Joy

Last week was busy with being out of town and I didn't get a chance to update my P52, so here is my week 10.

"A day without laughter is a day wasted."
~Charlie Chaplin

How can you not smile when you see his? Big cheeks, happy grins, life is good!

The joy of a swing, this is Calla's favorite thing to do. This week was our last week of snow here (FINALLY!) in Minnesota. We happily watched most of it melt this week. I'm quite happy to see it go. But we wanted to make sure the kids had one last change to tromp around in it before it left for the season.

Nine | Quiet time

"I am imagination. I can see what the eyes cannot see. I can hear what the ears cannot hear.

I can feel what the heart cannot feel."
~Peter Nivio Zarlenga

Each day we have quiet time. I cherish this time, because even mommy gets a break. Today it was so quite from the older kids.. I had to go see what was going on. I loved hearing the conversations between barbies from Calla. Five years old is a hard time, she's trying to be independent (she thinks she's going on 17 already!) but I love her creativeness while she plays. It warms my heart, and makes me smile and reminds me that I'm going to miss these days.



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Eight | Siblings

"Having a place to go is a home. Having someone to love is a family. Having both is a blessing." ~D. Hedges

This week I had fun just snapping some pictures. As normal, Oliver is the only one that will sit semi-still for me! But I had fun editing them too. I love this one of the kids looking out the window. Here are some of my other favorites I took this week.

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Seven | Change

"No one likes change but babies in diapers."
~B.Johnson

There's is a lot of change happening around our house this week. Some good like the cute fluff we decided to switch Oliver to! Nothing cuter than a fluffy cow butt! We are loving all the benefits to cloth diapers. Then there is change going on that no one ever wanted to think about and it's going to be life changing. Right now we are living one foot in front of the other and one day at a time. Together as a family we will get though what ever change is our way.

Six | Snow

"A snowflake is one of God's most fragile creations,
but look what they can do when they stick together!" ~Unknown

And when they do stick together, kids will find hours of fun playing outside! I can't take credit for this picture, my husband took it while out playing with the kids. But I LOVE it so I wanted to use it for this week. I don't want to forget the snow balls that were made or the angels created in the snow, or even how it all tasted. Our kids have a blast playing outside in the winter, even now when we are wishing for warmer weather.

Five | Best Friend

It use to be just You and Me,
but now I'm all alone.

I snuggle up and wait
for adventures when you are home.

This is Avery's best friend Taffy. Snugly soft kitty has been with him since day one. They have gone on several adventures together, helped with keeping away fears, gone though surgery a few times together and held several tears. Once inseparable, but now he snuggles on his bed while he's in school. But even though most days Taffy spends his day amongst the bedsheets, a journey awaits when the school day is done!


*Thanks for stopping by! Please check out other project 52 on the blog roll on the side! If you'd like to be added to the blog roll with your project 52, please leave me a comment.*

Four | Child's eyes

"There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million."

~W. Streightiff

And these eyes are no exception! Oh the compliments I get on our kids eye lashes. I love them, long, beautiful, full lashes. Our son Elliott sees the world in ways kids should. Every day is an adventure and I love exploring our world through his eyes.

It's hard work having your picture taken!

Three | Wind

“I can't change the direction of the wind,

but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

~ J.Dean

I know it's Minnesota, it's suppose to be cold in winter. And windy. But sometimes the things I hate the most remind me that within each day there is a masterpiece that I do not control. However I can choose to make the best of it.

I hate the cold in winter, but sometimes the wind can make the most beautiful patterns in the snow. Much like the wind in our journey to create our family. I can hate the struggle, the fertility problems, try to understand, but in the end we made the best of our struggle and were shown the beauty that came from it though our children. As much as I'd like to hide the winds we fought, I want to capture the memories of them. It is our journey and we choose to make the best of it.

TWO | A Birthday Not Forgotten

I knew what I was going to be taking pictures of for this week. This is going to be a hard post to write about. I know I said that I wanted to capture the moments that tend to get forgotten, but I knew there would be some at this birthday that I didn't want to miss.

We celebrated a birthday very special baby girl on Sunday. Last year we were excitingly expecting another baby. The first few months were going good, a shock for my very eventful pregnancies. At Nine weeks we spread the good news that we would be welcoming a baby in the late spring. Then at twelve weeks we went in for a routine ultrasound to check on baby and to check for abnormalities (this test is commonly called the nuchal translucency test). Our world crashed. We found out that our baby girl had a condition called Edwards syndrome (also know as trisomy 18). With this, 95% of all babies will die in utero, and most of the rest will die with in the first two weeks of life and have several medical problems. Not good news at all. We had a lot of difficult decisions to make about Abby's health and life. We decided to let God take over and carry Abby for as much time as we were given. At 17.5 weeks Abby went to heaven.

It's been a year of ups and downs. It was hard to watch the emotions of our 3 children as they tried to deal with death. Not just any death, but the death of their sister who they only knew by my growing belly and hearing her heartbeat with my home doppler. Also we were surprised by a new baby, a month after Abby's birth, I discovered I was pregnant again. Oliver is such a miracle, but I think I held my breath until he was safely in my arms.

One thing we decided on as a family is to never forget Abby. She is very much a part of our family. For those who have never experienced a loss of a child have a hard time understanding this. Even I didn't know the amount of emotions that Abby would bring us. She was not our first baby in heaven, but our fifteenth. All the other pregnancies were lost very early on in our pregnancy, I never got to see them on an ultrasound or feel them kick me from inside like I did with Abby. I didn't get to kiss their tiny body and have to say hello and good bye all in the same day like we did for Abby. We will never forget her and our lives will never be the same.

Sunday January 9, 2011 was Abigail Noelle's first birthday in heaven. We decided to make a cake for her and release balloons with our special notes on them. And though all this, I found some tender moments I don't want to forget.

The picture this week for my project 52 is:




The expression on my daughter Calla's face says so much about the day. It wasn't the happiest birthday party, but one we didn't want to miss. She told me she missed her sister, so much that she couldn't let her balloon go, she wanted to keep it to remember her.

Here are some other pictures from the day.

Our son Elliott spending a moment with Abby's box


A picture left for an Angel


Balloons with notes ready to soar




Daddy where are they?





**PLEASE check out the other Project 52 links on the side bar! There are lots of amazing storys being told though pictures! If you have a P52 you would like placed on my blog roll, please leave a comment with your link, I'd be happy to have you there. **