Instafriday....err Saturday?

Im jumping in late to the game....but better late than never right? Here is my very first Instafriday and in typical late fashion its actually Saturday!! Ha!!  I promise I will get better at being on time!! Im linking up with Life Rearranged.

Here is what my week looked like

Sunday we just laid in bed most of the day, Tom slept while I played around on the internet and checked out some new blogs.

Monday was my first day back to work in over a week.  It was a rainy dreary day....not a great way to kick off the week but oh well.

Tuesday I enjoyed a sky party...what's a sky party you ask? Its when I take pictures of a beautiful sky then upload them to instagram only to find that many of my friends were doing the same thing at the exact same time!!  Also, Tom and I have been hitting the gym on a fairly regular basis. Just wanted to remember this so when I am feeling unmotivated I can just look at it and remember nothing to it but to do it!

Wednesday I started the day off with some Good Morning Cuddles from the little girl I nanny for, it was also my Hubby's birthday!!

Thursday brought another skyparty!!!

Friday was a stressful day at work....coming home to this cutie made me forget all that stress!!

Happy Birthday Hubby!!

Im playing catch up....this post is a few days late, I'm trying to get better at posting more frequently!!! I want a place to remember our day to day lives!!!! January 25th my AMAZING husband turned 23!!!  We started the day off working, on our way into work we saw the sunrise and it was absolutely beautiful.  I told Tom that Im pretty sure that was a gift from our boys to him!!

After work we went to celebrate his birthday at Buffalo Wild Wings!!

I got Tom two pairs of gym shorts, a Stone's Band t-shirt, an Oakley t-shirt, a pair of Oakley Sunglasses, and a hard case for his glasses. 

We had drinks,

played games,

WINGS,

and good company!!!

After dinner, Hubby was treated to another gift from our boys

We headed over to some friends house to enjoy a few drinks and of course whats a birthday without cake? Better yet cupcakes?!

1st Birthday Balloon Release

I still cant believe its been a year since our boys got their angel wings.....sometimes the pain still feels like it happend yesterday.  We decided since we didnt get to plan a funeral or memorial in memory of our boys that for healing purposes we would have a balloon release on their first birthday.  Going to the party store to pick out which balloons we would be sending to heaven cut me like a knife.  It seems so unfair that we had to pick out balloons to send to Heaven instead of getting to plan a first birthday party. I knew I wanted something special for them not just something I walked in, grabbed and left. I must have spent a good hour in the party store looking at different colors, themes, styles.

 I finally decided on these

I knew as soon as I saw the number 1 sports themed balloon that I wanted it.  The boys nursery was suppose to be sports themed (their daddy loves sports).  I got 28 latex balloons in red, light blue, dark blue, and green for everyone else to release. 

The day of their 1st birthday was very emotional.....it was cold and rainy, seemed fitting for the day.  We had to go to the party store to pick up the balloons I had ordered, I just remember feeling so numb. We walked in the store and the minute I saw the balloons for our boys a lump formed in my throat and tears welled in my eyes. We drove to Lancaster Park for the release, Tom decided he wanted to do the release on the football field....it ended up being a muddy mess from the rain so we settled on the side of the field.  Our sweet friend Kathy came out to take pictures for us so we could document their first birthday, and all of our closest friends who have been so supportive of us this past year came out to remember our boys with us.  It was a day of saddness but it was also a day of healing. 

Family and friends in Michigan also had several mini balloon releases for our boys.  It meant so much to us to have people remembering and loving our boys just as much as we do.

Mom, Lindsay, and Stephanie's balloon release

My sweet friend Kelly released balloons in memory of our boys at her daughter's Birthday Party.

Another sweet friend of mine, Holly had a balloon release for our boys as well.

And my BFF Tiffany released two balloons for our boys as well.

It was a day that we will never forget.....we can not thank our family and friends enough for their support and love.  We will always love our boys, we will continue to remember their short lives and always try to honor them in some way!!  Happy 1st Birthday Eli and Hunter!!!!  Love, Mommy and Daddy

Ringing in 2012

Happy New Year!!  We are relieved to put 2011 behind us and excited for what 2012 will hold.  Tom was able to take the first 6 hours off today, so that meant we were able to ring in the new year a little different than last year!!! (on the couch sleeping) Our original plans were to go to dinner and a movie but the final showing of our movie was at 6:45pm.  We decided to go to the movie first and then see what the night held for us.  We saw We Bought a Zoo, it was such a good movie.  I got teary eyed several times, we are both certain that our boys wanted us to see this movie.  It had an inner story line about healing from grieving the loss of a loved one and moving on and learning to find your happy again.

After the movie we decided against going out to dinner so we hit up Walmart to pick up some snacks, party supplies, and a few games.  We met Zack and Kimmy at home to start the festivities!!

We had a few drinks, ate some snacks, played games, and watched Dick Clark's Rocking New Years Eve Party!!  When the clock struck 12 we shared our first kiss of 2012 and blew our horns to ring in a new year that offers a fresh start. 

2011 is a year we will always consider bittersweet. It was the year we became parents, the year our family grew from 3 to 5, we learned what unconditional love for your children felt like, but the year also brought the worst heartache we will ever experience in our life time.  The loss of Eli and Hunter has consumed us this year, we made it through the first year without them, it was the most difficult year of our lives but we survived thanks to the help of our amazing family and friends.

Avoid = A void that is permanently in my heart

Lately I find myself avoiding anything that has to do with Eli and Hunter. I dont want to talk about it, write about it, think about it....I just avoid it.  Maybe its part of the healing process or maybe its because I have let what other people think get to me.  I have a hard time keeping my emotions in check when this subject comes up, I feel all over the place.  Happy to hear their names and think of them, sad that I will never get to watch them grow, but most of all it just makes me angry.  People dont understand the way I grieve, someone has a mean comment to make, nobody feels the pain like I do(aside from my amazing husband).  I struggle with knowing what is right and what is wrong.  I want to believe that they were our babies, I want everyone to see that loving them has nothing to do with who gave birth to them or not.  I dont want to believe we were just part of a failed adoption, I hate having to defend how I feel.  I hate wondering if maybe those people are right, its like a constant battle inside me.  Always wondering if I should speak up for them and keep their memory alive by talking about them or if I should just keep it to myself? It just seems easier to avoid it all together, but by doing that I feel like I am failing them.  I just wish I could make the world see the pain this has caused us, I wish I could make them understand how we think, how we feel....Its not like we are asking anyone to understand why we committed a crime, all we are asking is for everyone to understand why we feel the way we do, why we fight so hard to defend our right to be their parents, why we will continue to fight for the rest of our lives to honor our sweet baby boys.

Healing

It has been almost a month since the boys passed away.  I feel like we are learning to heal and to cope with this life changing tragedy.  I just want this whole experience to mean something, I dont want it to all be in vain.  I want to be a better person because of them, to re evaluate myself and my life and change what I feel could be better.  Our boys taught me that life is so very short and that everything can change in an instant.  I want to be someone they can be proud of.  I strongly believe they are our guardian angels and are watching over us.  There have been several instances where we have both felt like they were trying to show us they are still here and watching over us.  On Super Bowl Sunday, just a few days after they passed away we both one right after another pulled crackers out of the same box that had been made together, almost like twin crackers.  One day Tom woke up late for training, only to call and find out it had been pushed back one hour later......when all week long it had been at the same set time.  Tom was riding his bike home from work one morning and the peddle broke off.  He nearly fell into morning rush hour traffic on base, but he caught his balance just in time.....if he had not been able to catch himself he would have been hit by several cars.  It has been super nice out lately so I decided to turn the heat down.  I checked the weather this evening to find out that we are going to be getting some cooler weather so I decided I should turn the heat back up so we don't freeze at night.  The thermostat was set to 70 degrees when I walked over to it, I pushed the up bottom to make it go up and it jumped down to 68 instead of going up...then I pushed it again and it jumped all the way up to 75.   I guess they are just trying to show us that they are always around.  We like to think that when we see a beautiful sunset that it was just the boys painting us a beautiful picture from heaven, or when the wind blows its just them wrapping their arms around us, or when it rains and rain drops fall on our cheeks its just precious little kisses from our sweet angel boys.  We decided to take a vacation in May, when they should have been born to celebrate them.  We are going on an 8 day vacation to Fort Lauderdale Florida!!! It's as close to Heaven as we will ever get on Earth!!  We are looking forward to getting away for awhile and just enjoying eachother. 

One week down

I would give anything to go back in time to a week ago.  A week ago we were excited to be finding out the sex of our baby, to be picking out nursery decor.  All of that was ripped away from us in just a few short words.  I still can not believe they are gone, sometimes I catch myself getting excited about bringing them home and then I remember.  I have so many emotions going on in my head, I dont know what to think.  I am so incrediably sad that I will never hold my baby boys.  I will never get to teach them new things or watch them grow.  I am so angry that this has happend to us, we have been through so much and now this on top of it all?   Why would God allow us to even know about these babies if it just meant we would loose them before ever seeing them?  Happy that they dont have to live on this Earth and experience all the hurt it has.  I try to tell myself that they were to good for Earth, they were so special that God needed them in Heaven more than we needed them with us.  But there are moments of weakness when I just break down and cry because I miss them, I want them back.  People say there are other children that need to be adopted, or not to give up on adoption because there is another baby out there for us.  I dont want another baby, I want those babies.  I struggle to know if Im grieving to much, not grieving enough, being to sad, laughing to soon.  How do you know what is the proper way to grieve? The pain is real, it hurts like a knife has been perminately stabbed into your chest and sometimes it hurts to breathe.  I scheduled us an appointment with a grief and loss therapist.  Hopefully she can help us make some sense of this. 

We have plans next weekend to go up and meet the birth mother to the boys so we can have our copies of their birth and death certificates as well as hand and feet prints.  I think that all of us need to do this to help us get closure.  While we are up there we plan on getting tattoos in memory of the boys.  Somehow I feel like this will help me feel closer to them, like a part of them will forever be on my body.