Brings Me Joy - Final Post

Friday, October 28th: dancing with the girls at the Monster Mash

Saturday, October 29th: hanging out with 3 of my favorite people during our garage sale, running the basketball game at our Ward Trunk-or-Treat, going to Fright Fest at Wild Waves with the Liechty's (even though I was FROZEN by the end of the night), going out to dinner with the girls and Aleigha.

Sunday, October 30th: staying in bed until 9:50, making treats for some dear friends, sitting with Konrad through Sunday School and the combined 3rd hour meeting, passing notes (complete with fancy folding and 7th grade sayings (sorry so sloppy, written with one big S...remember that? :)) with Katie during the 3rd hour :), dinner at my moms, playing 100 with my fam, and playing Boggle with Steph and Doug.

Monday, October 31st: See the previous post :) plus, Konrad came home early to help me get ready for our dinner party - it was fun hanging out with him all afternoon!

I think the Brings Me Joy challenge was good for me this month. I think it helped me focus on a lot more good...I was able to be sad at times, but because I had to think of something to write about, I also got to think of the good.

I just need to remember that I've been very blessed. I have many things in my life to be grateful for. That doesn't mean that I can't be sad, mad, hurt, or confused about the fact that Ian died. But it can help me remember the things that I do have. The things that I have to be happy for. The other parts of my life that are good.

Supposedly Ian's headstone is going in tomorrow....we'll take pictures and post them when it's in. I'm not expecting that to be a very fun moment. I still don't like going there (the cemetery), it's not the place you want to visit someone, especially not a child. I am excited (is that the right term? Weird to be excited about something so morbid. Maybe morbid is a bit strong, but you know what I mean, right?) to see the headstone. It took a few months to decide what to do and then 2 more months for them to make it. It will be nice to have it taken care of. The girls will be very happy he has a real one...they have been pretty sad that his name is so small (it's just a little 4x6 paper in a frame at the moment).

Note to Self: Remember the joy. Remember the joy.

hAPPY hALLOWEEN!

The girls were so excited all weekend for today to come! They love Halloween!

Pre-trick-or-treating photo shoot :)

We invited some friends from the neighborhood over for dinner before trick-or-treating! There were 27 of us here and I think everyone had a good time.

Finally it was time to go trick-or-treating....but we had to take one group picture of the kids. Luckily Steph came so we had some boys in attendance! I realized that out of all the other families I invited, there would only be one boy! 6 families...only 1 boy. Lots of little girls in our neighborhood!

The pumpkins with candles in them:

After trick-or-treating we headed over to a friends house for their annual Halloween party. It was our first year making it (we always trick-or-treated too long in the past) and it was definitely worth it.

Allison and I had a little misunderstanding about a donut. She asked me to hold one for her (so it could cool off) and I got tired of holding it and ate it. Holy Cow. Big mistake. The child went into a complete melt-down that lasted 20 minutes. Even after I got her another donut, that was the exact same as the first. I think she was a bit tired.

Jenni made it up to Allison by giving her the biggest donut in the whole house...in fact Jenni said she hadn't seen one that big in 7 years! :)

We (Laurel and I) realized it might be time to go when we realized our girls were....

falling asleep on the floor. :)

Poor Sam was not feeling so hot. She had been so excited to trick-or-treat she forgot to mention to me that she was feeling horrible. When she came home from gathering tons of candy she was wiped out and said her head hurt. Then she proceeds to tell me she felt awful all day at school. She must have been afraid I wouldn't have let her trick-or-treat...poor girl!

Miss Jenni hard at work! This girl knows how to throw a party! :)

Let Halloween Begin!

My first Halloween Party of the year. Complete with a witch, mermaid, gnome, super girl, Aurora, princess, ladybug, Tinkerbell, and Pirate (oh and I was a princess...we had a very Royal day at preschool...3 princesses in attendance :))
Konrad got home from Texas so we could finally carve pumpkins (my hands don't work very well lately so we had to wait for him to come home to do it)

They love the goop:

My self-proclaimed "picky eater" decided she was going to try a raw pumpkin seed...

She ate more than one!

Alli said "Take a picture of the inside to put on the blog" so I did:

Each of the girls did most of the scooping out (Konrad cut the top and scraped the sides) and then they drew their faces on and used the little pumpkin saws to do their own carving. All were excited about their jack-o-lanterns in the end (L-R: Allison, Sam, Konrad (for Ian), Lauren, Kimber):

The above brought me joy today.

Other things: last night of soccer practice (it's getting too cold to play!!); first day of volleyball (yeah for sports played indoors!); first time being a coach for anything (I'm the assistant coach on Kimber's team - Konrad is the coach...we like to keep it in the family :)); finally went through my giant stack of coupons and got rid of all expired ones; started sorting through our garage sale stuff (We, the Tylers, and Weeds are having a garage sale on Saturday morning - at my house - come buy all our stuff!!!!).

Brings Me Joy

Wednesday
We had 3 parent teacher conferences today. All 3 girls are doing great, but each have some things they can work on. We set some great goals and hopefully can achieve them.

Enjoyed 1/3 of a churro at Costco.

Sampled some very yummy vegetable egg rolls at Costco. Bought them. Ate them for dinner.

Volleyball = exercise = happy me! Even if it was from 9:00 - 10:00 at night! I'm not a huge fan of our late games.

Konrad got home from Texas. Even tried to come watch me play volleyball, but we were done by the time he got there.

Joy

Today was a busy day. Lots of fun, lots of running around.

Preschool
Pumpkin shopping
Took the girls to see Spy Kids ...it was a 4d experience. They gave us smelling cards to use throughout the movie.
Helped out a friend.
Dinner with friends.
Dessert at U-Top It with friends.
Volleyball game, that we actually won (the other team didn't show :))
More exercise.
Now it's time to practice the piano and do some gospel study.
Then BEDTIME....and boy am I ready to sleep!

Poor Alli was having an I-miss-Ian moment tonight. She came down crying, saying she was missing him. I asked her what she was thinking about and she said "when Daddy called us and told us he died". After she said that I realized that when we first told them he had died we told them in person (horrible moment in time). Then I realized Konrad had called them from the hospital after Ian was delivered. Makes me wonder if the girls were hoping we'd call and say he was really alive, when we made that call. I think if I was little I would have been thinking that way. Who am I kidding, I was still hoping he'd come out crying, and I knew better. It's always so interesting to see all of this through the girls eyes. Such a different experience. Wish I could see in their heads to see what they really think about it all.

First off my "Brings Me Joy" is falling apart. Man, I'm not good at this.

Actually I do have a good reason, well at least its a good reason in my head.

Last week was a pretty blah week for me. I was having a hard time noticing the good things, not that there were any bad things happening, I just couldn't see the good. Nothing seemed wonderful or exciting. I was feeling pretty sad about Ian and realized towards the end of the week that I was feeling a little guilty. Okay, I was feeling really guilty.

A friend in my ward has been put on bed rest, to keep her from going into labor. She still has 6ish weeks to go and they want to keep the baby in as long as possible. Obviously her situation makes me think of my situation (not that they are all that similar b/c her baby will be just fine!!!) and made me start wondering if I just pushed too hard those last few weeks I was pregnant. I was determined to exercise, work, and do all the other things I was "supposed" to do, even though my body was tired and at some points sore. I can still remember that last night I was pregnant (before we knew he had died) and exercising. I can remember that I was determined to get in a full 20 minutes, so I could earn a stupid point for my healthy living challenge. I can remember the soreness in my tummy and watching the minutes slowly tick away, finally the 20 minutes was over. All last week I kept asking myself...did I do this? Did I not take care of my baby? Was I too worried about myself...trying to maintain a good weight gain and doing well in my fitness challenge? What if I would have put myself on bed rest, what if I would have gotten a sub when I was tired and sore, what if I had put the baby first....would Ian be here now??? What if I hadn't finished teaching that day that I couldn't feel him move. What if I had put him first, before my preschool class? Would I have caught it in time. Could we have saved him?*

Finally by the end of last week I was drained. I had thought about and worried about this all week. (Not that they are new thoughts, b/c from the first second I didn't hear his heartbeat I blamed myself for exercising/doing to much/taking too much Tylenol/too much thyroid medicine/too much cookie dough/etc/etc/etc, but b/c of my friends situation it had just been on my mind more than it had in the past) Finally Saturday night, way late at night (we're talking 1:30 in the morning people) I actually talked to Konrad about it. I told him how crappy I was feeling and what I was worried about.

See I know deep down, somewhere, that there is nothing I could have done to help Ian. I know that it wasn't something I did. EVERYONE tells me that. BUT I can't help wondering and worrying.

Konrad helped me put things in perspective. He explained to me that Heavenly Father would have let me know if I needed to do something different in my life (not exercise, not work, bed rest, etc). If Heavenly Father can tell us not to go to a certain party/movie or to go a different way home or move our car so it doesn't get hit by a train, etc. He surely could have told me to STOP what I was doing. Either with a prompting or by forcing me, through the doctor, on bed rest. Heavenly Father wouldn't have let me ruin Ian's life, just b/c I wanted to exercise. If Ian was supposed to be here on earth, with us now, he would be here. Heavenly Father wouldn't have let my selfishness (Konrad didn't call me selfish, that's me talking about myself :)) get in the way of Ian's "life plan".

I just wish I'd been given the bed-rest option.

So last week, my joy came from my husband, who reminded me that Heavenly Father knows what He is doing and that I couldn't have done anything to change it. (even if I hate that part of it!)

Other Joyful Things (let's see what I can remember...):
~Dinner with friends at Mizu...yummy Japanese. I'd like to go back right now :)
~CRC
~I went to Zumba twice last week
~Allison is finally better...the cough is almost completely gone :)
~My voice is mostly back as well, still can't sing very well, but talking is better
~we decorated for Halloween
~tonight we are making sugar cookies for Family Night
~The girls are home at 1:00 everyday this week (we're going to a movie tomorrow...anyone want to come? either Zookeeper @ 1:30 in Renton or Cars 2 @ 2:00 in Federal Way)

Here's to a better week!

*(logically I know that it wouldn't have mattered, he died at some point on Wednesday afternoon...once his little heart stopped beating we couldn't have done anything to save him, so even when I was exercising Wednesday night, his spirit had already left his body, it didn't matter at that point...but I have learned that logically thinking doesn't work when you are talking about emotions and grief...)

Brings Me Joy

These guys:

Once again, I fell behind. BUT I think that a few of my posts from over the weekend expressed some joy, so I'm considering Friday and Saturday, taken care of.

Sunday, 10/16:

-the Primary Program. Love all those kids and listening to all the things they came up with to say was great. Also loved the songs...especially Scripture Power and We'll Bring the World His Truth

-All our local family came over for dinner...love each one of them and am so grateful for them

-watching a show as a family...everyone cuddled up and enjoying being together

Monday, 10/17:

These quotes from preschool:

1. As we were walking out to the park Riley stops and stares at the gigantic poky weed growing by the sidewalk and says "Miss Ashlee, Konrad really needs to get rid of that!" Love that she knows gender-specific-responsibilities already :)

2. Whitney while running around at the park says "Miss Ashlee, once I ran after a duck. And I caught it. And it started flying and I went up, up, up into the air. Then I fell." Then she looks at me and smiles, then runs around the playground equipment. As she nears me again I hear her saying "It REALLY REALLY REALLY happened. For real. I'm not pretending. It's not a story" She continued repeating it for a minute or so...she was positive she could convince me she flew with the duck :)

This quote from Jenni:

"Uh, Ashlee, I thought I sent you a text earlier today that said "We should make Tami wear a bejeweled bra over her clothes", but a couple hours later Tami responded and said "Bring it on"" Oops! Not so much a surprise anymore :) Too bad we didn't have a bra to give her :)

Hanging out with all my friends, eating ice cream, and celebrating Tami turning old.

We decided to go to the cemetery for family night last night. It definitely didn't bring me joy...but I was grateful that we beat the setting sun (which is when the cemetery closes) and were able to spend a few minutes visiting Ian's grave. We were secretly hoping his headstone would be there, but it wasn't. It should be ready any day now...

Brings Me Joy Today:

-the SUN

-Lunch with my mom

-shopping at my favorite thrift store and finding 2 pairs of jeans, a dress, and a sweater

-the fact that the kids in my preschool class are becoming friends and using each others names, it was a bit noisier in class today

-the fact that even though I thought my girls got kidnapped today, they didn't. Talk about panic!

Dear Tami,

Happy Birthday!

All dressed up and ready to enjoy some ice cream:
The whole group:

the whole group plus the nice DQ boys who let us stay and eat even though they were closed (the guy by Tami had told Darcy, over the phone, that they stayed open until 10:00...he felt bad that he lied, so he let us stay :))

Love, Me

Family Party

Grandma's and Grandpa's and Steph's family came over on Sunday for Kimber's family party.

Kimber's dinner wish was: mashed potatoes, corn, cheese slices, and jello (we made some chicken and gravy for the rest of the family :)).

She got some great presents...a mirror (so she can turn her desk into a "vanity" - somewhere to do her make-up (next year when she is allowed to wear it :)), cute clothes, more notebooks, and something very exciting....

REAL MAKEUP! She cracks me up!

Alli and Kenzie:

While staying at Gma and Gpa Crabtree's house Samantha made Kimber a birthday cake ALL BY HERSELF (except for the putting it in the oven part)...

So we had two cakes...Sam's cake and a "grandma cake" (white cake with chocolate frosting)

We love having family nearby to celebrate with! Thanks everyone for coming!

Kimber is 11!!!!

Kimber turned 11 today. Her and her sisters spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Crabtree's house last night. They got to go and see the movie Smurfs last night, as well as eat at McDonalds. Today they watched TV, played outside, played with Grandma's Barbies, and went to the Rain Forest Cafe.

Konrad picked them up around 4:30 and Kimber's party started at 5:00 - did we cut it close or what? :)

We had a Girls Just Want to Have Fun Party. We did lots of girly things...and I think they all had a good time.

Eating pizza:
Curling hair:

played Just Dance:

Even Konrad (the only boy allowed) got into that :)

Kimber opened presents:

Konrad got a little worn out watching her:

Kimber wanted Cookie Bowls for her "cake":

Enjoying cookie bowls...they all wanted to know how to make them :)

Fondue for a snack...

While they watched a movie:

They decorated pillow cases:

and made hair clips:

Check out this cute present she got from her friend Jenna:

It seemed like she had a great day. I hope she did because she is really a great girl! I am so glad she is in our family.

Let's do 11 things about Kimber:

1. She loves to read. Her current goal (that she set herself) at the moment in school is to earn 300 AR points...the goal the rest of her class has (by state requirements) is 15 points. She is over 200 already and still has 4 or so weeks to go. I bet she'll meet her goal!

2. She loves to write stories. She is an amazing writer.

3. She loves earrings.

4. She loves mis-matching everything (socks must always be mis-matched. Earrings are often. She'll go as far as I'll let her with mis-matching her clothes)

5. She is amazing with younger kids. She does great babysitting her sisters...she plays with them and includes them in most things. She loves to help at birthday parties (if you ever want an extra set of hands give her a call!) She also loves her cousins and is sincerely excited to see them every time she does (even though the ones she sees most are all younger than Allison)

6. She loves Nutella - she has a Nutella sandwich everyday and wishes I would make her two each day.

7. She still has her "baby" blanket and loves it dearly (just like her mom did at her age (and for years after as well!)

8. She loves to dance, sing, and act.

9. She is great at playing the piano, even though she tries to pretend she hates doing it :)

10. She loves watching TV and wishes more than anything that we had the Disney channel.

11. She is a very loving, kind, caring, responsible, reliable, and happy person with a little attitude mixed in. She is PERFECT!

Love you Kimber....hope you had a great day!