Fall Family Photos

Since we've had Squeaker, we haven't taken enough photos.  Life has been so busy, exhausting and good.  So, this past Saturday we had our family photos taken with my friend Heather.  (Heather is the one whose sweet little Briana was also born still and is buried next to our Solveig.  I feel like we're bonded for life and that is a special thing.)  On Heather's photography blog you can see a little glimpse of our family.

Click here to see the photos.  You have to scroll down a bit to see our family - we're the last family near the bottom of the page.

Squeaker is almost six months, Buzz is 5 and Bug is 7.  Me and Daddy are old.

Cheers. :)

The Hills Are Alive...

Ever since we lost Solveig almost six months ago, I've wanted to escape and flee the scene of my life for just a bit.  We love to travel and have been blessed with many different opportunities to do so throughout the years.  But that travel bug was really in me this spring, and I just could not wait to get out for a bit to breathe some different air and see some other scenery.

Gratefully, we were able to take a trip to Colorado and South Dakota and we just returned a week ago. I've been trying to catch up on life and that is why I haven't posted here in awhile.  I'm living my REAL life, I guess you could say.

We spent time in Aspen, Snowmass, Ft. Collins, Rapid City and just an overnight stop in Sioux Falls before we headed home.  Erik drove our van to Denver and met me and the kids at the airport!  We had enough points through something that we were able to get tickets for the three of us to fly to Denver - pretty great.  I'm so glad that we could do that, and the kids had so much fun flying!  For Bug, it was the first plane trip she remembers, as she was one the last time she flew.  And for Buzz, it was his first plan trip ever.  They thought it was awesome!  And I made sure to pack their backpacks full of fun things to keep them busy during the flight.  Sticker scene books are the WAY TO GO for kids ages 4 and 6!  They loved those and still play with them, a few weeks after the start of the trip.

We did some little hikes over the top of Aspen and Snowmass Mountains and in the surrounding area, through Rocky Mountain National Park, Custer State Park, Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands National Park.  I even enjoyed singing a bit while we were hiking.  There were lots of little streams to wade in and the kids LOVED collecting rocks of all different shapes and sizes.  A gold mine was visited and toured and we also spent time panning for gold.  We ended up bringing home two tiny files filled with mostly water and a couple seedling sized pieces of gold.  It was fun to experience the thrill of the gold hunt!  We also went to the Woolly Mammoth dig site, had dinner and saw a show at a chuck wagon restaurant/theater, learned how to make an old fashioned cowboy rope, went on a boat tour of Grand Lake and so much more.  Many animals were seen, including TWO black bears in downtown Aspen, mountain goats, big horn sheep, three herds of buffalo, gazillions of prairie dogs, fish and yellow bellied marmots.  Those were all in the wild.  Then we drove through a wildlife park where we saw a LOT of different bears, walking right next to our van, and many other animals as well.  Good thing they keep those bears well fed!

While we were gone we had the opportunity to spend time with some very special people, including my voice teacher from grad. school and his sweet wife and son who have really become such dear friends, Erik's aunt and my special friend from high school and her adorable family - they're like family to me.  I'm so grateful that we could be with these loved ones.  It was food for my soul and I miss them all already.  Thank you dear friends for the time we could be together.  I so appreciated the times we could share as well as the wonderful conversations.

The one thing that was hard for me on the trip was that I kept thinking about Solveig and how she could have been with us.  There were of course babies everywhere, and I noticed all of them...especially the newborns or those who were almost six months old, like Solveig would be.  Sometimes it was very difficult, but I tried as much as I could to focus more on spending time with my living children and my husband and how we were still creating special memories together.

Here's a few of my favorite photos from the trip:

At Maroon Bells - near Aspen

On top of Aspen Mountain - we did a nature hike with a guide

Bug and Buzz at Maroon Bells

Me and Erik - Maroon Bells

Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park

All in all, it was a good vacation and I'm so glad that we could go.  Our kids have become wonderful travelers and they really did a good job enduring long days of adventure...sometimes better than this mama! :)  They seemed to really get into hiking and finding treasures.  We look forward to more adventures as a family in the future.

Our awesome photographer...

I wrote about her before, but now I get to write about her again...Jen Kelly, our photographer extraordinare who represents the very special organization with the acronym NILMDTS wrote a very special post about our family on her blog. Click here to see it. Her work is phenomenal and we are forever grateful. I'm going to write more about it very soon, and will post more pictures from our special time with her in the hospital. Stay tuned...

Loss, Hope and Thankfulness

Dear Friends and Family,

My abandonment of this blog is due to my love for my sweet little family and the busyness of our lives. Simply put, most days I'd rather just be with them and do life than spend time typing something up for the blog. But alas, today I feel the need to write something to document the things that have been happening in our lives.

Loss and Hope...

A few weeks ago we were so excited to find out that we were to be expecting our third little baby. What a gift. After praying and yearning for another child for a long time, God blessed us with this little one. However, after just over a week of officially knowing that we were pregnant, we lost our little baby. It has been a tough but good week. Our friends and family members have rallied around us and have been so encouraging. We are so grateful. My dear man has been incredibly loving and sweet and that has meant so much to me. We have felt uplifted in prayer and have truly known an immense amount of peace. Praise be to our God and Father. One of my very dear friends who has been through similar loss said to me, "nothing anybody said really helped me, but the one thing that got me through was knowing that my little babies were safe in the arms of Jesus." Amen to that. I've thought of that so much this week. Thank you, sweet friend, for sharing that with me. And not to be pessimistic, but I just have to say that I really felt that I might lose this child. It was as though God had been preparing me for YEARS for this to happen. I have heard so many stories of miscarriage, infant and child loss and have always wondered not if but when would it be my turn to experience that. And here we are. Again, I have so much amazing peace. And I am okay. And I know that God is absolutely in control of this situation, just as He has been in control of every other situation in my life. And I also have great HOPE that perhaps He will bless us with another child in the future, if He should so choose. For now, we rest knowing that He knows the plans He has for us.

Thankfulness...

This Thanks_giving time, I am so filled with thankfulness for my family and my friends. God has blessed me with such a dear bunch of people in my world. To my husband and our sweet Bug and Buzz, thank you for being connected to me. Thank you for loving me even when I'm kind of out there. Thank you for sticking by my side through thick and thin. This has been a seemingly interesting year of that. But HE will be praised, and we will glorify HIM together through this.

I am thankful for the family I was born into. Thank you Mom, Dad, and brothers for being there for me and for sharing life with me. This Thanks_giving, we are all so filled with gratitude to have my brother Joel here with us after his very challenging and difficult year of cancer and surgeries and trials. If you have been following his story, right now is another interesting turning point for him. Please please pray for Joel and for his family. And may the Lord be glorified through Joel's life and through this entire situation.

What are you thankful for this week? May the Lord bless you this Thanksgiving. May He clearly show you His presence in your life and His truth.

Much Love from the frozen, beautiful, snowy north land...

Pictures!!!

The pictures here are of our Little Buzz and Big Bug as well as me and hubby on Thanksgiving Day...and then the one with Little Buzz in his cow outfit was one of his 5 month shots that I did.