Painting windowsills

Ha, you thought that this was going to be a super boring tutorial or painting windowsills… wah wah wah… wrong… keep reading and find out what that’s really about…

I believe that I was raised to be who I am. I was lucky enough to have parents that allowed me to be who I was. They allowed me to discover who I wanted to be. Growing up I never felt pressure from my parents to fit into a little box of perfection, a little box that fit their needs. It may have been that I was the youngest of 4, if I dare say the surprise of the family, and I got the more laid back parents. Or it could be that God just gave my siblings and I some pretty amazing parents.

My parents allowed me to be crafty, they allowed me to be artistic, they allowed me to find that thing that really makes me excited… for instance we had a large picture window in our front room that allowed us to see the dirt road, the field behind the road and spectacular sunsets. It was beautiful. It was also an open canvas. I’m not really sure how it started, but somehow the idea of painting on this big beautiful window came to me. Mom was totally on board (or if she wasn’t, she never said no). She gave me some paints and said go for it… I basically just painted holiday scenes, but if you think about it… a holiday basically happens every single month. So, every single month for several years an image or two, or three was painted on this big picture window. I remember thinking how awesome it was that I got to do this, that everyone going up and down our street could see what I was doing… and I wasn’t ashamed of it. I was growing into a person who was okay with being different. I was growing into the me that I am now. It wasn’t just the window that I got to paint on. My room was COVERED in glow in the dark items. Stars galore, I even got glow in the dark paint and crayons for presents, to add to the decorations of my room. When visitors would come and stay the night they always slept in my room, I can remember my Aunt and Uncle saying that they felt like they were in outerspace because of all the stars… again, it was a small way that my parents allowed me to express myself. Stars could be taken down and walls could be painted over… looking back at those times when I was allowed to be creative has made me appreciate my parents more and more

Now that I have Lexi, it’s important for me to allow her to be who and what she wants to be. This weekend I bought a couple blank canvases, some paint brushes and allowed her to be creative. She loved being able to paint whatever she wanted… granted a lot of what she painted looks like a blob of blue, purple and green, but it’s her art… she claims that it’s a waterfall… and you know what. Lexi’s first painting is hanging on our wall of photos. And she’s proud of it! And I’m proud of it. Because right now she is forming who she will become. She is only three, I know, however, it’s these times that I can allow her to be free and not fear that there is any other force driving her… that she is acting and creating with her own little mind.. with no fear of how someone criticize her art, with no fear that someone will criticize HER… She can do this creative act FEARLESS… how awesome is that?!?!?

Thanks mom and dad for letting me ruin the windowsill of the big picture window. It took on additional colors every time I decided to be artsy…

Being Intentional

I’m trying hard to be intentional in my life. I think its important to be intentional. Intentional in everything that I do. Paying extra attention to the words I say, how I say them, How I love my family, how I love my friends, how I make up for the things I’ve done wrong, how I ask for forgiveness to those that I’ve done wrong too. It’s a hard thing to admit that I haven’t been intentional in my ways recently. I’ve been moving along in this world letting things happen to me instead of letting me happen to things. Does that make any sense at all?


I wrote an apology letter to a friend this week. A long overdue apology. I messed up and pulled away from a friend when I was going through things and couldn’t get me kicked into gear when she was going through things.. I had not been intentional in trying to make the friendship last. I had not been intentional in making sure that she knew I was sorry. The letter wasn’t a fix it all kind of letter, because I know it takes time to mend broken hearts.

I’d like to be intentional in my marriage. Actively pursuing my husband, as in when we were dating. Finding the things that make my stomach go into butterflies and my heart to feel like it’s going to pound out of my chest. My goal is to make date nights a reality. NO MATTER WHAT. We’ve got into this routine of wake up, work, home, make dinner, watch a small amount of tv and sleep.. TOTALLY NOT INTENTIONAL LIVING! I ran across this blog the other day and I love the idea of the questions… The mister wasn’t so exciting, but I’m going to try it… Make sure that my husband gets the good side of me. I may be tired and worn out when I get home, but he is too. Why do I find it okay to allow him to get the grouchy side of me? IT’S NOT OKAY.

Same thing goes for the little one. She is so happy to see me when I pick her up, but depending on my mood it can turn into a struggle to even get her in the car. It all boils down to ME. Am I intentional with her? Am I making sure she knows how much I love her? Am I intentional in allowing her to be a child? I often find myself explaining things to her that I KNOW her 3 year old mind can’t really comprehend. She wants to be a good girl above all things and really she is. When she’s ‘bad’ she really isn’t bad, its my fault for not slowing down and making her the center of my attention. I’m not intentional when it comes to her and I’m going to change that. I love what this post has to say about being intentional with your children..

I dare you… go out, be intentional!

Dear Alexandria

Dear Alexandria


It’s 11:09 pm on November 12, 2012. You are sound asleep in your bed, snuggled up with two books, Winnie the Pooh and a book about lady bugs, with two pillows on your bed, neither of which have a pillow case (because like your Daddy, you hate pillow cases) you’ve got snowmen and Christmas tree flannel sheets on your bed with a red throw over the top of you. Your fan is turned on low (or low low low like you say it) your fishie tank light is on, despite me turning it off before I said goodnight to you for the last time, your new pink Christmas tree is plugged in as well so your room looks like it’s the middle of some spectacularly colorful day.

I was getting ready to go to sleep when on my way into my room I glanced over to make sure you were covered up and to make sure your neck wasn’t in too awkward of a position and then I was struck with the absolutely wonderful thought… You are mine! I get to snuggle you every single day, even on days that you drive me nuts, you also melt my heart with huggies and kissys before you go to sleep. With the ‘g’night, love you, see you morrow’ that I always here in return as I’ve said the same thing to you on my way out your door. You are absolutely beautiful. You have such a caring and sweet soul about you. You stick up for those that you love, even if it is when mommy and daddy are playing around, or we get onto the dog about something… you understand unconditional love, you understand that family is the most important. You have made me strive to be a better person, to love better, to stop and truly listen with my heart instead of my head. Because of your beautiful soul I have found how I want to be when I grow up.

You have this amazing thing about you that you can make us laugh, even when we are crazy mad with you… most recently you’ve started doing this thing with your eyebrows…. Looking all serious with your brows furrowed and then break into this smile with your eyebrows way up… then you try to go back and forth really really fast, you always crack yourself up… and of course we can’t help but laugh too. You have a mouth on you girl… You are learning it from us, which means we may want to start a swear jar!!! You’ve been saying dammit recently, not really loud, under your breath, very discreet.. at first I didn’t know what you were saying until I stopped and paid attention.. You were playing a game and tapping on it and I don’t know if you hit the wrong thing, but all of a sudden you go ‘ugh, dammit’ slightly above a whisper. It totally caught me off guard, but I couldn’t help but laugh, so now you think it’s funny (which it is, but I’ve got to be the grown up, right?!!?) And then tonight on the way home you said I looked pretty, for no reason, but to just say it. You say bless you every time you hear someone sneeze… and you have such an attitude… ‘I just don’t care’ is another one of your favorite expressions right now (hoping that this passes very very soon!!.

Anyway baby girl. I wanted to take some time and focus in on you, how much I love your wide green eyes (daddy thinks they are more like his, but I think they are all your own) you’ve got this amazing infectious smile and this belly laugh that brings a smile to everyone’s face. And even right this moment, as you are snuggled in your bed you make my heart swell with love, and with appreciation. I thank God every single day that he chose me to be your mom.

I love you buggie!

-Mom

pictures!!!

So, Jack over at Reflections Digital Photography took pictures for us on Sunday at A Day of Remembering. It was such a beautiful day. I'm just going to give you some sneak previews... he should have the pictures up sometime this weekend if you want to look at them. He does great work! And I'm not just saying that because he's a family friend!! :) Take a look for yourself by clicking the linky up above!

hope your weekend is filled with love and blessings!



a day of remembering

This past Sunday was A Day of Remembering. A sort of spin off of A Walk to Remember. Basically we didn't have the funds to do an entire walk so instead we gathered and remembered our babies, released balloons and spent time with others who 'get' it.

It was a beautiful day, the sun shined for most of the day, it was windy, but I think that is what you get for a 78 degree day towards the end of October.

I said another speech this year and woohoo for me, I got through most of it without crying!! I rock.. i know... ehem moving on... I'll go ahead and post my speech, because I think it's important for others to know that moving forward is possible... moving forward with the heartache and pain to find who we were meant to be.

Loss

One of the dictionaries definitions of loss is: the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had. It is such a matter of fact statement. You had it, now you don’t. As we gather today once more to remember our loss, we all unite under this one word. LOSS. The loss of our child, grandchild, brother, sister, niece, nephew, etc can be vastly different, but the one thing that remains the same is that we are all suffering heart break because that child isn’t here with us. We don’t get to see them every day; we don’t get to hug them. We don’t get to celebrate milestones and this loss doesn’t go away, we learn to cope. We learn to live with this loss.

It’s amazing how this one word can envelope so many emotions. It’s amazing how the word loss has a different meaning now that this word is part of who you are. It’s amazing how this word can change every single thing about who you thought you were, who you thought you’d be. LIFE CHANGING.

Something that I’ve learned over the past two years is that the grief of losing a child comes in waves. Initially you are grieving your child, the physical and painful loss of that child. Going through the motions of memorializing your child, whether that be by a funeral, memorial service, creating keepsakes however that happened that helped to solidify the loss. Then you go home, the home that was prepared for the upcoming arrival. The memories of preparing a room, registering at a store for your baby shower, even the bathroom that you took your pregnancy test in filled with hope and excitement; those are things that you grieve too. Only then, you are grieving the HOPE you had for your baby. Then you go a couple months down the road and you begin to think about the exciting things that should be happening with your 3 month old, then with your 6 month old, then with your 9 month old and then a new grief begins. A grief that happens almost daily, never letting up and reminding you that someone is missing. Every “should have been” milestone hurts in a place that you didn’t know could hurt.

But then, somewhere in this hurt comes strength. A strength that you didn’t know you had. A strength that helps you look at your situation and know that you must keep living life. A strength that helps you put one foot in front of another and begin to enjoy things again, and not feel guilty. I think that is where I am in my journey. I’m moving forward, not moving on, I couldn’t move on because that indicates that I’ve chosen to forget, Logan will never be forgotten. I am moving forward knowing that I am a better person, a stronger person. I know the direction I want to take my life, all because of a little baby boy name Logan Joseph Clear. I think this stage comes at different times for different people. Some get to this point faster than I did, some get here later, and that’s okay. Everyone grieves differently. Everyone has their own way of wading through the tears and heartache. The important thing is to find a way to move forward, with the aches, with the heartbreak, with the little reminders. They help you to find the person who you were meant to be.

(the back of Lexi's shirt - this year we got them so they could be personalized)

We are already working on next years event. We will be doing a walk, towards the middle of October. Probably at Shawnee Mission Park again... it just feels like its a place that is made for healing!

I'll also be taking donations (www.awalktoremember.bbnow.org)  throughout the year for next years event and hopefully I'll be a little closer to being a 501c3 non profit organization.

I can't say thank you enough to some very special people... and you know who you are :)

 

Much love my friends... 

a day of remembering

It's happening folks! We are going to have a balloon releasing in honor of October being pregnancy loss and awareness month. It will be on October 21st. Coco McAtee has been amazing over at Overland Park Regional in helping to get the word out... make sure you do to!
Here is the website!

http://awalktoremember.bbnow.org/

Love to all!

guilt

I’ll be honest. Here recently I’ve felt guilty. I’ve felt that I’ve let down my little boy down. When Logan died I knew that there was a purpose. One that, possibly, I made up, to make me feel better or to make the reason he died concrete instead of he just did. Maybe it was divinely given to me. Maybe it has made me feel better that because of Logan I feel that I have a purpose; to share his story. To help others going through the same thing that we did. To make sure others knew they weren’t alone. I’ve really questioned how easily I came to the conclusion that it was ‘okay’ that Logan died because of these reasons… Is it God’s grace that I’ve allowed myself to move forward? Is it ignorance? Is it stupidity? I really don’t know. But I’m thankful.



I find myself feeling guilty for many different reasons. One is that I’m not doing the walk this year. Seriously breaks my heart, but with the cost of all of the things I just can’t afford to do it. It scares me that if I skip this year that it won’t be nearly as important to others next year. That’s something that I just have to pray about and trust that God will provide. Another reason I feel guilty is that I feel that I’m coping much better with losing Logan than Mr. Clear is. I know that everyone grieves differently in different timelines and in different ways, but I’m afraid that I need to hold myself back or I’m going to get frustrated, I just have to remember that we all deal with loss differently. Another reason I feel guilty, and this one is as backwards as can be, every time I tell my story about Logan, or offer myself to someone who has suffered a loss, every time I make known that I’ve lost a child, I feel guilty that I may be shattering the dreams of a pregnant soon to be mom. I know that when I was pregnant with Lexi there were people that had lost babies to miscarriage and I just simply didn’t want to hear it, so I ignored them. I somehow feel guilty about being so open about our loss. Backwards? I think so!



Guilt is so strange. It shows you where you are weak, it shows you where you are strong, but it’s something that we have to allow God to give us grace with as well. I am working on praying more about my guilt issues. I pray that God gives me the grace to forgive myself for feeling guilty. I pray that God will show us all the grace for feeling guilt.