Sledding!

Sledding Fun with Grandpa

Not the most appealing subject matter...but I was learning my new camera attachments


Could this be any more fun?

Fun with Grandpa

Grandma, Grandpa and Timmy

Love my new circular polorizing lens filter....

Vivid color enhancement setting with snow? I don't like it.

I introduce the photo-centric blogs. I don't have much to say today other than we spent a good portion of the day sledding and having fun with my parents and Timmy. I got some cool gadgets to help with my attempt at learning to take good photographs. So far, my attempts have been pretty lame, but in the last few days I ha at least learned a few techniques and settings that I would rather NOT use again. Anyway, here are some pictures of today's sledding trip. Try to ignore the lack of color sense in these pictures. I guess great photographers aren't born they are created...through lots of trial and error. :) Today's lesson: pictures don't edit well as JPEGs. RAW formats are the way to go.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas day!

Our Christmas adventures really started two days ago when we picked up my parents in Kansas City. For those of you who have even spent 30 seconds in front of the tube this week, you will know that a major blizzard has been heading through the Central US. We were incredibly lucky thta Mom and Dad's plane arrived early on Wednesday. We stayed overnight in Kansas City and then drove back the next morning. Our drive home was a bit of a white-knuckle affair, but we were fortunate to have made a safe trip.

is morning we woke up to a VERY white Christmas, complete with snowdifts and blowing winds over 30 mph. We turned on the weather channel and were thrilled to see that we can expect the temperatures to blast through the teens at least a few times this week. :)

This year was an especially bit treat for all of us, as Timmy was finally old enough to experience some of the "magic" of Christmas. He was thrilled that Santa came last night and brought a table and chairs and a mini trampoline. Christmas morning lasted the better part of three hours today due to requisite ten minutes of play begged by each newly opened toy. We all had a blast helping Timmy enjoy his new toys. Unfortunately, Timmy didn't last quite as long as his toy pile, so we had to interrupt the Christmas experience for a long nap this morning. Our sleepy head fell into bed still clutching his new toys.

After opening presents, we enjoyed a Christmas turkey dinner with some friends from work.

We hope that you are all enjoying your Christmas Day. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Ho, Ho Humble

Ahhh....Pancake Zen

Tuckered out after Christmas shopping

God Bless Little Boys...

Timmy playing our fishing game

These past few weeks I have been forced to eat a big 'ole slice of humble pie. Luckily, these are all just occurrences of Life's little annoyances, but it does serve as a reminder that I am not as in charge as I'd like to think.

So, I'll start with the quote of the month:

"Geez, I've never seen anything like this before. But don't worry...if we can't fix it, we will send it out to our Geek network. They can fix 99% of all problems I have ever seen." ~Quote by the Best Buy Geek Squad expert attempting to retrieve my hard drive.

Only to be followed up by the second quote of the month....

"We sent this out to our (uber) Geek network, and we just can't figure this out. But, for $1500 you can send it to a professional file retrieval service who can dismantle your hard drive and sometimes retrieve files."~ Geek Squad associate defeated by Kim Decker's bad luck with computers

So, alas, I lost an entire hard drive's worth of files. Needless to say, this was not the memorable Thanksgiving Day experience I was looking for. I am not really sure how one can have a computer with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG....(except that it ate over 25 GB of files) and still manage to lose all data. But, it happened. I have lost everything that I have done since April, when I got my new computer. This includes the 150-page book that I wrote about my experiences with my pregnancy loss with Emma, and all pictures that I took since then. I was devastated.

So, Part II:
A good friend of mine warned me that the holidays might "creep up" on me with respect to grieving for Emma. I discounted this advice, until we started decorating the tree. It was really hard to bring out all of the Christmas decorations and remember the joy that we were experiencing at this time last Christmas. We were on top of the world: Tim and I were reuniting our family after a six month military separation, we were pregnant and we couldn't have been more happy. It is a little hard to revisit those memories in hindsight, and reflect on the intensity of the pain that was to come. There is something about the Christmas decorations that flood back those memories that I have revised in my mind.

So, Tim and I decided that a healthy way to deal with this residual grief would be to honor Emma with an ornament on the tree. I set aside a special time to shop for the perfect ornament. I finally found a white little ceramic angel holding a little puppy dog in her hands. I wasn't really fond of the puppy dog image, but I liked the sentiment that the ornament created. It made me think of angels holding little Emma in their arms in Heaven. I purchased the ornament and very carefully wrapped it up for transport home, thinking all the while that I would likely lose my mind if the ornament broke. It would just break my heart to lose the ornament after also losing the precious baby it represented.

So, I get home and put the ornament in a safe place. When I felt the time was right, I pulled out the ornament and showed it to Tim. As we were preparing to place it on the tree and honor Emma, I dropped the ornament. Needless to say, this story did not have a happy ending. the ornament shattered into a million pieces (not just a broken wing or a small nick...it was completely unsalvageable). I promised myself I wouldn't cry. I stiffened my lower lip, turned on my heels and went to bed (without a stiff drink).

Part III: Tim and I decided to shop for a more durable ornament to honor Emma (something made of titanic, perhaps). We went shopping and finally found a Hallmark ornament designed to honor the memory of a loved one. It was also nicely created from plastic and had no small part that I could break. I bought the ornament and cried in Hallmark at the register like a complete crazy person (so much for the stiff lower lip). We decided to go ahead and head home after this, as Tim and I were not much in the mood to continue Christmas shopping. On the way home, we needed to stop at Target to pick up some jeans for Timmy, who has managed to put holes in 8 pairs of jeans in the last 3 weeks. While at Target, Timmy managed to wiggle out of his seat, lean over the shopping cart and fall straight on his head. I felt so bad for him. He was ultimately okay, but he definitely screamed for a while and probably had a pretty significant headache the rest of the night.

So, I do all of the complaining to make this observation: I am not in control of my life, God is. We get handed circumstances, some frustrating, some heartbreaking, and some thought-provoking. Our res ponses to these life events define the lives that we lead and the capacity that we have to experience joy. This holiday season, it is important to remember those who have been loved and lost. But it is also important to focus on those people still left in our lives. While we have the opportunity, it is important to wrap our arms around the loved ones we have with us and never be to rushed or distracted to show them the love and kindness they deserve. After getting so lost in my memories and grief over Emma, I was definitely reminded this week of how important it is to focus attention on Tim and Timmy. Today, we cleared our schedule of everything that "had" to be done, and just spent the day together. Though I would certainly have preferred to skip the little frustrations I have experienced lately, I will have to admit these experiences have brought the important things back into focus.

Happy Fall!

Having fun on my retro rocket!
My new set of wheels

Can't get enough of the flamingos at the zoo

Some Halloween fun with my friend Evie

What do you mean I can't grab ALL the ducks? Don't you know who I am?

Monkey business with Mom the Giant Banana

Fall festival at Daycare

Happy Birthday Timmy!

I was told this week that I am getting behind the times with posting pictures on the blog. That's a true statement. Here are some pictures from Timmy's birthday back in October. We had a great time at a gym called Gymnastics Plus in Manhattan. I particularly liked the fact that the gym provided all of the entertainment we needed (adults included) so we didn't have to worry about anything with the birthday except going out and having fun (which we did). All the kids had a blast, plus the parents joined in with their youngsters, too. We all really had a great time. If we were sticking around in the area for next year, I would definitely do this again. It was well worth it!

On another note, Timmy has started taking classes at Gymnastics Plus once a week. The classes are part of a parent-child class, which gives us all something to look forward to each week. For the first week, Tim sent me "into the fire" with little Timmy at his first class. By the end of the class I was exhausted an frustrated. The whole point of the class is to do something fun with our child, but no one is having any fun if we are constantly griping at Timmy to sit down, stay with the class or give another child a turn on the equipment. Timmy is by far the youngest in the class, which makes things a lot more difficult. To be fair, I think any two year old would have difficulty with the amount of structure required from a gymnastics class. But, as Tim reminded an exasperated me after our first class, the whole reason we enrolled Timmy in classes in the first place is to learn and practice those skills. We have to build a foundation from something. As it turns out, Tim was the wise one because the next week went much smoother. Timmy did a much better job at listening to the instructor, watching other children and attempting the skills. He is still not very coordinated (an inheritance from both his parents) but we are thrilled that he is doing much better with participation, taking turns, etc. We are happy with how far he has come. Cheers, Timmy! :)

Timmy Turns 2!

We have all had an exciting month. On October 10, Timmy turned 2 years old! It is hard to believe that it was two years ago that we finally got to meet our little angel after nine months of anticipation! He has been such a joy in our lives for the past two years. Tim and I are very grateful to have been blessed with such a fun, sweet, cute little boy to share our hearts with.

For Timmy's birthday, we plan to celebrate a little late with a party at the local gymnastics center. IN the meantime, Tim, Timmy and I celebrated on October 10^th by attending a playgroup. At the playgroup, the local firefighters came to display their truck, equipment and uniforms. Timmy enjoyed getting to honk the horn of the fire truck, play with the hose and see how the firefighters put on all of their equipment. After all of this excitement, we went home to open a few presents. He had a great time opening his farm set from his grandparents and playing on his new truck from Mom and Dad.

Tim has been busy with his command this month. He finally received all of the Soldiers that comprise a typical tank company. They also officially changed their mission and started rebuilding into a regular Armor company. This means that they have been busy rebuilding, training, receiving personnel and signing for equipment. Tim has done a great job with taking this in stride, and has found a way to balance family time and work.

My news this month is that I finally ran my big race, the Army Ten Miler. I ran as a part of the Fort Riley Women's Team, which I have been training with since July. I was thrilled to finally get the chance to run, and also take a break from training after the race. I didn't quite hit my target time, but I did finish well enough to be part of the scoring team. I was happy to be able to help out the team effort. I was thrilled to have my parents come out to Washington, DC to visit for the weekend and to watch the race. I was really appreciative of their support, especially when I saw them at the finish line, cheering me on when I literally had nothing left.

Aside from the thrill of finishing a race with over 30,000 runners, participating in the Army Ten Miler took on additional meaning for me. Since April, running has been an outlet for me to channel my grief into something that has been positive towards my physical and emotional healing. I started running about one week after Emma died and I have been running with a purpose ever since. My goal was to make the Fort Riley Team. Spending the weekend in Washington, DC to run with the team was a meaningful experience for me. To maintain my focus throughout the weekend, I wore the necklace that Sherry Franklin gave me to remember Emma. I wore the necklace when I ran the race to commemorate my reason for running. All in all, it was a powerful experience.

Returning from Vacation

The Deckers are back! We all packed up in the car a few weeks ago and headed to Virginia for a two-week vacation. Yes, you heard that right...we travelled by car to Virginia. That includes Timmy and Chance the Dog. While on vacation we were thrilled to have the chance to visit family in West Virginia, friends Ryan and Nancy (and Jillian and newborn Liv) in Maryland and my parents (of course) in Virginia. While on vacation, we we scuba diving at a lake in Virginia. Timmy was thrilled to be able to see right to the bottom of the lake and interact with all of the fish. We did have a small incident with a fish, but with therapy, we think Timmy will be able to recover!

Things have been pretty busy here lately, as evidenced by our complete lack of blogging lately. Tim has been busy with work, as have I. On a good note, we have made some huge decisions lately. We took our family vacation to continue to talk out our career decisions. We have been struggling with what direction to take our careers lately, and how to balance our career goals with our family responsibilities. I was accepted to the Army Baylor Program for a Masters in Healthcare Administration. I was humbled and honored by the opportunity, but it would mean that our family would have greater than 18 months of separation. I will have to leave for San Antonio next spring and Tim will leave for deployment next fall. We will not be able to re-unite until we move to our next duty station and Tim returns from deployment in 2011. This is going to be rough, but we decided to bite the bullet and seize the opportunity. We have made some additional commitments to spending quality family time while we have it. So far, we have been able to stick to those commitments, but sometimes it means a little less blogging. :) At any rate, we are happy to finally have this decision behind us so we can look to the future and start making plans. We have a lot to figure out between now and next spring, but we are confident that we have made the right decision.

So, currently we are here in Kansas gearing up for another winter. We were sad to prepare our boat for the winter a few weekends back. We have been doing some fall planting, re-seeding and other necessary fall chores. I have also been fairly busy with training for the Army Ten Miler, which comes up on October 4th. The practices have really challenged me as a runner, but I have definitely welcomed the opportunity to train with others who love running as much as I do. Having them there to push me has really helped me train. Plus, the real advantage is that we have had a lot of FUN! How often in your adult life do you get to have the opportunity to get an all expenses paid trip to go do a sporting activity that you really enjoy? Gotta love being in the Army....

Day of Remembrance

Today was supposed to be "the day." The day for holding a new baby in our arms and finally meeting the little one responsible for all of the late night kicks, the backaches, the tummy purges and exhaustion. All of this seems completely worth it to hold you baby in your arms for the first time and experience the miracle of God's blessing.


Instead, today we remembered. We decided to take a half day off from work and honor Emma's memory. I did not think that I could just pass this day that should have welcomed her arrival without taking some time to slow down and remember her. The pain of her loss is a little less raw, and I can honestly say that I have moved on. However, part of that "moving on" process involves being able to honor her memory in a healthy way.

Today Tim and I went to Emma's grave and planted some grass. The ground was still bare from her burial, but her headstone arrived and was set last week.




I think about Emma a lot, especially on the weekends when we "slow down" and relax. I have not blogged very much lately because Tim and I have been out on Lake Milford almost every weekend for the past month. We have enjoyed some great wakeboarding and some quiet time just sitting on the boat and watching the sun go down. We have always really loved living in Kansas, but there is no time when I appreciate it more than sitting on the boat, sipping on a glass of wine and watching a Kansas sunset. It is often in these moments when I really think about Emma. The reminder of Emma's absence is felt every time I look at a sunset and realize that she never even got to see a single sunset. It seems hardly fair after all that she went through and how hard she fought for her life. When I look out over the prairie as we take our boat back to storage after a great day at the lake, I cannot help but think about how Emma and Timmy might have played together on all of that land, or how they may have just tuckered out after a fun day in the sun. Our good friends Karen and Craig sent us a "grief packet" when Emma died that included a deck of cards with grief quotes on them. I keep the cards in the support group room and go through them from time to time. I think the best quote I have heard is "The presence of the absence is everywhere." This could not be more true.



Yet, even as I am reminded of all that has been lost this year, I am also reminded of how very sweet life is. I am so thrilled to be able to be out on the lake with Tim and Timmy and often times a group of our friends. I am grateful for our friend Rob's enthusiasm for boating that ignited our love for Lake Milford and wakeboarding. I will never pass down an opportunity to watch the sun set over Lake Milford. Regardless of how many sunsets I get to watch, I remain thankful for each and every one.

As mentioned before, I have neglected my blog for a while because we have been out enjoying the summer. One of my biggest summer projects has been my training for a 10-mile race that is held at Fort Riley each year. I was hoping to qualify for the 1st Infantry Division Ten Miler team. I found out this week that my time at the Prairie run two weeks ago indeed qualified me for the team. I was so thrilled! It was a personal commitment of mine to get back into shape after Emma's birth and make the team. I am really excited to be able to run in the Army Ten Miler in Washington DC in October. Our team is fully sponsored, so the kicker is that we get our expenses paid to go do a fun race. You can't beat that for "Army good deals."

Summer Fun

Summer is upon us, and in the Decker household that means we have far less time on our hands for leisurely activities such as writing blogs. We love to spend time outdoors on the boat, running, hiking, swimming, biking or just about anything other than "just hanging out." So, my apologies for not updating the blog lately.

Thank you all for the prayers and support you have given Timmy during his healing time. I am happy to report that he got the cast off within two weeks and he has bounced back completely. He learned to get around quite well with the cast, and was even caught playing on playground equipment with it on. It never slowed him down. When it was time to take it off, he was a little unsure of his leg and will probably have nightmares for the rest of his life about the saw that cut off his "magic leg". However, we are happy to report that he is doing much better. Thanks for all of the prayers.

So, to catch up:

Tim chose to spend his Father's Day out on the lake on the boat. We went out in the early afternoon and enjoyed an absolutely wonderful day. It was really hot, but we anchored the boat and took a dip for a while to cool off. We spend pretty much all weekend out on the lake, which is just about perfect for us. The only thing that sort of got me down was looking at the beautiful, flawless Kansas sunset on Father's day. There was not a soul around except for us Deckers, and near our boat storage lot we could see miles and miles of rolling hills that were particularly gorgeous in the late evening sunset. It was so peaceful! It was such a beautiful way to end a happy, relaxed day for us, but it really made my heart ache for Emma. I could not help but think about how much fun she would have had with us that day and wonder if she would have enjoyed the day on the boat and the sunset as much as we did. She never even got to see a single sunset. It pains me to think that she had an existence here on Earth, but was somehow robbed of the opportunity to experience so many of the gifts we have here on Earth. I miss her dearly and hope she is experiencing something much better than a perfect Lake Milford sunset up in Heaven.

Anyway, to shift gears a little bit, we have done some summer travelling over the last few weeks as well. For the past two weekends we have gone to St. Louis. One weekend Tim played in a golf tournament with his Grandpa and the next weekend we celebrated Grandpa Dick's 80th birthday. What fun!

Back on My Knees Again

Every now and then we have experiences that bring us to our knees. For us, that experience came about two months ago when Emma was born, with an encore this past week. Everything ultimately turned out (almost) fine, but we definitely had a reminder this week of Who is in charge.

Timmy received vaccinations a few weeks ago and had been limping off and on since then. He would limp when he woke up from naps and bedtime, and would then start walking normally later in the day. A little too young for arthritis, we were concerned. I took him to see his pediatrician, but of course the limping did not appear when we were actually sitting in his office. He said it was an odd presentation of symptoms, but he did not think that the symptoms were too concerning. He mentioned that there were some labs that he would run if the problem continued, but he didn’t think it was warranted yet. I was a little curious, but I dismissed it and didn’t ask about the labs. He sent us home with some instructions for a leg massage and told us to come back if the symptoms did not improve in a few weeks.

Last weekend Tim and I celebrated our six-year anniversary by traveling to Kansas City for a few days of eating, shopping and hanging out together as a family (with Timmy). All weekend I had a nagging sensation that something was wrong with Timmy. I wrote this off as being a little over-sensitized to problems with my child after having lost a child. I know that this is very common for bereaved parents, so I tried to ignore my “Mother’s Intuition.” The limping persisted through the weekend, but seemed to get better by Monday morning.
On Monday I started my day at work. After a few hours, I checked my cell phone and noticed that I had received several phone calls from Timmy’s daycare provider, Laurel. Laurel almost never calls unless there is a serious problem, and she certainly refrains from calling several times. Something was up and I immediately grew worried. I called Laurel and she told me that Timmy had taken a very light fall while trying to kick a ball. She said that he would not put any weight on one leg. Initially he appeared to be limping on his right leg, and then he would not walk on his left leg. This was fairly odd, so I called the pediatrician (always great to work in the hospital…you get great service). The pediatrician sounded a little concerned and told me to go immediately to the ER. He said he was booked up with patients for the morning, but he would call down to make sure that we got some labwork done and were not just sent home without “checking on some things.” I wanted to know what he was looking for…after all, why are we drawing blood to diagnose what appeared to be an orthopedic injury?? He told me he was concerned that Timmy’s symptoms fit the pattern of Leukemia and he wanted to “make sure.”

LEUKEMIA!!

I told myself to pull it together, take a deep breath and not get too ahead of myself. There was no diagnosis. Leukemia was just on the list of things that it could POSSIBLY be. Breath. Needless to say, there is no such thing as “relax” when a doc tells you that he is concerned that your child could potentially have cancer. I immediately called Tim and asked him to pick Timmy up from daycare and bring him in. I did not think I could drive. I also called my boss to let him know that I would be in the ER and not traveling to Topeka for another work-related issue like we had discussed earlier that day. Instead of getting a hold of my boss, I got the hospital commander’s secretary. She could sense that something was wrong and asked me about it. As much as I told myself I would not break down, as soon as the secretary asked, I started crying. She talked to me for a few minutes and I felt fairly embarrassed for “freaking out” on her.
So, I went down to the emergency room to wait for Tim and Timmy to arrive. One of the nurses told me that the pediatrician had already called and clued them in that we would be coming and discussed “the labs” he wanted to draw. They were all concerned and had already cleared a room for Timmy and checked him in to the ER before he even arrived. As soon as Timmy arrived, he was immediately seen and put into a room. We spoke to the doctor for a while and they drew some blood (a process that makes any parent’s heart bleed for their child).
About an hour later we finally got confirmation that Timmy did NOT have any of the markers for cancer. They got him in for some X-rays and some more exams. The ortho doc was not able to make it down to see him, so we ended up having to set up an appointment for the next day. They splinted his legs and released Timmy for the day. The pediatrician came down on his lunch and saw Timmy in the ER. He said he felt very comfortable with the fact that Timmy probably had an injury and not some sort of “sinister” disease. He definitely understood the stress we had been under that morning and probably knew that his prescription for extra TLC was probably more for us as his parents than for Timmy. At any rate, we were ecstatic that Timmy did not have any of the markers for cancer, though we were sorry to see that he had a leg injury. We were absolutely exhausted after only a few hours in the ER.

Ultimately everything worked out for Timmy this week. He saw the orthopedic surgeon the next morning and now sports a bright blue cast. It breaks my heart to see him struggle to walk with his cast, but at the same time, I am absolutely relieved that he has such a “minor” medical issue. I don’t mean to overdramatize our experience this week, but it really did make me stop to think about how very fragile life is. We have certainly learned this lesson in the past few weeks and months as we have grieved for Emma, but it definitely takes on a whole new meaning when you cope with the potential for a serious disease of the child who has already become a part of our lives.

We are lucky. We only had to deal with the potential for a childhood cancer for a few hours. Unfortunately, there are many parents who have to deal with the reality of childhood cancers every day. Those mothers, fathers and innocent babies have been on my mind this entire week. As I am counting our blessings, I have remembered to pray for those who count the days…number of days left of chemo, number of days until the next surgery, number of days left with a sick child. Remember these heroes in your prayers this week.

Fun with Friends and Back to Work

I returned to work from an almost 7-week hiatus. My return was bittersweet, but for the most part, I would say I was glad to be back. During my last week of leave, I started to get a little bored. I finished all of my little "projects" and found myself with little to do. I guess it was time to get back.

I have not had much time to dwell on Emma's loss this week, as work has kept me incredibly busy. I guess this is good, as it is very nice and very necessary to shift my focus back to "normal." I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take six weeks to slow down and grieve for Emma, but I am also grateful for the distraction that work provides. It is good to be back to my old routine again, even if I am coming back to it a very changed person.

The weekend prior to returning to work I got the chance to visit my friend Dena. We had a fun "girl's weekend" with several other girls, most of them good friends from Fort Riley. We rented a limo, went wine tasting, cooked, talked and jumped on Dena's trampoline. Most important, we took the opportunity to wrap our arms around our dear friend Dena and remind her that she is a part of our Army family.

Kelly and I take a break.A little afternoon exercise....

Just us girls....

We picked an appropriate weekend to get together, as Memorial Day offered us the opportunity to honor Rob and the sacrifice that he made for our freedom. On Memorial Day we drove to Osceola, Nebraska to visit Rob's grave and attend a Memorial Day ceremony. I could not go through that experience without thinking about the cost of freedom and the sacrifice that so many of our Soldiers have made. As I watched Dena lay a wreath on her husband's grave and Julia place a flower with a note to Daddy, I was profoundly touched by the sacrifice that Rob made for all of us. No longer is Memorial Day about honoring a mass of faceless Soldiers. From now on I will always be touched by memorializing someone who was dear to my heart. This Memorial Day reminded me that though our great wars through history have produced a painfully long list of Soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for freedom, each one of these Soldiers has a family, a personal history and a story of love and loss. I feel as if Rob's story was written on the faces of Dena, Julia and Eva as they visited his grave this Memorial Day. I will never forget.

At this time of year, please remember to pray for our Soldiers and their families.

Mother's Day

We have had a very busy week! First, Tim took command on Wednesday, May 6. He is now "Easy 6" and enjoying his first few long days of command. He was pretty surprised by taking command so early, but he is excited about the mission that he will have and the opportunity to build up a company from scratch. Right now his company is very small and mostly does a training mission. In many ways, his command experience has been a lot like mine in the types of challenges he faces. This makes for good professional dinnertime discussion. It's great to be married to another commander sometimes!

This weekend we took it easy for a few days and recovered from the excitement of the week. Tim and I went shopping for some beads so I could make a bracelet in memory of Emma. I bought a set of bracelets before her funeral and sent one with her, and kept one for myself. Unfortunately, my bracelet is starting to get worn out, so I needed to make another one. This was sort of my Mother's Day gift to myself. It was therapeutic to make a piece of jewelry to help me remember the child we lost this year. I was grateful for Tim's help as well. He stayed up with me until 11:30 at night trying to get the latch on my bracelet attached properly. What a guy!

I also got a chance to get a nice, long run in on Saturday. I did a 10K trail run on my own. I enjoyed the workout and the time to myself to focus on nothing but running. It was a great way to prepare for Mother's Day.

On Sunday, we went to church and then did some shopping. There was some drama attached to my Mother's Day gift, which I will accept full responsibility for. While I was running on Saturday, Tim took Timmy and the two of them caught a Coach purse sale (yes, you read that right...not only did Tim buy me a Coach purse, he also managed a rare opportunity to get it ON SALE. This was a two-hour special, so it really took some planning on Tim's part). On Mother's Day, Tim presented me with a Coach purse. At first I wasn't really sure how I liked the purse he picked. So, we decided to go back to the store after church to look at the other purses (no longer on sale). We ended up returning the purse Tim picked, until I felt guilty about that as well. I decided I liked the purse and wanted to buy it back again. So, the next morning I went back to the store and created a little bit of drama about getting the purse back. Luckily, I prevailed over the sales associate with zero customer service ability, and I left the store happily clutching my new purse. I'm thrilled and have included a picture of my first "real" purse.

The other pictures are of Timmy. I have been blessed to have some extra time with him lately and I have really enjoyed it. He has such a cute little personality that he can always bring a smile to my face. The pictures taken in the bathroom were very typical of Timmy's antics. He has taken to wearing a pair of sunglasses that a little girl left at our house. He wears them everywhere...to include the bathroom. I bought Timmy a little stepstool on Saturday, which he immediately started pretending was his own "toilet." (It may be time to start thinking about potty training). He went through all of the motions, to include unrolling toilet paper. I was pretty impressed, but I couldn't do anything but laugh because he went through this whole routine with his "Hollywood" sunglasses on. Such a ham! I don't know where I'd be without Timmy to brighten my days. He's so much fun to be around!

Quilt Therapy

Today was a pretty fun day. I have decided to make a quilt square to memorialize Emma on a Memorial Quilt at the hospital where she was born. Sherri (midwife) suggested that I meet someone she knew who quilts. So, today I had the chance to meet DJ, a retired Army nurse. DJ gave me my first quilting lesson, which was incredibly fun. I have to say, my quilt square is made with a lot more love than talent, but DJ did a great job at teaching me the basics. I was able to complete two full squares today. One square I will send to the Memorial Quilt. The other square I will keep for Emma's memory box. Next week I am scheduled to meet up with DJ so she can show me how to "finish" the square and make it into a small blanket or wall-hanging. I am really looking forward to another fun afternoon with my new friend. :)

While I was at DJ's house, we were visited by "Old Blue." I looked out the window and could not believe my eyes when I saw a beautiful peacock standing up on the porch...yes, in KANSAS. Old Blue stayed there all afternoon and made sounds. At most times it sounded like he was just laughing at me while I tried to figure out how to sew in a straight line (no drinking involved, I promise).

The big news on the homefront is that Tim will be taking command of a company next week! This was a little sooner than we had expected, but Tim is thrilled to have the opportunity. That being said, on short notice he has had a lot to do to prepare for command. This week has been fairly full for him each day, often requiring work to be done when he returns home from work. Tim takes command next Wednesday at 1300. I am so excited for him as he takes on this new responsibility. It is a rewarding experience that I look forward to getting back to in the upcoming weeks. By then we will DEFINITELY have a busy household of two commanders. I plan to enjoy the few moments of taking time to quilt, play with Timmy and work on my little "projects" while I have the chance.