2013 Pumpkins...

Pumpkin carving was fun this year. Ruby and Alice did their own carving. I helped Alice on a few cuts but she did a great job cleaning her pumpkin and carving for the first time. Ruby too. Chris learned the hard way that you shouldn't ask a three year old what they want on their pumpkin if all you really want to do is a jack-o-lantern. Betsey loves her family and wanted a family pumpkin. I think Chris did a great job of making her dream come true! :)

Wow. These three girls are so awesome, I love them so much!

Alice's 8th Birthday...

Alice! I love her! She is such a unique person and very hard to describe, but those who know her get it. I love her because she is sensitive. She is sensitive to others and it is hard to believe she would be mean unless we are talking about sibling interactions...she can be a little grabby and hasty with siblings. She is innocent and young for her age...maybe immature in some ways and more mature in others. She is and has always been my most engineerish mind...I remember when she was like eighteen months and Ruby was four and a half, and Alice knew how to buckle and unbuckle her seat belt while Ruby had never even tried or cared to try. Alice liked to put her fingers in uncovered sockets and plug and unplug things and she loves puzzles and Lincoln Logs and blocks and building things. She is just really good at seeing how things fit together. She had a physical during her birthday month and Kim Kelly, her doctor believes she will be taller than Ruby. She weighs 60 pounds and it maybe three inches smaller than Ru. Her doctor things she has hyper attention, so that when she is focused on something she is really into, she is hard to interrupt. She loves practicing the piano and writing in workbooks for school. She enjoys reading to her younger siblings and playing learning games on the computer.

Alice got her ears pierced for her birthday! Chris took her, I stayed home with Leo. Felt a little sad to miss it but she decided kind of last minute that she wanted to do it and it was Leo's bedtime.

For her birthday, we went to lunch together. I had to get her out of the house because my mom was bringing down her girl cousins as a surprise. I did her hair special with these old bender curlers from my youth. I thought she looked really cute all fancy. She isn't one to want much attention, so she was a little sheepish about the extra attention but she did feel pretty. It is so darling how she will half way hate the attention but at the same time she can't hide that it makes her feel good too.

Off to lunch we went. It was fun. She wanted pizza so we went to The Rock. My mom pulled in a few minutes after we left, so I left Leo with Ruby for a few minutes and it was really just us!

This is the face of a girl who wishes she wasn't having her picture taken. Gah. I adore her!

The cousin surprise was delightful. I like the video footage better...but it was really fun and she was really excited to have Hailey, Emma and Sarah with her for her day.

AND OMA!!!

Sarah, Ruby, Emma, Alice and Hailey.

For her party, her friends Shayla, Ella and Mattie came over and we sewed skirts for all the girls and watched a movie and had dinner...spaghetti, per Alice's request.

 I love that Chris is reading the "Alice is Six" book that I make for each of the girls (I have to start remembering to say "kids" not "girls" now!!) when they turn six.

 Alice always exudes joy when she opens her presents. She really just glows with smiles and happiness with each and every one. Even if she doesn't know what it is or has never wanted it in her life...but it is endearing because it isn't rehearsed or insincere...it's just her. She's so cute!

I didn't get any pics of her friends...but once my mom and I finished all the skirts the next day, we got this cute shot of Alice with her sissies and cousins.

I took these pics of Alice when she came home with her pierced ears. She loves them!

Love4Mia...

 It's hard to believe that a year has passed and at the same time it is hard to believe it has only been a year. Sweet little Mia went to heaven a year ago. I don't know how to express myself openly because I know pretty much everything I say is like a broken record to Mimi and I don't want her to read a broken record.

I just want to focus on the little things that were done to get through the hard anniversary. Our family was invited by the McDonald/Conway families (John's side of the family) to a dinner at a local church building. The night started an hour before little man's bedtime, his crankiest hour...so we got there and I took pics for everyone and then we fed the kids and bolted home (Leo screamed the bulk of it). I was glad we got to go, but sad we didn't get to stay for the little program that was planned for after dinner.

The family got these cute window stickers made for everyone...

 Dinner...baked potatoes. I brought a crockpot of chili.

 Bestey picked up this pic off of one of the tables and wanted me to take a picture of it.

 We did a big group shot of everyone outside the church building. I was impressed that John's mom and her husband's (not present that night) family were able to gather WITH John's dad and his wife, Carol and their families. It was theirs, his, hers...everyone. I think that is great. If there was one thing that I came away from Mia's funeral thinking, it was that we all just need to love more! Sometimes in relationships, there must be boundaries in order to have the greatest peace in a relationship...and I'm sure that is the case here. Everyone seemed glad to share the gathering for Mia was a real testimony of their love for her and their desire to honor her memory.

This is a shot of everyone in attendance. I was taking it on a tripod, so I was doing some running back and forth. It worked though!

 Here, I was on top of Chris's truck and he was pulled up on the sidewalk of the church. I pieced together four different shots in order to get this panorama. It turned out!

 Mimi asked people who wanted to remember Mia, to join she and John in doing nice things for others in Mia's name. I have to say, the days leading up to the anniversary were hard because I could remember what was happening a year ago and it was hard. The day of was somehow lighter because all day I was checking in on her hashtag to see what people were posting and it was really uplifting to see what others were doing to remember little Mia. A few things that I posted for others...Sandy made two trays of enchiladas to deliver to two homes that could use a prepared meal. She isn't on instagram where most of the activity was, so I posted for her. THANKS, Sand!

 Ruby and Alice and I bought some purple mums and took them around three different places. I know Anne knows it was us who delivered them to her, and she'll see this...so then there will be no doubt that she knew. Anyway, I could have taken them somewhere more annonymous but this was about giving my kids a chance to remember their little friend and I tried to make it personal for them by talking about how their good friends, the Eugenio kids, lost a cousin. Their cousins are chief in thier lives, so that really impacted them and they really, really wanted to deliver the flowers to Eli, Isaac, Eve and Luke (and of course I wanted to bring some cheer to Anne and Dillon). So. We went there. They didn't come to the door while we were there. We knocked a bunch and then eventually the dog figured out we were there and started to bark and the kids bolted. I assume Anne got them that evening when she got home from her church responsibilities.

We also delivered to Alice's primary teacher from when she was 5-6, Allison, who just lost her husband to cancer. She was adamant about that, and I know Allison doesn't know it was us but she posted on facebook about it and it made the girls know that they could bring her a little happiness. We also delivered to a woman in our ward who lost her daughter and husband in a car crash five years ago. She is someone we adore and admire and the kids had just been with Chris over the weekend pressure washing her gutters and so they thought of her right away.

 I had friends talking about Mia...far flung friends, people I've known since Kindergarten...Taryn is of course someone I still get in contact with, but I haven't seen Raquel (Kelly to me) since high school...

 I designed this little card to take with the flowers. I had this picture because I helped Mimi edit the background out of it for her drill team t-shirts...and it seemed like a good one to choose when making it available to the public (I posted it for others to use) because her face isn't on it. I don't know, it just seemed more discreet...and this is a joyful shot of Mia dancing.

John and Mimi were in Hawaii and it was neat to see their posts throughout the day as they delivered goods to homeless people and to children on the beaches and spread some Mia joy all day. I admire Mimi for making the day something more than just sadness, and there was definitely sadness. I was just grateful it wasn't only sadness. I hope to do this every year, even if it is just something quiet in the future that I do with the girls (I guess one day, Leo won't have a 6:30 bedtime and we'll include "the boys". We all miss you, Mia!