Today Levi would have been three months old. I should be taking his pictures and getting them out to all of our family like we did with Caleb. No parent should ever lose a child. No parent should ever have to go without being able to bring their baby home from the hospital or without being able to celebrate with each new month of life. What I hate so much is that Caleb has to go through all of this too. Some days he seems fine and other days he doesn't. He sees babies out places and he says he wishes he had a baby brother and he wishes that baby was his brother. He knows that he still has a brother, but he wants his to be here. I hate this for him. We will be celebrating Caleb's fifth birthday in just a couple of weeks and I hate that we have to do that without Levi in our arms. I am so thankful for all of the time we have had with Caleb and for the seven weeks we had with Levi, but it is never enough. I am journaling my feelings which is emotional and sometimes people misinterpret those feelings. We have not lost our joy. We can have joy every day because we know the truth and we know what the future holds for us, but we can also grieve and have joy at the same time. While we are here though, we are going to do our best to give Caleb exactly what he needs and raise him the way we believe God wants us to. We are going to try to show love to others and fulfill the purposes that God has given us. Our family journey became a different kind of journey with much more pain when Levi left us, but it is part of our journey now and we can not avoid it. We are forced to live the rest of our lives here without Levi and that is something that will never go away, there will not be another day on this Earth that we get to spend with Levi, but we will walk through this journey as a family, clinging to God, and we will keep our hope all of our days. Nothing will change, we will serve the LORD.

So many days I feel like I have been punched in the stomach and there is this empty place left there. I can only describe it as a hole in the pit of my stomach that won't go away. It is absolutely horrible. There is nothing that can fill this void. So many ask if we will have more children, but more children could not fill it. We have so much love for Caleb and we are so thankful for him and at the same time, we have had a huge part of our hearts ripped away. We miss Levi so much. We are so sad about all of the things we will never get to do with him on this earth. While we know that this is all temporary and it will be such a short time compared to eternity, we absolutely cannot understand that. We are human and I don't believe it is humanly possible to comprehend how short our time here really is. It feels like so long.

I do want people to know that we are not just walking around depressed and without hope. We do have hope. We know that one day God will set all things straight and everything will be perfect. I have had a bad day and have had a lot of stuff going through my head. When I feel this way, all I can do it talk to God. I can talk to Him about what I feel and He knows what I feel. I don't have to try and find the words to explain like I do to my friends, He just knows and He always gets me through it. One way or another, He helps me through. I desire to continue growing in my faith and in my relationship with the Lord. I will forever cling to Him through this and I will try my best to do what I am supposed to do in my time here.

Thankful for Blessings

I am sorry, I have been a bad blogger. I really haven't had anything I felt was worth sharing, I suppose. Things have been a little less exciting around here the last week or so. Since I can't think of anything to write about, I thought I should write a little of what I am thankful for. I am thankful for so much in my life. Wow, God has blessed us with so much. I am so thankful for Jesus and the promises from God. Because God gave his son for all of us, we get to spend eternity in heaven. That is absolutely amazing. I am so thankful that God has created a perfect place for us to spend eternity. A place where we will be reunited with our sweet babies who are already there and our loved ones. I am so thankful that He is taking care of my babies until I get there and I am thankful that time is not the same in heaven as it is here (at least that is what I believe) and our babies are not waiting around for us. I am so thankful for my wonderful husband. God brought us together many years ago and we have been on an amazing journey together ever since. We have had lots of ups and downs but we always get through it all together. Together, we have grown so much in our walk with our Father. We have really grown so much in the last three years or so, but especially in the last year. I am so thankful that God has given me a man who is a hard worker, an amazing daddy, a loving, respectful husband, and a devout Christian. He is not as outspoken as I am about things, but he definitely surprises me all of the time with what is going on in his head. I am so thankful for a God who knows exactly what I need in a husband. I am so thankful for Caleb. I love that boy so much. I appreciate every day with him that God has given me. We are not guaranteed a single minute with our loved ones so I am so thankful that I have had almost 5 years with him so far and I pray that God will bless me with so many more. I am thankful for Caleb's stubborn personality. He is very strong-willed and can be extremely difficult and I love that about him. I don't always enjoy the struggle that comes with that, but I love him for who he is and everything about his personality. He amazes me every day with his intelligence. I am so thankful for my sweet boy who is perfect to me in every way. I am so thankful for the seven weeks we had with Levi. I have read lots of stories now that I am connected with so many mothers who have lost their little ones and so many who have had babies with CDH and some did not even have a full day with their "cherubs". I am incredibly thankful for the time we had with him despite the fact that it does not feel like anywhere near enough. That sweet boy has forever changed our lives and I am thankful for that. God is still working on us and many others through Levi and I think that is amazing. I am getting off track a little so I will try to pull it back together and just list a couple more things. I am thankful for our family, our church, our Sunday school class, our friends, our neighbors, our prayer group, our house, our cars, Michael's job, all of our needs being met by God, our military and our freedom. I have tons more that I am thankful for but I think the biggest thing is simply love. God's amazing love that I could never comprehend and the love of family and friends.

This morning was family dedication (or baby dedication) at our church. I have looked forward to that day since I first got pregnant with Levi. I looked forward to it even more after we discovered his CDH because I knew it would be such an amazing miracle that we got to that point. Everyone just has a baby and then they do their dedication and that is all. Levi would have had to get through some incredibly difficult circumstances to get to that point so I just pictured it being this amazing Sunday morning with surrounded by so many who have prayed for Levi praising God for the mighty work He had done. So, I was a little emotional. Actually, I was probably more of a train wreck. A friend of ours, whose wife has just given birth about four weeks ago, was there because they were doing baby dedication and he came up to me to give me a hug and when he told me it was baby dedication I just lost it. I went to the bathroom and cried for a long time. I didn't realize it was this week. The reminder was in last weeks listening guide, but I didn't really pay any attention to it. When I pulled myself together enough to walk back into the sanctuary, baby dedication was wrapping up. Then we started worship and all of the moms and dads were walking back in with their babies from the back to find their seats. Seeing all of those moms who had been waddling around the church with me during my pregnancy was so upsetting. I'm not sure why. Maybe just seeing several of them at a time with all of their healthy babies? I really don't know. I am very happy for all of those families but I miss my Levi so much. There are so many things I will never get to do with him on this Earth. I cried all through worship and on and off for so much of the day. Every day there is some time where I am crying. Usually it is at night when I am just sitting in the bed and can't sleep and lots of times it just comes and goes randomly throughout the day. Am I depressed? No. I am simply grieving. Unfortunately, there is no way to go around this. We just have to walk through this storm. I have heard from many parents who have lost children that the pain never goes away, but instead you learn to deal with it in different ways. I believe this is true. The reality of it all is just too much. But, here is what I do know...we will get through this. We will cling to each other as a family and cling to God and we will get through it. I know that this life is so short, although it seems like forever, it will be over before we know it and then we will spend eternity with our Savior. Sometimes, it is all I can do to go sit in the quiet and talk to God and beg Him to drag me a little further through everything. Am I strong? No, but God gives me the strength to get through everything one day, one hour, one minute at a time. I CAN do all things, through CHRIST who gives me strength!

Everytime I hear this song, it is exactly how I feel so I wanted to share it on here

Ask Me Anything

Every day I am having my friends ask me lots of different questions about our life. Everyone is nervous to ask me anything about Levi because they are afraid of upsetting me or getting in our "business". Well, we have shared Levi's life with so many and have in return been blessed with meeting so many wonderful people and received so many prayers! I don't think there are too many things I am not comfortable sharing about our life at this point. So, I am putting together a blog post just for answering all of those questions that everyone wants to ask. If you have a question, feel free to send it to me in an email or facebook message. Don't worry though, I will not share on here who asked what and if it is too personal or just too much for me to talk about, I will simply not answer. I will not be angry about any of the questions or think too much about them. I simply want to put this together so that people do not feel so awkward around me not knowing what they can talk about or ask.

I am not sure when this post will come out yet, just depends on how many questions there are.

Levi Bracelets Are In

They are here! We put ours on and I don't think we will ever take them off. We have started getting them out to everyone and we are so excited to see lots of people wearing them around!

Lots of bracelets!

Disney On Ice

This morning we took Caleb downtown for Disney On Ice thanks to a sweet friend who sent us some tickets. I think he loved it. We have never been to anything like this before. I thought it was going to be really boring but it was actually alright. Doesn't really matter, we both enjoy taking Caleb to things that are boring for us anyway because it is always fun and so worth it to see his face light up when he is having a good time. I guess it was called Mickey and Minnie's Magical Adventure or something like that. Some of the costumes looked so good. There was lots of music and I think Caleb had lots of fun.

Halloween

Not much to say about Halloween. We went to Levi's grave for a while first and then headed to the church for trunk-or-treating. We were there for maybe 45 minutes and then headed back to the neighborhood to trick-or-treat with my family. Caleb had so much fun. He was running like crazy door to door. He hadn't even eaten any candy and it was like he had drank about five redbulls. We asked if he was having fun and before we could even get the question out he screamed, "YEAHHH!!!" so that was good. I have never seen him run so fast. I couldn't help but smile about how much fun he was having. I love that sweet boy so much!

Caleb actually took this picture

Levi's Superman Pumpkin

He thought this was awesome

Cute boy

Running from the door with the boys. Trying to get to more candy as fast as possible

Another Fall Festival

We took Caleb to another fall festival. This was an awesome one, but I do think they could have given out more candy (mostly because I like to eat a bunch of his candy every year). They had tons of games for the kids, a couple of rides, a bouncy house, pony rides, a cake walk, loud music, motorcycle/bike trick shows, and more. It was pretty awesome. Caleb said his favorite part was winning snowballs in the cake walk (although he does not like snowballs). That boy is so funny.

TP Toss

Side view of the mohawk. Everyone had something to say about how awesome it looked

Arm wrestling. So funny. When Caleb beat him he said,

"See, I told you I was strong!"

This was my favorite booth

Face painting

The guy working the cake walk told them that if they danced they were more likely to win so Caleb

danced around (and he won!)

Fishing. This group does this fishing game every year and as you can tell from the picture, they love it! I think they just love seeing the kids faces. When Caleb got his goody bag of stuff, he turned around with the sweetest face full of excitement. He was so excited and proud.

He is such a cutie pie!

Pony rides

I think Caleb had a great time. I am so glad we have these oppertunities in our community. I am so glad God is giving us the strength to get out and do these things for Caleb and continue making memories with him. We are at the very beginning of this awful journey called grief and somedays are easier than others but somedays are harder than others. This was a really hard day. It was a really hard morning at church. We have been praising the Lord all through this storm and we will continue praising Him because He is good. His plan is good. I know that; we know that. I get emotional in my worship because I know God has all the power. I know He did not make a mistake giving us Levi or taking him away. It is so hard to know that He was/is fully able to heal Levi and chose not to but I know that it is good and this is a part of something bigger than us. I praise the Lord because He is good and I am so thankful for heaven and God's promises. I know He has created a perfect place and Levi is there and we will see him again. My heart cannot wait! All glory and honor and praise to You, my Savior!

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight we carved pumpkins. We let Caleb pick out a design from a book and we made one with Levi's name on it. We also got a small pumpkin to take to Levi's grave. Here are some pictures.