Happy Anniversary

You may be thinking, that doesn't look like Dennis. Well, that's because it is Josh. The father of my beautiful children. My first husband. Today is our wedding anniversary. I was just thinking about what a wonderful, hopeful day that was. I was so happy. We went through a lifetime of pain and joy in our short time together. He was a wonderful daddy to my babies. I miss him. We all miss him. He is forever in my heart. I see him in my children and in myself. I know his sweet mom reads this blog and I want you to know Heidi that even though you tell me how happy he was with me, I was even happier with him. My love for him is deep and unconditional. He was my hero and my rock through some of the hardest times in my life. I love you Joshua Barker and I miss you!

Now, to some of you this may seem strange for me to write because I am married to someone else now. Just because someone dies doesn't mean we love them less. We have to move forward in life. Dennis has been a wonderful addition to my life. It has been hard to adjust to someone new, but I know Heavenly Father has a plan for my life that is different than the one I had planned for me. I trust His will and know I will be okay. My children are strong and are progressing and so am I. I love Dennis and our anniversary is in a couple weeks. He has been very patient. Josh is a big part of our lives and I appreciate that Dennis is accepting of our love and constant conversation about Josh. Dennis puts up with a lot and I am happy Heavenly Father brought me here so I could love and be loved by a wonderful man.

Christmas Decorations

We all went over to the cemetery and brought Sarah her tree. I'm sure it has fallen over by now. I need to go and make sure it is okay tomorrow.

Then we headed off to pick out our tree. It was Christopher's year to pick. He did a great job. The kids loved decorating it. It looks so great all lit up!

Last year I got this awesome nativity. Every year we lost the baby Jesus. Emily has to carry it around and eventually it is no where to be found. This nativity has Mary holding Jesus secure in her arms so Emily can't steal Him. Smart mom!!

Christopher is in charge of setting up our village. Well, really he won't let anyone else do it. It is just so nice all lit up!

Next came the lights. Emily begged me to go on the roof. We argued forever. Finally I let Chris be in charge of making sure she didn't fall. She only got this high on the ladder before saying that maybe she would be ready next year and then climbed down.

Joseph and his friend, Cole, however, were not afraid and were happy to help with the lights.

Chris took charge and did a wonderful job. It looks so much better in person! I love this weekend with my kids. It is so much fun!!

Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving for me started off with a nice hike. It was at least two and a half hours long. I had a wonderful chat with my friend Lindsey. What a great way to start the day. I came home just in time to watch the Packer game with my boys while I cooked. We had a nice and yummy dinner. I felt very full so My two boys walked with me to the cemetery to visit Sarah and just talk. So another over hour walk. I think I hit close to 4 hours for walking today. I hope it removed all my food from today! We had dessert when we got back. We then played a few games, decorated a tree for Sarah and passed out our new ornaments. I had a great day with my family. All the dishes are done and I am ready for bed and another full day tomorrow!! One of Christopher's Thanksgiving traditions is to pose with the drumsticks.
Joseph took this photo shoot for me.

What a funny boy!

A new tradition we started this year was to decorate a little tree for Sarah for her grave. We always get our tree the day after Thanksgiving and we thought we should bring her one too.

Every year I give my kids an ornament on Thanksgiving that represents something about their lives during the past year. This one for Chris is a crown and says "King Chris" to represent his Homecoming King win this year. He is also wearing his Packer gear. We won again today. I LOVE watching football on Thanksgiving with my boys!

I got Joseph a football ornament with his name.

I got Emily a cheerleader bear ornament with her name.

This one is for Sarah. It's hard to see, but it is a sweet baby with angel wings. Her little hat says, "SARAH" and the heart has "2009". I just thought it was so cute.

Gratitude

So my last post wasn't very cheery. That is just how it goes for me sometimes. Today, however, I am filled with gratitude and joy for my loving Heavenly Father and the great love and tender mercies he shows me. In the past two days I have been truly blessed by so many of you. Yesterday, I had a friend come over and bring not only her love and support, but a sweet gift to help me keep Sarah close to my heart. What a treasure and joy she is in my life. I had phone calls of concern. I had a wonderful visit from a very dear friend today. She wanted to visit Sarah's room and see all of her things and share my memories with her. I had my Bishop call me in to check on me and give me beautiful words of counsel and love. I had another kind friend just give me the most wonderful loving hug when I was leaving the church. I had the kind comments from all of you as well. I am blessed. I may have pain, but I definitely have joy. The pain makes the joy so much sweeter. I feel your love my dear friends and it means more than my words could ever express. You are all truly the angels, the instruments in the hands of the Lord, that answer my prayers. The love I have felt in the last couple days has filled up that empty cup and it now runneth over. Thank you. I have a beautiful daughter that I miss, but I have a lot here too to be grateful for. I am so grateful for the happiness and joy that I have that comes from knowing and living the Gospel. I truly have never known more peace as I have than while living the Gospel. It is my source of comfort and strength. I know that my pain will subside and healing will become more complete in time. I know that because Christ has already suffered these things for me that I may be succored by Him. When I take the time to see and feel what I do have now, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. My life is full and complete. I have known much loss, but the loss is temporary and so it is eternally complete. Today I am most grateful for those kindnesses from all of you. I am going to try to compile a more complete list, but for now it is sufficient for me to say that today instead of pain I feel loved.

How Was Your Day?

How was your day? Mine was just wonderful. I am being facetious of course. I had to go to a meeting in the morning. As I was getting ready I knocked my wax machine off the counter. For those of you lucky enough to not be a she-man like me, let me explain. I have horrible facial hair struggles. If this is too much info, well, oh well. I use hot wax to remove it so I can look somewhat like a girl. It is sticky and ruins everything it touches except skin. All of my cords got tangled. It spilled everywhere ruining my water pic, the only skirt that really fits me, a shirt, my hair dryer, curling iron and nubulizer (for Joseph's breathing treatments). Not to mention the floor, which thank goodness it's tile, I will be scraping that for the next week. I also had it all over my hands and feet. Boy was that FUN!! I did pretty good not getting too upset. I mean, it's just stuff. I was running late by now for my meeting and I had to just go with my hair all wet and my feet, seriously, sticking to my shoes. When I came home I realized Emily was not feeling well and Joseph was wheezing so I thought it would be fine to just let them both stay home. I brought my phone to church, which I never do, so they could call if there was trouble. Not usually having a phone, I forgot to hold it in case it vibrated. Walking out from Sacrament meeting, there she was, no pants, her hair a wild mess like Medusa, and a very angry story. She was only wearing a long t-shirt and socks. I am not even joking. She continued to tell me how Joseph was trying to "strangle" her. I then looked at my phone to see 6 missed calls. I had three very frightening screaming messages from the both of them. I guess they were beating the crap out of each other. Nice. Knowing I had to be in young women's, my mom took her home and stayed with them. Then in young women's the advisor had her baby and was trying to teach. I knew I should help her with the baby, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to hold the baby. I felt like such a jerk. She was probably wondering why I wasn't helping her and being so rude. The truth is, I am having such a difficult time right now with my grief. The holidays are really not helping. I just could not bring myself to hold that baby. I just couldn't do it. I knew I should, but I couldn't. I hope that poor woman isn't offended by my weakness. I came home and sobbed because of it. Because of all of it. I can't stand hearing about or looking at babies. That is as honest as I can be. I can't stand it. I can't stand people complaining about pregnancies. I can't stand a lot of things right now. This is my problem, I'm aware of that. I know people aren't doing anything wrong. It is just my pain and I have to get through it. I feel as if my pain is invisible to others a lot of the time. I feel alone in my grief and I just want to scream to the world sometimes, "Don't you see how much I hurt?" So I guess this is my scream. I hope your day was better than mine and I hope tomorrow is better for me. I do have perfectly lovely days sometimes........and other times, not so much! I do thank those that are so supportive and loving to me as I stumble along this rocky road. You are my angels and I cherish you!

Football Banquet & Senior Dinner Dance

Being a senior is a lot of fun. Chris and his friends went to the senior dinner dance on Wednesday. They were supposed to go stag so they can dance with all the girls...and they did. He had so much fun!
Thursday was Christopher's football banquet. Dennis had to work so it was just me and Chris. I Have to say, I love it when it's just me and Chris hanging out. We did sit at a table with lots of our friends so I didn't get him all to myself. This is us before we left. I just love this kid! He is wonderful and I adore him!

The banquet was at a golf course by Utah Lake. It was gorgeous. The smell, not so good.

This is us at our table. I wore his cute button!

Someone hand made these gifts for the senior players. Chris is so proud of his.

Chris and his friends with their senior gifts. Can't believe he's going to be 18 in a matter of weeks. Where in the heck did the time go?

Tagged

Well I was tagged. I guess I am supposed to write 10 completely random things about myself. So, here it goes.

1. I am deathly afraid of condiments. You heard me, condiments. I do not know when this annoying phobia started, but it seriously is embarrassing. If ranch or mayo or something similar touches my hand, I freak out and have to scrub it off my skin. I eat all my food plain. No dressings, NOTHING! It is the weirdest thing.

2. I love to do Turbo Kick Boxing.

3. I lettered in cheerleading, basketball, softball, and volleyball in high school.

4. I have only been an active member of the church for 5 years.

5. I love to play cards and board games with my friends.

6. I have very expensive taste and I'm very poor. Not a good combo.

7. My life has been harder than you could ever imagine. Very few people know the reality of it all.

8. I would do anything for you.

9. I think I'm very down to earth and extremely funny!

10. My FAVORITE restaurant is Claim Jumper. Their potato cheese soup is my favorite thing to eat ever!!

I don't think very many people read my blog. If you do make a comment. I'd love it. I am supposed to tag some people so I guess I will tag Jamie (because you seriously need to post something), Teri, Ronda, Lindsey. I think it was four people. Who knows. Happy day!