Walk of Remembrance and Running with Angels 2015

Every May we have a couple events we participate in that help us honor and remember our sweet angel baby, Nastassia.

I know Mother's Day can be hard for many women. Trust me. I've been there.

At this point in my life, after going through some pretty hard times, I feel very fortunate to have had positive experiences in the midst of difficult trials and I can honestly say now that I look forward to the month of May every year, especially when Nastassia Day comes in April and it's kind of hard to get through every year.  Sometimes I still have to take a deep breath and wait for the moment of grief to pass.  Sometimes it hits me at random times when I'm least expecting it.  We will always miss our little Nastassia and it makes us sad that we'll never have the chance to raise her here upon the earth.  Someday though, we know we'll have that chance in the eternities. But, it can be hard to keep that eternal perspective and to be patient.

It's healing for me when our family participates in our annual Walk of Remembrance with other families who have lost babies too, and then the next weekend we go run with many of the same families in the Running with Angels 5k.

May 9th - Walk of Remembrance

The Walk of Remembrance is always the Saturday before Mother's Day.  I'm glad they hold it then.  It helps me look forward to Mother's Day with a smile on my face and not so much grief in my heart.  It was a cold, rainy day this year, but we didn't really care.  We were just happy to be together to celebrate Nastassia!

Our family with our traditional yellow balloon to be released in honor of our angel baby.

Releasing the balloon.

I love that they take time to read the names of all the babies of the families in attendance and have a moment of silence.  It's always very touching.

It was raining so hard that the weight of the raindrops made it hard for the balloons to float up.  As we were leaving we noticed several balloons on the ground that hadn't even made it out of the parking lot!  Darwin jumped out of the car and grabbed a couple balloons for the girls to have--especially because Savannah was so sad that we sent her balloon up into the sky.  She was a happy girl again when she got her balloon back :)

May 16th - Running with Angels
The Saturday after Mother's Day is when we join other families for Running with Angels.  This is my most favorite 5k that we do together.  It's amazing to feel the strength and support of so many families who have gone through similar, or harder, experiences of losing a child than we have.  I'm glad the girls are beginning to look forward to this also as they get older and are starting to understand more.  It was a chilly morning the morning of our run also, and we were worried it would rain on us again, but it didn't!  We still bundled the girls up anyway.


My friend, Lonny, volunteers for the run every year.  We always look forward to see her!  Thanks for taking a picture of our family, Lonny!
 
Ready to run!

Just before the run, they do a dove release.  We ended up right next to the families and the doves this year.  It was fun to be so close!


The doves usually fly around the crowd a couple times before taking off, but this year they flew around the crowd for several minutes before flying away.  It was special and neat to watch.


May 10th - Mother's Day
In between the two events was Mother's Day.  Darwin made delicious blueberry pancakes for breakfast and gave me a few gifts I've really been wanting. He always treats me too well :)  That's why I keep him around though. Haha! He's amazing and I wouldn't be the mom I am if it weren't for him!

I wanted to get a picture of me and the girls but they were not at all cooperative.  I should have just joined them in making funny faces.  Silly me. Oh, well!

My and my Rori-girl

Me and my Sweet Savannah Belle.  She was still being a stinker in a picture by herself, but it's all good :)

I love these two little ladies who call me "Mommy".  They sure are sweet spirits and I'm so very blessed to have them!!

Happy Mother's Day to all those special women in my life who have set such great examples for me and taught me so much throughout my life.  I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for so many amazing women, most especially my own mom.  I love and appreciate her more and more as I get older and go through the experience of motherhood myself.  Thank you, Mom, for all of your love and sacrifice.  I hope you know how much you mean to me!  I love you!

Silly Sisters!

I know I've said it before, but I'm so glad these two are such great friends with each other.  They definitely have their moments when they don't get along, but for the most part, they get along really well, and I'm so grateful!  I love that they love to be silly together!
Rori makes a pretty good bubble Santa beard!

And Savannah thinks her sister is crazy sometimes :)

Lately they think it's pretty fun to help me vacuum.  I love having good helpers!

They love horsey rides from Daddy.  It's hilarious when they try to give horsey rides to each other because they're practically the same size. I have yet to capture that on camera though. :)

Aunt Georgiana gave one of us a candy Santa beard for Christmas and we finally broke down and let the girls eat it.  We had to take silly pictures with it first, of course!

 
 
 
 And, one of their new favorite things to do together is play with makeup.  It cracks me up that they draw their eyebrows on, because they see me color mine in :)  You gotta start somewhere, right?
(Savannah was in the processes of pulling a clip out of her hair, just FYI)

They get pretty creative sometimes!



Putting even more lipstick on!

A slightly more mellow episode

Gotta love that lipstick job! Lol!

This picture doesn't demonstrate it very well, but they like to call each other on our cell phones and put them on speaker so they can use them like walkie-talkies.  Their favorite part is hearing the echo between the speakers when they're sitting right next to each other.  Silly kids!

We love these two little ladies!  I don't know what we would do without them!

Sweet Savannah

This girl is a character.  She loves to be goofy and tease her sister.  Her laugh is contagious and she makes us laugh on a daily basis.  We're so blessed to have her in our family!

She loves to play dress-up
(and always wears her tiara over her eyes)

Sometimes she likes to "read" books at nap time before she falls asleep, and then I find her in uncomfortable positions when I check on her.


Grandma and Grandpa took the girls to McDonald's for happy meals one day when I had to go to a meeting for work.  Savannah thought the box made the best hat ever.  She thought she was pretty cool :)


Trying out Rori's roller skates

One Sunday I had to leave after church for a meeting and when I came home I found these two taking a cozy nap.  Sweeties.

Lately she wakes up pretty early in the morning (between 5-6:30am) to climb in our bed and then she goes back to sleep for a while longer.  It's only okay because I'm already up working at that point so she has space to sprawl out :)

We love you, our Sweet Savannah!

She's growing up!

April 29th

Savannah learned how to climb out of her crib one night as Darwin was putting the girls to bed.  I thought it was kind of funny that as soon as she did it, he pulled out the toddler bed Grandma and Grandpa had given her for her birthday and started putting it together.  I guess Daddy and Savy were both ready for the change, but I wasn't so sure I was ready for her to be out of the crib yet.

 
 She slept in her new bed that very night and never looked back (partly because Daddy took down the crib the very next day).

For the first few nights we found her in random positions, but she quickly learned to stay put in one spot, for the most part.

She has done amazingly well with the transition to a big girl bed!  I really think it has helped to have the girls in the same bedroom, and luckily we made that transition a few weeks before this while Savannah was still in the crib.  They love being in the same bedroom (although Aurora asked a couple times for Savannah's bed to go back in Savannah's room, which is now our playroom and I LOVE it!).  They go to sleep really well most nights and it saves us some time with our bedtime routine by having them in the same room also.
You can stop growing up so fast, Savannah!  But, we do love watching you grow!

Payson Temple Open House

April 28th

When a new temple is built, the Church opens it up for a public open house so anyone can see what the inside of an LDS temple looks like. I love having the opportunity to take our kids inside because they wouldn't be able to otherwise. At least not until they're 12 and live their lives in a way that allows them to enter the temple.

Temples are so sacred and special. I love the feeling of just being on the grounds, and we try to take every chance we get for our kids to experience the special sacredness of the temple and feel the peace that it brings.  We weren't able to get tickets for when Daddy could come with us, but I jumped at the chance to take the girls anyway.

I can't talk about the inside of the temple, because of its sacredness, but one thing I thought was cute that Savannah did every time she saw a beautiful chandelier was say, "Mom! Frozen!" and she'd start singing "Let It Go" in a quiet whisper.  It was pretty cute :)

You can click here to learn more about LDS temples.  If you live near Indianapolis, there will be an open house in July and August.  You should take the chance to attend an open house if you ever get the chance!

The girls and I enjoyed our time at the temple together, but we were sad Daddy had to work and couldn't be there with us. We did meet up with him at his work for lunch afterwards though!

 I finally got an open-eyed picture of Savannah while she's smiling! :)

Us girls!

It's a beautiful temple!  We're so blessed to have so many temples close by!

There was a visitors tent outside the temple where people could go and ask the missionaries questions and learn more about temples.  The girls loved being so close to this statue of the Savior.

Then someone offered to take a picture so I could step in with the girls :)

And we had to do the photo booth with the temple too!  Couldn't pass that one up! ;)



April 30th
Two days later, my parents were able to come down with my niece, Koda, to attend the open house as well.  I thought about just sending Aurora with them and then knew Savannah would want to go too, so I just jumped at the opportunity for us all to go again!  Unfortunately, Savannah was not having it with the shoe covers/booties they have you wear this time when we went.  So, instead of fighting my two year old through the whole tour, she and I went back outside and waited until everyone else came out.
She insisted on taking her shoes off and wanted to stick her feet in the fountain.

I wouldn't let her put her feet in, and that didn't go over very well so we ended up spending most of our time waiting in the car so she could eat snacks.

 And we sang songs and made silly faces at each other to pass time :)

When it got close to the time I thought my family would be finishing their tour, Savy and I went back outside to find them.
My girls love the Angel Moroni.  He's their hero.  Every time we talk about Moroni, Savannah reminds us that he blows a trumpet :)

The gardens on temple grounds are always beautiful.  There was a hummingbird moth flying around.  It's a moth, but it looks and acts like a hummingbird.  Savy and I enjoyed watching it for little while.

We didn't have to wait for much longer before they came out of the temple and joined us again.
The girls with their cousin, Dakoda.

The best shot we got of our little group.  You can only do so much with cranky kids who are tired and hungry (especially when it's a complete stranger taking their picture)!

Then we visited the tent again for a few minutes before heading home.  Each of the girls wanted a picture by themselves with Jesus.


And my parents too :)

As we were getting ready to leave the tent, Savannah started crying because she wanted to stay with Jesus. It was the sweetest thing ever!  I'm so glad my kids recognize the Savior and want to be with him! :)

We can't wait for the next temple open house we get to attend together!