I had a dream about Caroline last night. It was my first and only one so far since she left us. In the early days after her passing I spent most night with my best friend Ambien and I'm sure that prevented any dreams that might have come. I'm grateful for it. I could not have handled any dreams of her then.
I almost couldn't handle the dream I had last night. I guess I could tell you the long and winding version of my dream but it was all so bizarre that it almost didn't make sense to me so I'll save you from having to read all about it. Sufficed to say, she was ALIVE! And I got to hold her ALIVE! She didn't have that too tiny to live look about her (if you've lost a child you know what I'm talking about). She still looked small to me in my dream but not sickly small. She looked like a real baby. Like how I would have loved and give my right leg to see her look. Her little eyes were open and not still fused shut. She was soo beautiful! I knew in my dream that she would still pass away but I was able to hold her in my arms and not my womb when she passed.
I don't remember how much more I dreamed because the next thing I knew I could hear Griffin on the monitor. I crept up to his room and as I entered it I could see his beautiful little smiling face. The little stink was wide awake and calling for me :). Bless his heart, when I scooped him up he had leaked out of his diaper and through his jammies and swaddler. As I changed him on his changing table (for some reason his favorite place to be) he continued to smile and coo at me. I can not tell you how HEAVEN SENT these moments were! I went from the confusion of a welcomed nightmare into such unconditional love and devotion from my earthly baby!
As I rocked and nursed Griffin back to sleep I said a silent prayer of thanks to God for the moments he provided me with my 2 babies that night.
Recently I've been trying to come up with ideas that allow me to contribute monetarily to our family. I thoughts of tons of things including at home child care, opening my own etsy shop and even adding Ads to my blog.
The last one seemed the easiest so I started there first. I figured all I would need to do is apply the Ads which Blogger will let you do in a heartbeat. I started them up around two weeks ago. To get the ball rolling I told close friends and family about them and how they would really help generate a little extra income for us!
It seems that friends and family were VERY generous in their endeavor to help me out :).
Below is the email I received...
After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.
I'm a little sad that I have just barely gotten started and now this is something that I can't count on. I read the rules before I started and it states pretty clearly that I myself am not allowed to click on the ads themselves. I was unaware that they would tally up how many times an Ad was clicked on from various IP addresses. I wish I was warned about that too so I could have passed that info on to well meaning friends and family. I'm sure that it was mentioned somewhere in all the small print that I neglected to read. :/.
So, word to the wise friends, if you decide to apply Ads to your blogs, BEWARE!
(oh and I'm also not sure of why Blogger is cutting some of my words in half and wrapping them around to the next line. So weird.)
First off, thank ya'll all so much for the sweet comments about my hair picture! I too love how the color came out and I hope that I'll be able to keep it up! To those of you who asked if I had lost weight after I had Griffin, I have a little bit. I still have about 20 (gag) pounds left to loose before I hit the same weight that I was when I got pregnant. Truth be told, I'd like to loose about 40 more pounds. To get that picture, I took a picture of myself 900 times shifting my head slightly each and every time I took a picture. I then spent an hour and a half picking the one that looked the best. Just kidding. But only about how long it took me to pick out a picture. I really did take 900 :).
Bobby and I have been tossing around the idea of joining weight watchers online. Anyone else try it yet?
Bobby's little sister is getting married this weekend. We are super excited for her and her fiance. They make such a cute couple and he'll be an awesome addition to the family! I can't wait to get pictures and post them on here.
I'm silly ya'll and I read all sorts of random blogs. One that I came across a while back is about a little boy that is suffering from a serious skin condition/disease call EB. His darling mother has just been told that it won't be much longer before Tripp will be joining Jesus in Heaven. Tripp is only 2 years old and has pretty much endured more pain and suffering than you and I could even imagine. Can you go and visit them and offer your prayers up for his family? I just cried and cried when I read his Momma's last post. I dread the next time she posts again...
I just discovered today that Griffin is a BIG fan of the movie, Gnomeo and Juliet. Have you seen it? It's beyond cute with the greatest music (if you are an Elton John fan :). I had Griffin propped up in his Nap Nanny while I was making Grady lunch and I could hear Griffin actually LAUGHING at it! He has started to do the funniest little gurgle laugh these days and I guess that all the dancing an singing really got him going!!
I thought that I would be so sad but instead I find myself smiling, remembering my sweet Caroline and thinking of just how darn CUTE my baby is!
The above picture is my sweet Griffin's attempt at a smile for me :). I'm so proud of my thriving little guy. The outfit is size 6 months and it fits him perfectly today!
Glory to God for giving me a baby to fill this sweet outfit!
With my sister-in-law Stacy's wedding coming up this weekend, I had to do something about my crazy hair. I have had zero time, money, or energy to keep it up and I had some horrible roots going on! I decided that now was the time to make a little time and try and get things back on track with my poor hair.
I had the sweet lady who cut it try and guess what my original color was (haha) and dye it back to that. At least this way when it grows out the roots won't be noticeable.
Note to self : get brows waxed and buy darker makeup.
I think that it came out a little bit darker than what my real color is but I still really like it!! There is just nothing like having someone else wash and style your hair. I don't know how they can get my hair soo straight! I wished that it could look like this everyday!
What do you think? Am I better as a blond or a brunette?
So ya'll know I'm a dork right? :) Of course you do! You have been reading me for a while now I'm guessing and most of ya'll are still here! It seriously drove me bonkers-crazy yesterday only being able to write just a smidgen of what I wanted to. With handwriting there is only just so much space. That and my hand gets really tired, really fast. Its just soo much easier to type and so much faster. So long rambling paragraph short, I wanted to do a little fill-in recap of yesterdays post so you could read everything that I wished I could share but didn't!
Ok, so the first 3 were pretty self explanatory so I'll skip right to...
4. As you all must know by now my all time favorite quote is the one that is in my header. It spoke volumes to me on my deepest, darkest days. It's what carried me through on the drives to and from the funeral home (and there were heart-wrenching multiples of those). It's what carried me through my pregnancy with Griffin when I was so scared I couldn't hardly sleep most nights. I recently stumbled upon another verse that has now taken hold in my heart!
"All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. "
Psalm 139:16
I love it's promise that God is in control of all of us, in everything we do. It takes the weight off of my shoulders of feeling that I have to micro-manage everything. I now feel soo much free-er to turn it all over to God and just say to him "Your will be done.". FREEING!
5. Ya'll I just love The Fray! If you haven't heard this song before, here it is!
6. My favorite book is one that I just discovered last year! It's also the very first one I added to my Kindle.
This book is an awesome mixture of suspense, romance, history, and current times. I just LOVED IT! Ms. Howe just did an awesome job in writing this book. I may just re-read it again now that I'm talking about it :).
7. My two favorite movies pretty much run along the same lines of how I like my books. Historical and suspenseful!
I love to watch things that make me think that are not too scary but just scary enough! :)
8. So onto the things that frighten me most... My first knee-jerk reaction was to say heights or snakes. But once I seriously thought about it, I realized that the one thing that I worry about most (like every single day) is something might happen to my family or my friends. I've experienced some pretty bad losses already in my life (my best friend and maid of honor in my wedding was tragically killed less than a month after my wedding, my father's passing, and the loss of Caroline) and sometimes I think that my brain has become programmed to expect more to come. I know in reality that this is not the case but it still doesn't seem to help the irrational portion of my mind. I worry soo much that Bobby might be in a terrible car accident because he commutes to work for soo many hours each day. I also worry about someone abducting one of my children. I know I am probably a total looney-toon... Anyone else have these same fears?
9. This question was easy! :) My dream job would 100% have to be working in a museum! I graduated from college with a Bachelors of Arts in History. If I didn't have a husband and children (which was my number one goal) this is what I would be pursuing!
10. The last question was way too easy also and very self explanatory! To have the ability to be with my wonderful hubby forever and to know that my kids are successful at life is the most important to me! The last part about writing a book is just a quiet goal of mine that I would love to see achieved one day :).
Hi! I'm Hillary, stay at home Momma to 3 precious boys here on earth and one sweet little girl in Heaven. I'm lucky enough to be married to the love of my life Bobby for the past 12 years. I hope you enjoy our journey together!
Graham is my sweet 10 year old. He's sometimes wild, sometimes crazy but always loads of fun! He's a great best friend and a history nut. Graham loves Lego's, swimming, and chapter books!
Grady is my very silly but always loveable 4 year old. He's our wildcard and we're always on the lookout for what he'll get into next. Grady loves root beer, backyard adventures, and his brother's Lego's.
Griffin is our adorable 11 month old and newest family member! Already in his short little life he has brought much joy and renewed HOPE to all of us. Griffin loves to move around, eat yogurt puffs, and his paci.
Caroline Elizabeth is our sweet little girl. Her young life ended when she was born much too soon. We celebrate her life and her birthday every October 15th. We all consider her to be the guardian angel over our family!
