and there was rejoicing

I wish I could say and there was much rejoicing but I can't.  Zoe's birthday was mostly great in terms of celebrating her. But in the moments I would stop to think, I'd cry.

I am so grateful for our beloved little girl. She is a huge blessing to almost everyone who comes into her presence. No joke. All of the staff know our cottage as Zoe's house basically. With that being said, I couldn't help but think about Jubilee as we celebrated  Zoe's birthday. In the times when I got a few minutes to myself I would cry. It feels so bittersweet knowing that we could be celebrating two little girls birthdays.

I know that God has a plan for all of this. Somehow He is going to use this for our good.  But that doesn't change the fact that this hurts. However, I choose to sing,"Blessed be Your name".  "Blessed be Your Name on the road makes with suffering, though there's pain in the offering, Blessed be Your name.

Amen.

There is pain but like Job we will bless His name whether He gives or takes away. And let's face it, our Children are only on loan to us anyway. They are His. He blessed us with the gift of raising them.

Oh my our beautiful girl is tu-tu cute!

How did our beautiful little baby go from looking like this: 

(Photo taken by my mom-in-love)

To looking like this beautiful grown up baby:

to being this cute little girl: 

Oh, Zoe Joy, how you've given us so much love and life and pure joy these past two years.  We are so blessed by your spunky personality, love for life (and puppies), and your ever-growing knowledge.  You get smarter and smarter everyday and we just LOVE it.  You are the reason we love being parents!  

You know, life would be so much more boring without you to spice things up!  

Happy 2nd birthday beautiful girl! 

On a lighter note

One day at bedtime, we were doing all the normal bedtime routine with Zoe, sitting on her bed, watching this video, reading her Bible. . . er, wait, we were about to read her Bible to her and pray when she did this:

and then this happened

and then she did this

and this

And this is what mommy thinks about the whole "let's use mommy's hair as a mustache" thing. LOL 

She learns too quickly

Getting the creative juices flowing again

Since we've been at George Junior, I've struggled to take my breaks.  We're supposed to get 5 hours off a day and let's face it, most days if I get 3 hours off I'm happy.  However, Aaron has been working hard to help me learn to take breaks.  It's been so nice because I haven't done a lot of creative things in the past year.  I've missed it a lot.  So when I got to make some Christmas gifts, I LOVED IT.

This week I've created some printables.  One was for me to put on our desk in the cottage.  One is for Zoe's Birthday.  I know nothing really about Graphic Design, I'll be the first to admit it.  But I've had a lot of fun creating these.

The hard things and the praiseworthy things

Some of the hardest things lately are just little things.  Wednesday, as I was making my plate for lunch, I broke down in tears and ran into the apartment because I realized it was the meal we had eaten right before our midwife appointment when we couldn't find Jubilee's heartbeat.  I think the boys knew something was up because they were very quiet the rest of lunch.  Thursday, D P W came by to ask some questions/due inspections and they asked (about Zoe), "is she the only child living with you?" Ugh, I answer yes, with tears in my eyes, and the next question was "Do you feel safe with your daughter here with the boys?"  Then I had to explain why I had tears when I answered yes to that question.  The unit director that walked around with the D P W ladies, expressed his apologies and we shared a nice chat as he just lost his dad last week.

Seeing pictures like the ones from Christmas with my side of our family are wonderful, and yet heartbreaking at the same time.

All of my parents grandchildren, minus Jubilee, which is why it is sad, but I love seeing my nephew Ryan interact with his littlest brother and Zoe. He just loves them. 

I did reformat this but it didn't change unfortunately.  Zoe just adores babies. 

I believe this is when she started asking for help. 

Loving on Owen made my heart break. Over and Over and Over.

She would be an excellent big sister. And Lord willing she will be one day. 

Two babies at once.  The way it should be. 

Giving him his bottle. Big Sis material.

Kisses for mom.

And making salt dough ornaments.  I hope we can make more memories like this in the future. 

These pictures just remind me of how nice it would be for our family to have one more little one to share the joy. I wish I didn't find it so difficult, but my heart just misses Jubilee so much.  My mind knows she is where she needs to be and that she is much happier there, but my heart can't seem to agree most of the time.

There are so many things to be grateful for though: 

One of our youth who went off campus is back on campus and asked if he could come visit his "best friend" (aka Zoe). He had a birthday yesterday and asked if I could bake him some of my delicious cookies I made when he went on homepass last summer.  Yup, he remembered the cookies I made one time over the summer. LOL I will have to try to make those tomorrow.  When I saw him, he asked about the baby and hugged me when I told him what had happened. It is so encouraging knowing you are making a difference in these boys' lives. 

Zoe LOVES to read.  Today while Aaron took the boys to the home basketball game we read about 10 books in 30 minutes. No joke.  She LOVES books. Although recently she has been closing them and saying, "De En" (the end).  She also has been learning to fill in the missing word for me. She has a book Biscuit's Day at the Farm and when I read the first 4 words, she finishes with "Darm" (everything has a "D" for some reason.)  

The boys are pursuing academics more.  One always asks me for homework help and I have 5 practicing cursive handwriting.  It's kinda awesome!  I love using my teaching skills.

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I'm linking up with Casey Wiegand over at The Wiegands

one month later

Jubilee was born 1 month and 1 day ago. The pain is less but it is definitely still there. I don't cry every time I'm in the shower anymore. I don't even cry every day now. However, I cry at things that remind me my previous girl isn't here anymore: seeing two sisters playing in the waiting room, seeing a shirt with two little owls jumping rope, a in in onesie saying "daddy's lucky charm", learning of the birth of a friend's daughter (even though you are happy for them), seeing Zoe feed her cousin his bottle, watching Zoe give him his pacifier, taking a picture of all the grandkids and realizing there is one missing, watching Zoe be a good mama to her doll (patting her back).

These are all things that brought me to tears these last few weeks.

And then there was the total scare of Zoe.
We found out Tuesday Zoe is moderately allergic to amoxicillin. She broke out in terrible hives all over her body. We went to urgent care and she got a shot of steroid and put on azithromicin for her ear infection and on benadryl. Then Wednesday we took her to the ER because she had a swollen face and the hives had closed in around her eyes. Thursday she had a 101 fever and the hives had become black and blue. Because I didn't realize the bruising was normal healing and because of the fever, we were back in the ER. They kept us til her fever went down. Thankfully she woke up looking great today thanks to her steroids and benadryl.

I am not normally super worried about illness but after losing Jubilee unfortunately I think the devil was plaguing me with fear. I was trying to pray through it as much as possible.

Unfortunately, this has been a tough month for us. We have had good times with family and friends as well though including making Christmas ornaments with my nephews, chasing kittens at aunt Kristin's, watching Zoe open presents and having so much fun, and being able to use this time to share our faith with our families.

Good has truly been so good to us. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season.