90 Years Young

This weekend we went to my grandparent's to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday. We call my grandparents Ma and Pa. They are two of the most important people in my life. I cannot believe my Ma is 90 years old, it seems like she should still be 70. I am so fortunate and so very blessed to still have my grandparents at their age. They both are in fairly good health and still have their spunk and sense of humor. We had a community birthday party for my Ma. She's 90 so we had to do it up big. We had a great turn-out and it was wonderful to see so many people who adore her as much as we do! I sure love my Ma. She is the most amazing person you will ever meet. Olivia is named after her, they share the same middle name. I can't imagine my life without my Ma in it and I don't take one second I get to spend with her for granted.


Isn't she so pretty?

Ma and Betsy


The whole family


The most wonderful couple in the world, my Ma and Pa

They Have Value

This summer I am taking a Psychology of Grief class for my funeral service major. This has been such an interesting class and I am really learning alot about grief and coping. The last chapter I read was about coping as an adult. One section was about the death of a child. After I read the chapter I just felt heavy hearted again. In adults, the most significant impact is the death of a child; however, society does not understand this and often claim fetal death experiences have minimal impact on the parents and do not generate a significant grief reaction. Why? We are offered false consolation. "Now you have a little angel in Heaven" or "You can always have another baby". It's such an easy dismissal of my losses and I guess it's just ignorance and discomfort from the outsiders. It is often foolishly claimed that there could not be much grief when there had not been real bonding with the infant.

I just want the world to know that I DID bond with Grace and Olivia. During pregnancy I completely and actively reshaped my life to accomodate the anticipation of my triplets. I felt all three girls move. I saw them on ultrasounds dance and wiggle all over. I named them. I developed dreams for them. They were ALIVE. I bonded with them. I talked to them and sang to them. Grief has nothing to do with the length of my baby's life, but the nature of the attachment I had to them.

I am so thankful for the programs which have emerged to help us parents with our baby's after their loss. I cannot express how grateful I am to the photographers at Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep who came and took the most amazing pictures of my girls. I would have never thought to do all they did in my time of grief and I think they are amazing. They helped us validate their life and their loss.

Grace and Olivia have value. They existed and they were MINE. I had only the time she was alive in my womb with Grace and I had only 37 days with Olivia. That doesn't mean their death's were any less painful than if I had lost them at 10 years old. They are my babies.

The world may never notice
If a Snowdrop doesn't bloom,
Or even pause to wonder
If the petals fall too soon.
But every life that ever forms,
Or ever comes to be,
Touches the world in some small way
For all eternity.
The little one we long for
Was swiftly here and gone.
But the love that was then planted
Is a light that still shines on.
And though our arms are empty,
Our hearts know what to do.
Every beating of our hearts
Says of our love for you

A True Princess

Today Tony and I took Betsy to the mall to play in the play area so she could run off some steam. It was too hot to even go swim today so we had to do something! On a whim we decided to get Betsy's ears pierced. We have thought about it for a while now but have always been hesitant mainly because we didn't want her to have to hurt for a long time. We talked about it with her and asked her if she wanted earrings like her cousin Allie. She said she did but of course she didn't know what that all entailed. So we took her to look at earrings and there was a teenage boy who was getting ready to pierce his ears. I took Betsy and we watched him get his ears done and she said, "I'm ready to get earrings too."

So we did. The lady who did it was really sweet and had lots of knowledge and advice about what to do and how to take care of them. There was luckily another worker there so they were able to do them at the same time. I was so nervous. More nervous than Betsy for sure. Tony sat in the chair and held her while I snapped pictures on my phone. They counted down...3....2....1....go. I heard the snap of the guns and braced myself for her to start crying. I literally was sweating I was so nervous!

Betsy literally didn't even flinch. She didn't cry, whimper, NOTHING! I was like, "really? That easy?" She had a mirror in front of her so as soon as she was done she got a sucker and we gawked in the mirror how pretty she was. She looks just like a true princess to me. She is absolutely beautiful. I guess she has been stuck so much in her life and been through so much that a measly little stick in the ear was nothing. What an angel.

For some reason my e-mail won't open the pictures I sent from my phone. Bummer. So I can't show off the ear piercing process. But these were taken right after we got home. With her new haircut and now her ears she doesn't look like my baby anymore. She looks like such a big girl.





On a side note, we found a karaoke channel on our On Demand so before bedtime we jammed out to Old MacDonald and Row Row Row Your Boat. Ah yes, that's the life!

New Schedule, July 4th and a Haircut, Oh My!

I can't believe it is already July! I can probably fit everything here in about 2-3 different blogs but instead I guess I'll just write one big long one, of course full of pictures. I just don't feel like seperating everything. This summer has been going by so fast! We have been keeping ourselves pretty busy. Since we have had Betsy in dance class and in swimming lessons we have kinda been putting her on a different schedule. I guess it started back in June when I started school. Tony had switched his schedule at work to work evenings and he was home all day wih Betsy. Well, typically I will get Betsy up by 8:30am and that way by 1:00pm she is ready for a nap and she will sleep until 3-3:30pm, but since we have been busy and she had already been off her schedule when Tony's family was visiting, one day we just let her sleep in and she ended up sleeping until 10:45am! We were looooooving getting to sleep in also!

So now we are trying out something new with her. We have been letting her sleep in as long as she wants in the mornings, usually she is up by 9:45-10. Then she skips her nap and goes to bed at 8pm. However, we are finding it is difficult to get her on a good eating schedule since she won't eat breakfast until 10 in the morning and then lunch around 2:30ish. And she sometimes gets cranky around 7ish as well. So, we may have to go back to getting her up in the morning so she doesn't skip a nap. It's all trial and error at this point.

We also celebrated Fourth of July last weekend. We went to my grandparents farm as we typically do. We didn't get to do fireworks like we usually do since we had to come back for my brother and Tony to go to work. We did enjoy a great visit and Betsy even got her very first haircut. It wasn't much to cut off since she still has pretty short hair, but it was very uneven in the back, like growing pretty long on the sides and not in the very back....funny. Also it was getting pretty long on top. We were able to get by for a while by pulling it up into a "fountain" on her head but it was getting so long that didn't even look right. haha.

Here is a picture a few days before her haircut. We were playing in a fort we made at home.


We let my aunt "Oakie" do her first haircut since she gave me MY first haircut when I was 2 years old. Of course my hair was way past my shoulders at that point. Haha! Poor Betsy.
Here are some pics of the process. Sarah sat and did the entertaining while I snapped away a million pics. Betsy will pretty much sit still for anything electronic so she did really good playing with some of her cousin's toys.










I think she looks like such a big girl now. It's really, really a cute cut and I'm so glad to have it out of her face. It's adorable when I pull the side back and clip a bow in it. I just love having a little girl!

So after our weekend out on the farm, we came home to go to the Bethany 4th of July parade. So let me mention that it has been well over 100 degrees all month long and Monday morning, July 4th morning, by the time the parade started it was already pushing 100 degrees. We stayed for about an hour and we were all feeling pretty miserable. I don't care how much water we drank, it just wasn't safe to have my little girl out in the heat for that long so we left. Here are a few pics from the parade. She's so cute in her festive outfit!





That evening after a nice long nap we loaded up and went to Edmond for the fireworks show. Betsy enjoyed it and even sat still for all of 5 minutes and watched it. haha. All in all, I didn't think it was worth it. We had to get there an hour before it started to get a good spot, it was HOT, and then after the show we had to wait almost another hour to get out of the parking lot. It was well after midnight before Betsy got to bed and to me that just isn't worth it. I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!!

Edmond fireworks (children's area) Look how cute her hair is!


Enjoying the show

Wordless Wednesday