I will catch up eventually

Just so you know, I am very behind on my blogging! I will get it caught up eventually :)

Thought I'd share

I follow a few blogs that are written by women who have lost babies. Some of them have come up with creative ways to write baby names and have offered to do it for other people to remember their babies. One writes the names in the sand, I had a lady write the boys' names on a pair of angel wings and she took a picture of them and put them on her blog and then mailed the angel wings to me. Another writes the names on river rocks and here is her blog where she wrote the boys' names on the rocks. I was pretty excited and thought I'd share!

Meet the new addition to our family...

A couple of weeks ago my parents adopted a new dog from a shelter in Wyoming. When we met her, we fell in love with her. We found out that she had been taken to the shelter with her sister "Princess" so we decided to call the shelter to see if they still had her. Let me back up a little way...my husband has wanted a dog but has been stubborn about it because "we have two cats". Since we have two cats, his excuse was that he felt that we didn't have room for a dog. So fast forward, we called the shelter and they still had Princess. The lady that ran the shelter said that she was coming through to go to Lava so we decided to meet her in Soda to look at the dog. She was so sweet! We decided to give her a try for a week and if we didn't like her, the lady said that we would be able to give her back. The first day we had her, I fell in love with her! She is the sweetest dog! I was a little concerned how she would do with children since I babysit in my home and we have Rohbi and her friends come over a lot. She LOVES kids! We haven't even had her for a week but we know we couldn't give her back now! Let me give you a clue as to how spoiled she is. We sleep with our door shut to keep the cats out. They used to be allowed to sleep in the bed but Eric decided that they took up too much room on the bed and they tend to fight over their places on the bed and wake us up. We decided that the dog was going to sleep in the room across the hall from us. When we put her in the kennel, Eric asked if we should put her in our room. So she ended up in the kennel in our room. Well some time after I fell asleep, Eric let her out. She slept on my side of the bed and farted all night! The next night she climbed up on the bed and that's where she stayed all night and every night since! She is a Stafford shire Bull Terrier. We decided that we didn't like the name Princess though so we re-named her Izzy. Anyway, we love her and thought we would share...

Valentines Day

Okay so I know this is a little late but better late than never right? :) Sunday morning I was trying to sleep in because I didn't get much sleep the night before. I got a knock at the door. It was Rohbi and I grumpily asked what she wanted. This sweet little voice comes back that she had made me breakfast in bed and wanted to give it to me. I felt really bad for getting after her after that so I opened the door and there she stood with this cookie sheet...


with this note on it...
There were soggy Rice Crispies that had sat there too long obviously because she was waiting for me to wake up, a roll, cookie, candy and a glass of water. You could tell she had put a lot of thought into it. What a sweetheart!

I came out and these were sitting on the table waiting for me...


I have the best family!

It's Time To Give Back

When we lost Gunnar, it was such a shock, but at the same time, it wasn't because we were warned a couple of days before hand that we could lose him. About 4 months later, I felt ready and wanted to give back to Share Parents because they had given us so much. I asked what it would take to be able to help them and she said that to be able to take care of the babies, I would need a little more distance from my loss before I could do that. The last thing a parent who just lost their baby needs is a stranger falling apart in front of them. So that option was out even though I felt like I could. Right around that time, I learned how to knit and decided that I would make the little gowns, hats, booties, and blankets. I was still a beginner knitter so I knew it would be a while before I would be able to do that. I continued to knit and develop those skills. When we lost Ruger, it was even more of a shock. It was something totally unexpected. I didn't think I would be able to get through a second loss. Thanks to an amazing doctor who was willing to step outside of his job and give two strangers a priesthood blessing (along with prayers and support of our loved ones), I believe we made it through as good, if not better than can be expected. My heart still hurts and I still have some down days and that is something that is ongoing. I'm the type who will play the "poor me" card for quite a while if I can get away with it. I realized a long time ago that it doesn't help my depression one bit to do that and I have a family to take care of. Soooo.....I decided to step outside of myself and take a step toward my healing. After searching on the Internet, I found several sites that had patterns of gowns, booties, hats, etc. for premature babies of all sizes and also for full term stillborns. They are sites where you can get the patterns and then donate what you make to hospitals. I was so excited! I decided to push myself and try these patterns and realized how easy it was to make these things! Anyway, enough of my rambling. I've made a few of each of these things. I even found patterns small enough that they would have fit both Gunnar and Ruger! I made some bigger burial gowns but am working on the smaller ones. These are just a start of what I will be making:

The first burial gown I made

This is an angel pouch. They come in several different sizes for babies of all sizes.

These hats are quite a bit smaller than they look. They would probably fit a 3-5 pounder.
This one is my favorite! It is a beautiful pattern!

Share Parents gave us something that we can never get back. They took pictures of our beautiful little boys. Without those, I honestly don't know if I would be able to remember what they looked like. They also gave us every article of clothing that the boys wore, little tape measures that were marked for how long the boys were, little teddy bears, tiny little baby rings, etc. and all this stuff was put in a memory box. These women are on call any time day or night so when we lost Ruger one of the ladies were called in around 1 am. They've all been in a similar situation and are giving back. It just helped so much in our healing to have a little something to remind us of our babies.

If anyone is interested in helping out, I found patterns that you can knit, crochet, and sew so let me know. You can contact me at idamberl@hotmail.com and I will forward the website addresses to you. I will also give you the info where you can send the stuff. It would be to Share Parents of Logan but if you would rather send them to a different hospital, I can help you figure out where to send them. I also know that they could use all the donations (money) they could get so if you are interested and would like to do that in addition to or instead of making things, let me know and I can get you that info. They whole point of this post was just to update you on what I've been up to and to include you in my healing process and not to recruit so please don't feel obligated to help out. It's just if you are interested.

Two Left Feet

This year we decided to get Rohbi signed up for dance lessons and she also had the opportunity to sign up for a mini cheer camp. This is the first year she has participated in either one. She has loved doing it even though she has no rhythm and two left feet :) She tries and that's all that matters. She performed in the cheer camp at half time at a girls home basket ball game. The cheer camp was the day before and I had been sick for a couple of days. Half way through the cheer camp she called and said she was sick so she didn't learn the dance. She performed the dance anyway and really you would be able to tell the difference because she was right on step with the other girls! I didn't get any video because we are 10 years behind on technology and are probably one of the only people without a video camera.












A couple of weeks later she performed at the dance extravaganza. Her Grandma and Grandpa Gould came and she was so excited! She said that she was nervous but she did really well! I decided to do something fun with her hair and it turned out really cute so I had to show it off :) It took me an hour but it was fun!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. Eric's family sent a ton of gifts and of course about 95% of them were Rohbi's. She was so excited and loved everything she got. Almost every day she would ask me if she could "organize" the presents. I know that it was to see which ones were for her so she could have quick access to them. Christmas morning my parents came over and the plan was to start opening gifts at 7:30 am and then have a nice breakfast afterward. I got up at 7 so I could be there when Rohbi got up so she couldn't get into the presents without us being there. I waited and waited and waited. No one woke up. 7:30 came and went...7:45...finally at 7:50 my parents showed up and I told them that Rohbi and Eric were a bunch of poops because I was the only one up!

I went and woke Rohbi and Eric up...

and then we waited for Eric to drag his lazy butt out of bed...
Finally he came out and Rohbi (anxiously waiting) could finally start opening presents.

We headed down to Preston for Christmas lunch with my family and then exchanging gifts. This year we decided to do a homemade gift exchange. It was kind of stressful and at times I didn't know if I would finish the gifts in time but it was a lot of fun and the finished product didn't turn out too bad either :) I also made something for the two kids that I watch. I didn't take a picture of the hat I made for Cooper but I made Bailee a cute little purse and thought it turned out really cute so I just had to brag real quick :)