April 1-7 Spring Break!

We stayed home for Spring Break this year and had a lot of fun doing local things we have been wanting to do. We hiked, went to the zoo, visited Mary Washington, went to Busch Gardens and hit some memorials.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 25-A Merry Christmas Day

Santa came!!

and so did the grandparents!!

We’ve got lotsa pictures to share from today!

seeing the evidence!

oh my! Santa’s pockets were so full of reindeer food that he dropped some on our floor. AGAIN!

The milk is gone Mommy!!

yes, that is a yardstick!

Demonstrating how this gift will be used…

Being a pirate and modeling his shark tooth necklace! Doesn’t he look like such a big boy here?!?!?!?

These were Aaron’s big Christmas wish, the Imaginext dinosaurs, which Aaron calls, “Dinosaurs in Gear.” He has been asking for these for the whole year.

oooh, cute new coat!

ARRRGGHH!!! An AWESOME pirate ship from NanaGrampy…

…which I will spend an hour putting together.

 

Can you see through the glare? My son SAW and CHOSE this gift for his Mommy all by himself…LOTR Pez dispensers!!

Somewhere between watching Aaron open gifts and sitting down to Christmas dinner, I realized I was truly having a nice day. I took nowhere NEAR the number of photos I usually take, which is a marker of how slow and reserved I was feeling. There were some lovely times of the day that I don’t have photos of at all, like when Sarah and Zack and the girls were over. I know that I didn’t feel it as deeply and joyfully as I usually do, but sometime during the day I noticed that I was actually enjoying myself. It was as if every desperate plea we made for this pain to ease was finally answered. It felt like the burden had been lifted, and while I knew that feeling was going to come and go, just knowing that it was possible was empowering, and it was an unbelievable relief. Just a little mercy and grace for us. We were given one precious day. I imagined that all the love and good wishes and words of support from people who had reached out to us had woven a net that lifted our pain from off of us and held it for us for a while. It really worked. We managed to have a good Christmas after all, to focus on Aaron, and to enjoy things as much as someone possibly could after going through what we have.

When we made it upstairs for the night, I expressed these thoughts to Chris, and wondered if he had thought about the day the same way. He said that the same thought had crossed his mind earlier in the day and he felt guilty for a moment, even thinking, “Wait, I shouldn’t be laughing! Why am I enjoying myself?”  I think this kind of thing is pretty common during grieving. It’s so so hard to reconcile all the different feelings that course through us, so quickly and unpredictably, and leaving so much raw damage. I would later experience that instant of griever’s guilt on the one month mark of when Mara died. But we snap out of it, sometimes at least, and we let ourselves feel good again. And the moments when we feel good will come more and more and we will learn how to live with this loss.

Merry Christmas.

December 13

Tonight Aaron and Daddy had a little play time together. Aaron loves nothing more.

 

November 22

Today is the last day of no-shave record keeping. The contest isn’t actually lasting the entire month (although some purists found that unacceptable and kept it going), it’s only lasting until Thanksgiving break, so here is the last set of hairy pictures! Not sure why they are holding a football…probably just to be goofy.

Here’s some close-ups.

Mike, a “purist” who refused to trim or even get a haircut, and he kept it going all the way through DECEMBER!

Fisher, who grows facial hair like this every year for hunting season anyway…

Redbeard…aka TJ

Jojo and Chris

Racek (who actually had a three day head start, if you can believe it…)

And the winner of the EHS No-Shave November contest…

Greg Hinton, team teacher extraordinaire! (he’s trying to look stern…not really believable!)

Here are the slightly disturbing photos of Chris’ shaving progress…

Shave stage 1 (aka the Caleb)

Shave stage 2 (aka 80’s guy…I could NOT stomach this look past having to take a picture)

Shave stage 3 (aka what a relief, there’s my man!)

November 14

We were missing someone in the last no-shave pic, and most of them turned out goofy, so here’s the update. Look at those rascals! Hubby on the very left side!

November 12

Here are some t-ball pics. Looking back, most of them look the same and I could easily get away with taking a quarter of the pictures I took…but isn’t that just the way it goes?

Chris has started going out in the outfield with Aaron (along with the legion of other dads that do the same) to help stay engaged during what can be a really boring and frustrating portion of each game. There is very little action in the outfield, and every time a ball gets hit, every boy runs towards it and makes a massive dog pile. Aaron doesn’t want to get hurt, so he participated in the dog pile madness exactly one time and now prefers to just go for the ball if it is right near him, which is not often, which means he gets bored. Having Chris out there to direct and encourage him has made a great difference.

October 31

It’s Halloween!!! On a MONDAY.

Look…it’s Rachel Berry and a Brave Knight!

Now Aaron REALLY wanted to pass out candy, like WAY more than he wanted to go trick-or-treating. While we were taking these pictures, about 10 kids came to our house, the first of which was a brother and sister that go to his school. He was beside himself with excitement as he saw them coming up the stairs. So we kept the trick-or-treating early and short so he could come home and pass out candy some more.

Sadly, even though we were out for less than an hour, once we got back home, NOT ONE person came to our door. Aaron was so so sad and just cried. He sat by our front door with the bowl of candy, and got more and more sad until finally he just laid down on the floor and cried. His little self broke my heart. I felt so bad for him (but took a picture of it anyway).

I also took this awesome shot of my boy…he is so handsome, just look at that face!

and a little candy silliness…yes, we had ALL of that left. Light action on a Monday I guess!

Oh man…a day of school and then trick-or-treating was just TOO much for me. I was definitely hurting the next day.