What a Difference a Year Makes

September 18, 2013. One of the two worst days of my life. 

 I don't want to re-live it, because even when I started re-reading these posts (Parts 1 and 2) I started crying immediately.

I will never forget the indescribable feelings of utter helplessness and fear. The love of a mother for her children is an aching, consuming, throw-yourself-in-front-of-a-train-to-protect-your-child type of love, but that day, we were faced with my worst nightmare: losing my precious Anna. 

We had already lost our son, and here we were. Faced with the real possibility that once again, our sweet, loved, wanted baby was going to be taken away from us.

But, as we know, my little Anna is a brave, strong, beautiful FIGHTER and is happy and healthy today.

Perfect. Growing. Normal. A few scars, but no signs of the pain she experienced and as sweet and sassy as could be.

Despite what your beliefs may be, you can't look at that sweet girl happily swinging and not think someone is watching out for her. 

I know I do.

Our Labor Day Weekend

Whoops. I started writing this post last Monday.... I'll just pretend it's still Tuesday the 2nd, how's that sound?

Though parts of our Labor Day weekend were quite laborious (fittingly), I must say that it was a fitting ending to what has been maybe the best summer of my life. Summer recap coming soon! :)

To start, we had the opportunity to go watch "Frozen" on the Jumbotron at Ohio Stadium. As if I haven't seen Frozen literally 150 times and could recite it line by line, getting to view it in this completely different way was such a cool experience. I love my job!

Anna watching intently.

The girls were beside themselves, and Emerson is still talking about it!

"Mommy, I'm so happy I saw Frozen on the big screen! Mommy, the screen went all the way up to the ceiling!" Too cute for words. 

After sleeping in on Saturday, we decided to take advantage of the long weekend and do some projects around the house. While Jon and his dad laid tile in the basement, we took the girls to Home Goods for some pillow shopping. 

I wanted to add some more color to the family room, because the purple and gray was getting boring after a year, so these fun pillows and a few new accessories really spiced things up in there.

The real problem started as my eyes gazed from our new colorful family room into the kitchen. All of a sudden, the dark brown that was perfectly fine a week ago HAD TO GO.

Before:

 

And then once the brown was gone, the hallway color that I wasn't completely sold on as it was suddenly looked SO WRONG as well, so it had to go too.

And then I couldn't paint the downstairs hallway without painting the upstairs hallway right?

And then I couldn't ignore the fact that we never re-painted the guest bedroom after we switched it with Anna's room, so it was still the same baby pink, which is fine for baby girls but not for a guest bedroom, so naturally it had to go too!

We're just putting the finishing touches on it this week, so look for a before and after photo next week!

 

An Anniversary Surprise

A couple weekends ago, we hosted a surprise 40th wedding anniversary party for my in-laws on Kelley's Island. Jon's parents took their 1-day honeymoon on Kelley's island 40 years ago but haven't been back in ages. They've spent the last 40 years putting all of their time, energy and attention into their children, so their children decided to pay them back in a small way. 

We invited their close friends and family for a celebration, and my awesome friend Jean-Marie was on-hand to take photos of the event. She was the best investment ever! I love how many candid moments she captured, and these are pictures and memories we'll have forever.

 Confusion. Then surprise. Then happiness. We pulled it off!

Anna is too cool for Hollywood.

Who let that girl have chocolate???? ;-)

Emerson is obsessed with golf carts now. Birthday gift idea???

Though we were nervous that we wouldn't pull the whole thing off without suspicion, it all fell into place and was the perfect day. 

Happy anniversary you crazy kids!