Some Birthday Stuff and Tub Time!

Birthday celebrations! To celebrate Skylar and Maylee's birthdays, we visited "daddy's dirt" and released balloons in to the sky. I will post about that later when I get the pictures. I had my camera but of course forgot to put the card in it:) My dad saved me and brought his camera...

For dinner, we met up with my family and Skylar's family at Texas Roadhouse! I brought cupcakes for Maylee's birthday and she opened presents there as well.



Blowing out her birthday cupcake!



YUM! She thoroughly enjoyed her cupcake.

Sweet Daisy doing what she does best....smiling!

Maylee got to sit on the saddle and we sang Happy Birthday to her. She LOVED it!

Checking out the menu!

Momma and Maylee

Kambri let Maylee borrow her birthday tutu but Maylee wanted nothing to do with it! She hated that it touched her arms, haha!

Gorgeous Maylee. We love her so much!

Maylee loves taking baths and will make her way into the bathroom and yell, "bubba", letting me know she is ready to play in the bubbles!

It gets pretty crazy with all of them in there but they sure do love it and I sure do love them!

Happy Birthday!!

Today is a special day because we are celebrating two birthdays! Skylar would have been 28 years old and Maylee turns 1 today!! Its a bittersweet day with so many different emotions. I am grateful that Maylee will always have this day that she shared with her daddy.

Maylee was born 3 weeks early via c-section. She was not growing properly in utero and my doctors didn't know why and wanted her out incase there was something wrong that they could not see. I had my first amnio at 35 weeks but Maylee's lungs ended up not being mature enough. I had the second amnio at 36 weeks and she was finally ready enough... So, the next day at 1:49pm Maylee entered this world. She was purple and struggling to breathe because she had fluid in her lungs. The nurses worked on her and were able to get her stable enough for me to see her. I will never forget the awful gasping noises she was making in order to get some air. She was then taken to the NICU where she stayed for the next few days.


I finally got to see her again early the next morning and she had an oxygen bubble over her head. It was really hard to see her that way but Skylar reassured me that she was fine. And he was right, like always. Maylee was able to come home with me when I was released a few days later. The only thing my doctors found was that the placenta had been dying but it was giving Maylee the life support she needed so they were stumped as to why she wasn't growing. She has been a huge blessing to our family.

Maylee's 1st photo shoot:

I need to take a picture of her now next to the football to compare!

Skylar would be 28 today. He was pretty excited to share a birthday with Maylee. I think it was because the attention would be taken off of him from now on, haha! My doctor gave us the option whether or not to deliver Maylee on his birthday but Skylar did not hesitate to say that it was okay. Skylar was born 2 months early and fought for his life. I am so grateful that he was given the short 27 years to live and to bring so much happiness to so many people. I only posted a couple of pictures of him because there will definitely be a lot more pictures of him posted and I only have so many...

He absolutely loved being outdoors. Hunting, fishing and camping were by far his favorite things to do.

He was such a cute and chubby baby!

Happy Birthday Skylar and Maylee!! I love you!

Maylee is on the Move!

Maylee loves this toy! She was terrified of it at first but that is because Slade put her on there and zoomed her around the room. Now she can push it by herself and she enjoys slow rides around the house.

Everyday Maylee takes more and more independent steps and it is so funny to watch her walk because she is so tiny. Her birthday is just a couple weeks away but she is still wearing 3-6 month size clothes and a size 1 shoe! She is so very different than her brother and sister but I love it! She has quite the personality and keeps us laughing. She is such a joy!

Concert!

Three2U is having their first concert in 7 years! It's called, "Evening of Inspiration...the stories behind the songs!" and they will be featuring people who have passed away, Skylar being one of them. I sent them a few pictures of him for what I understand is some kind of slide show that will be shown. It will take place at Gilbert High on Saturday February 6th, at 7pm. Singers also include Debbie West Coon, Michele Baer and Freddie Ashby (who sang at Skylar's funeral). If you would like to attend, there are discount tickets available for $5 at http://wonderfuleveningofinspiration.blogspot.com/ if you purchase before January 31st.
See you there!!

The Picture

This is just one of my many favorite pictures of Skylar. It was taken when we first found out we were pregnant with Maylee but hadn't told anyone yet. Skylar really didn't enjoy getting his picture taken but during this photo shoot, he was so cooperative, it was amazing! I'm so happy Kendyl was able to capture this photo of him. I just love those eyes!

I recently put this picture on my computer as my wallpaper and my kids are able to see it. Daisy saw it for the first time yesterday and yelled, "Daddy's alive!! Daddy's alive!!" It was a very hard moment for me while I had to explain that it was a picture of daddy and I put it on the computer so that we can see him everyday and remember him always. She seemed okay with that.

The kids and I are doing well. Its fun to hear the kids remember things about Skylar and we talk about him all the time. Slade is always telling me that because he can feel daddy in his heart and guts, that daddy is always eating his food all gone! I love it. Daisy told me just the other day that she can feel daddy too, where as before she was so sad because she didn't feel him in her heart. Maylee becomes so happy and does her shy smile everytime she sees a picture of Skylar. Those moments are the best.

Simple Acts of Service

Slade and Daisy really wanted Christmas lights on our house but Skylar was not so fond of the idea. He had many reasons why he didn't want them put up, (cost to buy them, cost of electricity, etc...) and so we didn't have any lights. Skylar even turned down an offer from his mom for free lights! Well, a few days after he passed away, the Tempe PD and Tempe FD surprised the kids and decorated our house with tons of lights! I think Skylar knew this would happen and that was why he didn't do it :)
I remember getting a text from my friend who lives two houses away and she had written that about 15 huge trucks just pulled up and she was wondering what was going on! It happened to be the amazing men who volunteered to put the lights up. They wanted to surprise the kids so we shut the blinds and kept them occupied inside while they worked....

Once they finished we had the kids close their eyes and took them outside. It was daytime but they were still very excited about their house having Christmas lights!! Slade could not believe that he had THREE reindeer in his yard!

The whole gang!

There was even an old friend in the crowd! Her name is also Kerry and she recently became engaged to a Tempe firefighter. We were in the same class at EVIT during high school and it was so nice to see her again.

The week that Skylar passed was very overwhelming for me, in good and bad ways. So many people served my family in various ways and even the smallest, most simple act of service had a huge impact on us. I know my children will never forget having Christmas lights put up on the house and to those of you who helped, I am so very thankful. Every night the kids were so excited to see the lights all lit up and Slade would make the comment that we had the "awesomest" house.

We also received many gifts from friends, family and Santa! Skylar and I were only able to collect books and a couple toys for the kids this year and that is all we had for them. To all of you who made Christmas the most amazing day for us, THANK YOU! I really can't find the right words to describe the level of gratitude I have. I cry when I think of all the people willing to help us out. It has been truly amazing. Thank you.

We're back!

Sorry to all of you who have been trying to view our blog, but haven't been able to. When Skylar passed away, I was told that the media was stealing pictures from our blog so I had to make it private immediately. We wanted to control the media, not the media control us... I have mixed emotions about the last few weeks and hope to post about everything soon. I just need time. In the meantime, I hope everyone had the most wonderful Christmas!