4 months

Well it's been 4 months today since Lindsay died and it is still hard to imagine. We celebrated Cash's 1st birthday without her, we celebrated mine and my Mom's birthday without her, and we celebrated Christmas without her. Even though I say "without" her I know she is still here with us in spirit through every celebration. Ya know people kept telling me that it gets easier and every time that happened I wanted to smack them up side the head and tell them to shut up. It would frustrate me for people to tell me how to feel when they haven't ever felt the feelings that I am/was feeling losing a sister. I know it was all to help but really, c'mon on! It actually has gotten a tiny, tiny, tiny bit easier. I don't cry everyday now. With that being said, I do hurt and miss her tremendously every second of the day. I know one day when the 23rd rolls around I won't think first thing that it was the day we lost Lindsay. It makes me happy that I can still point at her picture with Brody and he says "Mommy." :) Even though I know it will probably happen, I don't ever want him to forget her. I hate that Cash will never remember her, but we will tell him all about her when he gets older. I had lunch with a friend a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about the memories we had with her. She said that I should write in a journal all of the memories and stories I have about her. I think that is a good idea. I don't want it to get to the point where I forget. I think it will bring me comfort later in the years to sit down and ready those stories and memories when I am really missing her. I have to stop myself often about thinking that she won't be standing by my side when I get married or have babies. It tears my heart a little more every time I do. I know that I will get through this but right now I am still just taking it one day at a time.

Heavy Heart for Thanksgiving

I think this is the first Thanksgiving where I have had a hard time being thankful. I know that I have a lot to be thankful for but not having my sister here trumps everything. My heart is just so sad. When will it stop hurting so much. Everyone keeps telling me that it will get easier and I am becoming impatient waiting for that to happen. I miss her so much. I look at her two boys and see her in their faces. I am happy and sad all wrapped into one. How do you bury your sibling and move on with a whole heart. It's like a part of me is missing and won't ever be filled again. I visited her grave the other day and could barely get out of the car I was so sad. I couldn't believe I was at the cemetery visiting my little sister. I just starred at her grave in disbelief. After a few minutes I came to the realization that this is real, she is gone, she is dead, she is buried, she is in Heaven. As much as I know its true I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I will never see my sister here on earth ever again.

Even though my heart is heavy I still have a plethora of things to be thankful for. I was given a gift when I got Lindsay as my sister and I was allowed to have her here for 28 years. I have an amazing family who all huddled together to support each other when we lost Lindsay. My friends have gone above and beyond to make sure I knew I had someone to lean on. And those two little boys, what can I say, they are just the joy of my life. I can't not look at them and not smile smile. All of the above make my heart happy and very, very thankful.

Sesame Street Live

So I was trying to think of a fun present to get Brody for his 2nd birthday because now he is more aware of what he is getting. My friend Cari mentioned to me that she was taking her little boy to see Sesame Street Live in March and I thought that would be a great present. I was a little nervous that he was still too young to sit through a show. Our show wasn't until Sunday and Cari had taken Parker to see it on Saturday so I was anxious to see how he did with it. She said that he loved it! Parker is a little younger then Brody so I thought we were safe. Of course, we were a little late to the show but that ended up being okay because I don't think Brody would have lasted the whole time. It was so cute because he was so into it. He got excited when certain characters would come on the stage and then sad when they left. He would screem "YAY!" every so often. I was so happy that he enjoyed the show. Of course his favorite character is Elmo so we had to get a picutre with him. I just love my little buddy and can't believe he will be 2 years old on Wednesday. He is growing up way too fast! :)

Sweet Baby

I am a very happy Aunt because my precious nephew Cash Allen Lewis made his entrance into the world on Tuesday, October 26th. Very unexpected because he wasn't due until November 5th. All was well though because he was fully cooked and ready to come.

Okay, so here's the story....short version.....maybe. I was invited by my Aunt to come and have dinner at her house on Tuesday after work. As I was on my way over I was talking to my Mom on the phone. In the middle of the conversation she clicked over because Lindsay was calling. Not an unusual occurrence. When she came back I asked her if everything was okay. She said yes. LIE! Anyway, I will get back to that later. :) I get to my Aunt's house, left the phone in the car to charge, and went in and started chatting with her. Not too long after that her phone rang. It was my Mom and she wanted to talk to me. She told me that Lindsay was in labor and at the hospital. My exact response was, "WHAT???", kind in a loud screamish voice. My Aunt could tell what was going on so she so kindly packed up some dinner that she cooked for me and sent me on my way. I was the first one to the hospital around 7:30pm or so. Lindsay had already received her epidural so she was doing just fine. After while my Mom and Dad showed up and we were just sitting around waiting and waiting. Oh and back to the lie thing. When Lindsay called in the middle of my phone call with my Mom she wasn't calling to say everything was okay, she was calling to say she was in labor and on the way to the hospital. They didn't want anyone else to know just in case they were sent home. Anyway, around 11:30pm I started getting hungry. You wonder why because I had this nice dinner packed up for me. Well I put my nice sister-in-law pants on that day and let Gabe have it since he would be up all night with Lindsay. Pat on the back for me. :) My Dad and I wandered around looking for a vending machine. We finally found one and headed back up to the room. When we got out of the elevator my Mom said that everything was a go and Lindsay was ready to have the baby. We all went into the waiting room, thinking it was going to be about 45 minutes like with Brody, and no more than 10 minutes did my Mom come in saying that we had another little boy. Way to go Lindsay! We did, however, have to wait another 30 minutes so they could clean everything up and let Lindsay feed baby Cash. When we finally got to see him, I instantly fell in love. I don't know why I thought he was going to come out looking like Brody, but he is definitely his own person with his own look. He is just adorable.

The new family of four is now at home and doing just fine. Brody is a great big brother and helps his Mommy out all the time finding paci's for Cash and giving them to him. Love them all!

What's been going on...

Well, I have had quite an eventful couple of months, to say the least. It definitely started off good with the announcement that my sister and her husband will be welcoming a new little boy into their family this fall. They clearly aren't wasting any time popping babies out. :) We are all very excited to meet little Cash come November. I miss having a baby around. Brody is growing up so fast. He doesn't make the cute little baby noises anymore...he is making words now. I can't wait to see what the next one will be like.

On a not so good note, we found out that my Uncle has bladder cancer. Him and his wife live near by and I am really close with them. My Grandad and I usually have dinner with them once a week. After finding out the prognosis, about a week later he went into surgery to have the cancer spots removed. Well apparently it was not very good because when they went in there the cancer was covering most of his bladder. They scheduled another surgery a couple of weeks later to have his bladder and prostate removed and then reconstruct another one from his intestines and put back in. It was like a 6 to 7 hour surgery. My Aunt was a mess. He came through the surgery with flying colors. He was in the hospital a week and came home this past Tuesday. It will be about a month of recovery time. Right before he left the hospital his final scan came back and showed that there wasn't any cancer at all in his body. They got it all out and it hadn't spread. Praise the Lord!!

Another good note is that my Aunt and cousin from Virginia came in town on July 8th. It is always fun having them in town. I try and spend as much time with them as I can. Well I had a little pinch in that plan because I came down with strep throat last Friday. I woke up that morning not being able to swallow and hardly able to talk. We were doing birthdays at work that day and I had the stuff so I got ready like normal and headed up there. When I walked in and saw the way I looked and heard me talk they sent me right home. I went to the doctor that afternoon and my sickness was confirmed. I hadn't had strep since I was a kid so I forgot how much it hurts. Besides the fact that I was miserable for 3 days, I had to take care of myself. :( When I had it as a kid Mommy was there to make it feel better. This time I just had my cat and he really did nothing to help me feel better. :) After being on antibiotics for the weekend I was able to go back to work on Monday. Definitely lost 8lbs. not being able to eat or really drink anything for 3 days. AWESOME!!! Of all the weekends I could have been sick, it came on the worst one. I had some really fun plans. I was going on a boat for my friend's birthday, I had a friend from California coming into town, and my family was here. I just laid in bed thinking about all of the fun that was happening without me. Poor me. Oh well. I am good to go now. It is still lingering a bit but nothing I can't handle. Well that's about it in a big nutshell about what has been going on.

Until next time....

Easter

I had a wonderful Easter this year. Of course it gets crazy trying to accommodate 2 different families, but we made it all work. On Saturday my Mom hosted Easter lunch at her house. I picked my Grandad up and off we went. My Grandmother is in town from San Antonio so it was nice to have her here for Easter. Honestly, I think this might be the first Easter I have ever spent with her. Hmmm. We got over to Moms a little early because I wanted to help her cook lunch. The food was just coming out of the oven and my sister, her husband, and Brody showed up. Just in time because we would have started without them. That sounds bad but we got the okay a head of time because they had to wait for Brody to wake up from his nap. Who know what time that would have been. Well because they showed up when we were about to eat meant Brody had not napped. It was fine because they put him down when they got there which left them free to eat without having to chase the little man around. We had a great lunch and great time playing with Brody after he woke up. After looking at my pictures I saw that I only took pictures of the baby and of nothing else. I probably should work on that for the next holiday. :) On Sunday we went over to my Grandad's place for lunch. We typically do lunch at my Aunt and Uncle's house but her birthday happened to fall on Easter this year so of course we wouldn't make her cook. We had a nice time even though it was minus my sister and her family. It was kind of a situation where they had to pick either my Dad's family or her in laws. Since they were with her family on Saturday, they decided to do Gabe's family on Sunday. It was all good. For my Aunt's birthday we got her a red velvet cake and it was AMAZING! That is my favorite kind of cake. Amongst all of the family fun, I would stop and think every so often that Grace came into play on this day and by that Grace I get to spend eternity in Heaven......and that is what I am most thankful for.

Fun Weekend

Well I had a fabulous, relaxing weekend.....well, kind of. My sister's husband went out of town for the weekend so she asked if I would come and stay with her. Of course I would never say no to spending time with her and Brody, so I was all over that one. We ended up staying at my Mom's house on Friday night because her husband was out of town too. It took me about an hour and a half to get there after work on Friday. It usually only takes about 50 minutes because she lives in Frisco. I am not used to horrible traffic on my way home from work but this time I got worst of it. I was so ready to not be in the car so half way through the drive to Mom's house my attitude went from bad, to worse. The plan was that once I got to my final destination we were going to go eat at a Mexican restaurant. I was certainly good with that seeing I was in desperate need of a Margarita. :) Well we had a nice dinner and I had an awesome drink and all ended well. I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning on Saturday to take my Mom to the airport. The original plan was for myself, Lindsay, Brody to go but Lindsay said she would rather not wake up Brody when he had the opportunity to sleep in. I couldn't argue because it was legit. Nobody wants to hear a screaming baby first thing in the morning. After a Starbucks run we were on our way to the airport at 6:30am. I wasn't as tired as I thought, which was nice. After hugs and kisses I dropped Mom off and headed over to my sister's house. I received a text on my way saying that her door was unlocked. When I walked in, her and Brody were snoozing away. That would have been a perfect time for me to nap as well, but noooo, I wasn't tired at that point. After everyone was awake, showered and ready to go we headed out to lunch and to Walmart. Lets just say we didn't last long at Walmart because Brody wasn't having it. We got what we needed and headed out. We got back to the house and just hung out the rest of the day. Brody is going trough this phase where he cries just because. Nothing is wrong with him, he just cries. I asked Lindsay if he was teething or something and she said no that he was just going through a phase. It is a horrible phase because while we were making dinner he started to cry and since Lindsay wasn't paying any attention to it he came over to me and crawled up my legs looking up at me wanting me to pick him up. I wanted to SO bad but Lindsay told me that we can't feed into it because he needs to learn that he can't get what he wants just because he is crying. It seriously broke my heart that I couldn't pick him up when when he was crying and wanting me too. I almost started crying myself. It was rough but 5 minutes later he was fine and laughing at his toys. Way to put your Aunt through that Brody. Its all good. Brody went to bed and we ended up having a nice evening. Brody turns 1 a week from Tuesday. I can't believe he is already a year old. Time is sure flying by. I will have to post again after his party. I am so excited. He is becoming such a big boy. I just love him.