Rainbow month Plus Free memory necklaces

Our months tend to have a regular flow to them - with lots of crazy surprises scattered throughout.  But, the 4th of every month finds us getting decorations out of the attic for Lilly's tree.  September is "rainbow month" in honor of the birth of Lilly's little brother (Sept. 15).  Today Hunter helped me put the rainbow decorations on the tree and Solomon kept trying to take them off. 

I love this ornament Tabby made for the tree last year.  There's a side for Lilly and a side for Rainbow Baby.  On the cloud in the middle it says "Although they're apart they're together at heart."   (Good enough for Hallmark, isn't it?!)

Thank you to "Anonymous" that works with my husband and sent us this beautiful Lilly colored basket today!

I just love the basket.  "Anonymous" - I hope you see this post so I can tell you "THANK YOU!"  You continue to amaze me with your thoughtfulness and generosity regarding Lilly's memory.  Thank you.  It really warmed my heart today when Frank came in the door carrying this.  :)

If you've experienced the sorrow and pain of losing a baby - or babies - in miscarriage or if they were stillborn, you can receive a beautiful free necklace or keychain in your baby(ies) honor from Held Your Whole Life.  See the website ( http://www.heldyourwholelife.com ) for pictures, dedication/why, and how to order.  It is truly a beautiful idea.  You can also read a short newspaper article about it here. Here is the website's banner:

"and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." - Revelation 21:4

A Lilly memorial video by her big sister

Tabby created this video of Lilly on Shutterfly.  The music really adds a sweet touch.

Today is January 4th.  When Lilly was alive, we celebrated every month she lived on the 4th of each month.  We continued to do so after she passed away.  My husband wears his Lilly colored tie to work.  At home the kids and I decorate Lilly's memorial tree.  This month marks one year since we've been decorating her tree, each month with a different theme.  January is angel month so I brought down the box of angel ornaments from last year.  We have some new additions this year - ornaments we received since last January.  I am anxious to put them all up tonight.  For some reason I am finding it very comforting to be done with the first year after Lilly and to once again get these ornaments out.  It's hard to explain but it's nice to feel comfort in surprising places.

"For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;" - Luke 4:10

Turkeys on the tree

I feel like such a bad mommy - we just decorated Lilly's tree for the month today - a week later than we wanted too.  But it is done, though I think we'll need to make a few more turkeys to fill in.  (Turkeys are this month's theme.)  We had to get new lights again - our last string burned out.  Here is the tree:

Each Thanksgiving, I have the children draw a "turkey hand" and we put it in a notebook.  I copied the two I had done of Lilly's hand (2010 and 2011) and put them on the tree:

I like how Lilly's hand turkeys show her growth - not only in size, but in how she wasn't clenching her forefinger as much.  (Many children with Trisomy 18 keep their hands clenched.  It loosens up as they grow, though mom's of older children have told me that when their T-18 child gets sleepy, they often softly clench their hands again.)

Hunter made a big turkey for the tree with cardstock and popsicle sticks:

Tabby made the turkey topper with a tiny flower pot and pipe cleaners:

Wings and rainbows

Today I received several pictures from Triplet Butterfly Wings of a beautiful butterfly released in Lilly's memory.   Lilly's butterfly was released yesterday.  You can see this picture, along with a couple sentences I submitted, on the Triplet Butterfly Wings blog, under "September 11, 2012" and "Lillian Eva."

The woman that raises these butterflies and releases them, in memory of angel children, lost triplets in 2007, when she was hospitalized with congestive heart failure.  During that time she had an emergency c-section.  Two babies lived 6 days, the other fought for 89 days.  (read her story here.)  These butterflies she raises are released in a memory garden for her triplets.   I thought this was such a beautiful idea.  There are so many people out there that have turned personal tragedies into beautiful gifts for others.

"[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. ..." - Ecclesiastes 3:11a

We received some rainbow ornaments for Lilly's September memory tree recently.  This one is from angel girl Julia's family, and I took a picture of the ornament with the birth announcement of their beautiful rainbow baby boy:

These are from the G. girls, big sisters to Emily with Trisomy 18.  These girls are so creative - I never thought of making rainbow butterflies:

T. made our Rainbow Baby a blanket and a little satin trimmed clutch blanket.  She hand stitched both!  What patience and talent:

Yesterday, T. made LillyBear an outfit to wear - a ruffled skirt and shrug:

The way T. can crank out projects, I have a feeling LillyBear may have more clothes soon!  Thanks T.!

We're two days away from Rainbow Baby's due date.  Not sure what to expect.  H. was born two days early, T. was two days late, and Lilly was 2.5 WEEKS late.  As of right now, I'm not feeling any different.  But we're all getting more and more curious to meet the little guy!

What do a cupcake, rock, and tiny knitted hat have in common?

In the Trisomy angel world, we families have a special bond.  Part of that is including each other's angel children in celebrations and in other ways.  Frequently this is done through balloon releases.  I continue to be amazed at the creativity of some families!

This adorable Lilly cupcake was made by Mia's mom.  If I recall correctly, she had about 70 cupcakes representing other Trisomy angel's at a birthday/memory celebration for her angel Mia. I think Lilly's mouse is just too cute!  (The mice were made out of fondant icing.)


The family of angel Dominic is making a memory rock garden for their son.  They are adding the names of other angels on rocks in his garden.  You can see Lilly's rock in the lower right area of the photo.  I thought this was another really creative idea.

It is such a heartwarming feeling for us when someone acknowledges our angel children.  One mom said that just hearing her son's name made her feel so good.  So I appreciate being able to be a part of the Trisomy angel community.  Of course we all wish we still had our special children, but since we don't, it is good to have each other for support when we need it. If you are in need of support I encourage you to reach out!

A Trisomy mom posted a link to a website called Recover From Grief.  (http://www.recover-from-grief.com/)  I've only had a few minutes to check out their website, but see they have a lot of good ideas and resources on it.


One more special thing I wanted to share today is this adorable tiny little Kaia Angel Hat ornament.  I received it from Kaia's mom along with a beautiful card.  I printed out my favorite picture of Kaia to keep tucked into the card.  (I have a box of cards from other Trisomy families.)  I am going to hang the little ornament hat on Lilly's memorial tree.

I know that it helps in the grief process to both give and receive things. 

I hope that today's post isn't even relevant to most of you reading this.  But I like to continue to post on memory ideas because it is very helpful to some - including my own family.  I appreciate those of you who have referred people specifically to this blog to check out these ideas.  We all grieve differently, but hopefully people can find an idea or two that will help them.

"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:11

You are my sunshine ...

Photo: Lilly and her Daddy at the park.  October 2011.

Yesterday we were able to go boating for the day with my husband's best childhood friend.  We all enjoyed it and we all found ourselves remembering Lilly throughout the day.  Yesterday was the 4th (Lilly would have been 2 yrs. and 1 month old if she were still with us) and, we all remembered that she came boating with us last year.  (You can see pictures of Lilly boating here.)   We remain grateful that Lilly lived for over a year.  She was able to experience all the holidays and annual things we do each year.  It's so good that she's a part of those memories, even if they do make me tear up at times.

On the way home we saw the most beautiful rainbow.  My husband started talking about it being a sign from Lilly and God before I knew it I was crying.  Oh well.  I was due for a cry.  I thought of the rainbow too being a sign from Lilly about her rainbow baby brother.  I am finally to the point that I am really looking forward to meeting the little guy, and holding him.  I'm finally over a lot of the fear I think.

Today we decorated Lilly's tree for the month of August.  This month's theme:  sunshines and sunflowers.  (Thanks to T.'s piano teacher for the idea about sunflowers!)  And the tree topper is Lilly's much used sunglasses and hat.  (Which she's wearing in the above picture.)

The kids and I made sunflowers out of glittered scrapbook paper.  The "G. girls" (Emily's big sisters) each made a sunshine out of styrofoam.  T. and I are always impressed with their creativity.  :)

"From the rising of the sun to its setting The name of the LORD is to be praised." - Psalm 113:3

The sunflowers are from a couple bunches of artificial flowers from the craft store.  They're bright and cheery.  I was pleased that for the first year, I was able to grow sunflowers outside, without them dying or the birds destroying them.

This sunshine ornament I made has a song we used to sing a lot to Lilly on it:

You are my sunshine,
My Lilly sunshine.
You make me happy,
When skies are grey.
You'll never know dear,
How much I love you,
Please don't take my Lilly away.

We miss you Lilly sunshine!

It was a particularly sad afternoon for T.  While cleaning out Firecracker's fishbowl (her Betta fish), the fiesty fish jumped out of the net onto the floor.  Though put back in his bowl, he died shortly thereafter.  T. had already made a little coffin for him, though she hadn't planned for him to use it so soon.  We had a proper burial outside, by the bird bath, where T. also has a leopard frog and hummingbird buried.

Decorating for the 4th of July

It's July 1st.  Time to get out all that red, white, and blue decor for Independence Day AND Lilly's birthday!  She may be celebrating this year's birthday in heaven, but of course we'll be celebrating her memory here on July 4.

I started last week by making star shaped chocolate lollipops.  (Or as T., the expert candy maker in the house, dubbed them "Chollipops.")  I made a lot for our fellowship meal after church today and enough to share with family too.  I'd love to mail some to our out of state relatives, but with temperatures at and over 100 degrees lately, I know they'd just be a huge melted mess when they arrived.  (So how about a raincheck for Christmas?)

 Making chollipops is pretty easy, it just takes time. 

Most of this year, we have been decorating Lilly's memorial tree on the 4th of each month.  But this month, we went ahead and decorated the tree today.  We had lots of patriotic ornaments to put on it, courtesty of my aunt who gave me a big box of them last year.  The tree looks really good.  But, I do need to make some birthday themed decorations for it.

Today I made the tree topper:

I love the angel ornaments:

Here is what the whole tree looks like:

We also decorated the house today.  Every year I love how the bunting looks on our porch:

This year I had this special bunting down "In Memory of Lilly":

Finally, the kids were delighted with our new tablecloth:



I know the 4th won't be easy, but I am trying to stay focused on how thankful I am that we had Lilly a whole 17 months.  I've read about quite a few babies (with Trisomy 18) who passed away last week, while still in the womb, and it made me all the more thankful for the time we had with Lilly.

"I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High." -Psalm 7:17

Lilly's memorial tree - June

Don't forget about my My Memories digital scrapbooking software contest - it ends this Friday evening.  And just to clarify (there was at least one confused person) - you do NOT have to buy anything to enter. 

Yesterday was June 4, so in honor of what would have been Lilly's 23 month birthday, we decorated her memorial tree with our June theme - birds and nests with eggs.

It didn't turn out as colorful as last month, which may be my favorite so far, but it is sweet.  Another problem may be that all the pre-lit lights in the middle of the tree have gone out.  That was very disappointing.  This is my first experience with a pre-lit tree and I was under the impression that if one light went out, it would not affect the rest of the lights.  I think it's still under warranty, but I certainly do not want to get a new tree.  I bought this tree for Lilly for Christmas last December, shortly before she passed away, so it is special.  I just need to find a short string of regular lights to wind around the middle. 

We really do enjoy our tradition of changing the ornaments each month.  I save each month's ornaments in small plastic tote bins and store them in the attic.  We will rotate through them all again next year.

Here is a closeup of some of the bird ornaments.  T. made pom pom birds:

H. made a paper woodpecker (his favorite kind of bird) and insisted it have a red, white, and blue ribbon to hang by:

I have a Dover publication that has Victorian bird images on CD and used that to print these birds.  I then embellished with glitter:

Artificial birds I bought off Ebay:



The tree:

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" - Matthew 6:26

All that Red White & Blue

Photo: This patriotic rabbit is one of my favorite decorations at my in-laws river house.  Our son calls it a "Lilly colored bunny."

My family has enjoyed all the extra red-white-and- blue everywhere this weekend, in honor of Memorial Day.  Of course we know it is to honor veterans and we are very grateful for them.  But it sure honored our Little Firecracker in our minds too.

Just a note here about colors.  Obviously we associate red,white, and blue with our Lilly because she was born on Independence Day.  Another Trisomy angel mom recently shared with me that she loved the color green and often bought things she needed/wanted in green if they were available.  Green is the color for the month which her angel baby was born.  And so, it has become a color that just makes her feel closer to her daughter.  (You can see birthstone colors by month here.)  It's sort of funny how simple things like this can help in healing.

We were able to make a brief stop at Lilly's grave yesterday.  Much to my huge disappointment, I realized a few moments ago that I managed to delete the photos I took without loading them!  :(  But the cemetery looked nice. All along the edges it was lined in little American flags.  Lilly's had her angel wings for 5.5 months now yet as we left I still found myself shaking my head and thinking "I can't believe I've buried a child."

In honor of all the red-white-and-blue ("Lilly colors") below are a couple more pictures from the last week or so.

I've been wanting to buy or make a tree skirt for Lilly's memory tree but couldn't decide on just what or how.  Then I found this star table runner and I decided it would be perfect.  For now anyway.  It has four cloth stars and they button together.  I unbuttoned them and just laid each around the base of her tree.  It looks quite nice.

I found these pretty red, white, and blue bottles and thought they would be just right under Lilly's framed collage which hangs over our kitchen table.  I want to try and keep flowers in them year round. Thankfully our butterfly garden is bursting with flowers right now. 

T. painted this flower pot:

I bought this outfit for our rainbow baby.  T. talked me into it.  It is the first thing I've bought for him.  I felt completely numb about it.  But after a few days I started thinking it might be fun to bring him home after his birth dressed in it.  Also, I am happy to share that I have finally started to bond some to this baby.  What changed?  Well I think confessing my lack of bonding out loud to my midwife and then sharing on this blog and getting some helpful feedback, then going through with buying the below outfit, and then going to our state's homeschool conference last Friday and seeing lots of babies strapped on their mamas in baby carriers, have all helped.  And maybe people have been praying for me too?  But I do know my feelings have begun changing and that is a relief.

H. is wearing his "Lilly colored outfit."  He always likes wearing it because he says it "makes him think of Lilly."  He seems to be worrying lately about forgetting her.  H. is happily standing before a display of old cars, including a toy milk truck. (He has a thing for old milk trucks and even bought one off Ebay with his own money.)  This picture was taken at the Pantego Academy, located in Pantego, North Carolina.  (If you're ever in the eastern part of the state - or not! - you should really visit here.  It is such a fascinating museum!  My mother-in-law helps with it so we got a special tour yesterday after helping her carry in some things she was bringing for displays.



I am so thankful for the array of colors God has created, and for memories.

"At all times and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." - Ephesians 5:20

Lilly's Memorial Tree - May

Today is May 4.  We would be celebrating Lilly's 22 month birthday with her if she still lived with us.  But as you know, she now lives in heaven.  I'm sure she's having the perfect day right now!  But oh how we miss her.

The children and I celebrated anyway, with what has become our tradition for the 4th of every month.  We changed the ornaments on Lilly's memorial tree to this month's theme.  May is: butterflies, caterpillars, and flowers.  The tree turned out quite colorful and cheerful.

We are so thankful to those of you who sent ornaments!  G.C. crocheted 4 butterlies, Anonymous crocheted a caterpillar, and Julia's mom sent a yellow sign that says "Hope" and has a butterfly (just like the one on Julia's memorial tree). 

One thing I hear so much of from mom's who have lost children is that they don't want their children forgotten.  I understand that and so it is always so sweet when someone does something, like send an ornament for Lilly's tree.  (And NO - I am not hinting for people to send things!  I'm just trying to illustrate my point.)  It feels good knowing that people haven't forgotten our Little Firecracker.

The inspiration for this month's theme comes from ... Lilly!  Here is Lilly and big brother H. and her favorite stuffed animal - Hank the Caterpillar:

Lilly wearing a dress with butterflies on it:

Lilly wearing a dress with flowers on it:

OK yes - so I loved taking pictures of Lilly when she was sleeping.  She was just so peaceful looking - and too cute!

Thank you God for making caterpillars, butterflies, flowers, and of course ... Lilly!