Anayah's Bday and 4th of July

Anayah’s birthday: Wow! What emotions. All I can say is that Grant made it bearable. Even though we are so in love with this boy, and so grateful to have him, it doesn’t change the fact that a year ago, we felt the worst pain of our lives and this is the first anniversary of the start of that journey. What a bitter sweet day. I found myself clinging to Grant more than usual. I wonder if every birthday will be this hard. A few months ago, when we knew nothing of Grant, I was dreading this day so I asked that our entire family get together and go to the temple together. When we lost our first baby, I was due on my birthday, so I didn’t want to face that day alone and I had everyone come to the temple that day too. It was really cool because EVERYONE was there. All of us, including my baby brother. My middle brother ended up proposing to his fiancé that day outside of the temple. Anyway, so that’s my thing. When I’m faced with a hard day, I go to the temple! My sister came in from Arizona. She hadn’t met Grant yet. I think she likes him!

 

Then we sang Happy Birthday and I had made a cake and we lit a sparkler on top since she wasn’t there to blow out a candle!

 

It was tough, but so good to remember her. In pushing out all the bad, I also pushed out all the good, so it took some jarring to remember some things about that time. It was nice to have everyone here. My neices and nephews loved him! They all faught over who got to hold him!

 

Then, today, we went to the movies (we weren’t able to pull off the temple because we didn’t have someone to babysit 6 kids so we went to the movies instead, more appropriate for celebrating a 1 year old’s birthday!) We saw Despicable Me 2. Grant slept through the whole thing! Thinking about everything makes me so much more grateful for my little boy, and especially the timing. I haven’t mentioned this before, but the day we brought Grant to my parent’s house to surprise them, she had been writing in her journal about how Anayah’s birthday is coming up and she was so scared for us and how we were going to handle that. She said it was only seconds later that she got the knock on the door with Grant on her doorstep! Miracles happen. I believe it now!

4^th of July.

We had a fun day. The movie this morning, then a party at the neighbor’s house,

 

and then sparklers outside my parent’s house! Here is the sparkler art I made! AWESOME HUH?!