The last four weeks

I feel like a tornado swooped into my life four weeks ago and since then, I've just been tossed around inside of it. And now, it's plopped me down in a new house, and in the middle of a big 'ol mess of confusion and chaos. I seriously don't even know where the last month went! Here's the overview...

A visit from some very important new friends! Noah's Mom (Jenna), Stevie's Mom (Kristin), Juju's Mom (Tiffany), River's Mom (Deanna) and Aiden's Mom (Natasha) and I were able to hang out, in person! We had a lot of fun painting pottery, eating out, visiting the Mall and just talking. It was so nice to finally these people that have been such a great support to me since Ellie died. It was nice to be able to talk about our babies and know that the others were understanding, completely understanding!

Our finished products!

Natasha, Deanna and Jenna

Kristin and the Tiffanys

Ellie's Light event. This thing took over my life. And our house. Of course, I enjoyed doing it, especially since we did it for Ellie. A lot of people had fun at Ellie's event and we raised a lot of money to use to do good things in Ellie's name. That is awesome. However, it was stressful, required a lot of time and energy, and it was never far from my mind that we were only doing Light Up the Lanes, because Ellie wasn't here anymore. No matter what we do to try and honor Ellie, that fact will always remain. A voice in my mind will always be saying, "yeah, this is great but, I'd rather have my baby." Here is the post about Ellie's event, Light Up the Lanes...

This weekend...

Moving. Several months ago, we decided we needed a change and we sort of spur of the moment sold our house and bought a new one. This weekend we finally moved in. Moving is always stressful. But leaving Ellie's room was WAY harder than I anticipated. I cried a lot. I continued crying on and off for the entire weekend.

Max helping pack up Sissy's room by bringing in empty tubs

A couple months ago, I noticed that the previous owner's kids had left their little mark on the house before they moved. I thought it was so cute, so the other night I added Max and Ellie's name to the house too!

The total chaos and disorganization that comes with moving, drives me insane! I like things organized, neat and orderly. Yeah, that our house right now. I know it will take time, but in the meanwhile- drives me crazy!

Max packing up his books

Max in the empty porch with his most treasured things. It's amazing that there is a picture of him not screaming from moving day..

 Poor Maxer... he is so attached to his schedule and routine. I knew that moving was going to majorly upset him. And I was right. He screamed, not just a spoiled brat scream, but this high pitched totally stressed out whine/ scream. It's mind-numbing. It's frustrating. It's sad. You can't do anything about it. Nothing helps. I tried to prep him as best I could, we had two seperate social stories to read him, we let him help pack some boxes, we visited the house many times before... But in the end, it's a change. And that's just not something Max can handle well. He fixates on little things (such as the front door- which had a screen door we could look out at the old house, but not the new house). He's not like other toddlers that you can distract and they will forget all about it- he doesn't forget it. Hopefully in the next couple weeks, he will get a little more adjusted and there will be less screaming...

Wedding. My cousin, Ang, got married this weekend and it was so amazing to see how ridiculously happy she was. Even though the one year old flower girl, made me cry on several occasions, it was good to hang out with some family that we don't see very often. Congrats Ang and Josh!!

Keep 'em coming!

Cousins!

The beautiful bride!!!

 

My brother and parents

Ellie's Nine Month Angelversary. I can't believe it's been nine months of missing of my little girl. Nine months of wishing this was all a bad dream and that we could just have our old life back. Even if all the distraction of moving, the wedding and Max, the 24th still got to me. I was super crabby and missing Ellie like crazy. Nine months. That's unbelievable...

My heart hurts for her...

And my reward for surviving the last month?? A sinus infection.
Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in quickly, because this house isn't going to straighten itself out. The doctor told me to get plenty of rest (that's funny...) and drink lots of fluids- does wine count??