Happy Thursday!

March for Babies 2009

Yesterday was awesome!! The weather was beautiful, we were surrounded by lots of friends and family, and raised much needed money for a worthy cause! Of course I thought about my Olivia, but it was overwhelming the joy I felt pushing the stroller with Ellie Kate! God is SO good to us! Here are pictures - hold on, there's a lot!!

March Details!

The March for Babies is this Saturday!!! I am so excited! I have lots of details to share!

• This year’s march starts at Bridge Street just behind Connor’s Restaurant. The team needs to meet around 8:00 so we can gather together, make team pictures, etc. We should be pretty easy to spot in our shirts!
• Here is a link to the route. http://dreammail.edgesuite.net/MarchOfDimes/Alabama/AlabamaImages090413/2009HuntsvilleWalkRoute.pdf I’ve had some concern over the length of the walk. If you look at a map, this is one continuous loop, but there are several places along the way that you could shorten it and head back to Bridge Street. This is NOT a competition with times, etc. No one will care if anyone bows out early (I may be the first one :))
• At last year’s event, they had lots of activities after the walk that I was not expecting. They had BBQ for the participants, games for the kids, etc. I haven’t heard all the details for this year, but I’m guessing there will be fun stuff after the walk is over.
• Speaking of kids – strollers and wagons are welcome!!
• “Extra” walkers – invite everyone you know!! Anyone can join our team on Saturday to walk with us. If they want to register on the team page ahead of time, that would be great just so I can communicate with the team, but last minute walkers are always welcome. There is no registration, donation, etc. necessary. Just show up and walk!!
• The shirts will be in today! The t-shirts are $10.00 and the baby onesies are $15.00. I ordered a couple of extra if anyone needs one. If you ordered one, email me and we can get together before Saturday or I can bring them to the march and you can get them there.
• DONATIONS – If you have cash or check donations, I need the money ASAP! I need to turn it in this Thursday! Please contact me ASAP so we can figure out a time to meet. Please make sure you have gone online and recorded these donations on your page so they will count toward the team total. If you need help with this, let me know.

I am looking forward to seeing all of you on Saturday! What started last year as my personal effort to memorialize Olivia has now grown to encompass many other families and situations. Seeing everyone out on Saturday, all focused on the same cause, will be a heartwarming event you won’t soon forget!

Please contact me with any questions!! See you Saturday!

Happy Easter!

What a day of hope! Hope of what is to come, hope for all of God's children, hope that one day all of our journeys will reap Heavenly rewards! Hope that one day I will hold my little angel in a land of no tears. Hope! This knowledge has been the foundation of our family for years, but how much sweeter to have another reason to make it to our reward! I love Abby's version of the Easter story. It goes something like this - Welllll, Jesus died on Friday. They hung him on the cross but then 3 days later he came out of the tomb. Today! On Easter!! Enough said!

Here are lots of pictures from the last few days! Egg hunts and MORE egg hunts!! We hope everyone had a blessed Easter!

The Thorson's - Easter 2009

Abby trying to see if she has the prize egg.

Papaw (my dad) and the girls!


Abby's has had enough pictures!

Ellie Kate has REALLY had enough!

Here was a happier moment that morning!

Thank you Easter Bunny!

Abby and the Easter Bunny at Burrit Museum

Candy!

Oh me - who put this hat on me???

Ready for the egg hunt!

Max and the Chunky Monkey

Meet Max. The Easter Bunny brought him as an early present for Abby. He is a rescue Pembroke Welsch Corgi and is TOO sweet! We are very excited that he is part of the family!


Check out the chunky monkey!! EK had her 4 month checkup this week. She's weighing in at 16 pounds, 14 ounces and 25 inches long!! We got the green light to go forward with cereal and baby food, but she is not liking it right now! She's just as content to keep her bottle! I'm still trying and hoping to get her tummy full enough where she won't wake up to eat during the night! We all need more than 4 hours in a row!


Here's a shot of the girls on our way out the door Sunday morning. Abby loves to match EK which makes it easier for me too!

Normal!

What is normal? I thought I used to know. Over the last few years, I've decided normal is what you make of it! Normal is certainly not what I would have considered our lives over the last two years. However, we have had to trust on a higher power and believe that His path was more "wisdomous" (my dad's favorite word :)) than ours! Normal was not losing a baby. Normal was not suddenly being pregnant and scared 4 months later. Normal was certainly no where on the spectrum of feelings I experienced throughout my last pregnancy, and yet everything in the medical world through all of that WAS "normal"! That's the issue with stillbirth - there's usually not an answer or a reason. In one way, it's comforting that you're not carrying a fatal genetic disorder or something like that. In another, it's pure terror because there are also very few if any ways to prevent it from happening again.

Over the last few months I've had a new scare for the Devil to worry me with! (He's really good at getting me to worry!) I started catching up on some much needed dental work while I was on maternity leave in January. I've suffered with TMJ since I was a teenager, so when my jaws started hurting, it really wasn't out of the ordinary. Just another "normal". Well it went on, and it got worse! For the last 3 months, the pain was slowly grown to where some days it hurt for the wind to blow on my face. It really escalated after we got home from Hawaii. I would have spells where I would have blinding, shooting pain through my temple/jaw are that would shoot through nerves in my skull, down my neck, into my face, etc. At it's worst, I couldn't talk and couldn't see. Well, needless to say, I jumped, NO LEPT onto the panic button! I've shared before the trust that I am trying to have that the Lord will calm my fears of another tragedy. Well, I certainly didn't do a great job with this one! I was convinced this time it was me who would be the victim of a brain tumor, aneurysm, you name it! Last Sunday night, our sweet brothers and sisters at church got down and prayed for me. The pain eased some, and I finally gathered the nerve to call the doctor.

Long story short - the doctor was concerned. There was talk of MRIs, neuro consults, anti-convulsive medicine (not sure about that one!), etc. I was scared, but trying to trust what I felt when our church prayed for me. Monday afternoon last week, every pain in my head left EXCEPT a tooth!! There are some things in my life I KNOW the Lord has done for me - last Monday HE let the pain leave enough for me to know the source! I got to the dentist immediately, and they proceeded to do a root canal on what the dentist called the worst abscess he had ever seen. The mass of infection was pressing on my cranial nerves which he was 99% certain was causing all of my pain! By that night, I was like a NEW person! I haven't felt that good in literally years!! He couldn't believe I had made it through the flight with the pressure changes and felt certain that's why I hadn't been able to get back on my feet since the pregnancy.

We went ahead with the MRI as scheduled - it was clear!! I haven't had a pain all week! It's amazing! I had forgotten what it felt like to feel physically good in my body. I am not a good pregnant person, and my body was evidently not designed for it, because I am nothing but miserable when I am pregnant. So for the last two years, I've been one physical calamity after another. I consider myself pretty tough and try not to complain, but I'm sure there are plenty who know how it can absolutely wear on your nerves to try to carry on with daily responsibilities and feel like dirt! I know the release of that pressure and infection has really made a big difference in the way I feel, but I know the real source of my new normal. This was another spiritual step in that trust ladder I'm trying to climb. Once again, I jumped off the deep end and once again God was there to catch me!

His ways are so perfect! He allowed me to know His children cared about me and I have no doubt He could have taken the pain from me the night they prayed. He chose, however, to prove that He could make a way when even the doctors were confused. He made the way clear when it was covered with debris, brush and everything else I had put there! He even allowed all of this to ease another fear - my mother suffers from a congenital brain malformation called chiari. She faced and overcame a very serious surgery in 2001, and has always secretly worried that I or the girls also carried this condition. Through these tests, they ruled out that I had chiari and in turn, the girls most likely would not have it either since I don't. The Lord's ways are perfect - He answered prayers. What else can you say?

So I am LOVING this new normal!! I don't have any great pictures to post because my new normal got caught up on laundry, getting ready for Easter, etc. and I LOVED every minute of it :)

Pictures soon! Enjoy whatever "normal" the Lord gives you this week!