Remembering Baby Jason

Today, February 18, 2012, is the one year anniversary of the loss of our precious baby Jason.  He was born into the hands of God at 11:47a.m. one year ago.  He was later diagnosed with having partial monsomy 18 and partial trisomy 19, a rare genetic chromosome condition.  Our world was turned upside down.  Through it all we know that God is in control and that everything happens according to God's Plan for us.  Claire is definitely our miracle child!  We continue to remember, and include Jason into our lives as well as Claire's.  She has such a sweet, unfiltered grasp on all of this.  Today there were tears, for sure, but also we spent the whole day as a family and celebrated the short amout of time we had with Jason.  One goal we have with the start of our tradition this year is to instill a giving heart in Claire.  We were blessed by so many during this journey, and we feel compelled to continue to give back to others who are going through similar heart wrenching experiences. Thank you to everyone who remembered us and Jason on this day! 

 Your kind words and thoughtfulness means so much to us!

 Claire brushing her teeth getting ready to leave for our day in Indy.  She is such a big girl!

Claire choosing a heart to put inside her puppy at Build A Bear.  Claire chose a puppy for herself and chose a bunny to donate to the Pathways Program at IU Health.  When Claire came to the hospital to see Jason and us last year the grief counselor from the Pathways Program brought Claire the same bunny she was making today.  She was so excited to get this and we were so thankful that they had thought of her during everything.  This program is funded through donations and we knew immediately that we wanted to return the kindness of others by donating ourselves.  We plan to do this each year as we always remember our sweet little boy. 

Claire and Mommy brushing the bunny and puppy we just made at Build A Bear. 

Claire sitting by the bunny she made on our way up to the OBICU. 

She thought this window was pretty cool.

Us at the nurses desk at the OBICU at IU Health.  The same place we were a year ago delivering.  As you can see from the picture Matt and I were overcome with tears, and this caused Claire to be a little sad too.  She asked the nurse for a kleenex because she said her eyes were watering.  This bunny is being donated to the Pathways Program so another child like Claire who loses a sibling can be comforted by this cuddly little bunny!

Claire wanted a piggy back ride from Daddy as we were leaving the IU hospital in Indy. 

 She can sure put a huge smile on my face even when I'm feeling so sad!

Claire and I walking out to release a balloon for Jason.

Claire saying, "happy birthday baby Jason" while releasing the balloon.

Claire's watching Jason's balloon float up to heaven. 

My heart was melting from the sweet, sincere words Claire was saying. 

Claire got a special pink flower balloon for her to keep.  She had shared with me earlier this week that she was sad last time we sent balloons to baby Jason during the rememberance walk in the fall. 

 She said she wanted to keep some. :)

We sat down as a family and went back through the baby book I made for Jason using snapfish.com. 

 I love having all these pictures together in one book!  I am so glad I took the time to capture all these memories and organize them in this book!

Valentine's Day Fun

Claire has been having a blast with all the excitement around Valentine's Day this year!  She loves crafts of all kinds, but really really enjoys using a glue stick!  She actually does great with it, better than some 5 year olds I've had in kindergarten!  I precut some hearts in different colors and got a bag of foam sparkle hearts for $1 and she went to town making Valentines.  Such a fun way to work on some basic school yet important writing readiness skills.  We sent some to her friends and the others are decorating our kitchen window :) 

The second set of pictures are from a Valentine cookie making playdate with Claire's good friend Chloe.  The did such a great job!  They both were practicing sharing and using there nice manners with each other b/c they had to share the cookie cutters, and rolling pin.  Very cute!  This also allowed them to work on those ever important fine motor skills by rolling, patting, cutting, icing, and decorating the cookies.  What a fun day!

Valentine Hearts q-tip painting

Our first Valentine's Day craft this year was super easy and cheap (2 of my favorite things).  I precut hearts small, medium, large.  With older kids they could get more involved with the tracing and cutting.  I used an ice cube tray to hold the paint colors and regular old q-tips from the bathroom closet.  Claire was able to sharpen her fine motor skills by using the q-tip to paint as well as talk about colors and color mixing, size descrimination, and how much her daddy was going to love her hearts :)  After they dried Claire used a glue stick to help me glue them to solid black construction paper.  We had enough hearts made to make a page for each mamaw to have too.  Looks great hanging on the fridge! (sorry I don't have a pic of it)  Happy Painting!