Debuting

Megan Grace's Room! Her own personal shrine if you will. Thanks to many hours of hard work on the parts of many, many people it has all come together beautifully.

This room was supposed to be her nursery. It still is just in a different way. When I'm having a rough time I have a place of comfort thanks to those of you who sent us momentos from the individual cards to the shadow box which houses the outfit she wore the day she was born.

We will treasure this room forever. Not only do we treasure the actual items, we treasure the love for our family that was behind each and every gift we received in honor of Megan Grace.

The cards hang on the blessing rings that were personalized with her initials. There are scrapbooks with the words of so many of you in the form of emails, letters, cards, etc. Paintings, a quilt, books, stuffed animals, a very special quilt, and a candle. The list goes on.......

Who would have ever dreamed that a little girl who graced us with her presence for such a short time would touch so many lives?

For this we say Thank You! Thank you for allowing us to continue Megan Grace's legacy each day as you share her story with others.

Thank you for allowing us to continue her legacy through the Megan Grace Lavinder Scholarship Fund at ECU. Each year as we watch a student be presented with the scholarship in her name we will be proud and know that she is proud of us for keeping her memory alive.

With Love,

Steve, Amber, and Megan Grace

Post #200

For post #200 I bring you a story about an oven. Exciting stuff huh?

Being the fabulous cook that I am (stop laughing) we use the oven and/or stove pretty much every day.

Much to my dismay earlier this week, as I tried to turn the oven on to cook dinner IT DIDN'T WORK.

"Honey, the oven isn't working"

:Cue my loving husband walking into the kitchen with that look of "What exactly do you want me to do?" on his face:

So we fiddle with it. Turning knobs, banging on things, etc. It still DOESN'T WORK.

At this point I'm well aware I'm going to have to spend money to have someone come out and repair our 1.5 year old stove. Not my idea of a good investment but I digress.

Sidenote: My husband doesn't exactly have a talent for fixing things. Him attempting to fix this would either result in more money spent and/or a trip to the ER. Neither of these are a good alternative to your local handy dandy fixit man in my book.

As the person in our household who is also responsible for making all phone calls to get things done I dial up Sears. Their answer:

"Yes, mam we can come out and inspect your 1.5 year old stove which P.S. is out of warranty but that will cost $129 for the visit prior to parts and labor."

No dice.

Lucky me we happen to have a family friend who is an all knowing electrician. Off to calling his people I go. By the end of the evening his people had gotten us an appointment for a repair call the very next day.

While all of this is transpiring I'm furiously chatting with my friend Google to figure out WTH has happened to my stove. At some point I decide I have it all figured out.

The next day I graciously met the repairman at our house so he can work his magic. Once he arrives I give him the details and my .02 about WTH I think has occurred. While I'm telling him this I'm certain he is wishing I would shut up because I'm probably wrong. This would make him a very smart man.

At this point he runs outside to check out the box in the garage and turn off the power to the stove so he can work his magic.

Once back inside he tells me there is power leaving the box. Great. Now our power is running the wrong direction. Wonder how much this is going to cost?

He pulls out the stove. While I'm watching this I'm also thinking "Wow, I could make a new Tonka out of all the hair back there" while also thinking how gross it is and make note to clean it up ASAP.

While I'm alone with my thoughts of dog hair Mr. Fix It Dude informs me. He's found the problem!

I'm thinking he is going to give me some long drawn out explanation that is going to cost me my whole Christmas budget but he's not.

What was wrong with my stove?

IT WAS UNPLUGGED!

The nice man was a saint and he didn't even laugh in my face although I would not have blamed him. He also was very generous and hopefully figured he has a very laughable story to tell his clients for the rest of his life and didn't charge me a dime.

Thank you Mr. Fix It Man!

Shower Time

A few weeks ago we attended a shower for a very special couple who will FINALLY be getting married in December after many (MANY) years together.

There were beautiful flowers

And an even more beautiful cake. It was delicious too!

The beautiful bride having her corsage put on by the fabulous host (and her soon to be Sister In Law).

The Wonderful Couple!

A lesson on how to properly cut the cake. Good thing this is now out of the way prior the the Big Day because apparently it is harder than it looks :)

There were beverages......

And lots of excitement over the beverage maker!

And someone decided to sneak a little cake while the adults weren't looking.

And more excitement. This time over baking supplies. Who knew?

All in all it was a wonderful evening. We were so glad to share it with you guys. Thanks for including us in your special day. We can't wait until the wedding!

TGIF!

Love,

Tonka

Shooting Stars

This morning I am having one of "those days". Anyone else who has been here knows exactly the type of day I'm referencing.

The ones where the tears continually lurk just below the surface. Sometimes they continue flowing like a faucet that can't be turned off. The tears that make it very difficult to be at work while trying to keep up your game face.

Today is also my birthday. A day I usually celebrate for an entire month. Birthdays have always been a big deal in my family. This is the first time I have ever wanted to crawl under a rock and wait for the day to be over.

As soon as I got up the tears did too. They just kept coming. It hit me like a ton of bricks that Megan Grace is not here with us physically to celebrate nor will she ever be. That is a tough pill to swallow my friends.

Luckily, a good friend of mine had the foresight to invite me to breakfast. She did it just to be a good friend without having any knowledge how of today it would be difficult for me to simply get out of bed.

My gratitude runs deep for that gesture because it truly helped me have something to look forward to this morning instead of just missing Megan Grace.

Megan Grace seems to have had her own birthday surprise in store for me this morning. As I walked out to my car and opened the door I looked up over the trees towards the horizon. In that same moment I saw a shooting star just as it dropped below the tree line. It melted my heart while at the same time turning the faucet of tears on full blast. Before I left I ran back in the house to tell Steve and all he said was Happy Birthday. With that I took my tears and left for breakfast.

October 15th ~ Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

According to the American Pregnancy Association, there are over 4 million live births every year. That is wonderful for the families who never know the pain of losing a pregnancy, an infant, having a child be stillborn, or even face the loss of their child to SIDS or some other senseless tragedy.

Those statistics are even more staggering.

~ About 670,000 women experience a pregnancy loss due to some form of miscarriage each year.
~ About 26,000 children are stillborn with another 27,864 passing away prior to their first birthday.

During my research, I was not able to come up with an accurate number for those parents who lose children each year to SIDS and other complications such as prematurity but I'm sure those numbers are just as alarming.

Today I am not posting this to get on my soapbox about how we should do something about this because honestly I would have no idea where to begin.

My post today is simply to say as you go through your day today please remember those you know including us as we remember our little ones that are no longer on this side of Heaven.

There is no footprint too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world~Unknown.

We love you Megan Grace and are thinking of you always especially today!

7 Months Ago Today

We found out we would be meeting Megan Grace and giving her back to God all in a matter of moments.

As hard as it is to breathe some days there are also those moments where I can look back with a smile.

With that I'll leave you with a quote I found on Postsecret this past Sunday.

You should not give up.

Fight for yourself and who you are.

You have got to go through the worst times in life to get the best. ~ Unknown

Love you Megan Grace!

And The Winner Is.......

Me! How funny is it that I am not sure if I am more excited that I actually won something or if I just LOVE getting mail that much :)

As promised, last night I picked a winner as well. Several times over the weekend I thought about enlisting help from various individuals to pick a winner however by the time I got around to it they were all unavailable.

Instead of using the fancy technology available to me to pick a winner I decided on the old fashioned way. 24 bits of paper in a bowl with a lid shaken not stirred. Once that part was complete a lucky winner was drawn.......

The winner was.....

Me....Again! So, I had to draw again. This time the winner was....

Monkeysonmyback!

Fabulous! I hope you enjoy your prize :)

Get Your Comments In

The contest closes at midnight! Once it closes and a winner is announced I'll have Tonka pick a winner for us :)

Go Forth and Comment!

As I had posted a few weeks ago I was guest blogging over here. The post is finally up so go forth and comment :)

If I win she will send me a cute tote because of course you can never have too many totes and a few other cute prizes.

To pay it forward, if I win then I'll send a small token of my appreciation to a randomly drawn winner who posts a comment on her blog. Just leave me a comment letting me know you commented there.

Happy posting!

Slivers of Time

Lately it seems the recent past has been coming back to me in this fashion. Usually it happens while I am driving.

These "slivers of time" are almost like flashbacks but they feel different for some reason.

A memory will come to me but it will be just a small piece of that time. Later on ,I can never remember what exactly it was that came to me at that moment. It is so comforting yet strange at the same time because they come and quickly go.

Maybe it is because if I think about all we have endured for the last almost 7 months since we found out Megan Grace was sick it would just be too much to relive it all at once?

For the last two weeks it has happened while en route to my group therapy sessions which in turn caused me to miss my exit and continue driving until I stepped out of my thoughts. When it happened the first time I almost came unglued because it shook me to the core to think I was so lost in my thoughts I had not even been paying attention to where I was going at the time.

It scared me. Then it happened again. It has been discussed at therapy and apparently it is normal for people when they are on this side of a life changing event. Add another thing to the list I have never done before in my life.

Sidenote : Round 2 of therapy is going well. It has not really been discussed on here but I am happy to say that I am continuing to wade through the grief day by day. It really is a process. One of those wonderful one step forward two steps back processes some days. I'm confident that in time it will not feel so much like I am trying to swim through quicksand. Thanks for all your support!

It's My Birthday Month!

October has always been my favorite month of the year. What better month can you ask for than one that includes my birthday, Halloween, ECU Football, Fall, and Pumpkin Spice Lattes?

Here's to hoping I can keep this month an enjoyable one and just try to remember that Megan Grace will be celebrating with me from above.

Love you Megan Grace! Mommy misses you!