2012 Summer Bucket List

It's June 2, high time to officially write our 2012 Summer Bucket List. (And I call it the summer bucket list because summer goes so fast. I feel like I blink and it's gone!)

I love the change of seasons and always start celebrating each new season a little before its time. I've got winter hats and coats on my girls in early November, spring dresses on them in March and pulled out the baby pool and bathing suits in mid-May. I can't help myself.

So some of this stuff....we've already done. But the only thing I love more than check lists is checking items of the list. SO here it goes....

Raise and chase butterflies. We got caterpillars a few weeks before Kate's birthday and released them as they hatched...a few days before...on...and after her birthday. I love that she names EVERY one of them Miracle, enthusiastically waves goodbye to each one of them as they fly away, and squeals with delight every time she sees a butterfly flitting through the air, because she believes it's one of hers.





Pool, pool, pool and more pool. Maybe it's because, with a working, single mom, I didn't get to go to the pool much as a little girl. Maybe it's because I love the feeling of sun on my shoulders, or that I love the idea of getting to enjoy 'outside' with my girlies, without watching them wilt in the sun. But I am geekily excited about the pool this summer. Almost as excited as I used to get as a preteen/teenager when my two best friends and I, who lived on the non-fancy side of the train tracks, would ride our bikes to Applewood Acres and beg one of our friends to 'get us in' to their membership-only pool.



Our annual summer visit with Cousins Olivia + Molly, from New York. Olivia was born when I was 16, Molly when I was 21. They live in New York, but spent summers with my mom in Ohio. I looked forward to their visits all year long, and could barely contain my excitement each June, knowing they'd be with us for more than 2 months. Now we repeat that tradition...Olivia comes to stay with us for a week every summer. Molly still stays in Youngstown for the summer and we get to see her lots, too. My girls love their big cousins; and it makes my heart smile to see Olivia and Molly, who were my first 'little girls' show so much love and kindness to my daughters.


Lemonade stand. I mentioned the idea of a lemonade stand to Ella a while back, and about donating the money to a charity. The other night, as we were making our summer to do list, she said she wanted to have a lemonade stand; asked if it could be yellow; and then said she wanted to give the money to little girls who live in an 'orphanage' and don't have houses. One facebook post later and my brother had built my girls their very own lemonade stand! They raised $22.50 on their very first day. Ella took it SO seriously and LOVED it SO much. She just kept saying "I am so happy! I just love this lemonade stand!" She greeted each guest with a "Hello, welcome to my lemonade stand! May I get you a lemonade?" Kate loved it too. But she mostly just liked pouring glass after glass after glass...even though she really didn't want to drink any of it.







Watch a fantastic girl graduate college. We started a scholarship at the OSU College of Social Work...wanting to encourage students who want to dedicate their lives to making the world a better world for kids. This year's winner, Amanda Poole, is an amazing and inspiring woman who has overcome incredible obstacles to not just attend college, but graduate with honors. We are so, so psyched to see her get her diploma!

Sidewalk chalk party in our driveway. Every year in Italian Village (downtown Columbus), they have Via Colore, a neighborhood-wide sidewalk chalk party. I want to invite all the little neighbors and have our own litle Via Colore in our driveway!





Baby pool swimming in the backyard. Surprisingly, Hallie, our 10 year old neighbor, loves it when we get the baby pool out. She'll play in it with the girls for hours. Perfect for after-work days when I can't take the girls to the pool. We broke it in on the last day of preschool. But it'll get its fair share of sunshine all summer long.

Ella's recital! We'll say goodbye to the 'school year' and hello to summer by celebrating the end of Ella's second year of dance at her recital. 4-year-old girls in tutus and tap shoes? I'm dying just thinking about it. Can't. Hardly. Wait.

Fourth of July weekend with our cousins Audria, Tyler and Kenzie. This is what I hope to be an annual event, which has a little mini-list of to-do's in and of itself. Like lying on our backs watching fireworks with cousins, and having a sleepover with our cousins, the Worthington Hills Parade...you get the picture.

A late summer visit to see our cousins Greyson and Lachlan in Memphis. Our girls have only seen their cousin Greyson 3 or 4 times, and we've never actually seen Lachlan, almost 1 year old, in person! We absolutely need to make a road trip to Memphis to see these squeezables, sometime this summer!

Strawberry picking with Grandma. The warm weather came so early this year, I hope we didn't miss the season! I have to chop chop and find a place to go, lickety split. My mom used to take me strawberry picking when I was little, and I love that my girls get the chance to do the same.

Golf lessons for Ella. This is really kind of Chris's thang. But I do love thinking of Ella in a cute little golf outfit and her cute little (real) clubs her daddy bought her.

Swim lessons for the girls.

Annual pool party at my friend Heidi's mom's house in London, Ohio. I'll post lots of pictures after the big day. It's always so much fun to spend the day at the pool with my BFFs from college and their little people. And Heidi's mama's farmhouse is nothing short of amazing.

The fountain at Easton. I love a good excuse to go shopping without momguilt. Enter Easton's splash pad. A little fun for the girls. Shopping in at least 2 stores, guiltfree, for me.



Zoofari. It's a cool fundraiser for our local zoo, and it's an excuse for my BFFs from college and I to get dressed up and drink too much and sleep in the next day.

Organize Ella's 'First Year of Pre-K' photos and artwork into a memorable keepsake. (One that will hopefully not take over an entire shelf in her closet, as it does now.)

On cloudy, but not rainy days: The Zoo!

Shopping for Ella and Kate's first-day-of-school outfits.

Annual summer visit to Gramps + Grammy's house. Chris's parents live in Hilton Head and the girls love going to visit them and their fancy pool.

Lots of fun summer days with Tara, Elle, Mia and Charlotte. Our sweet nanny Sarah is on maternity leave most of the summer...but the good news is that my girls get to spend 3 days a week with our friend Tara and her three gorgeous, sweet, darling daughters. Yeah, it makes me feel a little sad when I pick my girls up at Tara's house, only to see them cry because they don't want to come home. But it totally removes the mommy guilt of work, to know they love Tara and her girls THAT much!

Impromptu summer sports in our backyard. Tee-ball. Golf with plastic golf clubs and balls. Freeze tag. I am awful at all of these sports. But I love watching my girls play them, with passion. I love seeing how athletic Kate is. She wacks the ball almost every time. I love seeing both the girls swing their hearts out with bows and flowy dresses. When Ella gets discouraged and pouts because she does hit the ball, Chris calmly explains that it doesn't matter if we win or 'do it perfectly,' it just matters that we have fun. And I love watching her quietly think about it...for a few seconds. Then say "OK Daddy." And smile.





I'm thinking of more summer bucket list items as I type...but I'll have to save those for another post. After a day at the pool + the launch of our lemonade stand, I now have about an hour to get this crazy house in order for our big visit from Cousin Olivia tomorrow!

Summer, here we come!

BFFs and Bomb Pops

So everyone says it goes by fast. And boy, does my heart knows it. I mean, it seems like just yesterday that Ella Bella was teeny tiny peanut. Just yesterday, I was holding her in my hospital bed, feeling the most amazing sense of complete and utter fulfillment...looking down at her tiny blue eyes that were open so wide, at her little mouth shaped in an "Ooooo," as she took in the world around her for the first time.

If that feels like yesterday, it feels like an hour ago that we first took Ella Bella to All Saints Preschool in her purple dress and matching purple headband. She walked in the room so confidently, so comfortable in her own skin, so openly and so capably embracing this new experience, this new part of her life, this new place. Where she'd meet new little people and continue what I hope will be her lifelong love of learning.



And in the blink of an eye, this week was her last day of school.





Surprisingly, I didn't cry. Maybe it's because I know it's not over yet. She has a whole 'nother year at All Saints before she enters the Big Leagues of kindergarten. Maybe I didn't cry because it all seemed too...too perfect. Too dreamy. Too ideal.





Seeing my girls eat bomb pops on the green grass under a bright blue sky.



Watching these darling little girls pose for photos, hands around each others' waists, like they were going to prom or graduating high school. Loving how these little girlies so openly welcomed Kate-Kate into the last-day-of-school love.





Knowing that Ella would see lots of these darling kids in school again next year, and that -- miraculously -- she'd probably get to see her best friend, Lily, almost every day (maybe for the rest of her school-aged life!), because Lily's mom and dad just happened to buy the house right behind us! (This fact brings me so much happiness...I need to dedicate a whole 'nother post just to that!)



Or maybe I didn't cry because I knew that the weekend before us...that always exciting first weekend of summer...was just a day away.



Lots of reasons not to cry, I guess. So I didn't. But sitting her now, at 12:30 a.m. on a Sunday night, just 3 days after Ella's last day of school; and after spending two glorious sunny days at the pool, watching my girls splash and 'swim' and smile ear-to-ear in the sunshine, I'm having one of those moments where I consciously tell myself to remember everything about days like these.

Today, I want to remember packing up the beach bag with PB&J, strawberries (for Ella) and blueberries (for Kate), each with their very own kitty cat, two-level tupperware container.







I want to remember their matching swim suits (green polka dot, blue polka dot, bikini!)...and I want to remember how much fun it is to be able to buy them 4 bathing suits a piece because that wonderful mecca-of-mine called Target sells 'em for $8 a piece. I want to remember that they were the only little girls at the pool who kept big bows in their hair during their entire, 4.5 hour inaugural swimming expeditions.



I want to remember watching Chris hold one girl in each arm, their little elbows wrapped around his neck, as they waded together through the water.



I even want to remember Kate's completely ridiculous temper tantrum, which started the moment we told her it was time to leave and didn't end until well after we drug her out of the pool, fought her into her carseat, drove home and she finally gave into her tearful exhaustion while laying with her Daddy watching TV.

Four years ago, when Ella Bella was born, and a year after that, when Kate was born, I knew wonderful, beautiful things were to come. I guess I didn't realize how these little people would completely and utterly transform the way I feel about even the simplest things in life. Ella's perfect last day of preschool. Our first family trip to our new pool. The way the girls slept so hard, for 4 hours each, when we got home from the pool. Seeing their sweet, sunkissed cheeks and running out to the grocery store at 9 pm to buy the brandname sunscreen (because the cheap stuff clearly didn't work). Letting them have 'brinner' for dinner, even though there's basically no nutritional value in pancakes and syrup, because hey, it's summer!

I didn't realize how completely happy these every day experiences would make my heart feel.

A little bell goes off in my head, several times a day...reminding me that these moments are fleeting. Reminding my brain to please, please hit the video record button that I hope will remember how delicious my girls look, and smell, and sound on perfect summer days like these.

I'm already thinking about 13-or-so years from now. Envisioning my little Ella Bella graduating high school, not preschool...posing for photos in a cap and gown with her BFFs, wondering if Lily will still be there by her side. I can see her walking into her college dorm room as confidently as she walked into her first day of pre-K. And although I shed no tears on her last day of preschool, my throat already tightens, just thinking about the day when she and her baby sister Kate leave our house for real, to go start their own big girl lives.

I hope when that day comes, I can press the 'play' button in my memory and look back at this very post and remember every detail of these sweet summer days with my sweet Ella Bella and Kate the Great.

Gratitude is a gift that heals. Even when life totally sucks.

Today was an interesting day. One for which I am exceptionally grateful. Not because anything particularly remarkable happened. But because, after undergoing what I thought was going to be a run-of-the-mill, outpatient surgery back on April 17, today is the first day I have been able to live any semblance of my regular, old, normal life.

The surgery itself was gross and irrelevant. I hate that I had to undergo it and certainly don't want to talk or write about the surgery itself. (Given that ever since I was in elementary school, the discussion of body parts and bodily functions has made me nauseated and still does to this day. No, I didn't grow out if it after becoming a mama.)

The aftermath of the surgery was a nightmare. More pain than my mind ever had the capacity to even imagine. I have been known to vomit at the SIGHT of other people undergoing serious pain in movies, and to PASS OUT after reading about physical pain written about by brave rape survivors. So it shouldn't have surprised me that if the sight or thought of other people experiencing pain has that strong of an impact on me, actually experiencing pain on my own would be really, really hard.

But, I had reasoned....I gave birth to two babies. I dealt with that recovery. It wasn't fun. But it was bearable. Surely, that's the kind of recovery I'd be going through. Right? I had assumed that the recovery process would suck, a little. But I envisioned laying in bed, having food brought to me, watching endless hours of Judge Judy, sleeping a lot due to pain killers. I had incorrectly assumed that I'd still be able to snuggle with my baby girls and walk around the house when I wanted, read some books, check email, maybe watch some movies.

Instead, my 2+ week recovery was marked by debilitating pain, more medical grossness than my weak stomach can bear to even allow my brain to remember, near constant tears from constant pain, and rambling babbling from a frustrated, tortured mama who was hopped up on painkillers and could barely utter a coherent sentence for two weeks.

The pain was constant and never ending; and if the valium and other strong painkillers I was prescribed did lessen the pain, then I cannot imagine what kind of deeper, more fiery, more awful hell the recovery would have felt like without those medications.

The physical pain was devastating. But not being able to do any of the things that I now realize define me...not being able to brush my daughters' hair, or get them their 12th cup of juice for the day...not being able to read them bedtime stories or scrub the syrup off the floor or referee their nightly fights in the bathtub at ....missing out on all of these things every night...that was more emotionally devastating that I would ever have expected.

Interestingly, in my more lucid moments, I was writing this post in my mind.

I realize it may sound a little Pollyanna-ish, but I have always been most grateful for the blessings in my life, and I have usually felt my relationship with and belief in God are strongest, during the worst of times.

Relatively speaking, I have often said that I am very aware that I have led a very fortunate life. My 'worst of times' have involved things like my divorced parents not getting along, an abusive stepdad, my dad divorcing his second wife, or a sibling going through a very rough time, the loss of my loved ones, or a broken heart over a long-term, self-defining relationship.

Nothing particularly remarkable when it comes to life hardships. But yet, I've still always been the most grateful for all of my blessings during my lowest times. And the past two weeks -- they have now won the ranking as the absolute worst experience of my life. And I can now confirm what my 20-something heart often pondered -- severe physical pain does, in fact, trump even the worst, deepest, most crushing romantic heartbreak. For me, anyway.

As I was laying in my torture chamber (either the bathtub or the guest bedroom, the two places which I did not leave for more than 15 days), in my more lucid moments I would think...as miserable as I was...I was so, so much more fortunate than millions, if not billions, of other people around the world.

I am fortunate to have been born in a country where I have access to medical professionals who can diagnose and 'fix' medical issues. (Even if that care is ridiculously overpriced and even if the medical professionals in this particular case were mean spiritied, rude and void of compassion.) I am fortunate to have health insurance to help make the absurd medical costs a little more paletteable. And although it's not fun to spend thousands of dollars on a 'health care deductible' for a surgery that totally sucked...I can't ignore the reality that I'm fortunate that I can actually pay that deductible without having to sacrifice feeding my family or paying my mortgage.

I'm fortunate to have had access to painkillers -- because without them, I think it's entirely possible that I would have jumped out a window to end the pain.

I'm fortunate that a wonderful, caring, bubbly, vivacious, amazing woman (Sarah, or as Ella and Kate call her, Rah-Rah) takes care of my girls for me on the three days a week I work, and that she worked extra days and extra hours -- even at 8+ months pregnant herself -- to care for my little girls when I couldn't. She brought sunshine to their days and played with them and exercised their imaginations and gave them hugs and kisses. She helped them feel as much normalcy as possible, even as they ran into my bedroom every morning and asked "Hi Mama. I love you. Are you better today?" fourteen consecutive days in a row.

I'm fortunate that Rah-Rah brought me toast in the morning and asked me throughout the day if I needed anything. And my heart hurts as I write these words and think about people who go through physical pain or surgery and have no "Rah Rah" to care for their children or tend to their needs. I can't even allow my mind to ponder how their children get fed, or bathed, or put to bed, or loved.

I'm fortunate to have a husband who tackled bedtime duty by himself every night, sleeping in the middle of Ella and Kate every night because he knew he wouldn't hear them if they cried out for me in the middle of the night in their own rooms. And because I think he kind of just likes the snuggle time with his baby girls. I'm fortunate that he took off work to take me to the doctor to speak on my behalf...when the severe pain I was experiencing had made it difficult for me, a person who has never in her life found it difficult to speak my mind, ask tough questions, or advocate on my own behalf; to utter a sentence, let alone have a reasonable conversation with medical professionals about the torture I was experiencing.

I'm fortunate that on the worst night of the recovery, after an unspeakable experience that left every muscle in my body immobile and nearly unable to move, when I called my mom, who lives 3 hours away, at 7 pm on a week night, and begged her, like a 3 year old child, to please, please come right away to take care of me....she did. She threw two outfits in a suitcase and got in her car and drove 3 hours in the pouring rain, even though she's terrified of night driving and of driving by herself.

The moment she walked into my guest bedroom, at 11 pm that night, sat on my bed, and just hugged 37-year-old me as I cried like a baby...that moment ranks among the most grateful of my life. Right up there with the day I married Chris and the days Ella and Kate were born. I have never been more relieved to see another human being in all my life, and I can never express how much peace her physical presence gave me. I don't think it's a coincidence that I walked out of the house for the first time on only the third day she was here. Her very presence was healing.

I'm fortunate for friends (dear Heidi) who have sent dinners and edible arrangements (sweet Sarah) to brighten this misery. I'm fortunate for Chris's mom who came over to relieve Sarah from her duties -- and make me food that I was too sick to even pretend to eat. I'm fortunate to have had a bath tub and hot water -- two of the only things that made the pain feel bearable. I'm fortunate to have more towels in my house than are probably needed in the entire city of Columbus. Because I took so many baths and showers in that two week period that I used every one of those towels, three times a piece.

And, obviously, as I reminded myself countless times, I am so very fortunate than my condition was 'fixable,' that I am on the mend, that the majority of the pain has subsided, that the whole torturous experience only lasted 2.5 weeks, and that I'm still here. Alive. To live this Very gGrateful Life.

I'm so fortunate in so many more ways than these. And although I would never repeat the past 2 weeks -- for ALL THE MONEY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD -- I can sincerely say that I'm grateful that God has found a way to use all this misery and grossness to remind me once again of just how fortunate a life I live. He has used this experience to help my heart feel even more compasssion for those who live bravely every day with chronic illnesses, those who don't have access to medical care or medicines, those who don't have people love and care for them and for their children in times of trouble.

I have no pictures to punctuate this post (trust me, you're very grateful for that)...but if a visual would help, envision me, this morning, making breakfast for my little girls. Brushing their beautiful hair. Putting adorable dresses on them, with the obligatory matching bows. Buckling them in the car. Driving them to school and Firefly Cafe. Bringing them back home. Even though I did need Rah-Rah to relieve me by noon, because these simple activities made my body feel like it had just run a marathon -- those simple moments are the ones that are running through my head right now; because just 4 days ago, I was convinced that I was surely going to die, and that I'd never experience those blessings again.

It's just all proof that gratitude is, indeed, a gift that heals. Even when life totally, completely sucks.

Kate the Great's Beautiful Butterfly Birthday

Rain, rain, go away, come and play another day.

Any day but today, really. Please?

We watched the rain through the window as we prepared for the party. My mom sang the 'rain rain go away' song with the girls a half-dozen times.



But alas, our repeated pleas did not work and boo-hoo, it rained on Kate's birthday party day. As tragedies go, I admit. This is clearly a minor one.





The girlies were not able to play in the butterfly land we created in the backyard. (Oh, how I had visions of little girls, running and playing and fluttering with butterfly wings among paper lanterns in the woods!)



And the 6 hours I spent a few weekends ago, stenciling circles of butterflies on the inside of the playhouse? No one saw them either.



Charlie, our next door neighbor's dog, who was so hoping to make a guest appearance at the party, was not able to. (I love Charlie. But figured that giant muddy Bassett hound paws probably weren't the best idea for the newly scrubbed floor.)



The butterfly pinata is still in my foyer, unsmashed, because we couldn't go outside to bust it. The sidewalk chalk butterfly was washed away, and the girls will now have an entire summers' worth of sidewalk chalk to decorate the driveway. And I now have 8 pink butterfly nets that have gone unused, as we couldn't play 'butterfly badminton' as I had planned.

I allowed the rain, and the rush of all the last-minute party preparations, to make me a little crabby for at least a full hour before the party. Nevermind that I was only behind with the party stuff because I chose to spend more time gawking at other parties on Pinterest than I spent actually preparing for this one.

I tried to put Kate's fancy birthday crown on her about 15 minutes before the party started, and she sunk down onto the ground, screeching as if I had threatened not to feed her for the rest of her life. She protested so much that I threw the crown on the floor like an 8 year old and said "Fine, Kate. Fine. DON'T wear the fancy crown. I don't care. I can't believe this is how you act before your special butterfly party!" or something stupid and childish like that. Trying to guilt a 3-year-old child into a photo opp.

Luckily, we are both too quick to be irritated but are also both pretty quick to snap out of it. So a few minutes later, we were all making the best of the rainy day by bringing sunshine inside.



As I have discussed ad nauseum before, I spend a ridiculous number of hours looking for birthday party ideas. So it's a happy day when I can finally see it all come together.

The butterfly cake (a cheapie Kroger cake on which I added some $8 edible butterflies from Etsy!)....



The toadstool cupcakes (I couldn't bare the thought of the 12-step Pinterest tutorial on more realistic looking toadstool cupcakes. So I took the lazy route and added white chocolate chips as polka dots on Kroger cupcakes.)



The hedgehog food (one little guest told me that hedgehogs don't go with butterflies. Contraire, monfraire...this was woodland butterfly party, and hedgehogs totally go with a woodland theme. And besides, Sedgie, a hedgehog, made an appearance at the party and we had to make him feel welcome.) And no, I have no idea if hedgehogs eat acorns or raspberries. Yes, they're probably too big for a hedgehog's mouth. But I think hedgehogs eat bugs and, well, ick. So for the sake of this birthday bash, yes, hedgehogs eat raspberries, strawberries and acorns.





A note to anyone considering making hedgehogs out of donut holes: Powdery ones look so much cuter. But icing does NOT stick to them. Power to the Pinterest momma who was able figure out that ridiculousness. Hence, the dark brown on dark brown on dark brown hedgehogs, whose faces you can barely see. Hey, the fact that they disappeared completely says that at least they tasted good.



The excessive butterfly decorations....



















Ella and Kate were ecstatic when Hallie, our neighbor, the first guest, arrived...(she and the other 'big girls' of the neighborhood are all so sweet to our girls. We're so grateful for that!)



Face painting and balloon-animal making helped keep the kiddos busy. (Thanks to Erica Carlson, the best kids' entertainer EVER!) They didn't seem to miss the fact that they couldn't flutter around the butterfly fantasy land out back.











The toilet paper coccoon making contest was a hit, even if we had to play on the backporch...and even if I didn't get to see the girls burst free from the cocoons and 'fly' in the backyard.





And, I don't have photos of the playroom...but from the disaster state it's currently in, I can tell you they had a blast there, too.

Kate the great couldn't eat chocolate cake in the sunshine...but she seemed pretty happy to eat her chocolate toadstool cupcake on a picnic blanket in the front room.





I don't have any close up photos of Kate the Great blowing out her candles, but a neighbor took a brief video. It's only 10 seconds long. But oh, how it hurts my heart, I love it so much. Kate blows out the candles on her toadstool cupcake, with all her little friends surrounding her...and then smiles this big, proud smile when she's done, looking around at everyone, scanning the room with her big brown eyes, knowing she's the special birthday girl. Then she claps and squeals and her little shoulders rise to meet her ears, and jumps up and down in her chair. Precious.



I was watching those moments in 'real life, up close, as I held Kate's cupcake and she blew out the candles. But on busy days like this, with lots of guests and lots of little people and so much visual stimulation...sometimes even the sweetest little moments can get lost in the clutter of my mind.

I am obsessive about taking and sharing photos for just that reason. These moments of my little girls' lives...I am so aware that they are fleeting. It seems like just yesterday, my little Kate the great was just coming home from the hospital. And the moments between then and now? They're mostly one, big, beautiful blur. It's this blog, and my photos, some hand-written journals in which I occassionally write... that give me the gift of remembering it all. How beautiful they are at every stage. How their smiles and how the funny things they say and do make me feel.

I didn't get to put the girls to sleep tonight. Grandma is in town for the party and they retired to her room to watch movies. As I was uploading these photos, they fell asleep. My second (albeit extraordinarly minor) disappointment for the day. I had so wanted to lay in bed with Kate-Kate, maybe read her one of her butterfly books, ask her about her favorite parts of the party, thank Jesus that she's healthy and safe, and watch my birthday girl fade off to sleep.



But the silver lining is that I can do all of that tomorrow. A blogpost that I read a few days ago, written by a mom I've never met, reminds me of just how beautiful of a silver lining that is.

The mom and her beautiful little girl, Faith Pruden, live in our community. Faith died of brain cancer last year. Just a few days ago, as I read her mom's blog for the fourth or fifth time since I happened upon it last year, and tears again streamed down my face.

My heart aches for Faith's brave mommy, for her family, and for the loss of a beautiful little girl whose time here on earth was cut far too short.

During moments like this, when I have experienced such a fun and special day with my little girls, Faith's story ruminates in my heart. Her beautiful photo on her mommy's blog reminds me of just how delicate and fleeting life is. And how important it is that I make the most of every second. Not just with butterfly parties and hedgehog watermelons, marking special birthdays.

I can't really find the right words to express what my heart feels every time I think of Faith's story. I sent her mother a brief email and told her how her strength inspired me. She wrote back, thanked me for the note, and said that emails like that help her, because the road she is walking is a very lonely one. Her courage and her little girls' face are front and center in my mind right now, they tug on my conscience as I use words like 'tragedy' in the same sentence as 'rain...' or speak of 'disappointment' for not getting to kiss my birthday girl goodnight.

Today, the rain dashed our plans of setting free two Monarchs we have watched turn from caterpillars to cocoons to butterflies. We'll set them free tomorrow, hopefully in the sunshine, as we celebrate my little girl growing another year older. And when we do, I'll be thinking of sweet Faith Pruden and I'll say a little prayer for a family I've never met. I'll accept that there is much about this short and amazing life that I will never understand, I'll sqeeze my little girls and I'll once again be reminded how thankful I am for every rainy and sunny moment of this very grateful life.