I'm it!

So here's the deal - I was asked to go into my pictures on my computer and open up the 4th folder and post the 4th picture. Here it is:

This is Ryan opening up a present on Christmas in 2006. We still lived in Washington at the time and I was newly pregnant with Emily. Like my friend Meredith, who is making me do this, I got very sentimental about all the pictures in this folder.

It really made me miss Washington and our life we had there and all of our friends there. Sorry the above picture is sideways, I didn't take the time to rotate it for you! It's Casey barely 2 years old. He was so little!

Above is Ryan and his buddy Jake. This was Ryan's first time playing soccer. Having a buddy from preschool made it so much more fun for him!

Our happy guy. He has a couple nicknames that we still call him: Beebs & Baby Guy (this name originated from a Sesame Street sketch with Baby Bear where he plays "Hero Guy". He sings a song that goes like this: "He's a hee-wo, he's a guy! He's a hee-wo, he's a guy! He's, duh-duh-na-nah! Hee-wo Guy!!" I tried to find a clip of it on You Tube, but to no avail. That's probably because it's really annoying!!)

On a totally different note,

it's brave of me to post this picture of my bare belly, but I was so blissfully unaware of what was about to happen in 24 hours. I was 34 weeks pregnant with Emily.
Less than 24 hours after this picture was taken, my beautiful mother went to be with Jesus. I'd had belly pictures taken this day with the boys. They turned out so cute. I ordered a couple for my mom. She never got to see them.

The rest of the pictures are from her memorial. The amount of people who came to pay their respects was overwhelming to me. I've included a few pictures below. Is it strange that we all smiled so cheerfully for the camera?

God was my ROCK through this extremely tough time, but Tripp was a close second.

And Mere, along with many others, was a friend who was there when I needed her most.

My sweet, sweet Gram. I can't imagine what it must be like to lose a child... She went home to be with the Lord just 4 months after my mom did. I have such comfort knowing that they are together. They were so close. The 3 of us, were close. They were special ladies.