dress up

papa's little angel just had to get dressed up today toooo. God Bless You Papa! we miss you so much already!

(this cute outfit helped us all get a few smiles and grins today)

a thank you

today my brother's friends are throwing a benefit to honor my dad and to help my mom. my heart is overjoyed at their efforts and their support. i have felt the love of friends and family over the last few days that i cannot put into words..... the wonderful hugs, encouragement, love and support. i will be forever grateful, and i thank God for bringing us together during this time of sorrow. you are all in our prayers. thank you!

a eulogy by me

Good Afternoon
I know that I’m going to cry up here
I’m pregnant
and I believe that my dad was Superman
and the best Papa in the world!
I miss my dad so much already

But I want you to know that my Dad is still with us, right now in this room
He would not want us to be sad for him. He is in heaven.
He would not want us to hurt.
He would not want us to feel pain.

I believe that he wants us to know that he is okay now, and that everything is going to be okay tooo.
God and Jesus have healed him and now it is time to celebrate life and being together.

We want everyone here today, physically or in spirit, to know that you are part of our family. My Dad loved you and we love you.

Perhaps you shared a beer with my Dad almost a week ago, or laughed together even 10 years ago.
I’m sure my Dad would want you to know that you were important to him.

Our memories of being together with my Dad can bring us comfort and inspiration.

My Dad was here in our lives
To love us
To help us
To encourage us
To guide us
To show us that ‘we could do it’
To laugh with us and enjoy life
To celebrate anything and everything
To bring us strength

I want you to remember how he was present in your life.
I want these memories to inspire you to:
Show a young child how to fish
Learn how to cook your favorite food… and share it
Step up and pitch in
Do the right thing now, instead of later
Find a way to make life easier for someone else
Enjoy being outdoors or find more time for your own hobbies
Spoil your family and friends
Say, “I love you” more often or even start saying it…..


There is nothing in this world that my Dad couldn’t do.
He just had to work hard to accomplish it.
Actually, he seemed to work even harder if he could do something for someone else

When my Dad started his courageous battle with cancer, he tackled it in the same way.
It took
Not 1
Not 2
But 3 cancers
And multiple rounds of chemotherapy with each cancer
When not the first chemotherapy
Or the second
Or the third try or type of chemo worked exactly right.

And my Dad still did not loose the fight.
He was still ready to continue working and fighting hard for my Mom and us.
And God was ready to heal him in his loving arms.

My Dad is in heaven now.
He will not soon be forgotten and will continue to be missed.
But he has given us something wonderful.
He has showed us how to be courageous and unselfish and loving right to the end.

Please don’t be sad today.
Please be inspired instead.
Please celebrate life and family.
We have all been blessed just to know my Dad.

Thank you and AMEN!

my dad is in heaven

our hearts are breaking because we miss my dad. he is in heaven now. here are a few of the wonderful pictures that we have to savour.

the playground

a little bit of sunshine finally warms us up enough to play outside... and meredith loves it!

my gloves

another fun thing about visiting nana and papa in the hospital is the cool gloves and mask! meredith enjoys every second of our special family time together..... with all of the cool 'tools' and accessories of being neutropenic (extreme low white blood cell/immunity)in the hospital

our baby brother

it is fun getting ready for a new baby brother! meredith loves her books that show a big sister helping with the new baby and she is especially excited to talk about the umbilical chord falling off of the belly button (oh yeah she really does talk about this stuff already.) this week she was able to goto the baby appointment with me and hear the baby's heartbeat really loud.

our little doctor

visiting nana and papa in the hospital is one of meredith's favorite activites right now! she gets so excited to be able to play doctor/nurse with the stethescope especially! she gets very possessive of her 'tools' in papa's room. she tries to hide the little blood pressure cuff and stethescope when the nurse comes in because she doesn't want to share it. she is also fond of the 'real' telephone and being able to make nana and papa giggle with her singing and dancing and pretending!

two years old

we are the proud parents of a happy two year old!! we had fun celebrating meredith's birthday all week long! (that way we could have some cake with nana and papa and meredith got lots of practice singing happy birthday and blowing out her candles.)

our growing up girl will happily sing happy birthday and tell you that she is 'two months' old! she loved playing with her cousin jake especially at her birthday party. she just adored everything that jake does!! the two of them really were excited about the curious george themed party, but baby katie enjoyed the balloons the most :) we just cannot get over how alert she is and meredith gave her lots of attention tooo! awww!

last year meredith just devoured her cake with wild passion, and this year we expected no difference! to our suprise she carefully ate the icing off of her cake using her fork mostly and was really rather gentle! she still loved the cake, but i guess just not as much as the frosting. we had a homemade german chocolate cake with homemade frosting.

a cute moment from today... when she was singing twinkle twinkle little star and changed the verse to be 'twinkle twinkle little guitar' when she was playing with her homemade guitar! it is so cute to here her sing the whole song :)

thank you everyone for such a wonderful day and wonderful party fun with thoughtful presents tooo!

100 units

today papa got a special award..... his 100th transfused donation of blood! it is amazing to know that so many volunteers have unanimously saved his life with each and every transfusion!!!! God bless every one of you!!!

please donate blood to the american red cross so that you can help save someones life tooooooo!!!

george birthday party

with papa and nana in the hospital for meredith's special birthday, we just couldn't let them miss out! so we brought the special curious george birthday party to them too!!!!

who are these masked party goers????

george fan

here is our little curious george fan in her new pajamas from nana and papa..... oh my goodness!!! they are george pajamas!!!! how cool! i could hardly get her in the photos she was excited!

meredith has been lucky to watch tv before the age of two. we have tried to keep it very limited but i think parenting has gotten the best of us and she has a full fledged love for certain shows. it is cute when meredith asks for 'gorge' (as she often requests it!) but it is even *cuter* when she will lay still for a diaper change while it is on.....

my new room

we have been getting ready for our 'baby on the way' by making a 'new room' for meredith. soon the nursery will be for our 'new baby brother.'

it has been exciting getting the new room all ready. sadly the old dinosaur boarder on the walls needed to be removed, but it was a simple project. the painting of the walls however wasn't as easy.... i picked the 'wrong' shade of yellow at first. hmmmmmm i wouldn't recommend the shade 'decisively yellow' to anyone! scott was really patient and did most of the work in preparing the new room and painting the perfect shade of yellow for our happy little meredith. we think yellow will go great with her ladybug quilt and bright colored toys. the funny thing is that they yellow is still so bright on the walls that scott and i will often go in there just to 'shut off the light.'

meredith and i enjoyed some time in the wrap together. this green wrap is called 'simon' and she looooooooooooves going for rides on mommy's backk in it! it is actually still possible to do with the baby in the belly :)

time to enjoya lovely felt lunch..... just don't ask meredith what the peanut butter felt piece is :)

a cousin my size

we had a fun playtime with 2nd cousin sarah tonight!! sarah is only a 1/2 year older than meredith so she fit right in with playing red sparkly dress up shoes and serving up tea in the play kitchen!

dolly and me

today we had some tasty cinnamon rolls and pierogies for breakfast. somehow we've started a weekend ritual now with the cinnamon rolls and pierogies.... i don't think aunt fran and uncle john realized what 'traditions' they would be starting!! i can't wait for meredith to be able to help me make the cinnamon rolls in the morning too. its fun to bake from scratch again :)

here are a few pics of meredith and her homemade amish dolly named 'baby frances.' aunt frances made the dolly and the clothes. here is meredith wearing one of the matching outfits :)

pancakes

its fun to suprise meredith with her new felt food at the dinner table. blueberry syrup on your pancakes is the best....

felt food

aunt frances and uncle john have been busy making felt food for meredith to pretend with...... yummmo!!

my farm

today momma captured me playing with my fun play farm, house, and fairy mushroom. my wooden animals hand made by great aunt rosemary fit right into my farm tooo. check out the cute 'heiny' picture of them all in a row! i was playing with the deer like it was an reindeer. did you know that santa claus lands on the roof with his reindeer and goes down the chimney? my barn has a chimney and this whole idea is just sticking with me... how awesome! the toys you see in this picture were all new toys for me this christmas and i'm just beginning to really use my imagination to play with them. thanx for all the cool and fun toys!

the pizza

today meredith is cooped up with us again in the house.... with her snotty cold. so today we kicked it up a notch. most of our dollies attended our first pizza party! thanx to aunt fran and uncle john for crafting up some awesome felt pizza accessories and some bacon and eggs. today was the first day we got them out and i could barely get meredith to look up from her 'cookin'. she didn't want much assistance. she loved calling each piece by name and making it the tastiest pizza ever. she had fun with the bacon and eggs too. chef meredith. notice how dolly patty is still dressed in meredith's christmas outfit from 2007. as a special treat we ate pizza for lunch after we played. it was a hit too!

holidays for littles

we had a fun holiday playdate with friends today. the girls enjoyed special treats and exchanging gifts with each other. meredith learns quickly from her 'older' friends and they are suprised how quickly she is catching on.

like kids

we enjoyed our visit with friends at the grand rapids children's museum. its great to see so many different exhibits geered towards the developing young minds. we especially loved the kitchen area and kaleidoscopes. andother favorite for meredith would be the nuts and bolts that you can stack on the magnetic strip or having 5 adults chase after you in the museum to see what you'll discover next.

college friends

our lives have been enriched in different ways since the good ol college days and it was fun to get together while we were all in the same state! it was extra special to visit our friends during the holidays on the west side of the state this weekend. everyone is changing so fast and we felt welcome into their warm homes. meredith enjoyed catching up in her own way too.... lots of smiles and exploring like mad! thanx for such warm visits!

happy new year

we welcomed the new year at aunt kerry and uncle joel's house. well its definately called jake and baby katie's house now as its all about playing and adoring her cousins in meredith's eyes. we got lots of play time and great eats in before the apple dropped (and some of us fell asleep!) happy new year everyone!!!

christmas all over again

howabout our first family trip to frankenmuth?? all right! we had an excellent day with family and christmas all over again at this very special place. poor meredith couldn't understand why she couldn't run free all the time in the largest christmas store in the world, but she loved taking as much of it in as she could. we kept having to remind her to, 'look up' at all the pretty decorations overhead. she was consistantly pointing out most of the santa claus and frostys. she is almost as big of a fan of santa as she is of frosty! its cute to hear her talk about santa claus and the chimney. it is an amazing concept to her. she also will say reindeer with great passion. what a beautiful store bronners and zehnders both are. we had hours of fun and tasty chicken and sausage dinner together. thanx for meeting us there aunt rosemary, aunt fran and cousin mark! ohhhh i almost forgot. we got a pickle ornament for our christmas tree at bronners. next year we will start the old tradition in our family where santa claus can place the ornament on the tree and our children can find it on christmas morning. the lucky one to find it first will get a special treat. how fun right?? and we got the coolest nativity scene ornament that fits into half of a walnut shell. i thought that was cool and well, unbreakable. he. he.

down in detroit

our first visit to downtown detroit as a family. we had fun at the detroit science center with friends. what a hit! meredith gets pretty excited about going to 'special places' like museums and her and her friend were so busy exploring all of the hands on toddler exhibits. you can see quite a few pics of meredith on the forklift that was part of the industrial exhibit, because her papa used to drive a forklift too. well thats all we had to mention to her..... she started bouncing around even more on that thing! lol

baby julie

 

here is baby doll julie. she is named after the special nana that found her and thought she had a striking resemblance to litle mommy meredith. she is well loved already and is doing a great job on her stroller rides!

baby nelda

here is baby nelda, named after the sweet grandma who knew that she would be just perfect to cuddle and love for meredith. she is a little doll who looks like mommy meredith don't you think??