Making Daddy's Lunch

With both Joe and I laid off these last couple of weeks (me...since December 28th), of course, money is tight so I agreed to make Joe his lunches this week since this is his first week back. I thought the process of making lunch would be fun for Jackson and something he and I could do together. Below are some pictures Joe took of Jackson helping Mommy make lunch.

9 YEARS AGO...

It's hard to believe that it has been nine years already since Joe and I lost our first child.

2/17/2000

We try to make an attempt to travel back up to the U of M to look at the Magnolia tree that was planted in remembrance of our baby. I can remember our first trip, the October in 2000 (our first "Walk to Remember") that all of our families traveled to Ann Arbor with Joe and I. What a special and heart warming day that was for everyone. We still have the shovel that Brock used to help plant the tree and we have since received another shovel from 2 years ago when we went back up with Jackson and he helped plant another tree for other babies lost that year.

We were able to go yesterday to look at our tree and see how big it is getting. Below are some pictures that were taken.

Buds already on our tree...

We appreciate every one's support over the years and couldn't have made it as far as we have without every one's help. Thank you all for what you have done, the many talks, the listening without judging and forgiving all the mistakes we have made.

Loosing our baby in 2000 was difficult and only one person knows why we were not meant to be parents at that moment in our lives. In my heart, I believe He thought we were not ready and that our time was when we met Lois and Jackson. I'm grateful for Jackson and couldn't be happier to be his Mommy. He helps me answer why Joe and I lost our baby in 2000.

Even thought we were not able to ever hear our first baby cry, see him or her smile, hold our child in our arms or touch each of the fingers or toes, we heard a beating heart and saw a picture and the loss is still the same. I will forever wonder if we would have had a boy or a girl and how different my life would be today with an eight year old.

Thanks again to everyone who has given us support in the past and continues to provide encouraging words when needed. We love you all.

The Ringman Wedding

Here are some pictures from Ben and Angie's wedding / anniversary party from Friday:

The Poling Family, all dressed up!!!

Mommy and Jackson...

The Beautiful Girls and Handsome Soldiers...

Daddy (Ben) dancing with Riley.

Ben and Angie "feeding" each other cake...lets just say that the bride WON!!!

Picture taken at the church, before the alcohol...

Daddy and Jackson once they got home...

Jackson smiling, but with tears in his eyes because he didn't want to go to bed...

We had a wonderful weekend with everyone. Joe was able to go out with the boys Thursday night drinking. I spent most of Saturday sipping on water and taking Motrin due to my drinking on Friday, but overall we enjoyed every bit of the wedding preperations, the ceremony and the reception that followed.

?????MOVING?????

Are we moving? NO, I just finally got tired of being a pack rat and Joe and I went through each room and did some really good cleaning. I will have pictures of the house posted later this week but wanted to post a few pictures from earlier today and the amount of trash that was picked up. I can only imagine what the garbage truck guy was thinking when he pulled up to our home this morning. It was a huge relief to go through the house and throw away things we have been holding on to for YEARS!