Nygard Family

Snow Week

2012-01-25T22:28:00.000-08:00

We headed to Wenatchee for MLK Jr. weekend to help Eric's brother, Brandon in his proposal plans to his girlfriend Janelle. They are really cute and happy together, and we are excited to have Janelle in the family. The kids didn't give them much time to themselves the whole weekend, but Brandon and Janelle are good sports about it.

We made them a 4-course lunch - Aubree and Tanner were their servers. We had to make sure the kids knew they needed to come right back out, since they wanted to join the lunch date.

Loraine (Eric's Mom) did most of the work, and Eric grilled the steaks.

We got back from our weekend in Wenatchee to find the beginnings of a lot of snow. They ended up canceling the whole week for Aubree and Eric only had one day of school. I love the four pictures above. If you look closely you can see (in sequence) Travis' snowball fight with Spiderman, including his celebration after knocking Spiderman down.

The kids loved their time in the snow. They made a pretty good snowman and Travis even let the snowman borrow his hat.

A whole week of being cooped up in the house made us have to get creative in our activities. The kids played a lot of dress-up, "camp", and house.

It was really nice to have Eric around for the last 3 snow days, so he could play with the kids outside. He helped them get in a good snowball fight with some neighbor kids.

Eric, Aubs, and Trav making snow angels.

When Jared woke up from his nap, I bundled him up to go out. He loved trudging around in the snow till his hands got too cold.

They had fun jumping on the trampoline with all the snow.

Jared "helped" Eric make some cinnamon rolls. We had the intentions of bringing them to friends, but with the weather we didn't get out and ended up eating the whole two batches of cinnamon rolls.

I don't talk about Sara enough on here. We appreciate having her here with us and the kids sure love her. She spoils us. Jared is always with her when she is home. His favorite words are, "Mom, Dad, and Sara." You can see Tanner's injury from the snowball fight on his cheek.

Trav trying to figure out how to wear his eye patch.

We had a nice day this week and we hadn't been to the zoo in way too long. We had a lot of fun, and it was especially fun now that Jared is older. He has been making all sorts of animals noises since.

Jared munching some popcorn from our movie night.

I still want to incorporate Andrew into all of our posts and have been trying to think of a new way to do that. Last year, we included a memory. I think this year, we will share quotes or thoughts. My brother, Jon, wrote this poem for us after Andrew died and I haven't posted it in a while. We have it framed on the wall in our house and we love it.

THE UNEXPECTED TEACHER

A baby, from unexpected circumstances,
teaches us humility.
A boy, with unexpected authority,
teaches us correct principles.
A man, through unexpected cruelty,
teaches us the true meaning of love.

An angel, from unexpected parents,
needed love upon this earth.
This angel, with unexpected timing,
finished his mission on the earth.
Our angel, through unexpected separation,
teaches us the greatest lesson of all...To Depend Upon the Savior

Angel Day

2012-01-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

The Wednesday before Christmas, was Andrew's "Angel Day." I still can't believe it has been a year. It feels like it has been forever, but at the same time it seems like it all just happened yesterday.

We were blessed with being in Wenatchee (near Andrew's grave) for this day, so we were able to visit it often. Most of the pictures were taken during our visit on December 21st. The kids each brought a flower and we got a little Christmas tree for the grave.

I have been pondering a lot the last few weeks about what I have learned from this trial and what changes I need to continue to make in my life. Our bedtime routine has taken a whole new meaning to us. If the kids ask for another book or another story, we have a hard time saying no. Most the time they end up with a shorter story. .

I have thought a lot about how much Heavenly Father's hands were involved in blessing us with being Andrew's eternal family. When Travis was only six or seven months old, both Eric and I had distinct impressions that our family was missing someone. We were told again by multiple doctors that our chances of becoming pregnant were close to impossible. We knew there was a baby out there that was meant to be in our family, so we felt like we needed to get approved for adoption again. We officially got approved with LDS Family Services in May of '09, a few months before Eric started dental school.

We got a call September 22nd that a birth mother had chosen us to parent her little boy who was due any day. We were so excited and began waiting for more details, but we didn't hear anything for a few weeks and thought our new Birth Mom had changed her mind. We got a call Monday, October 12th that she was in labor at the hospital and still on board for placement with us. Our case worker asked me how quickly I could get to the Tri-Cities. I left the kids with Eric's parents in Wenatchee, and Eric met me at the hospital (he was in Spokane in class). We arrived shortly after his birth. Andrew was such a perfect baby. From the first time I held him, I knew he was ours and was meant to be in our family. He had the chubbiest cheeks and the most perfect lips.

After Andrew's death, we had the wonderful opportunity to meet his birth mom. She is one of the most beautiful people we have ever met, inside and out. This visit revealed the Lord's hand in so many ways. She didn't find out she was pregnant with Andrew until she had been beaten so badly by her boyfriend that she was admitted to the hospital. She had two previous children with the same birth father and didn't feel like she could bring another child into the difficult and turbulent home that her children were already living in. She was so selfless, even in that most difficult time that she chose what was best for Andrew over what she wanted.

As we visited with her, our hearts were deeply touched as she shared her story with us. From her side of the story, she had some really special experiences that led her to LDS Family Services and then to our family. She is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and she didn't know what LDS Family Services was until after she had given birth to Andrew. Not long after she found out that she was pregnant, she was looking through the phone book for a salon for her sister, and she happened upon the phone number for LDS Family Services, and she immediately felt an impression that she needed to call the number and talk to them about adoption. After returning to the number for several weeks, she called it soon met with a case worker. Initially, she wanted the case worker to select a family for her to place with, but he provided her with a collection of adoptive family profiles and asked her to prayerfully select a family to adopt her expectant son. As she read through the profiles, she said that she kept getting stuck at ours and kept feeling that our family would provide Andrew with the love that he deserved. Her description of this experience made it really clear that she was being directly guided by guidance of the Holy Spirit in this decision. In her words, there were many wonderful families that wanted to adopt, but ours was the one that was supposed to adopt Andrew. Heavenly Father's hand was undoubtedly involved in bringing Andrew into our family. One of the most touching parts of the visit with our hero, was when she told us about her experience in the hospital.

She said that even right after Andrew was born, she wasn't sure if she could go through with the adoption. She already loved him deeply. Being a mother was the joy of her life, and she wanted more than anything to hold Andrew, to hug him, and to bring him home. She said that was all she wanted to do, and the nurse asked her several times, "do you want to hold him?". Each time, she declined, but she wanted to hold him so badly. She never held him, because she knew that if she held him, she would not be able to let go of him. At last, the nurse told Our Hero that I had arrived and that she was going to take Andrew down the hall to meet his new parents. One last time, the nurse asked if she would like to hold him. Our Hero sat on her bed, having just delivered a beautiful baby, with the adoption case worker seated in front of her, waiting for signatures, and the nurse offering the chance to hold the baby whom moments earlier she had given birth to. In that crucial moment, this exhausted, incredible woman chose to give Andrew what she knew she could not. All she wanted was to hold him, but all she wanted for him was to have something better - this is why she is our hero.

Over the months our visit with her, we communicated by phone and text messages with our hero. This communication was so special. We felt as though we had connected with a long, lost family member. Every time we talked to her or received a text from her, we treasured that contact. Every time we think of her or talk of her, we are filled with deep and sincere gratitude, love, respect, admiration, and appreciation. Some of our most special and heart-felt moments are when we ponder the selfless, eternal gift that she gave to our family. She has changed our family forever. The hardest part of this relationship currently is that we lost contact. She moved just weeks after our visit, her phone number was changed, and her email address continues to be returned. We will continue to pray that our contact will resume, but until then, we are so deeply thankful for the contact that we have had; this small window of time and communication has made us better people and a stronger family. To Andrew's Birth Mom, Our Hero, We Love You!!!

I have been thinking a lot about "tender mercies" and one of the biggest ones is our Jared. We can't get enough of him. He has been so loved and appreciated and has helped each one of us in so many ways. We have been able to keep our arms full even with such a large hole missing in our hearts. We feel that Heavenly Father took the hardest thing we could've ever imagined experiencing, and showed us in many ways that He loved us and He made it so we could endure it.

We now have a picture of Andrew, Jesus, and a Temple in every room of our house. We are constantly reminded of what is important in life. It is because of Jesus' life and the promises we have made in the Temple, that we know we will be able to be with Andrew again. There have been multiple times when I am frustrated or upset, and I look up at the wall and see Andrew smiling back at me and I am again reminded of what is important in life.

People have asked us what they could do for us or what they do when someone they know is experiencing a similar loss, and we always say to love them. Acknowledge them. Give them a hug and just ask how they are doing. We love talking about Andrew and appreciate anyone else who wants to. I know, it is hard to know what to say. Just say "sorry" or give them a hug. Lots of people didn't know what to say to us, so they didn't say anything, and that made things more difficult at times.

We are so grateful for the love and kindness that has been shown to us. I still go back and read the messages and notes that were sent to us during that difficult time. Thank you for thinking of us. Thank you for taking the time to write us notes or for saying prayers for our family. We have appreciated you!

We have learned how much service helps to heal. Soon after we got back to our house after Andrew died, we had some friends over for dinner and we shared our love of CrossFit with her. She said she wanted to get in shape, so I told her I would love to train her. She started coming over and we decided it would be beneficial to open it up to more people. We added to our home/garage gym and opened it up to three mornings a week for anyone interested. So, instead of thinking about how hard life is and how much I miss our Andrew, I was able to research workouts and exercises. Three days a week, I had to get moving and get our house cleaned up and workout with friends. By serving these ladies, who we have now formed great friendships with, I was able to focus on others and not on myself and the pain I was feeling. Thinking about others has been one of our greatest ways to not get swallowed up in grief.

My relationship with Eric has been strengthened and I have such a new appreciation for him. He knows when to call me or when I need him. He knows what to say and what to do. Eric has become an even better Dad and husband.

I feel like life has lost some of its innocence. I used to think nothing really bad could ever happen. Now, if I don't hear Jared for a few minutes, sometimes the worst crosses my mind. It is bad, but it is part of our new reality.

Releasing balloons to Andrew has helped Aubree, Tanner, and Travis imagine Andrew receive something from them. They kiss the balloon and give him a message before they release it. We love you, Andrew!

We thank Heavenly Father everyday that he blessed us with being Andrew's parents. He is the most perfect little boy. He has taught us more in his short life than we have ever learned before. He has helped us to become more like the people we need to become.

We are so grateful for the amount of pictures we have of this little boy. He is so precious and so perfect. I wish I had more video, but I am so grateful for each little bit we do have.

We have heard many times throughout the last year the quote, "I can do hard things." Nothing puts life into true perspective like losing a loved one. Nothing else really matters, but the Gospel and family. We have learned to get rid of distractions from our lives (I can still remove a lot more). We appreciate Jared pulling on us, wanting to be picked up. We appreciate having to close the dishwasher so it doesn't get unloaded. We appreciate the laundry that gets unfolded and all the food that gets thrown on the ground from high chairs. We have learned to appreciate things differently. Everyday we try to live worthy of raising Andrew someday. It hurts everyday, but the knowledge that we will see our Buddy Boy again has comforted us so much.

I love what Eric posted on his Facebook wall on that day. He puts his thoughts into words so well.

My heart is full of gratitude for the blessing of being the father of Andrew Josiah Nygard. Today is the one year anniversary of the day my precious son died.

Most of all, I am thankful for the knowledge that I have that I can be with him again. I don't usually proclaim my faith on Facebook, but today I feel compelled to share that I know that there is a God in Heaven. I know that He hears and answers prayers. I know that true and meaningful joy can be found through Our Savior - Jesus Christ. I know that He loves me and my family; we feel of His love daily. He has taken our hearts from being broken to being healed. The pain and sadness has been replaced with comfort, peace, joy, gratitude, and eternal hope. I know that one of the most loving and kind things the Lord has done for me is to let me have Andrew in my home for 14 months. Andrew is in my heart always, and he has changed the way I live my everyday life (although I still have a lot of things to improve on). I know that death is not the end of our being, but it is an essential step in each of our eternal progress. I know that I can be with my angel son again; the thing that remains to be seen is if I will live worthy of that eternal blessing. I love my angel son!

I have started watching the videos of Andrew with Jared. He giggles and loves watching them. They would be such cute buddies...

Christmas

2012-01-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

We were in Wenatchee for Christmas and had a lot of fun with the Nygard family. We are grateful they let us stay at their house so long.
I didn't get pictures of the kids in their Christmas PJ's till Christmas morning since Jared was already in bed by the time the older kids got their jammies on.

I don't think Tanner or Travis have worn any other pajamas since.

I didn't get enough pictures from Christmas morning. We Skyped with Eric's little brother Brian, who is serving a mission in Uruguay. It was so fun to see him and his smiling face. We miss him, but are so proud of him and his hard work.

Travis ended up getting a few more Tiger things.

I ended up with not enough pictures of our fun Christmas break. We played a lot of sock dodgeball, kickball, Wii (Just Dance), and dominoes.

It was fun spending time some of the Nygard kids. Brandon made the coolest blanket chest for his mom out of some old pallets.

Lynnette and Kirsten let me take some pictures of them. They are cute girls!

This is the one of the few pictures I have of Eric from break (he is working on building a fire in the fireplace). It was so GREAT having him around for over two weeks. Eric's parents even watched the kids for a night, so we could have our first night away since Jared was born. I am so grateful for Eric!

For Christmas Eve we acted out the Christmas story. Tanner was Joseph, Aubree was Mary, and Travis was a shepherd. I almost posted a picture of me, but I couldn't do it. I am now starting my last trimester of this pregnancy and gained way too much weight between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

There wasn't much new snowfall in Wenatchee over the break, but the kids still wanted to sled in the icy snow everyday.
I have one last post about Andrew's Angel Day and I am all caught up.

Travis is 4!

2012-01-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Travvy Man turned 4 on December 8th. He is growing up too fast.

Travis is a very particular boy (he likes things a certain way). He would wear the outfit above everyday if I let him. Travis goes through stages of what he likes to have with him at all times. The Great Wolf Lodge hat only leaves his head for church, baths, and prayers. He even sleeps with it on. He went through a couple day stage where he wore this scarf around his neck.

Trav had been saying for months that he wanted a spider cake. He helped me make it himself.

Travis loves spending his time with Tanner. They get each other giggling all of the time. They are such buds.

Travis loves to color and has gotten really good at it. His writing has gotten really good too (especially writing his name).

Travis loves all animals and especially loves Tigers. He knows more about animals than I do. He can teach about the different types of tigers, all about camels, the difference between leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, and knows tons of random animals.

Travis says the cutest prayers. He always prayers for the the Great "New" Wolf Lodge, to go to Sister McCalls house, that we won't fall down or won't get hurt, that we won't kick anyone, and then will have a part that changes depending on if we are praying for a meal or if he is praying before he goes to bed.

Love this boy and we are so grateful him.

Before Christmas Break

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

We love Christmastime at our house. Eric finished his finals a few days before we left town, so we were able to spend some fun time together. The kids have started being really helpful in the kitchen.

Travis making our pizza for dinner.

Sometimes I will take whatever Jared keeps himself busy with. It is so cute when he hauls this huge thing around.

Aubree, Tann, and Trav all had fun decorating our gingerbread house. Every year they are getting better and better. I wish I had a picture of their final product.

Aubs keeping herself busy making necklaces.

We celebrated Travis' birthday at the beginning of December (working on a post on that).

The kids made their own Santa ornaments.

Tanner and Travis peeled all of the potatoes for our Sunday dinner. Being able to peel potatoes, makes them true Nygard's.

Travis has now added one of Eric's old Track & Field backpacks as a way to always have his "stuff" with him.

Jared got into Tanner's special bag of sprinkles.

Aubree is 6!

2012-01-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

I can't believe our little girl is 6! She is one-of-a-kind. Aubree has a maturity and understanding of life that people twice her age don't have. She loves do anything to do with crafts. She loves making necklaces, painting, drawing, and creating masterpieces with glue, scissors, and paper.

We started our the school year home schooling Aubree, but I didn't feel like I was able to give her all the attention she needed with it. We felt it was time to start her in school and Aubs started Kindergarten a little before Thanksgiving. She has loved going to school and has excelled. She counted to 100 in front of her class to join the 100 Club.

She was also the first person in her class to pass off all of her sight words and earn a medal. Aubree loves to read, write, and learn.

I need to take a picture of how Aubree dresses everyday. She has more style in one hand than I do in my whole body. I love to see how she dresses and accessorizes herself.

We were in Wenatchee for Aubree's birthday and we had a chocolate peanut butter cake.

Aubree has lots of Aunts and Uncles who love her and she has a cute relationship with each one of them.

Aubree is such a good big sister. She has so much love for her brothers (especially Andrew and Jared). She helps me so much with feeding the boys, cleaning, organizing, and pretty much anything I need done. She is good at being aware of how I am doing. If she notices I am having a hard time (emotional) she will come and rub my back and give me a hug.

We are so grateful for Aubree's birth mom and her sacrifice and immense love for Aubs.

We love you, Aubree!

I find pictures of our family drawn by Aubree all of the time. I found this one on a little post-it note at Eric's parents house. I love how she portrays Andrew as an angel and Jared the crawler.

Life is so precious!

2011-12-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

As the 1 year anniversary of Andrew's "Angel Day" approaches I have been thinking a lot lately about how quickly life can be turned upside down, how precious life is. I have heard of a couple stories recently that have made me think about the day Andrew died and our life since then. A lady in my parent's ward had their 29 year old daughter pass away in her sleep, my brother told me about a 16 month old boy in his stake who died in a household accident, and young father who (from Pleasanton, CA where I grew up) was 27 years old who also passed away in his sleep about a week ago. Life is so short. It can change so quickly. What I wouldn't give to be able to be able to have hugged and given Andrew so many more snuggles and kisses. He is so perfect! My heart hurts so much for these families and the hurt they are feeling. I remember the people who wrote to me that also have angels all said it was so hard but time helps. It has helped. The Gospel heals and has blessed us with comfort that I feel like I have found a new normal. I'm grateful for this time of year and the opportunity we have to remember the birth of the Savior and work to act as He would. Please take the time to hug and love and appreciate your kids, spouses and families. Life is so precious and we thank Heavenly Father every day that he blessed us with being part of Andrew's precious life.

Gratitude

2011-12-02T14:56:00.001-08:00

With the daily events of life and being out of town for the whole week of Thanksgiving, I haven't posted in way too long.

We live really close to a little pond and the kids have loved feeding the ducks.

Jared enjoyed watching the ducks and eating the bread.

Trav was more comfortable throwing the bread from a safer distance.

A fun park is right next to the pond that we love swinging at.

We have so much to be grateful for!

Each of our kids are so perfect and we are so thankful for each one.

I'm grateful for the blessing adoption has been in our life. We have wonderful birth mom's that we LOVE; they are our heroes.

Tanner adds so much spice and fun to our life.

I'm grateful for our girl, Aubree. The more boys we have, the more I appreciate Aubs. She is such a good big sister and is constantly helping me with her brothers. She is such a good example to them and loves playing "camp" with them.

Travis still loves tigers... He is going through a stage right now of 1-2 outfits that he likes to switch off wearing. Travis is now started to wear a back pack all of the time. It is one of Eric's old Track ones and Trav can keep all of his stuff in it. The back pack is almost bigger than he is.

Jared is growing up too fast. He is almost 15 months and decided to start walking last night. He is such a sweet boy.

I'm so grateful for Eric. He is so so wonderful. The kids LOVE having their Dad around more. Each night at bedtime, Eric goes through his mission pictures and tells the kids all about his mission. It is so cute. Eric is such a great person, and I'm so thankful for his strength and example to me. Eric has worked so hard for our family and we are so grateful for his hard work. Eric and I did our mormon.org profiles and I just wanted to post them both here (ERIC'S & MINE).

Jared loves climbing in and out of our chairs.

We went to Spokane, to my parents house, to celebrate Thanksgiving.

The kids loved seeing their cousins.

We are very grateful for our families!

Mary and Leslie (my sisters) came to town too. I sure love them.

Aubs in "jail" during our a game of tag.

I love Jared's smile.

I'm also grateful to be pregnant. We still can't believe it and we excited to have another little boy. I am now just over 21 weeks and feeling good. I am going to physical therapy to help ease my hip pain, but besides that, everything is going good.

When we got home from our Thanksgiving trip, we got our Christmas stuff up. Aubree loves to decorate and ended doing a lot of it.

Trav getting caught trying to sneak a candy cane (NOTE: he is wearing his favorite outfit).

Jared loves to help me load and unload the dishwasher. He makes the face above all the time when he thinks he is being funny.

Jared loves the Christmas tree. Whenever he sees it lit up, he says "Wow."

We wanted to incorporate Andrew into our Christmas decorations, so we started doing some homemade ones, but the next day I saw some at Target that you add pictures to and they ended up looking tons better.

Christmas has now taken on a deeper more family-focused meaning to us. I'm grateful for this time of year. To be able to focus on the life of the Savior and what He has done for each one of us.

Baby Boy

2011-11-20T13:48:00.001-08:00

We are having another boy! We are excited and he is healthy and growing well.

I thought I was having a girl this time, since I was more sick during this pregnancy. Each of my pregnancies have been so different. Every time I hear the baby's heartbeat or see him on an ultrasound, it is still surreal to me that Heavenly Father let us get pregnant again.

Aubree was hoping for a sister, but she has come to grips with having another brother already.

JARED

2011-11-17T21:52:00.001-08:00

We find out tomorrow whether this special boy is going to have a little sister or a little brother...

Jared is within a week of the age Andrew was when he passed away. Eric and I, both take every opportunity we can to squeeze, snuggle, kiss, hold, and appreciate every little thing he does. It is hard to lay him down to sleep at night and I don't like it when he sleeps in.

We are so grateful Heavenly Father blessed us with the miracle of Jared. He has filled our arms and helped every one of us in our healing.

Halloween

2011-11-13T21:42:00.001-08:00

It seemed like Halloween lasted forever with all of the dressing up that the kids did and all the candy we had. We had Tanner's party, a city carnival, our ward Trunk of Treat, and we took the kids trick or treating for their first time.

Travvy the Pirate

Aubree was a witch (she dressed as something different every chance she could)

I think we only dressed Jared up for the trunk or treat.

I accidentally deleted off my camera the picture I had of Tanner the horse.

Sara came with us to the truck or treat. Looking at this picture reminded me of last year when we had all our kids at the trunk or treat. Jared is sucking on a sucker above, just like Andrew is below.

Travis loved dumping out his candy and picking it up, over and over.

We have had the opportunity to live close to family (Eric's brother) for the last year, but they will be moving next month. The kids sure have enjoyed their great cousins.

We had our ward Primary Program the day before Halloween, so Eric's family came into town to watch. Eric's little sisters and Aubree got a hold of my camera and took tons of pictures. Aubree sure LOVES her aunts.

Cute Lynnette

Uncle Brandon came too. We didn't get a picture of Grandpa and Grandma Nygard. We sure appreciated them coming to watch.

Beautiful Aubree! Love this girl!

Love this picture! I love how Tann has his hand on Andrew's head.

Oh, how I miss this perfect boy. He had the BEST ears and lips.

We have another 5 year old...

2011-11-08T22:27:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago our little Tanner boy turned 5. I can't believe that he is 5... Tanner is such an awesome kid. I took some pictures of him for his birthday party invitation.

Tanner is such a fun boy. He is our loudest and most outgoing child. He is such a good brother to his siblings. Jared, especially loves Tanner. Tanner can make him laugh better than anyone else. Jared lights up when Tanner comes into the room.

Tanner is a really smart kid. He memorizes things really quickly, is starting to read really well, and is improving a ton in his writing.

Tanner's laugh and smile are infectious. Tanner has a heart of gold and we are so grateful for him.

We had a fun birthday party with lots of friends. Tanner dressed as a cowboy for his party. We had donuts on a string contest. It was pretty entertaining watching the different strategies to try and eat the donut. Tanner tried wedging it between his shoulder and cheek.

Girls turn

Aubree did awesome. I wish I had a picture of Travis trying to eat his donut with his hat on.

Tanner was in heaven with everyone singing to him and so many people who loved him around. I didn't get any pictures of his birthday day or any of Tanner opening his presents.

I love Tann's face at the end and when he makes a quick wish. I think he wished something about getting married. Happy Birthday Tanner!

Randomness

2011-10-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

I have a few random pictures from the last month that I wanted to get posted. Eric gave Aubree a Father's Blessing right before she started school. It doesn't get cuter than a little girl and her dad. Aubree thinks Eric walks on water... They have such a cute relationship.

Of course after Aubree got her blessing, the boys needed one too.

I'm so grateful for Eric and the priesthood he holds.

Before it has gotten too cold to hang out in swimsuits, the kids chalked it up outside for a while.

Jared loved "trying out" the chalk.

Jared loves pears! I really can't get enough of this boy. Jared is getting closer to the age Andrew was when he died and he is bringing back so many memories of Andrew. Aubree told me the other day that Jared's hands reminded her of Andrew's. We are learning to love and appreciate every little things Jared does cause he reminds us so much of Andrew and has a really similar personality to him. Jared is the best snuggler out of all of our kids. He knows exactly what we needed.

For FHE a few weeks ago we taught the kids about putting on the armor of God. The kids loved it. This picture was of Travis with his "armor," right after Aubs had nailed him with a marshmallow (temptation).

Travis lives and sleeps in his Great Wolf Lodge hat. He only takes it off for prayers, baths, church and now, swimming lessons. It is so cute.

Picture with our pumpkins before we carved them. We have been so blessed with these awesome kids! (note: it has taken me close to 10 months to start using explanation points in my writing again)

Carving pumpkins

Aubree gutting hers.

Jared trying to get his seeds out.

Tanner working on his pumpkin. I didn't get a picture of Trav with his...

LOVE this boy!

We headed to a town carnival. Eric's mom made all of the kids their own scrubs for Christmas last year, so they all decided to be doctors/dentists. Aubree even got to use Sara's old stethoscope.

Andrew loved carving pumpkins last year. He and Tanner were the only kids who would grab the guts of the pumpkins with their hands. Andrew had so much fun putting his hand in and throwing the seeds all over. He is so stinkin' cute!

6 Years!

2011-10-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

This time of year we seem to have something we remember or celebrating every other week, whether it is a birthday or anniversary. Yesterday happened to be Eric's 6 Year Anniversary of when he was diagnosed with cancer. At the time we had been married about 2 and a half years and were approved for adoption. I was working at Physical Therapy Aide and Eric was busy with school and track at WSU. That day seems like forever ago. It feels like we have lived multiple lives since then.

Every year on Eric's Anniversary, I try to do something for him to celebrate his health and what we have learned. This year it came up on me quicker than I anticipated, the kids and I made some last minute cookies yesterday morning and surprised Eric at school with them. For FHE, I got out some of Eric's pictures and told the kids the stories of what their Dad has been through.

He started chemo the end of Jan. '06 and was able to start pulling chunk of his hair our on Valentines Day.

We just shaved his head after this, so we wouldn't end up with his hair all over.

Nine weeks later this was Eric's last day of chemo. It was nasty nasty stuff. He had the same chemo that Lance Armstrong had. He lost 20 pounds, all his hair, threw up many many times, his mouth/throat got covered in sores, got poked way too many times, got staph infection, spent a night in the hospital cause of the infection and his fever was so high, and many more things he never even told me about. He would get so worn out from the most small tasks, like taking a shower or holding Aubree.

He was able to make it back on the track 2 weeks later. It was pretty inspiring.

Eric even made it back to compete at the PAC-10 Championships. He had quite a few newspaper articles and a couple news segments on his story.

I threw a No-More Chemo Party the week after Eric finished.

The story doesn't quite end there. About a year later, Eric had a routine cat scan that came back abnormal. His blood markers were still all good (so the cancer wasn't back), but they had to remove a benign tumor that had wrapped itself around some lymph nodes and nerves in his abdomen. The surgery was pretty invasive and he spent seven days in the hospital.

This is a picture from one of those seven nights where they couldn't get a vein to get blood. Eric was warming up his arms so they could have a better chance. They got it on their 16th try. Eric is so great!

Eric's body filled up with a bunch of fluid from his lymph system.

I'm so grateful for Eric. He never ever complains no matter what trials he is given. He takes everything and still smiles. Eric is always looking for ways to help and serve people around him no matter how stinky he feels/felt. He has so much love for everyone around him. Eric really is my hero.

Our 2 year old

2011-10-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

This last Wednesday (the 12th) we celebrated our Angel, Andrew's birthday. He would have turned 2. It was a difficult day for me, but Eric was able to take the day off from school, so that helped me a lot. We decided a few weeks ago that on Andrew's birthday we would make it a day of service and a day as a family.

My Mom spoiled the kids and sent them a box of toys and treats for them to open on Andrew's birthday. We really appreciated her thoughtfulness.

My sister, Sara, works at a skilled nursing center and she set up a program with the activities director of the facility for us to do a program. We made a bunch of cookies and sang a bunch of songs to all of the residents.

Sara played her guitar for a few of their songs. I was so proud of the kids. They loved passing out the cookies.

Sara and the kids with a few of the residents.

We went and had a picnic together and each got a balloon for Andrew. They each sent a "message" up with their balloon.

We put stuff together for a missionary box and thank you cards, and then for dinner we let the each of the kids make their own pizza. Tanner couldn't keep his hands off his and ended up kneading all of the sauce into his dough. He loved it.

We made Andrew a Birthday cake. We had a special day remembering our Buddy Boy. We spent time watching our video of Andrew from his funeral. We did stuff all day to remember Andrew and to try to serve and love other people (which especially helped me to not dwell on our loss).

Andrew is such a perfect boy. We are so grateful for the time we had with Andrew. He has forever changed our family, and I'm so grateful for the knowledge we have that we will see him again. I know we will. I try to live everyday worthy of this perfect boy. I miss him so much!
Happy Birthday, Buddy Boy!

3rd Year

2011-10-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

I have taken a picture of Eric with the kids on the first and last day of each of his years of dental school so far. (I did a terrible job taking these pictures!)

First day of 3rd year.

Jared 1, Travis 3, Tanner 4, Aubree 5 (I am 3 months pregnant)

Last day of second year.
Jared 9 months, Travis 3, Tanner 4, Aubree 5

Sometimes I have nightmares that Eric would have to do 2nd year over again...

First day of second year.
Jared 2 weeks, Andrew 11 months, Travis 2, Tanner 3, Aubree 4

Last day of first year.
Andrew 8 months, Travis 2, Tanner 3, Aubree 4 (I was 6 months pregnant with Jared)

First day of dental school.
Travis 1, Tanner 2, Aubree 3

New Ones

2011-09-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

We have been needing new pictures for our fireplace mantle for a while. The ones we have up are over a year old. I haven't been in much of a hurry, since those were the pictures we had up before Andrew died. I am reminded that I'm not going to have a new picture of Andrew.

The first four of each of the kids are the best for each.

The rest of the pictures are ones that we really like. I really love this one of Jared, but the tree blurred out in the back of his head was too distracting.

Tanner is such a funny boy.

Tann has the most infectious laugh.

Aubs couldn't wait till I could take a picture of her jumping.

My hott husband! I'm so grateful for him! Today, we celebrate 9 years since we met at a tiny single's ward dance in Moses Lake.
Eric not only passed his National Boards, but he did really well on them. We are so grateful for Eric's hard work. It has been so fun to have him around more. I

Jared was starting to cry, so Eric started doing something crazy behind me. The boys thought it was pretty funny (Toot noises may have been involved...).

Pictures Update

2011-09-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

Dirty Jared

Aubree dressed herself for her first day of school.

Trav calls these his Tiger Jammies.

We celebrated Sara's birthday a few weeks ago.

We had the chance to go to Wenatchee a few week ago while Eric was studying for boards. We try and stop at Andrew's grave. The kids are so cute about cleaning it off and putting flowers on it. We love going to Andrew's grave and talking about our buddy.

Miss You

2011-09-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

I have so many pictures on my hard drive that it is full. I have been taking some time this week cleaning up some of the pictures and getting stuff moved to my external hard drive. Anyways, as I was looking through pictures I found some one's I had forgotten and made me smile and miss Andrew all over again. He is so so perfect! I love his face so much in the picture above. He would always make this face cause he knew it would crack us up. It was so cute and he could do it on cue.

I never realized how many pictures I have of Andrew with graham cracker on his face. His mouth is so perfect.

I love Andrew's eyes. I always felt like he saw so much more in me that I ever saw in myself.

Oh, I love Andrew's smile.

How cute is that profile?! Andrew had the floppiest ears. I loved rubbing them and playing with them. Look at those chubby cheeks! I miss kissing those!

Andrew had the best worried look. In almost all of our family pictures we have with him in them, he doesn't know the photographer, so he looks just plain worried.

I feel like I have been going getting so busy with life, the kids, being tired and not feeling too well that I'm so glad I have so many pictures of Andrew that I can go back and look at and realized how blessed I am. We were so blessed with this perfect boy in our family. I thank Heavenly Father everyday for our sweet Andrew.

Jared is 1!

2011-09-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Jared turned 1 on Wednesday (the day we got home from our vacation) and we made him a quick cake to celebrate his birthday.

Jared actually blew out his candle.

Jared has been such a special blessing to our family. He is our best snuggler, by far. He loves laying on our shoulder and when he wakes up in the morning he will even snuggle in our bed for a while. We have never had any of our kids do that.

This perfect little boy has met the needs of each one of us so well. He does the cutest "cheese" grin.

When I hold Jared and pat him on the back or scratch his back, he does the same thing back. It is so cute to feel his little hand pat my back. He is really good at waving and clapping.

Jared has 6 teeth and he's working on two more on the bottom. He is crawling all over the place, will walk along stuff, and will stand on his own for small periods of time. He weighs almost 24lbs (I haven't taken him to his well-child appt yet).

Jared says Mama, Dada, Baba, Aira (Sara), and is good at communicating his needs to us. He is becoming more and more of a Mommy's boy. He has the cutest personality. When people Jared doesn't know come near him, he smiles but buries his head shyly. It is so cute.

Jared loves his food. He is getting really good at eating with utensils. We are slowing weaning him off the bottle and he is doing good with a sippy.

Jared enjoyed opening his presents.

We are so grateful for our little Jared. He has made the last 9 months bearable for me. We love you Jare!

Great Wolf Lodge

2011-09-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

After Andrew passed away, a few of Eric's teammates from the WSU track team (the same one's who sold bracelets to help pay Eric's medical bills) gave us a gift certificate to the Great Wolf Lodge. With Eric finishing the boards last Friday, we scheduled it for the Monday after. We spent three days and two nights and the kids have been asking daily to go back.

Trav rocking out in the arcade.

Inside the lodge they had a huge water park with an awesome wave pool, toddler pools, five water slides and another pool to swim and play basketball in.

Tanner and Aubs could've lived at the pool.

In the hotel part they had a magic quest thing where you followed clues and used a wand to go on different adventures. It kept us busy when we weren't swimming.

Aubree was excited to get a picture with Violet the wolf. When she saw this picture, she said we needed to frame it.

Jared didn't spend as much time at the pool, but when he was there he had fun crawling around and splashing. It was awesome to have Eric all to ourselves for a few days.

We had someone take a picture of us as we left. We are very grateful for the kindness we have been shown. Thank you to our friends who made this possible for us. This was a perfect family vacation that we want to make a tradition of. We thought and talked about Andrew a lot while we were there. He would of had so much fun!

The kids were so tired. Travis hasn't taken his hat off very much since we've been home.

Wilson Family Reunion

2011-09-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Back in the middle of August the kids and I headed to Mack's Inn, Idaho for a Wilson Family Reunion. Eric had to stay home and study for his National Board Test (which he took one week ago!). All of my siblings were able to come except for my oldest brother, Tom and his family.

It is a tradition for the babies to take baths in the cabin sink. We have pictures of each one of our kids and my parents have them of each of us growing up. Jared barely fit...

Travis fell off the big swing and landed on his cheek/eye. He had a good black eye the rest of the week.

Jared loving the hot tub with Sara.

Aubree and her buds. I never see much of Aubree when she is with her cousins.

Trav trying to catch some minnows.

Tanner LOVED playing in the dirt. He and Taylor made a lot of mud soup. Tanner was especially in heaven at the cabin.

Travis seems to be pretty happy with his baseball sized marshmallows.

The kids swam in the hot tub a couple times a day.

We visited Big Springs and the kids were all looking at the huge fish that live there under the bridge.

Pictures with cousins at Johnny Sack's Cabin.

We love Leah and Claire!

Playing Little Old Lady with the Stick and the Staff outside the cabin.

We floated the river a few times. By the time we made it to our dock, the blue boat I was in, was almost completely flat and I ended up sitting in water up to my chest.

Tanner leading the boys on their "rocket ships."

Big family picture (without Eric, my brother Tom and his family, and Amy's husband Kirk)

Wilson Family (Steve did that in every picture)

My parent's with 14 of their 17 grandkids. We told our family on this vacation that we would be adding number 18.

Cousins/friends

My Dad took all the kids fishing and I only got pictures of Aubs. She is showing me how many fish she'd caught (four).

Claire and Aubree with their catches.

We had a lot of fun making memories and spending time with our family. I am grateful for the time and money my parents spent, so we could have such a great time.

#6

2011-08-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

We have been traveling for a family reunion/vacation, so I have a lot to post but I wanted to share our exciting news first. We are super excited and feel very blessed!

White Coat Ceremony

2011-08-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Eric's White Coat Ceremony. At the University of Washington their first two years are primarily spent doing course work, while the last two years are spent doing more clinically based dentistry. As the students transition into working in the clinic, they go through the white coat ceremony. This ceremony is seen as the passageway to being able to work on living patients. I don't know about other schools, but it is a big deal at the University of Washington.

Eric gave us the tour of the lab and clinic.

68 White Coats

My sister, Sara didn't have to work, so we were able to only bring Aubs and Tann.

I am so proud of Eric. He is has worked SO hard and has done so well and he even loves what he is doing. We are so grateful for his hard work for our family.

My parents were so nice and took the trip over from Spokane to support Eric.

Eric's parents are out of town and weren't able to make it, so I wanted to get the best part on video for them.

Summer

2011-08-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

We have really enjoyed the nice weather.

Eric had a dental school party at a professor's house. The kid's loved it.

Jared hung out while the kids swam.

This girl is growin' up too fast.

We got out Aubree's old face/body paints and had some fun.

Jared wouldn't sit still for his...

Tiger Brothers

Pantless Trav pulling Aubs and Jared in the wagon.

Love this boy.

This guy is standing up on everything.

Our first attempt at Trav's tiger.

The first track meet a month ago. My favorite video of the boys race. There are tags pinned on the kids shoulders that have removable stickers. As the kids cross the finish line they remove the stickers. I love how he is holding his arm and as says, "Go Sara."

This is what happened when we got back from a quick trip to Costco to buy eggs.

Nygard cousins ran in the last track meet with our kids and they're waiting here for the long jump.

Tanner and Travis in their 100m dash.

Love the look on Aubs face.

Andrew Memory: It is hard for me to really realize that we won't be making any new memories with Andrew here on earth. The memories we have been adding to end of the posts for last 8 months, is what we have and I am so grateful for those. I'm grateful we have written so many down, because I have already forgotten so many of them. Today was thinking about how special Andrew is. Eric and I had always said that about him. We knew there was just something different. I starting thinking about the very first time I saw our Andrew and held him. I was in Wenatchee spending time with Eric's family (his little brother had just returned home from serving a mission). Eric was back in Spokane, busy with his first year of dental school. I hadn't heard from our case worker in a few weeks and I thought everything with the adoption had fallen through. I had just laid the kids down for naps and I got a call from our case worker telling me our Birth Mom was at the hospital getting ready to push. Eric and I were both two and a half hours away, but we both left as soon as we could. I got to the hospital 1 hour after Andrew was been born. When I walked onto the floor I could see a nurse holding a dark haired newborn boy. As soon as I got closer and saw his face, I knew I was looking at our perfect little boy. It is the same for me when I first look at each one of our kids, regardless of if they are adopted or biological. There is just an instant connection. This angel baby was someone we knew was meant for our family and we had prayed and hoped for. The nurse handed him to me and I didn't put him down again until Eric got there a little while later. He melted my heart the first time I saw him; he melted my heart every day of his mortal life; he continues to melt my heart and make me a better person, every day.

Track Meets

2011-07-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

I have tons of pictures, and not a lot of time or desire to write stuff.

We've done family track meets at a coliseum here in town the last few weeks. It has been fun.

Trav doesn't quite get the start yet.

Eric ran 400m hurdles and 100m sprint and did amazingly well for it being his first time on the track in 3 years (he is wearing a yellow shirt).

Aubs jump roping

Our friends gave Trav a new tiger mask.

I love Aubree's style.

My friend took these of Aubree while she was teaching me more photography stuff.

We had a nice rain a few days ago that Tann LOVED playing in.

Kids getting ready for their long jump run throughs.

Pretty classic of both Aubs and Tann.

Tanner's 100m dash

Beginning of Trav's 100m Dash

Aubs 100m dash

Yes, Tanner did get a buzz... I'm glad his hair grows fast. He loves it.

Dear Andrew,
I miss you all of the time. I always feel like I have a little hole in me without you here.
Jared is starting to crawl and stand up on stuff and it reminds me so much of you. You two would be such cute buddies right now. When the kids run in their track meet, they have a 1-2 year-old division and I smile imagining you running. The kids talk about you all of the time and miss you a lot. I tell Jared all about you and I always show him pictures of you. Whenever Jared crawls over to Tanner or Travis and pats them on the head or pulls on their clothes, they look at me and get excited because Jared reminds them of you. They each have their moments when they miss you and ask us lots of questions. I have my moments where I don't know how I am ever going to get through this and others where I am comforted by the knowledge I have that I know I will see you again. I am so excited for that! Your Dad was telling me he was laying Jared down and singing him I Love to See the Temple, and looked up on our wall to see a picture of you on the wall. He said he was overcome by gratitude for the Temple and the chance we had to have you sealed to us there. I still can't believe Heavenly Father loved me enough and trusted, that he blessed me with being your Mom. You are the perfect boy and I'm trying to live worthy to be able to see you again and raise you.
We miss you and love you more than anything!
Love, Mom

July Fun

2011-07-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

I feel like I just did a big catch up post, but here goes another one. I need to get back to posting weekly, so I don't have so many pictures at once.

I have been collecting ideas of fun stuff for the kids to do to keep them busy and happy. Aubree is always wanting to do crafts and make stuff. We got some outdoor paint and the kids have enjoyed painting rocks.

I love how the kids personalities come through even in how they paint their rocks.

Jared enjoyed watching his siblings paint.

We have gone to the beach a few times. Trav loves wearing mine or Sara's sunglasses.

I have been loving the instagram app on my itouch and getting more random pics of the kids. They love jumping on the trampoline with a sprinkler.

LOVE my salad opener...

Our new favorite dessert are ice cream sandwiches.

Our diva girl

Eric is the best!

Trav made this and couldn't decide between a ham or jam sandwich, so he made both.

The kids "camped" on our driveway.

Aubs workin' it.

Tanner posin' with a pear.

Pulled out the boys summer shirts for church and Trav still fit into his from last year so I took a new pic to compare and see how much he has grown up. Trav cracks me up. We have had to add No Potty Words to our family rules because we have a few kids who think they are pretty funny to say. Anyways, Travis now gets after me every time I say anything close (even the letter P). For example, I asked Tanner to grab me a diaper so I could change Jared's poop, and Trav tells me, "Mom, don't say that word. It is a potty word." Thanks Trav for cleaning up our language.

August '10

July '11

We signed Aubree and Tanner up for a week of summer camp. They were gone from 9-4 everyday and they came home exhausted. I will be doing it again next summer...

I tried to get a picture of them everyday before they left.

While Aubree and Tanner were gone, we signed Travis up to go to swimming lessons everyday.

Travis loves his cousin, "Melson."

At our family reunion, Trav got some zoo animals from Grandma Nygard.
He is rarely seen without them.

This picture didn't turn out that great, but I wanted to get a picture of our "gym" in the mornings. There are kids lined up in strollers and playing around the yard and house, waiting and watching while their mom's get tough.

Jared loves his baths.

In almost every picture you may have noticed Travis has bandaids on his forehead. I think he needs to be wearing a helmet. He has been falling a lot lately and has bruises and cuts all over. The one above almost needed stitches.

Tanner loved peeling apples this way. It kept him busy for a long time.

AUBS: I wanted to add a few updates of the kids with this post. I just got our first blog book in the mail and looking back, I realize how fun those are to read. Anyways, Aubree is growing up too fast. She loves playing with friends and especially loves spending time with her cousin, Maycie. She loves playing with Polly Pockets, Barbies, My Little Ponies, Littlest Pet Shop, and all her stuffed animals and dolls. She loves doing crafts and creating stuff using glue and scissors. Aubree LOVES Eric! She is the biggest Daddy's girl, and they have such a cute relationship. Aubree is pretty shy of new people, but once she gets to know you she becomes more talkative. She loves holding Jared and is always so sweet with him. At their summer camp, Aubree got Most Valuable Camper. The counselor told me that on the first day Tanner was having a difficult time, and she came right over to him, hugged him, and took care of everything he needed. Aubree never forgets blessing Andrew in her prayers. She sure misses her brother.

For our 4th of July festivities, we had friends and family over for a barbecue/potluck. We had tons of good food and the weather was perfect.

Eric and the boys with poppers.

Sister-in-law Kerrie trying to gets sparklers lit.

TANN: He loved playing with sparklers. In the last six months, Tanner has grown 3 inches and gained 5 pounds. He has such a fun personality. Tanner loves playing with his siblings. Whenever he sees Jared, he squeals and yells "gooooey." I don't know why he says that, but Jared always smiles. Tanner loves making Jared smile/laugh. Tanner loves going to the beach. He could play there all day. Tanner is still the best eater. He likes to eat adult (spicy/bold) food and eats as much as Eric at some meals. He talks about Andrew often. He gave a talk in primary about temples and did a good job of sharing his testimony of eternal families. He tells us that Andrew flew up to heaven. Tanner is such a happy boy and so fun to be around.

TRAV: He loved the fireworks also. Travis is still loving all animals (esp. Tigers), Spiderman, and Toy Story. Travis is getting better at writing the alphabet and putting puzzles together, but mostly he loves to color and draw. He can keep himself busy for hours with just an orange and black marker (tiger colors). He has started asking me all of the time about stuff in our house, "Mom, where did we get that?" I tell him and he points to something else and asks me again. Travis and Aubree both love to go to sleep with their "stuff" on their bed. Tanner only sleeps with his blanket and Andrew bear. Travis refers to his buddy boy, Andrew, regularly. He still loves helping me put Jared to bed and helping me sing and say prayers with him.

We did a few extra fireworks out in our cul de sac. All the kids loved running through the smoke bombs.

Eric, Sara, and I all ran in a 10k this last weekend called The Dirty Dash. There were 12 obstacles throughout. Sara got there a little late form work, so Eric ended up running with her again after we had just finished.

Tanner ended up doing the last two obstacles with us and he loved it.

As soon as he got off the water slide he took off for the mud puddle.

If you look close, you can see Sara and Eric holding Tanner's hands, and I am behind them going through the final mud puddle.

That was Tanner's kind of race.

JARED: His face is all messy in this picture, but it was the one I have showing his new top two teeth. He has the cutest, toothy grin now. Jared is 10 months old today. He is almost 23 pounds and his head is in the 90th percentile. Jared is such a happy boy and I can't get enough of him. He now says "Mama and Dada" all of the time. When Eric gets home from school he lights up and always reaches out of my arms for him. He loves when Eric plays with him and swings him down. Jared is rocking back and forth on his hands and knees but is not crawling yet. He is sleeping from around 6pm to 7am. He loves solid foods, especially big person food more than baby food. I found some video the other day where Jared was only a week old and Andrew was crawling around. I was holding Jared and trying to help Travis not call Jared "Jerry." Andrew crawled over to us and put his hand on Jared's head. He sat there for a minute with his hand gently resting on Jared's head. I wish I could see how Andrew would be with Jared now. I know they would be best buddies.
Andrew really was the perfect sibling.

ANDREW MEMORY by Eric: I remember many times when I would be playing with Andrew, reading to him, feeding him, or just holding him, and I would look over to see him intently looking into my eyes. It was as if he was studying my soul. I remember feeling that he could see more than simply a person or his Daddy - it was a profound and penetrating look. Typically, a smile would slowly come to his face, and he would hug me, talk to me, or continue playing with me. The thought came to me many times "this is a special boy, and he has an unusual depth of spirit and character." He added so much to our family, and the incredible thing is that he continues to add so much to our family and home, even though he is not currently physically with us. I love my sweet boy, and I miss his penetrating looks.

Family Reunion

2011-06-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

I have pictures and updates from the last few weeks. We have been staying busy and loving the nice weather and time we've been able to spend together. I bring the kids with me to the CrossFit gym I go to and Aubree takes care of Jared. After one of my workouts, I found Jared all dressed in Aubree's "prom jacket" that Grandma Nygard had made for her. He didn't love being Aubs doll.

Eric's brother Brandon's birthday was the 1st of June and we decided to take a picture of the kids and post it on his Facebook page. I love Jared's "cheese" face in this pic.

My sister Jackie and her family came and visited us a few weeks ago. We took them to the beach by our house.

I love Tanner's choice of clothes to go to the beach.

We also took them to Pike's Market.

You could say, Trav likes Tigers a little bit. He carries around two toy tigers, a book about tigers, and a black and orange crayon to draw tigers. He wore this hat day and night for almost a week straight until it ripped.

Jackie was nice enough to give Aubs and me haircuts while she was in town.

The kids have loved the warmer weather. If it is sunny out, we either wash the cars or jump on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath.

Jared is good at hanging out in the shade while the rest of the kids get all wet.

We got the kids a Butterfly Garden for Christmas and just got the larvae ordered a few weeks ago. The kids loved watching the caterpillars get bigger and bigger, form their chrysalises, and become butterflies.

We waited for Eric to come home to finally release them.

Tanner is always dancing and did a sweet butterfly releasing dance.

I have taken a picture every first and last day of each dental school year. The one below is the first day of second year and the one above was Eric's last day. We are so grateful for Eric's hard work. He puts in a ton of hours on little sleep. Eric had a lot on his plate, on top of this being the hardest year of dental school. He does so well at balancing everything and doing great in school. Aubree, Tann, and Trav are all holding their Andrew bear/blankets to represent their brother.

We sure miss our buddy boy!

As soon as Eric finished his finals we went on a celebration of school year done plus our anniversary date. Eric took me to the Space Needle and then to The Crab Pot.

They throw all your food on the table and give you a wooden board and mallet.

With Eric's little time off before his summer quarter started we headed to the zoo.

After our zoo trip we headed straight to the airport to see Eric's brother Blake who had a layover here on his way home from his mission.

It was so fun to see Blake again. We are so proud of him and the kids have already started calling him Blakey Man.

We spent way too much time in the car visiting family and going to a family reunion in Southeast Idaho.

We spent a few days in Wenatchee and went to Andrew's grave every chance we could. His headstone is now set, and it made things a lot harder for me. Every time we had visited before now we would just see where his grave would be, but there was no marker. Seeing his name and a picture of him there now, seemed to make things more real. It still feels like the last six months have been a dream/nightmare that we'll wake up from.

We brought one of Andrew's binky's I had found, and Travis kept putting it into Andrew's mouth on the picture. We are so grateful for all the help people blessed us with to be able to get such a nice headstone for Andrew.

We tried to many different ways to entertain ourselves in 30+ hours of driving.

Aubs the teenager.

Tanner being Tanner.

We went to the Maughan Family Reunion in Albion, ID. It was a little cold, so the kids spend a lot of time in the hot tub and none in the swimming pool.

Travis and his "goo-goo" goggles.

The Nygard grandkids.

Grandma and Grandpa Nygard with their grandkids.

Tanner with Eric's cousins, playing Red Light Green Light.

Tanner and Heath in charge of Red Light Green Light.

Aubs with her wonderful Aunt Lynnette.

Tanner got introduced to Red Rover. He loved it and has wanted to play everyday since.

Jared watching/spitting up.

Eric helping Tanner and Aubree get dizzy for the relay races.

Can't get enough pictures of this boy.

Kid races.

Eric and Tanner are the finish line.

Love the pic of Tann. He is a fast little guy.

Aubree had fun too.

My mom gave the kids big notepads of paper and Travis has been practicing his tigers. This one turned out pretty awesome. If you look closely he even drew a bunch of little legs.

During nap time I took the chance to practice. In the last few days Jared has started to say "Ma Ma."

Aubs wanted to take a few with Jared. Her modeling cracks me up.

This boy has helped all of us so much in keeping our arms filled and taking away some of the ache.

Beautiful Aubs.

She grabbed a flower from our backyard and wanted more pictures.

While we were in Spokane we spent time with my sister Amy and her family. The kids loved swimming in a hot tub again.

We celebrated Aubree's 5-year anniversary of when she was sealed to us in the Temple. We are so grateful for our Aubree. She is the perfect big sister and is such a wonderful help to me. Aubree is so fun to go on dates with. She loves her Dad more than anything and loves holding Jared all of the time. We are also so grateful for Aubree's birth mom and the opportunity she blessed us with of becoming parents. She really is the perfect daughter. I can't believe it has been 5-years.

Tanner is so awesome. I love his smile and mischievous look he has.

Aubree double swinging.

Trav found a cowboy and horse costume.

Eric's family had a bunch of pictures on their camera from the day of Andrew's sealing that I had never seen before. Seeing new pictures of our Andrew that we hadn't seen before is such an awesome blessing. I love looking at all the pictures we have of Andrew and remembering how perfect he is. I love how Tanner is laying his hand on Andrew's head in the picture above.

I love Andrew's face. I love how Aubree is holding his sweet little hand. Oh, I miss him. Yesterday was 6 months. I can't believe it has been that long. I miss Andrew's ears. They were so soft and floppy. I miss his pudgy little hands. I miss his open mouth kisses. I miss his dark, round, and perfect eyes. I miss having two babies. I miss watching Andrew's interaction with his siblings. I am so grateful for the love and comfort we have been blessed with the last six months.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have a bunch of pictures/updates from the last few weeks, but with Father's Day being yesterday, I am excited that I get to do another post mostly about Eric. I wanted to start by talking about our Dad's. They are one of a kind and both work so hard to take care of their families. They are awesome Grandpa's and our kids LOVE them. We are so grateful for our Dad's!

I am so grateful for Eric and the kind of father he is.

I love how he teaches the kids things (ie: to work).

I love the special relationship he has with each of our kids.

I love how good he is with babies.

I love that Eric is always helping with the kids (ie: puts kids to bed).

I love when Eric reads to the kids. He does his own voices.

I love that Eric takes the time to play with the kids.

I love how Eric teases and plays games with the kids.

I love how patient Eric is.

I love watching Eric be a Dad. He is so good at it!

I love that Eric has his own nicknames for each of our kids.

I love that Eric takes the time to snuggle and love on the kids.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy 8 Years!

2011-06-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago today I married my best friend. It is pretty amazing how much my love for Eric has grown since then. When you are young and just married, it is hard to imagine being able to love more. My love for Eric is so much deeper, and we have such a different and stronger love. I wanted to dedicate an entire post to Eric (I don't write about him enough) and as I have thought about what I have wanted to write about Eric, I've gotten emotional thinking about the kind of person I have been blessed with. I wanted to write about eight of the things I love about Eric.

COMMITMENT: If Eric ever says he is going to do something, anything, he does it. He always follows through. When he tells someone he will do something or be somewhere, they can count on him. When we were in Pullman, and Eric was in the Bishopric of the Single's Ward, he was going through chemo. He was very sick (nauseous, sores in his mouth, no energy) and had already lost all his hair. Even feeling the way he did and being told he didn't need to be at church, he never missed a meeting (Bishopric or church). He was always where our Bishop needed him to be.

TESTIMONY: Eric has such a strong love for the Gospel. You can tell by seeing how he acts and treats people. He is always talking about the Gospel and his friends/classmates all know what Eric believes. When Eric spoke at Andrew's funeral, he did such a good job of sharing and teaching the Plan of Happiness and also sharing his testimony. He is always helping me be and do better.

HARD WORKER: Eric was raised in a family where they learned the importance of hard work. He worked so hard in sports in high school that he was awarded a scholarship to run in college. Eric earned all the money needed to pay for his own mission. He made it his goal, to go dental school, so he put in all the time and effort needed to be accepted into the University of WA Dental School. Now that he is in school he works even harder and we are so grateful for Eric's hard work.

STRENGTH: Eric is my rock. When everything seems to be crashing down on me, Eric is always so strong and such a perfect companion. The morning Andrew died, Eric and I are both in such shock. I didn't even know what to do or say. He took me into an empty room and said a prayer that strengthened me and allowed me to even be able to put one foot in front of the other. He always knows what to say to help me and being around him, I always know that everything will be alright.

NEVER COMPLAINS: Eric has been dealt a handful of pretty crappy sicknesses. Sometimes, it has seemed to be one thing after another. Throughout his bouts with cancer, chemo, multiple surgeries, and his treatments, he has never ever complained. He takes it all in stride and is still a happy guy. You wouldn't know looking at him that he always has stomach pain, but he still keeps going and makes the most of his health when he is feeling alright.

SERVES: Eric is constantly looking for ways to help other's around him. He is willing help anyone in need. He helps people when they move, people in school, to fix cars, and pretty much anything else he can. He has helped a lot of people throughout the last eight years with exercising. He loves to exercise and has been able to share his love, and personal train quite a few of his friends.

FATHER: Eric is such a great Dad. The kids LOVE when their Dad gets home. The last few years he hasn't been able to be around as much as he would like, but when he is around he is so good at showing the kids how important they are to him. He is always hugging and playing with them. Eric loves to snuggle with our kids and is so good at taking individual time with each of them. He had such a sweet relationship with Andrew. Whenever Eric got home, you could hear Andrew giggling and saying, "Dada" over and over. Eric never raises his voice or talks down to our kids. He always jumps in to help me change diapers, get kids dressed/bathed, and anything else he sees I might need. He has such a calm way to parent and discipline them. I love how he plays his own special games/songs and has his own special names for each one of the kids.

HUSBAND: To portray the kind of husband Eric is, I want to share an example. When we first got married, I asked him to put the seat down after he used the bathroom. From that day on he has put the seat down every single time. The other day we had visitors over and I had noticed the seat was left up and I asked Eric why he never left the seat up like most guys do, and he told me cause I had asked him to. Eric is so unselfish. He is always looking for ways to serve me. He is always letting me know how he feels about me and I am grateful for that. Eric is the most handsome man in the world to me and I love his sense of humor. I love the look on his face when he says funny, just to make me laugh. I love everything about Eric!

The day before we got married, Eric gave me a wedding gift. It was a porcelain statue of a pioneer couple burying their child. When he gave it to me, he told me it represented how we would be able overcome any trial that came our way. It is unreal that we are enduring this same trial that is portrayed by our statue.

I am grateful for Eric's strength and support to me. He is the perfect husband and best friend for me.
Happy Anniversary Eric!
I love you more than anything! (Aubs taught us that line)

Streaker

2011-05-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

We have been keeping busy. The weather has been pretty nice lately so we have done zoo trips (Tann and Trav on the Komodo Dragon above), played outside a lot, and had a few barbecues. Eric has a week and a half of finals, and then he is done with 2nd year. We are excited to have his hardest year almost out of the way.

Last Saturday morning the single's wards at the Institute here, were holding a Waffle Feed/5k. Since Sara was working and wasn't able to go, Eric and I borrowed two different double jogging strollers and ran. The kids loved the ride and the good food after. Our family got one of the trophies for "Most Impressive." I didn't get a picture of our family at the race with Eric, but I got one right when we got home. Love this picture of each one of the kids.

Jared is my most patient and immobile model for me to practice photography with.

After church on Sunday, Aubs let me take a bunch of pictures of her. She is such a sweet/good girl.

She couldn't hold her serious face very long.

Eric and the kids husking corn.

Jared patiently watching them work.

When Tann decides he doesn't want a picture taken, there is no way I can get him to look at the camera.

Trav loves making his own pb&j sandwiches. He does a really good job spreading the peanut butter all the way to the edge and then uses his tongue to finish spreading the jelly.

Streaker Story: Trav has been potty trained for a while now. Anyways, during Sacrament meeting at church he needs to go sometimes and we'll let Aubree take him. She does a good job of helping him and they always come back without any "messes." This time they went out and after a few minutes, I had the thought I should go help. Travis has been sitting down to go to the bathroom lately and to do that on bigger toilets, he has to take off his pants and undies to climb onto the back. As I am getting ready to get up and check on them, I look back and Travis is walking down the aisle with his shoes, sock, pants, and underwear in his arms. He had done everything on his own, but he needed help getting everything back on. Aubree came in a minute later asking where Travis was, because he had decided to use a different bathroom than her. The Bishop had a good laugh. Kind of embarrassing...

Jared with watermelon and Aubree with corn on the cob. We are ready for the summer.

While we were pulling weeds and cleaning up our yard, we got lots of help. Tanner and Travis each collected at least 20 worms.

For Memorial Day, we had a dinner to help us think about Andrew. The kids picked what they remembered Andrew's favorite foods to be. We had yogurt and scrambled eggs. Aubree even set the table with a picture of him. Tanner is already asking for another Andrew dinner.

Eric's family let us know that Andrew's headstone is now set. We will be there next week. I'm sure that will stir a few emotions to see our angel son's headstone. We love our Andrew!

Break

2011-05-21T18:31:00.000-07:00

I have started more posts than I have finished in the last few months. I had been working on a Mother's day post, but don't have much motivation. I enjoy keeping a record of my family and putting pictures up for friends and family to see. I have just been feeling like everything is so trite and it is weird to post about our unimportant day to day stuff in light of the loss of Andrew. Things that used to matter to me, just don't matter anymore. We miss Andrew so much. It is like I have a constant hole in my heart and it is hard somedays to move on. I have really been enjoying reading a blog called, The Sunshine Promises. This families 20 month old died in the same way Andrew did, a month after he did. She is such a good writer and is able to express herself so well. There have been multiple posts where she has written exactly what is in my heart. Things are still pretty unreal. I am reminded every once in a while how real it is when I find Andrew's hair from a past hair cut in a garbage can hidden in the garage, or when the WIC office calls and tells me it is time for Andrew's appointment. I miss him so much and am so grateful for the comfort I am blessed with that helps this to be bearable.

I had a great Mother's day. I thought a lot about Andrew and how grateful I am to be his Mom. We spent the day in Wenatchee, and we were able to talk with both of Eric's brothers who are on missions. I'm very grateful for my Mom (above) and her wonderful example. I am also thankful for Eric's mom (below) and her love for us and that she raised the perfect husband for me. You can't see Eric's mom that well in the picture, but I wanted to have a picture where they were holding Andrew. Throughout the last five months (I can't believe today is five months) they have been so kind, loving, and helpful to us. We really appreciate their love and support.

Jared is 8 months old now. I can't believe it. He is such a chunky baby, and we love it. He is such a blessing to us. I can't imagine how much harder things would be for us if we didn't have him in our family. Aubs, Tann, and Trav can't get enough of him. They each love him so much and seem to also appreciate him so much. Jared is always happy and smiley. He now has his two bottom teeth. He is such a snuggly boy, and we are so grateful for him. Every night when we put Jared to sleep, we always sing to him. I sing I am a Child of God and all the kids always come in and sing it with me.

Travis is almost 3 and a half now. He loves animals, especially tigers. He loves to color and draw. He loves to do whatever Tanner is doing. They are becoming really good buddies. Travis loves books and memorizes them after a few readings. Travis still talks about Andrew all of the time. He will come up to us and say, "I miss buddy boy." We have a painting of Christ when he was a child and it looks a lot like Andrew. The other morning, Travis looked at it and asked us how Andrew got into the picture.

Tanner is just over 4 and a half and is so full of personality. He has the loudest, most excited "hello's". He is always happy and becoming quite the gentlemen. He LOVES Jared so much. Tanner is always running at Jared or making faces at him to make him smile and laugh. He is starting to play really good in Aubree's make believing. They'll play "house" together for a long time. Tanner has the most infectious laugh. He speaks of Andrew often, and I think he takes his sadness of missing Andrew and makes himself that much better of a big brother to Jared.

Aubree is almost 5 and a half. Most of the time she acts as if she is twice her age. She is the perfect big sister to all her little brothers. She is such a nurturer to all of them, especially to Jared. I completely trust her with him and she does of great job of taking care of his needs. Aubree misses Andrew so much and it breaks my heart. She will randomly be really sad and cry and just say she misses Andrew. Most of the time she handles things perfectly. We often talk about what it will be like when we see Andrew again. When I was singing, I am a Child of God, to Jared the other night, the kids came in his room to sing with me, and at the end, where it say "Teach me all that I must do to live with Him someday," Aubree instead sang, "Teach me all that I must do to live with Andrew someday." It was so cute.

The rest of the post is mostly updates from the last few weeks. Eric hasn't been as busy this quarter, so we have been able to see him for an hour or two on Saturdays and it has been fun to explore Seattle. We went to the Ballard Locks and a fish ladder that is there. The locks are a sort of boat elevator. We enjoyed watching the boats go up and down.

I got a Easter sugar cookie set on clearance, and the kids had fun decorating the cookies.

On any given day, Travis wants to be a tiger, Spiderman, or Woody. I found him with his Woody hat on riding a tiny horse around the house.

We went to Spokane last week for my sister, Leslie's, wedding reception. On our way, we stopped and spent a day in Wenatchee at the Nygards. Whenever we go to Wenatchee, we always go to Andrew's grave. This particular time, I got each of the kids their own balloon that they could send to Andrew. I love hearing them talk about what Andrew would do with them when he got them. Aubree told the boys to send their thoughts up to Andrew with the balloons.

In Spokane, the kids got to spend a lot of time with their cousins.

Aubree asked me to take this picture to put on the blog. I love that Leah has a make-shift sling.

My mom made some of her famous chocolates for the reception. The kids loved helping her dip them. Travis was very methodical in his help and didn't eat any of them during the process. Aubs and Tann, on the other hand, ruined their lunch.

Tanner's favorite part was throwing the centers into the chocolate.

Jared and Sara at the reception. We sure love and appreciate our Sara!

Aubree and Claire at the entrance to the reception, welcoming people.

Leslie let me make her cakes for the reception. There was a lot of heavy cream used... The one on the left is a chocolate, peanut butter, and Reeses. The one on the right is a strawberry shortcake.

Leslie and Tanner during their first dance. They are so cute together. I love how Tanner is looking at Leslie in the picture on the right and classic Les on the left.

My parents have some random monkey costumes that the grandkids love to play in. I love how the "monkeys" are attacking Travis in the picture above with Isaac coming closer and in the picture below Travis had gotten away and Isaac was now getting it.

I sat Jared in the toy drawer while I cleaned up stuff in our garage, and I turned around and Travis was sitting with him in it. Jared is a patient boy.

The weather in Seattle this week has been really nice. We try to find a new park everyday.

Travis helped spin Tanner in this spinner seat.

Jared loved the swings. If you look close you can see his two new bottom teeth.

When we were in Spokane, Aubree spent the night at my sister, Amy's house. While there she rode bikes with her cousins. Most of Amy's kids can ride a 2-wheeler, so when we got home Aubree wanted to take her training wheels off. Not even 24-hours after taking the wheels off, she was riding all over. I can't believe how grown-up Aubree is.

ANDREW MEMORY: The day before Andrew died was Aubree's birthday. She and I had gone to Sonic for a birthday kids meal. When we got home, she shared her slushee with Andrew. She was following Andrew all around taking care of him and giving him a drink when he needed one. He kept climbing up the stairs and then Aubree would put him on her lap to let him ride back down to the bottom. She was so soft and sweet with Andrew. He loved/loves her so much.

Leslie's Wedding

2011-04-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

We spent most of last week in Utah for my sister, Leslie's wedding. It was fun to see a lot of family and be in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple for Leslie and Tanner (her husband).

Right before we left, we celebrated Tanner's Anniversary (when he was sealed to us in the Temple). Tanner is such an awesome boy. We are so grateful to have him in our family.

My sister, Mary flew out here to Seattle, so she could drive with me and the kids back to Utah. The kids loved having her here.

We stayed at my Aunt Michelle's house in Draper, UT, and the kids had so much fun. She has a huge playground and trampoline in the ground. I love the look of pure joy on Tanner's face. It also helped that the kids got to spend all day with their cousins.

The weather was pretty overcast the whole time we were there, but we still got to spend a day swimming. My brother's in-laws had a heated pool, that was 93 degrees. The kids loved it being as warm as their baths. Travis is pretty funny about wearing goggles.

Tanner could swim all day, everyday. He loves to swim.

Taylor (Amy's son) loved swimming in the warm pool.

Aunt Kristen brought the kids popsicles to eat while they were swimming. That is pure heaven for Travis.

Introducing Tanner & Leslie Tagg

Our Tann giving Leslie a hug.

Group pictures at wedding.

My sister Amy and Taylor.

Aubree and cousin Annie.

My older brothers, Tom and Steve.

Sister's Sara and Mary.

Leslie looked so beautiful!

Not sure about this one.

Love him! Eric helping Jared fall asleep.

After the wedding stuff, before we left town, we had an Easter egg hunt at my grandma's.

Aubree checking out her cousin, Lucy's loot.

Travis decorated his bag with a tiger. Drawing tigers is his new thing.

Jared is starting to get pretty good at feeding himself. I don't know how much of his roll got into his mouth.

We weren't able to dye eggs till we got home.

Travis loved dyeing the eggs over and over till they turned brown.

Aubree loved "sandblasting" the eggs.

Tanner had fun too, but didn't want a picture taken.

Travis trying to wear a floatie, while saying he's a bee.

Travis loves pb&j sandwiches. He especially loves the jelly. He'll eat it with a spoon and even drink it, giving himself a jelly unibrow.

My talented cousin Andrea, was the wedding photographer and before the wedding dinner started she took a few pictures of our family. It is weird to take a family picture without our Angel Andrew.

We never visited Utah while Andrew was alive, so much of our extended family there didn't get the chance to meet him. I feel bad that they never met him. Andrew is such an awesome boy. We are so grateful to have him as part of our family.

ANDREW MEMORY:

While sitting in the car, next to Aubree, Andrew would wait for opportunities to quickly grab a handful of Aubree's long hair, and the louder she would scream, the bigger his cheezy grin would become. It was always entertaining to see how he would get a kick out of teasing his siblings. We sure love him!

18 Months

2011-04-18T21:42:00.001-07:00

I have a lot of packing and cleaning to do so we can leave tomorrow for Utah. I am just going to post some cute pics of the kids from the last week, with very little commentary.

We went to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival with some friends.

The kids finished their swimming lessons last week.

Aubree is getting pretty good.

Travis loves his goggles and Tanner had to sit out for splashing too much.

Andrew would've turned 18 months old this week. I love looking through the pictures we have of Andrew. I found some I had forgotten about.

I love the progression of these pictures.

Andrew is so perfect. I love the look he has on his face.

ANDREW MEMORY: Sara would hand Andrew her phone and he would put it to his forehead and "talk". He had the best babble. It was so cute.

Spring Break

2011-04-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

This post has taken me forever to write. I have a hard time expressing my emotions and things are still kind of unreal, yet so final.

When our friends took our family pictures a few weeks before Andrew died, we attempted a few of all five kids together. You can see they didn't turn out too great, but it makes me smile to see how blessed we are to have these five kids sealed to us and to have these pictures of the kids together.

We were watching Tangled the other day, and at the end, Flynn is dead and Rapunzel's tear brings him back to life. Aubree walked up to me after this part and whispered in my ear, "Wouldn't that be so cool if that had happened to Andrew?" She is missing Andrew a lot. It breaks my heart to see her hurting. She is drawn to all kids that are close to Andrew's age. Our kids have cousins close to Andrew's age and Aubs, Tann, and Trav all interact with them so sweetly. Aubree, especially, is constantly playing/taking care of/loving kids around Andrew's age.

Oh, I LOVE Andrew's lips. He is so perfect!

We had a great spring break visiting our families and spending time together. One of Eric's best friends let us come ride his horses.

Tanner showing off how strong he is. We have been working on Tanner going diaper free through the night. He was doing really well, but one morning he came into our room with his pj's all wet and a frustrated look on his face, and said (almost crying) "I smell meat!"

Jared is so sweet!

The kids got to go on a bunch of "tractor" rides.

I even went on one.

Travis LOVED riding the horses. He would've rode all day if we let him.

He kept asking Eric to let go of the reins, so he could ride on his own.

Tanner got to ride bare back.

Aubs couldn't stop giggling when the horse would walk.

We put up our trampoline up over spring break and we have had lots of fun with it. The kids especially love jumping on the trampoline with Eric and whenever he has a free minute from studying he makes sure to jump with them. It was SO great to have Eric around for a whole week. He is such an awesome Dad, and the kids can't get enough of him. I appreciate Eric so much and am so grateful for the strength and comfort he is to me.

We took advantage of every opportunity we had with Eric being home. We got a lot done, and we were able to spend a lot of time together. We travelled to downtown Seattle and showed Eric a lot of the places we have been to.

Tanner and Travis' favorite part of the children's museum was painting.

Travis playing dress-up pirates with his cousin. I love his face as he is saying, "Arrrrr."

Travis loves coloring and writing. He has probably colored close to 100 Woody pictures.

Jared loves the Johnny Jump-up. The other kids think it is his swing...

For April Fools we made "hamburgers" again. I like how these ones turned out better than last years. The kids always love making April Fools treats and tricking people, especially their dad and his friends. Aubree got some "ketchup" on her elbow.

Tanner loved making the hamburgers and did a great job decorating them.

The kids pretty much decorated them all by themselves.

For the last few years Eric and I have really been into Crossfit. With our house here we have a big enough garage to now have our own little gym. We started out with one kettle bell, and now have enough equipment to do almost all the workouts. I have even started training some girls from church. It is a lot of fun.

The kids all love doing their own exercises. It is really cute to see them write their own "workouts."

I got out our highchair this week. It brought back so many memories of our sweet Andrew. He was our only kid who used this highchair.

Jared is almost 7 months old. He is growing too fast. He loves eating fruit/veggies with rice cereal and has started eating crackers. I'm so grateful for the comfort holding and kissing this boy blesses us with.

ANDREW MEMORY (by Eric): Andrew brought out divine characteristics in everyone in the family. Even on difficult days, he could make me smile, and want to be better. I would often interrupt productive study time, with the hope that I could get home to hold him before he had gone to sleep. Putting him to bed created some of the most special experiences. I got to hold an angel close to me, pray with him, and feel a unique outpouring of the spirit every time I put him to bed. Occasionally, he would lift his head from my shoulder to smile at me, look in my eyes, touch my face, and rip my glasses off (if I had them on), and then he would plop his head back down.

My sister, Amy gave birth last night to her 5th. He was 6lbs 14oz and 20inches long. They named him Lincoln James Holding. Amy is the greatest mom and gives me the best example. Congrats.

One Year Ago Today...

2011-03-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

Having the kids sealed to us are some of the most awesome experiences we have ever had. In our family, we celebrate the day each of the kids were sealed us. We make a cake and celebrate our eternal family. The kids love celebrating their anniversaries. One year ago today, Andrew was sealed to us.

When Aubs and Tann were sealed to us, the kids were brought to the sealing room first, and Eric and I entered last. With Andrew, Eric and I came in then waited for all the kids to come in. We could hear them making noises down the hallway, and as they came in I was overcome by the Spirit and how special the day was. I think I cried through most of the ceremony. Andrew was so perfect that day. Eric's mom had made all the kids perfect white clothes, and Andrew had the cutest one piece outfit with a vest and bow tie. He was so happy and easy going. Andrew had gone without his morning nap, but was still our same, special little boy.

This special day has taken on a new meaning after Andrew died. It is because he was sealed to us that we know we will see him again. It is still pretty surreal that instead of celebrating his anniversary with him here, we spent this last week picking out his headstone. I'm so grateful for this sweet boy. I am so grateful that we are so blessed in being his parents. I miss him so much! I miss his chubby hands, his funny faces, snuggling with him, holding him on my hip, feeding him yogurt, tickling him, and so many more things.

I am so deeply thankful for the understanding that our family relationships can extend beyond this life and into eternity. I love my angel son, Andrew.

6 Months

2011-03-14T16:35:00.001-07:00

Jared turns 6 months old today. He had his well child appointment this morning and is 17lbs 5oz. Jared loves to eat and has the cutest personality. He is so nice and has the cutest open mouth smile.

Tanner is awesome! He keeps me on my toes and I love teaching his primary class at church. We were driving home the other day and Tanner told me he can't wait till Andrew gets "back together again."

Jared Bear

Aubs loves taking care of Jared.

The weather here in Seattle has been extra rainy lately, so the kids each made their own forts.

Jared is growing up too fast. He loves eating solids and loves playing in the saucer.

I am constantly blown away at how kind people have been to us. We are still getting cards, notes, and presents. We got a package in the mail from someone we don't even know, with wrapped presents for all of us.

Travis got some Toy Story figurines.

He carries them with him all the time.

Aubs posing with her new toys.

Sara and I got this footage of Jared dancing.

I had to add a picture of my hott husband. He is so wonderful. Starting today, he has 11 finals in the next four days. We are so grateful for him and his hard work!

Travis has been really into drawing and coloring lately. This is the tiger he drew.

I love how big Jared looks. This is the first picture I have took of the kids all together since Andrew died. It isn't as fun to take pictures of them all together with Andrew missing. I am so grateful that we got to have Andrew in our family.

We went and visited some of our good friends and when we walked into their house, their seven year old son walked up to Aubree and said, "So... I heard you had a funeral." It was really cute. I love how kids are so innocent and say exactly what they are thinking. Most adults don't know what to say to us, so they either don't talk to us or talk about everything but Andrew. We love talking about Andrew and love when people want to talk to us about him.

ANDREW MEMORY: (By Aubree) "He was a really nice boy. I love him. He loved to pull my hair and I thought it was funny when he pulled Travis' hair. We miss him. I got a slushee for my birthday and shared it with him. I loved holding Andrew and taking care of him. I loved putting Andrew on the couch and then letting him climb down onto my lap. I loved letting him ride on my lap down the stairs. I loved spending time with Andrew and I am so excited to see him again someday. I miss him."

Missing Andrew

2011-03-04T21:43:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those days where I just want to climb in my bed and sleep and not think so much. I miss Andrew a lot today. It hurts... I love watching videos and looking at pictures of Andrew. It helps me to appreciate the time we had with him. I love all of his facial expressions. Make sure to at least watch around 1:35 on video to see Aubs interaction with Andrew. The full video I made with pictures and video is also on YouTube.

Brother of Andrew

2011-03-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

Aubree got herself all "dressed up" with a pretty headband and everything, then asked me to take pictures of her. If you could see her lips up close she even put lip gloss all around her lips and put on her high heels. Aubree is pure girl.

She wanted a picture like we have of Andrew in front of our orange door.

Travis loves to hold Jared (Jared is getting huge).

I was putting Jared's 3-6 month clothes away and getting out the 6-9 month clothes and Travis found this tiger jacket. It is 3-6 month size. He had used water paint on his face to make himself look like a tiger, and the combination of a little hood on a big head made Trav look pretty ridiculous. I can't look at this picture without smiling.

Jared is so sweet. He is starting to be a huge squawker. He has the cutest, wide open mouth smiles.

We decided to try out the children's museum in Everett.

Tanner's favorite part was the water area. He could've played there all day.

Getting used to shooting manual indoors.

Another open mouth smile.

For at least the last year, the kids have been earning tickets. They earn these tickets by obeying our family rules. When they are obedient, helpful, respectful, and kind they get tickets in their jar. When they fill up their jar, they get to go on a BIG date with Dad AND Mom. On Saturday, Aubree got enough and she cashed them in. She got to pick where she ate (McDonalds Happy Meal), pick a toy at Target (below), and then got to get a milk shake. She thought she was in heaven. The whole day she asked me when her Dad was coming home so her date could start.

This is the doll Aubree picked. The doll talks and goes to the bathroom.

I threw in an extra picture of Tanner I took back when he had the wood glue in his hair, because I didn't have enough pictures of him in this post. I need to slow him down and take more pictures. Tonight for family home evening, we were talking about following the prophet and we were going through the prophets in the Book of Mormon. I pointed to a picture of the Brother of Jared and asked who he was. Tanner said, "The Brother of Andrew." It was really cute.

When Andrew passed away our info on the side of our blog said, Our five beautiful children are, Aubree 4, Tanner 3, Travis 2, Andrew 11 months, and Jared is our newborn. It has been hard for me to finally get the info about our family updated. I don't know why, it seems like such a weird/small thing. I miss him! The kind of grief I feel now is changing. It is a different hurt. It is so hard to be forgetting the little details. I hate that I am forgetting how Andrew felt, his hair felt, the shape of his head, his pudgy hands, his smell and so many other things. I know it is life. It is weird how life goes on.

ANDREW MEMORY: Andrew had a special relationship with each one of his siblings. Aubree and Tanner would always play "house" with Andrew. Most of the time, Aubree would be the mom of her two boys, Tennis and Bennis. Andrew was Tennis and Tanner was Bennis. They would play on Tanner's bed forever. Andrew would climb up and down Tanner's bed. Sometimes it would end up just being "Tennis" and "Bennis" playing and giggling at each other. We love and miss you Andrew!

I am a Child of God

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Aubree loves taking care of Jared. She is such a good big sister. She is always looking for ways to help me and asks me what she can do to help.

Travis is just now potty trained (it has taken way too long) and he loves to put his underwear on himself. We got him some Spiderman and other super hero underwear, and they all have the characters on the bottom/back of the underwear. Anyways, Travis wants to be able to see Spiderman when he is wearing them, so he is just used to wearing them this way. We now only have one kid in diapers. It is the first time since Tanner was born. I miss changing Andrew's diaper. He would not lay still. We would have to figure out ways to distract him and keep him busy long enough to get it changed.

Been practicing more photography.

Jared is not just satisfied by breastfeeding anymore, so we started feeding him rice cereal with fruit/veggies this week. I took these pictures after his first taste of prunes.

Even with those cheeks, chin, and his many rolls, he still acts like he is starving all of the time.

Today is 2 months since our Andrew died. It still seems unreal. He is so missed. We have been blessed with so much love and comfort. The kids each got the nicest Valentines package from with their own specially made church books by my great friend/college roommate. We constantly talk of him and watch videos of him, so we can keep his memory strong. One of the hardest things is feeling like we are forgetting all the little details.

My baby sister, Leslie, just got engaged to her own Tanner. He is from Virginia and they plan on getting married at the end of April.

Our great friend/neighbor made the kids a book with pictures of Andrew and the words to "I am a Child of God" in it. The kids all love looking at it and Travis loves singing with it. I love how he tries to sing with vibrato at the beginning. Thank you Deb!

ANDREW MEMORY (by Sara): Andrew loved taking drinks from big cups, even though most of the time he would just drink too fast. It would spill over his shirt and he would make the face like he just got dunked in a swimming pool. When the cup was empty, he would bite it the edge so that he looked like some animal or little donkey. Then I would put a cup in my mouth and we would pretend to ram each other and he would laugh so hard he couldn't hold the cup.

5 months old!

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Our little Jared is 5 months old today. I can't believe he is already that old. He is so fun and smiling all the time. He looks so much like Travis did, but just with blue eyes and blonder hair. It is weird to have two kids that look similar. Jared is sleeping, uninterrupted from 7 to 7 every night and takes 3-4 naps a day. For the last 8 weeks, he has been such an amazing tender mercy to us. The timing of his birth and having a baby to take care of has made it so I have to get up and go everyday. I am so grateful Heavenly Father blessed us with our latest miracle.

Love him!

Aubs ran in from the garage telling me Tanner put wood glue into his hair. Sometimes I am not sure what he is thinking. Maybe he thought it looked like gel. It was fun to clean out of his hair.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Here is "mine" after his workout. He is so so wonderful! Eric has been my rock, my best friend, and my strength. I appreciate Eric so much. This last week he had 6 exams and 5 quizzes and I would've never known. We can never tell when he is stressed, he always is kind and makes all of us feel so important. Eric is my perfect husband and dad.

It was pretty nice this last week and the kids played outside a lot. Aubree is pulling Tanner around in the wagon.

Tanner is so fun.

Aubree got a locket for her birthday and added a picture of Andrew in it all by herself. Whenever she gets "dressed up," she wears it.

Woodland Park Zoo

When I have the older three kids at the zoo, I bring our single stroller and the kids take turns walking and riding.

Aubree holding the hand of an orangutan.

Cute Aubs

LOVE this picture. Andrew would've been 16 months old on Saturday. Things are still pretty unreal. We got the results from the medical examiner on the cause of death. He said it is SIDS. Every organ checked out perfect, all the toxicology came back normal, there is no known cause of death, so they call it SIDS. Andrew fulfilled what he needed to here. I am so grateful for the time we had with Andrew in our home. He is such a blessing to us and I am so grateful his birth mom blessed us with raising him. I wish that I would've gave him a huge hug that night, looked him in the eye and let him know how much I loved him and appreciated him. I love him and miss him sooo much!