Eliza had her first “Annie Birthday”.
I’ve told the kids that since she was born after Annie, they’re in charge of telling her all about her sister.
I love hearing what they have to say to her.

Peter got five giant balloons for Annie’s birthday.  We went to the cemetery and let two of them drift off– one for each year since she was born.  Each of the kids got the remaining three.

People ask me a lot how we are doing.  Honestly, I think we’re doing fine.  Yes, we are sad.  But we also have lots and lots of joy in our house.   And because we have little kids, we do our grieving in short spurts.

Case in point:  Going to the cemetery was hard and awful.  We let off the balloons and prayed together as a family.  Then Peter and I stood there crying while William and Kate wandered off (with our permission).  Soon Kate stepped in a mud puddle and was filthy.  We opened the van door so she could sit and take her boots off and discovered that Eliza was in her car seat having a major fit.  We popped a pacifier in E’s mouth, de-booted Kate, and yelled at William to get back to the van so we could leave . . . we had to get to the library to return a video before we got a late charge.

This is our life.
Our crazy, sad, joyous, loud, grief-laced, hilarious, blessed life.