Happy Birthday in Heaven Angel Chloee

It's Chloee's 5th Birthday today.

Happy Birthday in Heaven Baby Girl!  I love you and I miss you every second.  I just want you here with us...  I want to know what you are like at 5 years old.

This year, we got a princess birthday cake with a frame on top and took it to her grave to have her balloon release and birthday memorial.  We did a nail polish drive for Utah Share - an organization who helps families whose babies have died.  They give the nail polish so that parents can paint their baby's nails as a final gesture of love and to lighten the color post-mortem.  We collected a whole bunch of them that will go to help other grieving families :)

I spent the day enjoying my living son and making a digital scrapbooking kit in memory of my little princess!

It's called Princess Chloee and here it is with the page I did for her Princess birthday cake:

  

We Love you Chloee!!!

Ultrasound Photo Scrap Pages

I saw this cute kit by Kristie of Snippets, Inc called It's All About the Belly and just had to have it!!!  It is sooooo completely perfect for ultrasound pics so I dug mine out from my piles and piles of photos, that only took like an hour itself!, and scanned them in so I could do a few pages.

I did one for T - he's almost 6 - so I'd say that's a fair amount of time to get around to scrappin his ultrasound pics right??  he he  It is blue and baby boyish and so cute!  The page says "When I saw your picture, I was already totally and completely in love."  And I am still as smitten with my little boy as the day I saw his ultrasound photo :)

And I did one for our baby girl, Chloee.  It was a super hard page for me to do - so emotional.  I was looking at her ultrasound pics and realized that her main ultrasound was done at 5 months old in utero.  And I was just musing about how she lived to be only 5 months old in life.  So I decided to do a page with the theme AT 5 months and how things changed so drastically from those two different times.

Journaling:
At month Five in utero, we had just found out
            that we were having a baby girl.  I cannot say
                how excited we were.  Our hearts were overjoyed,
      bursting with love for you already and we hadn't
   even met you yet, just seen your picture on the
                 screen and felt you moving inside me.  I felt
          nervous because you and Tyson were going to be
   so close together in age - only a year apart but
so excited.  I loved you so much!  We couldn't
        wait for you to come and for all the hopes and dreams
                    we had for you to happen!

At month Five in life, you died.  I could not believe it. 
          What has happened to all of our dreams and
                                                             hopes and wishes for you? 
        Did we really just bury you after your five month
      birthday?  How could this happen?  Why did this
     happen?  We spent so much of your five motnhs of life
           trying to fix you and save you and for what?  To make
                        your life harder and more paintful?
        I felt like life had suddenly, horribly gone wrong.
               We missed you immediately and
                                                           we still do now.

             Five months was not long enough to hold you
                                                                                in my arms.

Guesting Pages for Graham Like the Cracker

I spent some time last month guesting for the digital scrap designer Jennifer Graham aka Graham Like the Cracker and I wanted to share the pages I made using her cute kits!

I've been trying to do a page for when we wrote the girls' names in the sand for sooooo long now.  Nothing seemed to look right.  So when I got to use her new kit Drift Away, I was inspired to try yet again.  Here's the page I came up with that I actually love now:

Next, I used her kit Mischief Monsters to do a hidden Mickey we found on the Monsters Inc ride in Disneyland's California Adventure park while there with our good friends and fellow Disney maniacs!!! Kari and Alan.

When I saw her kit Sweet Spontaneity, I knew I had to do a page for Chloee.  It is so Chloee-esque!  Pink and bright and beautiful of course...  She fills our lives with sunshine still.

And likewise for Bree with the kit Purple is my Signature Color because it was!!!  Everything purple reminds us of Bree.  Here's her page with a very precious photo.  My heart is tied to her with heartstrings.

And finally I had to do a page for T with her kit Junior and all things boyish!  Here's my Rambunctious Boy(s) page of T on a go-cart but he was too little to pedal so his Daddy had to push him around the track!  he he

You can find Graham Like the Cracker on her blog here

Chloee's Birthday in Heaven

Every year we "celebrate" or rather remember with love the girls' birthdays.  Sometimes we go to the cemetery, sometimes we have their birthday at our home.  I'm just getting to scrappin' Chloee's birthday from last September (only a year behind... sigh...)  We went to the cemetery and decorated her grave, let off balloons to heaven, and did a random act of kindness there. 

Happy 4th birthday to my baby girl!

I used Irene Alexeeva's kit Time of Happiness!

Snow White and Disneyland Digital Scrapbooking Pages

Kellybell has a new kit out this week called Fairest in the Land and I got to do some pages for it!!

I did a page for my sweet baby girl, Chloee, called Fairest one of All!  She's so cute!

And a page of T about when he first rode the Snow White ride at Disneyland - we found out really fast that it was tooooo scary!!  Journaling: When we first took Tyson to Disneyland, we thought we'd go first to Fantasyland and do some of the "kiddie" rides. Boy, were we wrong! We didn't realize how scary of a ride Snow White was! You didn't want to go on any more rides after that. So we left the dark rides and headed over to It's a Small World. Now we always start there!

Memorial Day

This memorial day, we remember our sweet girls.  Sending love to you in heaven!!!!  We miss you.
I made a page to show how we decorated their graves this year - with a heart made out of balloons.
There is a quote that goes like this, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."  I say screw that quote!  And so I changed it to fit me and my grieving heart...
"It's okay to cry because it's over, but it's also okay to smile because it happened."  This memorial day, I will both smile and cry because I cannot love my daughters without both smiling and crying.

Is it Spring yet?

I don't know about your weather, but here it's like spring is teasing us.  One day it's almost warm and the next it's freezing!  It snowed yesterday!! and it's MAY for crying out loud...
I wanted to do some springtime pages for my kids.
The first one is of my son waiting and wishing for spring to come!  And the second one is my Chloee - called Springtime in Heaven.  I wonder what that's like...

Credits: One Sweet Day by ScrappinDsigns

Daddy, when I get to heaven can I taste the Milky Way?

Do you know the Buddy Jewell song Help Pour Out the Rain?  The line is "Daddy, when we get to Heaven, can I taste the Milky Way?".  It's on our list of songs for the girls and I've been wanting to do a page for it for a long time.  Then Kristi came out with the PERFECT kit for it, so I made this page.  I really do love it and it makes me wonder what they are doing in heaven :)

Made using Kristi W Designs new kit Sweet Lil' Angel

The full lyrics:
The moment was custom-made to order:
I was ridin' with my daughter on our way back from Monroe.
An' like children do, she started playin' twenty questions,
But I never would've guessed one would touch me to my soul.

She said: "Daddy, when we get to Heaven, can I taste the Milky Way?
"Are we goin' there to visit, or are we goin' there to stay?
"Am I gonna see my Grandpa? Can I have a pair of wings?
"An' do you think that God could use another Angel,
"To help pour out the rain?"

Well, I won't lie: I pulled that car right over,
An' I sat there on the shoulder tryin' to dry my misty eyes.
An' I whispered: "Lord, I wanna thank you for my children.
"'Cause your innocence that fills them often takes me by surprise."

Like: "Daddy, when we get to Heaven, can I taste the Milky Way?
"Are we goin' there to visit, or are we goin' there to stay?
"Am I gonna see my Grandpa? Can I have a pair of wings?
"An' do you think that God could use another Angel,
"To help pour out the rain?"

Well, I thought about it later on,
An' a smile came to my face.
An' when I tucked her in to bed,
I got down on my knees an' prayed.

Lord, when I get to Heaven, can I taste the Milky Way?
"I don't wanna come to visit 'cause I'm comin' home to stay.
"An' I can't wait to see my family and meet Jesus face to face.
"An' do you think, Lord, you could use another Angel,
"To help pour out the rain?"

Mmmm, can I help pour out the rain?

You Make Me Smile!

Pages for my new fav song by Uncle Cracker called Smile.
Chloee's page says You make me smile and Bree's has part of the lyrics on her page.

Credits: Digidesignresort collab called Everlasting Happiness Kit A and B

Lyrics of Smile:
You're better then the best
I'm lucky just to linger in your light
Cooler than the flip side of my pillow, that's right
Completely unaware
Nothing can compare to where you send me,
Lets me know that it's ok, yeah it's ok
And the moments where my good times start to fade

You make me smile like the sun
Fall out of bed, sing like bird
Dizzy in my head, spin like a record
Crazy on a Sunday night
You make me dance like a fool
Forget how to breathe
Shine like gold, buzz like a bee
Just the thought of you can drive me wild
Ohh, you make me smile

Even when you're gone
Somehow you come along
Just like a flower poking the sidewalk crack and just like that
You steal away the rain and just like that

You make me smile like the sun
Fall out of bed, sing like bird
Dizzy in my head, spin like a record
Crazy on a Sunday night
You make me dance like a fool
Forget how to breathe
Shine like gold, buzz like a bee
Just the thought of you can drive me wild
Ohh, you make me smile

Don't know how I lived without you
Cuz everytime that I get around you
I see the best of me inside your eyes
You make me smile
You make me dance like a fool
Forget how to breathe
Shine like gold, buzz like a bee
Just the thought of you can drive me wild

You make me smile like the sun
Fall out of bed, sing like bird
Dizzy in my head, spin like a record
Crazy on a Sunday night
You make me dance like a fool
Forget how to breathe
Shine like gold, buzz like a bee
Just the thought of you can drive me wild
Ohh, you make me smile

In Loving Memory Scrapbook Pages

I've been wanting to do a scrapbook page with the lyrics to the song Living for the Night by George Strait.  I love the line out of the song "Everyday's a Lifetime Without You" because it is so true when you lose a child.  Everyday I feel like I'm losing out on a lifetime with them...
So I did the top page first for Bree.  I love the big clock.  It seems that the biggest thing we miss is time with them.
And of course, I wanted to do a page for Chloee too.  On that page, I used the quote from her funeral.  "If tears could build a stairway and heartache make a lane, I'd walk a path to heaven and bring you home again."  More like run though I would say, if I could I would run to bring her back...

I used Fanfan's new kit White is...

Here are the George Strait Living for the Night song lyrics:

Everyday's a lifetime without you
Hard to get through, since you've gone
So I do the only thing I know how to,
to get by
I'm living for the night

I've drawn all the curtains in this old house
To keep the sun out, off of my face
Friends stop by to check-in 'cause I've checked out
I tell them I'm fine,
I'm just living for the night

Daylight can't hide the tears I cry
the pain that came with your goodbye
The memories that keep me out of sight
Every night I venture out
into those neon arms that hold me tight
I'm living for the night

I'm a whole lot easier to talk to,
when I've had a few and settled down
Whiskey kills the man you've turned me into
And I come alive
I'm living for the night

Daylight can't hide the tears I cry
the pain that came with your goodbye
The memories that keep me out of sight
Every night I venture out
into those neon arms that hold me tight
I'm living for the night
I'm living for the night

Everyday is a lifetime without you

Diaper Cake Pages

I've been wanting to scrapbook some of the harder things that we (as grieving parents) go through - and it's painful but I'm really happy with how these pages turned out and document just one difficult thing we've done.

Journaling reads:
The Diaper cake for Nurse Carrie

One of the hard things
that a grieving parent has
to do is to decide what to
do with their child's things.
There were many things and many
different decisions we  made about their things.
One thing I kept was Chloee's diapers.  I
expected to use them with our next child but
when Bree was alive she never grew big enough
to use Chloee's diapers. So when Bree died, we
had twice as many diapers that I didn't know
what to do with and that made me soooo sad
that they sat there instead of being used by
my babies. I finally decided to give them to
the very special people in my life that had been
there for us and that had struggled through
life also. One of those people was Nurse Carrie.
She is one of only a few nurses who cared for
and loved both of my girls. Carrie struggled with
cancer and infertility and we could relate to
each other's problems and the crappiness of
life. In 2008, she finally had a baby girl and I
wanted to give her some of their diapers.  I made a
cute little diaper cake to give to her. It felt
good to give them to her to use. She was such a
good friend to me and loved my girls so
much!  We love you Nurse Carrie!

Carrie is currently undergoing cancer treatments
and transplants.  Carrie - just want you to know
we love you and are thinking of you!!

I used Delicious Scraps new kit Chocolate Mint Mini

Pink Love

This is possibly my favorite photo of all time of Chloee.  Probably because I remember taking it of her so well.  We were in her hospital room like usual sitting in the glider chair just me and her watching TV or something.  She was in my arms (she almost always was) and I had the camera held out in my other arm away from us.  The black at the bottom of the pic was my shirt.  She looked so beautiful in my arms and I am so thankful this photo turned out exactly as beautiful as she looked then.  My heart ACHES to hold her again... Miss you Chloster  Love, Mommy

Credits: Pasion by lisettescrap - this was an entry for the Scrappity Doo Dah site ct contest

More Scrap Pages for the kids

Some pages for all of my kids!  My favorites are the top and bottom ones. 

The top one is called What your Eyes See and it's about what Chloee is seeing in heaven.
The next one down is also of Chloee - An Angel in Heaven's Garden.

Bree's page is called My Heart - I love the background on that page!

And then there are 2 pages for T.  The purple one is called Purple Graffiti for Bree-Elle.  I wanted to do one for Bree from T since it was her birthday.  He's drawing purple butterflies for her :)

The bottom photo is from the children's museum called Out of a Fairytale.  Journaling reads: One of your favorite things to do at the children's museum is to dress up as a knight and put on a play!  You are so creative and imaginative.  I love to hear about the brave knight and all of the adventures you go on!  Your favorite is to slay a dragon and save the princess of course!  That is probably my favorite time at the museum!

All pages made using: Fanfan Rue des Anges' kit Everything About You

Princess Pages!

Each week, they have Disney digital scrapbooking challenges over at MouseScrappers.com, a Disney fan and scrapbooking site.  They are super fun and have great prize packages for those that complete a challenge.  Check it out here

This week, the challenge was to create a Disney scrapbooking page with pastel colors.  Of course, I thought of doing a princess page with a princess fairy kit I was working on for JKCreations and even though I don't have any pics of my girls with any of the princesses - I decided to do a few Disney Princess inspired pages for them anyway!

The Cinderella page is for my Chloee.  It says, "A Dream is a Wish your heart makes.... I made a wish and you came true."  We love you Chloee!

The Tinkerbell page is for my Bree-Elle.  I found the perfect quote for it... "And in the end, Peter Pan stole Tinkerbell's wings so she would never leave."  How we wish we could have stolen her wings and kept her here with us forever...  Miss you Bree

Credits: Skyla by JKCreations

Chloee's Favorite Color is Yellow

We don't know what her favorite color would have been.... but there have been so many things that have happened, it has to be more than coincidence, that we think Chloee's Favorite Color is Yellow.  So I wanted to do a page for her and her fav color :)

I used Chronicling LIfe April Mini Kit by Haynay Designs

In Loving Memory, Remembrance Scrapbook Pages

These pages were made with a very special kit by a designer I create pages for - Just Jaimee.
She made this digital scrapbooking kit in honor of me and my angel daughters.  It is called Just for Denise Never Forgotten by Just Jaimee
I feel so honored and thankful for this kit created especially for us and I am so thankful to have the perfect kit to scrapbook these memorial pages.  Scrapping my girls helps me keep them alive.  Thank you soooo much Jaimee!
The last page has the lyrics from the Josh Groban song To Where You Are - one of the songs that we played at Bree's funeral.

Chloee's a Gift, a Letter to Heaven, and My Grieving Bleeding Heart

I've been working on a kit by Veronica Spriggs at Scrapbookgraphics called Crimson and Coal
These are my pages that I made.  They are all so very different.

The first is a page for Chloee called Chloee's a Gift.  It's so super sweet and bright and beautiful just like she is/was.  I love that photo of her!

The second page is a Letter to Heaven.  Sometimes I write to them and I wanted to do a page with a letter to heaven...

The last one is so dark.  I love it.  I wanted to do a page to show how much I hurt and the pain I've been through losing 2 daughters.  I feel it shows so much how much my heart has broken... and it answers the question of how could my heart ever be reparable with that kind of damage?...  it can't and it won't ever be... and it just feels good to express that even though it's painful

More Pages for my Girls

I've been working on some pages for Diana's Creations new kit called The Smell of Flowers

The first page is called Bree Grows in Heaven :)  So cute and fun! in her little flower pot in heaven.  That's my favorite picture of her - it's the one on her headstone except it's in purple.

The second and third pages use the lyrics in a song that I love called Bubbly by Colbie Caillat.

Bree's page says "You make me smile, please stay for awhile."  I remember thinking that every day she was here just wanting her to stay... Until she got sooo sick and the seizures were so bad that we let her go.

Chloee's page says "Wherever you go, you're in my soul."  That's not exactly how the song goes, but that's how I say it in my head... 

Pages for my girls

I worked on some pages for my girls from a kit called Ambiance Reloaded by Fanfan Rue des Anges.
The first one is called Bree's Floral Heaven.  That pic of her is when she was just born.  You can just see how she fits in her daddy's hand - sooo tiny and beautiful.
The other one is called The first hole in my Heart.  That one is of Chloee.  It's a beautiful page but the reason I like it is because the heart actually has a hole in it - it's hard to tell but it's there.  I knew I wanted to use that heart on a page.  This page makes me happy - I love how it symbolizes the hole that she left in my heart.  And that I still keep her in my heart even though my heart is not whole.
Miss you girls...

ChloeeBug Pages

My little ChloeeBug!  I was so happy to do these pages for her.  The body is actually Bree in her ladybug costume but I put Chloee's face in the photo because Bree is our BumbleBree and Chloee is our ChloeeBug.  Then I turned the red ladybug costumed pink - because how could I not?!!
It makes me happy to be able to do a page like this - she's been gone 3 years and I'm just happy to be able to "make" new photos and pages for her!  Love you Chloee Bug!

The pages are made with a super cute new kit by Pixel Perfect Designs called Makenzye's Garden
It is soooo sweet and was perfect for these pages.  Thanks Chris for letting me create these pages for you!