Two years

Dear mom,

It's been two years since you died. I can't believe that we have made it this long without you.

I wanted to write you a letter because you need to know that ALL OF US still love you and think about you daily. Each night during prayers Gracie and I say an extra blessing for you. We want God to help you know that we are thinking about you and love you and miss you dearly.

I'm really sad that you didn't get to know your grandchildren better. I'm sad that Gracie only has memories of you and most of them are fuzzy. She clearly remembers feeding you ice chips when you were in the hospital 4 days before you died. She loves to talk about how she told you to open wide and how you really enjoyed the ice chips. But she still has very little time invested in you. Megan has less and you didn't get a chance to hold Andrew, Benny, or your namesake Audrey. I hate that. I feel like all these kids got cheated. But worse than that I feel like you got cheated.

When it came to your grandkids you would do anything. You lived for them and they made you so happy. I have many friends that couldn't believe how much you did for your grandkids; clothes, sleepovers, special treats, picking up from daycare, etc. It's so unfair that you only got such a short time with them before you died. I know there's a reason for that. God always has a plan but I still wish I knew it. I don't know if it would make it any easier but I do like to be in the know.

I promise to keep your memory alive for my little ones. Grace has some tangible things but Little Audrey will only have stories. I will tell them about you and all the sacrifices you made as an Army wife and as a mom of me. I know that that was super hard!!

It is an honor to have my littlest daughter named after you. It makes me think of you more often than just daily. I hope that she will always live up to your name.

I love you and miss you so much.

Thanks for being my mom and always populating my memories.

Love,
Lori

Update on Grace

As you can see from the picture, she still loves her baby sister. In fact, she refers to her as "my baby". I couldn't be luckier!!

I caught her doing this. . .

I am so proud of Grace. She truly loves her baby sister.

Here she is playing pat-a-cake with Auddie. I totally caught her and it was great!!

One degree of separation (sort of)

So my prophecy came true:

My Audrey Sophia and Donny Osmond now share a birthday. Maybe that means someday I will meet him. SIGH.

How in the heck do you parent two???

So I'm feeling like a carppy mom. I have been so mean to Gracie lately. She has been kind of naughty so I have been stricter with her. But I feel really bad about it because she will do something naughty and then I will punish (accordingly) her and she'll feel bad. Two seconds later I"ll be feeding Audrey and cooing at her. That doesn't seem fair to Grace and I am having a hard time being able to differentiate when I'm being a mean mom and when I'm doing something appropriate.

Tonight Grace got sick (throw up) and I had to get her back to our house (we were at G-ma's) and set up on the couch with a bowl. We were home for 30 minutes before I did that because I was doing other things (washing bottles, feeding Audrey, cleaning a little). I feel like the carpiest mom in the world.

Am I ruining my Grace? How do people do it with more than one kid. Especially when Grace was the only one for soooooo long?

Awwwwwww

Benjamin Edward and Audrey Sophia's first meeting. They were SOOOOO impressed with each other.

Babies, pictures and Al Bundy

Here are some more pictures of my little ankle biters.

Santa visited Grandma's last night for our Christmas!!!!!

Feeding Audrey

Look at Al Bundy!

Audrey Sophia Gerten is here!

I've sat down to write this blog about 5 times and I've just ended up surfing the net the whole time!

My newest little girl is here and makes a great addition to our little family.

I adore her.

Team Edward

Seriously. . . who WOULD choose Jacob over Edward????????

Saw Twilight. Thouroughly enjoyed it. When Edward first walked into the cafeteria I swooned. I'm not kidding. I fricking swooned.

I curse Bella Swan.

Baby Benjamin is good!

Baby Benjamin was born this morning at 9:30ish.

He was on oxygen for awhile and now he's off. He's got a grunt that is getting better.


The thing with the grunt is that if it doesn't totally go away they will vent him because he is working too hard to breathe and they want him to work harder on growing. We'll know more in the morning.

He weighed 5 lbs. 2 ozs. Pretty big boy for being seven weeks early!

He's really cute. No really. . . he's in a little isolette and attached to IV's and other monitors so right now we can only touch his feet. But he is really cute! He's very pink too which is a great sign!

I am so thankful that he is ok. It puts my pregnancy into prespective because I was whining and moaning about my back and how uncomfortable I am. I won't stop whining but I really am very lucky.

So raise your glasses to Benjamin Edward Moe. A little early, a little cute, but definately a little miracle!!