Mother's Day/Baby Dedication/Cry Fest

 I can wrap up my Mother's Day is two simple words...cry fest. We wanted to have Landry dedicated and we just kept letting time slip away from us. So with Mother's Day approaching and the brick feeling of it being the first Mother's Day without Tonya, we decided it was be a good distraction.

 

My mother-in-law flew in to see Landry's dedication. It was great having her here and to have her be part of the celebration. Nolan woke up as pale as a ghost and throwing up. Nothing will remind you that you're a mom on Mother's Day than taking care of a sick one. Rescheduling the dedication was not an option since people had flown in for the event and we had more people coming to church to see it.

So we're the deadbeat parents that gave our son a tiny bit of Dramamine and had him lie down on the back pew. But I think it worked because by the time church was over he was playing on the playground and running around and crying because he was so starving. So that's why Nolan is missing from our dedication pictures. There's always a story to keep our lives interesting.

Landry looked like an angel. I was nervous about having her in white. My luck with white is disastrous. A blow out or spit up is usually involved. But we made it through the whole service without any disasters!

It was her first time wearing shoes and she wasn't sure about those things.

Rob, our minister and friend, did the dedication and she was totally working the crowd with her coos, and Rob even paraded her up and down the aisle and she just stared at him. It was too cute.

My sister's best friend Sheri made it to service with her beautiful family. Having Sheri there was like having a piece of Tonya there with us. One of Tonya's last wishes was that necklaces be made for her girls with her ashes so she can always be close to their hearts. Each of us wore our necklaces to honor her on our first Mother's Day without her here with us.

During the service, the choir sang "Love Never Fails." Which is the same scripture that was read at Tonya's butterfly service and I pretty much lost it. I hadn't lost it like that since her service. It just really struck me that all these big events like Landry's dedication were going to be without her to celebrate. Madison, my oldest niece, was there and it made my day.

Nolan has been throwing up sick three whole times in his life and my mother-in-law happened to be in town for two of them. She's going to think we're going around letting him lick doorknobs.

And on top of the whole thing, our very close and dear church friend just graduated from Brite Divinity School from TCU and they're moving to Colorado after three years of love and laughter here. So once again, the kleenexes made an apprearance. Justin did a photo shoot with them so they could remember Texas forever.

The emotions were uncontainable all morning. Seeing my church family love her like I do, having my family there, and the blessings and love she's brought us in eight short months were just too much.

I know the blessings are overflowing in the midst of sadness of losing Tonya. I think the tears were a rollercoaster of my cup overflowing, shadowed with a hole in my heart.
 

The blessings are helping me heal. Thank you God for the blessings.

 last Mother's Day, right before we found out Tonya's cancer had returned.