So many firsts!!!

Our family has been busy experiencing so many fun firsts lately! First of all, Logan has started first grade! We can't believe it. He is really enjoying school and loves riding the bus to and from school. Mommy was a little nervous at first about the bus thing, but one of his best friends has the same bus stop and they get to sit by each other everyday. Here are some pictures of his first day of first grade:

Addison had so much fun at her first ballet and tap dance classes. She is taking at the same dance studio that I took from! Here she is just loving her new dance bag!

This is Addison after her first class. She was so excited! This was the only picture I managed to get because she was so excited she couldn't stand still.

Even when we made it home, she was still all smiles. She left her dance clothes and tap shoes on for dinner and most of that evening!

We just can't believe that Avery is already 6 months old! She tried cereal for the first time yesterday. She wasn't too sure what to think about it, but she did pretty good for her first time.

I have to share this adorable picture of Avery. She really loves her swing outside now! We have been spending a lot of time outside with this beautiful weather we have been having. Her smile just warms my heart and soul.

I also wanted to share some pictures of the flower garden that we planted for Landon. It is just beautiful. We have never seen flowers grow like this in our yard before. The flowers are attracting beautiful monarch butterflies. Landon, these flowers are for you. We love you so much sweetie. You live in our hearts forever. I am so thankful and hopeful that I will get to see you and hold you again. I'm forever your mommy.

Our 10 Year Anniversary trip to Tahoe!

Wow....Ryan and I had such a wonderful time on our trip to Lake Tahoe for our 10 year anniversary!! We were very blessed to have Ryan's mom, Cheryl, to fly in and stay with the kiddos while we were away for 5 days. We were planning on doing a lot of relaxing on this trip, but we ended up doing so much! One thing we did a lot of was hiking. The weather was a beautiful 80 degrees almost the entire time we were there with clear skies everyday. One of our hiking trips led to a gorgeous private beach. It took a while to get there, but it was worth it!

Another stop that we found on this hike was "Prey Meadows." It was just beautiful. It reminded me of the meadow on the movie, Bambi. :) God's creation just could not get any prettier.

Then, the dreaded hike back up the mountain....yikes!!! Boy was that hard. Ryan was so sweet to find us both walking sticks that made hiking up the hills so much easier. We finally made it to the top and this was one of the amazing views that we saw.

Ok, so now we are extremely tired from all of that hiking.....it's time for some relaxing by the pool. We stayed at the Hyatt and our hotel had an amazing pool and also a private beach area by the lake.

One night we took a walk along the beach and saw the most beautiful sunset ever! This picture does not do it justice, but we did the best we could! While we were on this trip, I kept thinking how this was a trip for just Ryan, myself, and Landon. Even though he is not physically with us, he is always in our heart. I found myself talking to Landon a lot when we were there.....telling him all of the things we were doing and asking him about what he is getting to experience in heaven. The beautiful mountains and amazing sunsets made me think about what heaven will be like. So I thought, wow, this might be what Landon is experiencing and that made me feel so close to him.

Ok, so we did a lot of hiking. :) This is a picture of us on another trail. Hiking was such a great way to get a lot of really neat pictures. Thank goodness we had a hot tub. We definitely needed it after the miles of hiking!

This is one of my favorite pictures. Just looks like a postcard! This picture pretty much sums up Lake Tahoe. The beautiful trees, mountains and water were so picturesque.

On our way to Tahoe, we stayed one night in Reno since that is where we flew into. We stayed at the Grand Sierra Resort. It was a lot of fun. Ryan got to play blackjack and I got to watch. I'm not too good at that kind of thing! :)

Well, that was our amazing trip to Tahoe. I'm so glad we got the chance to get away for a little while to celebrate our 10 year anniversarry. I just can't believe we have been married for 10 years already. We have been through a lot together and I just can't imagine my life without my amazing husband.

How God continues to reveal Himself to us

Wow, I am just amazed at how God continues to reveal Himself to us in so many ways. I know it has been a while since my last blog post, but so much has happened. I passed two kidney stones a couple of weeks ago. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life! They say that it is more painful than labor and it is! During this time I was really struggling with why this was happening. My heart is still healing from losing Landon just 5 1/2 months ago and here I am enduring the worst physical pain in my life. Just didn't quite understand. I got on my knees and prayed to God to reveal Himself to me in some way. I was amazed at how many people in the next day or two sent me emails, texts....etc just to say that I was on their mind and they were praying for me. One friend even said she wasn't sure what was going on but I was heavy on her heart and that she had been praying. This same thing has happened to both me and Ryan so much these past months. The one I will never forget happened just about 3 weeks after we lost Landon. We met with our doctor and he told us that the only thing they knew was that we lost Landon because of fetal-maternal hemorrhage. At that point, they didn't know why this happened. I was just lost. I didn't know how to act, feel, think, or do. I remember being up around 4 o'clock in the morning, nursing Avery (Landon's twin sister), and just crying out to God. I'm surprised I didn't wake up everybody. I cried out for God to reveal Himself and to let us know that He is near to us.....in any way that He could. After that, I got into bed around 5 o'clock in the morning and I woke up Ryan. I talked to him about how I needed to know more about what went wrong with Landon. At that moment I thought about a dear friend of mine that is also a doctor. I told Ryan that maybe I would call him the next day to see if he knew anything about fetal-maternal hemorrhage. Ryan and I immediately started to pray and then we went back to sleep. At about 10 o'clock later that morning, that same friend called the house to see if I needed to talk about anything. It was just amazing. Another way of how God wants us to know that He is always there and he hears our cries and our prayers.