"Hey Chunky your so fine...

...finer than a monkey. A chunky monkey!" Atticus and I would sing that to Isaac all the time!

The life of an 18 month old...

It is so flippin hot here so sand box play has to be done after breakfast.

Im talkin' like 7:30 am folks...

Isaac is our saving grace. Our earthly angel. He is what keeps us going. He is such a special boy. So cute and happy and does the perfect thing at the perfect time. He is getting so big. He loves to sing, itsy-bitsy spider and wheels-on-the-bus are his favorites. He loves to swing. Loves airplanes. Loves mommy. Loves Daddy. Loves bubbles, going bye-bye, stories, snuggling, he is such a talker and a singer. Just thinking about him makes me smile. 

Isaac LOVES Atticus' room and plays in it all the time. He goes straight for Atticus' Beads of Courage. Every time.


Then he goes for Atticus' pinewood derby car, books...


trophies...


Then, the pinwheel!

Once he has turned Atticus' room upside down, he's ready to move on.

Another day. Another adventure... 

He had A LOT of fun!

 Messing with big brothers stuff. Again!! I can hear it perfectly, "Mom! Moooom!!! HELP! Here comes Captain Distruct-O.... Isaaaaaaaaac!" 

Isaac loves to look at the pictures. I love listening to him say, "Jay. Hi Jay. Atti. Hi Atti...." then he blows everyone kisses.

He makes the cutest "vroom-vroom" sound!

In full control of pest control...

Until mean mom takes it away :(

We took Isaac to his first Rangers game last Friday, thanks to the Foote family. And thanks to Aunty Leah he had a jersey to wear. Eric was so excited. He loves the Rangers.

Isaac pumping his first saying, "Go Go Go!"

Although flippin' hot. We had a great time.

Thanks Foote Fam. We love you. 

People are incredible. Like seriously amazing. About a month ago we got a letter in the mail, with no return address. Inside the envelope was three tickets to the Circus!! The letter was very sweet and tender and the annonymous sending hoped to "provide a night of happiness!" 

Well... Anonymous sender, THAT is exactly what you did for us. We had a night  of laughter,  fist pumpin', dancin', oooh's and ahhh's, and tons of happiness.

..THANK YOU..

Thank you.. Thank you.. Thank you.. Thank you.. Thank you.. Thank you..

 (all the pics were on my phone so not great quality)

The lights went out and the show began... Isaac was in shock!

He was very impressed and very serious in the beginning.

Then he saw the elephants and horses and oh boy, 

it was pure excitement from then on...

  He LOOOOOVED having his own seat. He'd look at Eric then look at me and say, "Hi!"

"Go Go Go!"

 We had a really fun night and are so grateful for the amazing person/person's that gave us this night.

Buddies... It was hard for to be around kids Atticus' age for the first while (still is at times). The first time we had a play date with Noah and Peter was.... hard. For me. Isaac on the other hand had an absolute ball and was in heaven. He followed Noah everywhere. Everywhere. When it was time for them to go, Isaac watched from the window and cried and cried calling for Noah. So then we both sat there watching Noah get in the car and cried. It was the first time I realized that Isaac does get it. He knows Atticus' is gone and misses him. It broke my heart. For the next week or so, Noah was all Isaac talked about. I knew that even though it was really hard for me, we needed to be around Noah. Isaac needed it. And so did I. 

Isaac ADORES Noah. Like, when I get him up from his nap he say's Noah?! When I tell him we are going bye-bye, he says, "Noah?" The cute thing is, is that Noah loves him too. They are such buds. Isaac thinks Noah is hilarious and Noah thinks Chunks pretty funny too.

Play date last week. Noah was reading to Isaac.

Noah is a sweet heart and humors me. Every once in awhile I ask him for a hug. I want to squeeze him so tightly but don't want to creep him out!! But my goodness how I miss my 4yr old.

Last Saturday Isaac and I picked up Atticus' favorite donuts and went to the cemetery. We turned on Pandora to "Disney" and the first song that played was "Life is a Highway" from CARS. I have a video from when he was 2.5 yrs old singing that song. It was one of his favorites. My eyes filled with tears. How perfect. His favorite song to go with his favorite donuts. We spent over an hour there. We later found out that we, well mostly Chunk, gotten eaten alive by chiggers... NO FUN.

 Hopefully the grass grows soon.

The other day Isaac found Atticus' light up spider man shoes. He wore them all day. 

This picture cracks me up. Chillaxing eatin' some toast!

 Isaac definitely keeps me on my toes...

I got the oil painting of Atticus framed. I love it. It's in the perfect spot. We get to look at it all day long. Not every time but almost every time Isaac passes it he says, "Atti!" I follow it with, "That's right. That's big brother. He lives with Heavenly Father and Jesus."

Thank you again Sister Capson. It is absolutely beautiful.

On a "me" note. I feel like a live a double life. My life with Chunky and  my life without Atticus. It has been a very very hard week. I have fallen a part and have had a really hard time picking up the pieces. Grieving is awful. Im more homesick than I have ever been and there is nothing I can do about it. A couple weeks back Eric was struggling and I was doing ok and now he's doing okay and Im struggling. I miss him so much. So very very much. I kiss one of my favorite pictures in his room hoping to get something, hoping to fill the emptiness just the tiniest bit. I want to watch video clips of him but know if I do, it will hurt, but I need to hear his voice, I need to be close to him. I get worried that I will forget the sound of his voice and it makes me sick to my stomach. 

I watched a video of him last summer. He was doing a magic trick and kept switching a coin from hand to hand; Right in front of us but yells, "It's gone!!!" in the most excited sweetest voice imaginable. My heart broke and I am still trying to pick up the pieces.  I miss him so much I can't see straight. I miss him so much I can't breath. I miss him so much I don't know what to do. There have been so many trigger points this week. It started last Saturday, Eric and I were cleaning the garage when we found a ziplock bag of Atticus' treasures. I burst in to tears. Pretty sad when you are kissing a bag of old nails bottle caps and string. Sunday, was miss Atticus' day too.

Monday I took Isaac to an insta-care and got harassed by the lady at the desk about having paid our dectuable. She wanted 20% up front. 

Me: We have met our deductable so it's covered at 100%. 

Her: (sarcastically said), "You've paid X$?" 

Me: "Yes, I have paid X$. My 4 year old just passed away from cancer. And actually we had to pay X$ more than that." and honestly... I didn't say it in a very nice tone...

Her: You said, your four year old?

Me: Yes

Her: So (pointing to Isaac) is he your only one now?

Me: (oh my heck.. are you for real lady) Yep. But what I really wanted to say was, Thank you for pointing that out. Yes he is my only child now. Im so glad you could point that out.

Tuesday I was flipping through the calendar (we are traveling to Utah a lot over the next few months) and came to December. My eyes went to the BIG red letters on the 17th, "Atticus is 5!" I burst in to tears.

Wednesday was a nightmare. I honestly couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to give up. It is just too hard. I wanted to crawl in bed and never come out. Eric unfortunately had deadlines to meet and was so sweet and comforting on the phone but couldn't come home. So Jene came over.  The poor thing walked in the house to me crying holding Isaac crying and had to comfort us both. I was hysterical. It's days like this that being away from family is really hard. Days like this that make me so incredibly grateful for amazing friends. Jene took Isaac home with her. Tori brought me over my favorite Sonic drink and a bag full of "comforts" the girl knows how I love my dark chocolate! Jocelyn brought over homemade bread. Lindsey,  in Houston, ordered pizza for us for dinner. And I had so many write words of encouragement on FB. Thank you. To all of you.

Thursday was Mrs. Cherry's birthday and Jocelyn and I were going to meet at the preschool and surprise her with balloons and flowers, but on the the drive there I got so much anxiety and started tearing up. By the time I got there I was crying and just couldn't do it. I couldn't go inside the school. I had to have Jocelyn do it.

Friday I was getting out of the shower deciding what to wear and thought, "I haven't worn my white shorts in awhile, I'll wear those, then I remembered that I wore my white shorts on our "Ice Cream Truck" adventure, and I burst in to tears... later I was meeting my new neighbor  and long story short, when she asked if I had kids, it took everything I had to not cry when I replied, "Yes I have two. A four year old and a one year old." and had to explain that a play date wouldn't work, "He just recently passed away from cancer." I went home and cried...

Thankfully tomorrow is Saturday.  Eric is home on Saturday and I am so glad.