A New Normal

We are starting on a journey of a new kind of normal ....

The kind of normal that is still pretty much the same ....

but yet it's not ....

Our new normal is us living without one of our babies ....

Someone who will always be missing from our lives ....

That memory , That hurt , That sadness  

 will always be there ...

It might not show ...

We may get really good at hiding it  ...

 We've been told by others who have buried their babies ... 

The sadness will never completely go away ...

It will always be there ...

We will just learn to live with it in our lives ...

But none the less ...

We will always be thinking about our baby boy ...

Life will go on ...

But it will be always there :

Someone is missing ...

SAMUEL 

If we didn't have other children , it would be so easy to curl up in a ball in our misery and pretend that the world is not really turning . That can't happen when you have kids . You must get up every morning and proceed with life ....

 Live through the hurt ...

So school must still happen ....

Extra math with Daddy in the evenings will be happening ....

Little monkeys will still find new places to climb :)

We must eat ...

So egg cracking will commence !

My first one ever where there was no yolk !

How weird is that ?

Nerf bullets will be chilled in the fridge ....

Why ?

I'm still not sure ....

When I discover the answer to that question .

I will let you know  ....

Little man will dance around in princess shoes ....

Just to get a reaction :)

Winter fun will happen ....

While trying to stay warm ....

Pooches will be spoiled ...

Happy 3rd Birthday Wags :)

My phone will be borrowed ....

And filled with 200 silly pictures  ....

Snow tunnels will be built ....

Naps will be taken ....

Puzzles will come together ...

Little brothers hair will be done for fun by big sisters ....

Why ?

Because the sisters are bigger and they can ....

Plus he has such beautiful hair ....

He's thrilled :)

Can ya tell ?

Laughter will be heard ...

Hubby and I discovered this little gem of a show...

It follows a Christian family who became multimillionaires with the invention of their duck calls ...

Very Redneck !

Very Funny !

If you have a squeamy tummy, don't eat while watching in case they happen to be cookin' up some squirrel :)

If your already sad with the happenings in your life ....

Which I am very much ....

I suggest not watching :

THIS!

Which I did - Mistake !

SPOILER ALERT :

Everyone dies !!!

Ok, well maybe two whole people make it through , but everyone else does not  ...

It's called Les Miserables for a reason ...

It's Miserable!

So again : 

If you want to be depressed watch this :

If you want to laugh :

Watch this !

And at the end of everyday  ...

Will be the darkness ....

Night time is the hardest ...

Maybe its because everything happened when it was dark :

~ The ambulance ride to the bigger hospital

~ The emergency surgery to save Samuel from being born 

~ The night my labor was stopped with modern medicine

~ The night he was born

~ The same night he passed away 

~ It was dark when John & I had to hand our Samuel to a nurse to take him to the morgue 

Or maybe :

Things just seem harder at night ...

Despite it all ...

Despite our sadness ...

Despite our broken hearts ...

Life keeps moving on ...

But please be patient with us ...

We are learning how to live without our baby boy ....

Grief has no indication of time ....

A Special Gift

My husband brought me a gift last night ...

One so much better than roses any day ...

He gave me this pendant with Samuel's picture

I will wear it proudly around my neck ...

A reminder to everyone ...

That we have another child ...

A son ...

Whose life was brief on this earth ...

And who lives eternally with his heavenly Father ...

I guess by wearing this ...

I am saying :

Please don't forget we had a baby boy ...

His name is Samuel ....

Catching Up ~ Maggey turned 9 ~ Nov. 19/12

Maggey turned 9 ...

Well ~ it's been two months ago now ...

but :

life happened , and I didn't get the blog post done before Samuel was born ...

Better late than never !

Her request this birthday ~ was for a butterfly cake !

We had her party early on Nov 3 ...

So she could celebrate while my sis and her kids were visiting from Alberta ....

The party was at my parents house of course  ....

There was cake ....

because whats a party without cake ? 

Lots of family came to celebrate ....

fun was had by all ....

we are blessed ....

Samuel was there too, still tucked in safe ....

A girl who will always need her daddy ....

I love that at 9, there's still a lot of little left in her ....

A girl who is never too big for dolls & toys ....

Her quilt made by Great Grammy Jones .... 

Celebrating again when Grampie & Grammie came to visit ....

Birthday supper ....

My baby still with her beautiful long hair ....

Right before she cut all of it for cancer ....

Happy Birthday My Sweet MAGGEY :)

I'm so glad you are ours ....

Samuel's name on a rock

Samuel's name painted on a rock ...

Thank you Kyla :)

http://tossiestreeandpaintedrocks.blogspot.ca/

Samuel's name in shells

Samuel's name written on the sand on a beach in California ....

Thank you Tesha :)

http://www.teshastreasures.com/

A Poem for Sam

A Poem For Sam

Samuel John Blois

A product of love from John & Shannon

I'm special and loved by my family I know

I couldn't stay long cause God called me home

My home is in heaven with Jesus I'll stay

With family and loved ones I'll continually play

No sorrow or sickness or tears can be here

God's love is amazing ! There is nothing to fear

I've gone on ahead but we'll be together again

Where God's love will shine and life will not end

What a time we will have when you all come to see

The angels and Jesus, God's family & Me !

Dear Mommy & Daddy I know you are sad

But I'm home with Jesus and I'm really glad

Halley, Maggey & Cooper we'll all play someday

My brother and sisters together we'll stay

Hugs & kisses,

Sam & Jesus

My Uncle Johnny wrote this poem and made copies to pass out at Samuel's funeral. He also did wonderful programs to pass out :

Samuel's oldest sister Halley wrote this note to Samuel which was also read at his funeral .

Makes my heart warm to know how loved Sam was. How those little footprints were able to tug at heartstrings  ....

Happy Birthday Brooke

My niece Brooke is 11 years old today :)

Happy Birthday Sweetie !!!!

If Only ~ My Baby Boy

My son Samuel has lived in Heaven for 36 days now ....

The initial shock and disbelief that this has really happened has started to wear off a little  ...

Now we are in the " Trying to live with this " stage.

I keep replaying everything that happened in my mind, which helps no one and changes nothing I know ...

but for some reason it's where I go right now.

You see my baby boy didn't die because anything was wrong with him. He couldn't have been any healthier.

My body failed him ...

He was born to early ...

And he died ....

When your baby dies, you don't have memories banked of years together ...

You have lost the future together ....

You have the memories you would have made ...

and can only think about what you will miss ...

So we will always cling to the brief moments we had. 

The months I carried him ...

The two weeks that I fought to keep my body from pushing him out ...

The very few short minutes he lived and the 4.5 hours we held him.

We will never feel that it was enough....

I can't even express to you how much this stinks ....

How we feel this is just not fair ...

The many times John and I have looked at each other and said :

Why us ?

Why our little boy ?

 Why does everyone around us get to leave the hospital with their babies in a car seat  ?

 Why are we the ones whose baby had to come home in a casket ?

but then :

Why not ? 

We know there is a reason ...

God's plans are always best - even when we don't like it or understand it ...

We may never know while we are on this earth ..

Or maybe someday we will ...

I'm sure it will get easier ...

Though right now it doesn't seem so ...

There will come a day when we will be able to talk about Samuel without tears ...

Where I will wake up and not think :

" Shan, just get through the day "

So for now ,

I'm thankful for the time we had with him ...

As brief as it may have been ...

Psalm 139 : 13-16

The perfect little foot ...

That so reminds us of a little foot that now runs around this house ..

The foot of his older brother's ....

His tiny hand on his Daddy's finger ....

We prayed for him, we longed for him , we waited for him, we loved him ...

and we had to let him go ....

In Heaven there will be no more tears ....

No more Mommies & Daddies standing by tiny graves ....

So in the future when someone asks me how many children I have ...

The answer will always be " I have four children "

Halley, Maggey, Cooper 

& Samuel

Samuel was only here with us for a short time ....

Just long enough to leave a print on our lives ....

Long enough to change our lives ....

Just long enough to take a little piece of each one of our hearts with him when he left  ....


Right after Samuel passed away, my cousin wrote a note to us on my husbands Facebook. I have read and reread this 100 times. It was one of the nicest things anyone could have said .. Brings comfort to me every time I read it  ....

" I'd like to think that Sam was too special for this world. That God made him so wonderful, the only place he could live was with the Father Himself. And God, because of His love for you, Shannon and your family , let you meet him .... if only for a short time... So you would know and remember that you will meet him again someday. Then you will see and know why God kept him for Himself. God used you and Shannon to change Samuel from a thought in His mind, to an eternal being. When you meet Samuel again someday, he will stand before you and thank you for being his parents. For giving him life. "

Thanks Pam :)