The Legacy Lives On! :)

I woke up this morning bright and early because Little M has decided that sleeping isn't really all that necisarry lately. So we were up at 7 and I decided to get ready for my day. When I put Little M down on the bed I realized that he already has his daddy's flair for camoflauge. :) Especially when he started pulling the pillow over his head so his face disapeared. It may be winter time but he was determined to find somewhere he could practice his skills.

I turned 3 months old!

This reminded me of a fun story of Michael a couple of summers ago. My nephews came up for a visit and they wanted to play with Michael. So he got all of his camouflage out and they dressed up and made a fort in the back yard to hide in. They actually made two forts. One was a decoy fort so they could have my Mom and Dad come out to find them and surprise them from behind when they went to the decoy. The boys had such a fun time and Michael really liked getting out and using his man skills. lol I think this was right after he had bought his new camouflage and he was so excited about it!

Michael and the boys using his camo. He is wearing his new camo that he was so excited about!

Hagin in the fort. Michael hated that monkey vine in our yard and was always battling it.

But it makes for great fort building material. :)

Grr!

Decoy Fort

Real Fort

The Sweet Little Moments

Dear Michael,

Today I had one of the best moments of being a mom ever. Little E has been getting so good about saying I love you to people. She says it all the time, but that also means it has become just "something she says" instead of it really meaning something. But that is not always the case. Today I was reading someone's Christmas letter on the floor and had a serious look on my face (my friends husband had cancer this year and so I was thinking about how hard that must have been...). Little E came up to me and slowly started stroking my hair. Then she looked at me and said "Jenny, I love you." in her wonderful little voice. I could tell she really really meant it. Then she said, "Do you want to snuggle me? Let's lay down on the floor and snuggle."
Can you tell that she is used to me breaking down and her having to cuddle and comfort me? I am sure she thought I was upset and needed her to help me feel better. It was so very sweet and I loved snuggleing her on the floor. We were only there a few seconds before Trek decided he needed to be cuddled too and she and I both giggled as he sniffed at us and tried to get us to love him too.

Anyway, I just wanted to write you and tell you about what a kind and loving daughter your little girl is growing up to be. She truly is my wonderful little angel.
I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas. We love you and miss you so much.
Love,
Jenny

Family News Letter 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

What an amazing year of ups and downs we have had. We started out the new year with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa McCullough. Michael and I had a great time taking them cross country skiing around Rigby lake while I pulled Little E in her new red sled. She was all bundled up so that she could barely see much less move and tended to drag one arm behind her so it looked like she was asleep but really she just thought it was fun to have her arm in the snow.

We spent new years eve playing hearts and then ran through the streets at midnight blowing our horns and pulling crackers while making as much noise as possible. I am sure our neighbors weren’t very appreciative of our holiday cheer but it sure was fun!

In January we decided to go visit Michael’s sister Jen. Right before leaving we decided to take a pregnancy test because Michael wanted to just for fun. We had been trying for a few months and nothing had really happened yet. As we were waiting for the results he looked up from packing and said “wouldn’t it be funny if it was positive?” I looked at the test and just replied “look at it”. Needless to say, it was positive! We were both a little freaked out and had to try to hide it for the whole trip to his sisters and back. It was a fun trip and we really enjoyed hanging out with the family.

In February we were sitting around trying to figure out what to give each other for valentines day. Then we came up with the best idea. We would give each other tickets to the Muse concert in April! They were coming to Salt Lake City and we had been listening to their music together for our whole marriage dreaming of hearing them live. We bought the tickets and waited in anticipation for the day to come. Finally we were able to leave Little E with Nana and make the mad dash through the snow to our hotel. Jen and Jay were able to come to and we had such a blast! Michael was so happy after we went and wouldn’t take their cd out of the car for over a month afterward. It really helped to get him through the blahs he was dealing with at work. The end of the school year was always hard for him. He was pretty anxious to get to summer time and have some fun.

Easter was pretty fun this year. We celebrated it at my parents house with the family and we were able to borrow a real live bunny for the day from our friends the Mortimers. The kids thought it was so fun! Little E wanted to hold it the whole time but her cousin Rori just wanted to admire it from a distance. She doesn’t really like getting her hands dirty. :)
This was the first year that Little E really got the whole egg hunt idea and she had such a great time trying to find all of the eggs in the yard. She also enjoyed her goodies in her basket. We gave her fishy crackers and craisins instead of candy this year but she was happy just to have the cool eggs to open and close.

In May we celebrated Michael’s 31st birthday. He was a little freaked out because he always felt like he would never reach 30 and here he was turning 31. He had been sure that he would go out in a blaze of glory long before reaching “old age” as he called it. We celebrated by going with my family to Green Canyon, a swimming pool that is fed by hot springs. Little E had such a great time swimming with her daddy and he really enjoyed it too. He had so much fun trying to teach her how to swim and going under the water to blow bubbles for her. It was a really laid back but fun birthday party. The next week we celebrated Little E’s second birthday and had a laid back party with plenty of family and cake and she had a great time. 


The day before his birthday we got an extra special gift this year. We had our ultrasound and found out that we were having a little boy! Michael and I were both in shock. He had always told me that he was sure he would only have girls and that the McCullough name would end with him. Suddenly all new doors were open to him that he never thought would be. We were both a little scared because we already knew how to raise a girl, but a boy would be all new. On the drive home Michael started getting over the shock and talked about how much fun he would have raising this boy right. Showing him  how to use all the weaponry he had collected and teaching him how to camp, fish, and woo women. lol

We undertook a pretty big project this spring. I decided I wasn't’ bringing a baby home to a bathroom that had mold issues (ours had mold all through the grout) and so we decided we would take a week to re-grout the shower tile. Little did we know that the project would take over 4 months and include redoing the entire bathroom. We found out the mold was all through behind the tile too so we pulled out the tub and tile to replace it with a whole new unit. This process was “fun” according to Michael. He had to break the cast iron tub in half to get it out. In the process he broke 3 sledgehammers in 5 minutes! Since we took out the tube we had to retile the foor, do a new sink, and retexture the walls. The hardest part of the project was the new fan. The old one had been wired in a weird way and it took us a whole week just to figure out how to get the new one to work right! We learned a lot of things, probably the most important of which was that a project is never as short and easy as you think it will be. I learned that accidently stepping on the water shut off valve can get you very wet very fast!


This year we were able to finally make use of our huge garden in the back yard. We had so much fun planting seeds in the newly tilled ground in bare feet. Little E “helped” a lot. She threw seeds all over, but her favorite part was just pushing the dirt around and jumping on the trampoline. The garden grew really well for us and we had a great crop of my favorite things, peas and string beans. Little E’s favorites were the raspberries. She would try to find ripe ones anytime she was aloud to be in the garden and would have eaten herself sick if I let her. Michael really looked forward to the ripe tomatoes. As he said after having the first one we got “I forget how good they are right off the vine. That is the only way to eat a tomato!”

This June Michael was able to take the “trip of a lifetime” as he called it. He and my dad flew in my dad’s little airplane up to Alaska! They spent the whole trip camping, fishing, hiking and chasing bears. Yes, that’s right, they chased bears. Crazy men! Michael even caught a big halibut and brought it home for us all to eat. Michael fell in love with the mountains and dreamed of someday moving us all out to Alaska so he could always enjoy that rugged beauty of the mountains and the ocean. He was always dreaming of cool new places for us to live and adventures we could have.

In July Michael decided to take a trip up to north Idaho and scuba dive for golf balls. He was so excited that he had found something he could do to earn some extra money that he would actually enjoy. He really loved scuba diving and couldn't get enough of the feeling he got when he reached zero buoyancy and it was almost like flying. He said the fish kept coming and checking him out to see what he was doing. During his second dive, something happened and instead of returning home to me, he went back home to our father in heaven. It has been a real struggle, but we have had a lot of help from friends and family and have been brought a lot of comfort from our faith.

The rest of the year has flown by in a cloud of paperwork and trying to find a new normal. But we have had one huge change that has blessed our lives incredibly. In September we were blessed by the birth of our baby boy. He is such a sweet tempered little boy. He sleeps well, coos, and laughs and smiles all the time. I am so in love with this sweet little boy already and couldn’t imagine my life without him. He is already growing so big, and is definitely taking after his daddy. We were able to have our whole family together for his blessing and so loved getting to spend time with them. We blessed him on Halloween and had a great time trick or treating as Little Bo Peep (Little E) and her sheep (Little M and I).

Little E has changed so much over the last year. She has grown from a barely talking 18 month old into a confident 2.5 year old who makes up her own songs about peanut butter sandwiches, Jesus, and Humpty Dumpty. Some of her favorite games are hide and seek (she can count to 20 on a good day) and ring around the rosies. She loved running through the sprinklers this summer with her daddy and really had a great time taking swimming lessons with him in June. She also likes going to story time on Wednesdays and has a lot of fun doing all of the fun songs. She is also really excited for Christmas. This is the first year she has understood what is coming and can’t wait for Santa to come.

Little E is such a good big sister and has been very soft with Little M and loves to hold him. She also decided she wanted to be potty trained over Thanksgiving and pretty much did it herself over a week and has been a champ at it ever since. I can’t believe what a big girl she has turned into and look forward to seeing all the changes the new year will bring. She just gets more and more fun and sweet. She has really taken such good care of me and makes me feel better on the sad days. I am so grateful for my sweet angel.

I hope you are all having a wonderful Holiday Season. Our Christmas card this year is very special because it is the only picture I have of our whole family. Since Little M was born after Michael passed away we were only able to have a picture by editing in Michael from a family picture we took when Little E was 9 months old. It is such a treasure and we hope you enjoy it too.

Happy Holidays! Love,
Jennifer, Little E, and Little M             

Deodorant

Dear Little E,
This memory is for you. :) I just put some good smelling lotion on your hands while I was getting you dressed and you looked at me and said "I'm going to put it on my armpits." with a big grin. This brought back a very funny memory of your daddy. I used to put my deodorant on in the morning and you would beg me to put it on you too. This was when you were about 18 months old. I would put the lid back on and tickle you with it on your arm pit. This worked well for a while, but then you asked your daddy to do his deodorant. He didn't put the lid on. Instead he just slathered it on your armpit and from then on you knew that it should feel wet and smell good afterward. I was so annoyed that he had actually used it on you because I couldn't get away with leaving the lid on mine anymore. But I always thought it was funny when I picked you up and you smelled like Old Spice "After Hours". lol

Love,
Mommy

The Weepies, World Spins Madly On.

Dear Michael,

Our good friend Carly emailed me this video last night. Not only is it beautiful, it does an amazing job of expressing some of the emotions that I have gone through over the past few months. I love it. Thank you Carly. :)


Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.


"World Spins Madly On"

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and let the world spin madly on

Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on

I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on.

I miss you. The world keeps spinning and I grow stronger, but the missing will never really go away. I just will become strong enough to handle it. I am actually grateful for that. It would seem wrong somehow if I ever stopped missing you. Like I was somehow betraying you. But I don't mind the pain decreasing. There is no way I could have lived my whole life with that much pain in my every day. It would have been unbearable.

The other part of the video that I really love is that it shows her grieving in the end too.  I had never thought about that before you passed away, but now I firmly beleive that there is grief on both sides of the veil. While I know that you are happy there, I am sure that you miss us too. I know you probably ache to hold your children and miss our kisses as much as we miss yours. I am sure you are looking forward to that beautiful day when we will be reunited again just as much as I do. :)

I hope you are succeeding in your mission there and that you can feel our love and support.

Love,
Jenny

Just a fun dream.

Dear Michael,

I had a fun dream about you last night. It was nothing amazing, but to me it was perfect. We were just hanging out talking and playing Rock Band. We had a great time and it was so nice to feel like I got to spend time with you. :)

I havent had many dreams about you, and during most of them the thought was always in the back of my mind that you were dead and it was just a dream. But I have started having nice ones like this were I forget for a little while and I just get to enjoy being with you. It makes me wake up happier.
I love you and hope to see you in my dreams again soon.

love,
Jenny

Pictures of Michael getting Rock Band from me on his 30th Birthday 2009.

Ready to Rock Out and have some fun! :)

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

It truly amazes me how much of a difference a month can make. This time last month we didn't have any snow on the ground, the leaves were still on the trees in their brilliant yellows and oranges and the sky was almost always a stunning blue. Now the snow blankets the ground and there is a constant haze of clouds in the sky. Little E even commented on how blue the sky was on the one clear day we have had in the past few weeks. I think she really misses going outside more and will be very excited for winter to be over, just like the rest of us. But for now she enjoys eating snow whenever she has the chance, but she doesn't like how cold it gets her hands when she grabs it. She also enjoyed sledding for the first time down a hill the other day. I will blog more about that later when I have uploaded the pictures from my camera. Needless to say, she thought it was awesome. But I really missed you being there for that first. I was sure you would have been so excited to push her down the hill and watch her giggle and scream the whole way down.

One of the big differences this month has made is in my outlook on life. In the beginning of November I was in a pretty bad place. Most days were ok, but there were some real nasty ones mixed in. I wasn't even going to write about them, but I think it is a good idea for me to be able to look back and remember how bad it was so I can be grateful for how good its becoming. November 7th was a Sunday and it was one of the worst day's I have had so far. I was at our house and went to church just long enough to get the sacrament because Little E was sick and I didn't want to spread her germs to all the other little kids. My dad had come to help me get to church and back. After he dropped me off back at home, I went into our room to get dressed. That moment hit me so painfully. I walked into the room and looked at our bed and realized that you really aren't coming back. Most Sunday's we would get home from church and both throw our clothes on the bed, often we would eat something and then lie down for a nap together. I looked at your side of the room and wished so desperately that you could walk into the room and mess it up a little while exclaiming that you were starving. :)

Little E was in the other room entertaining herself with her doodle pad and I just collapsed into the bed and sobbed. I couldn't take it. There was just no way that you were never going to do those things again. It couldn't be possible. I didn't know how I would ever be able to move again. After a few minutes Little E came in and saw that I was crying. She tried to distract me and comfort me and I was finally able to get up. But I was still in one of my panic attack moments. I had to go somewhere, do something, find you somehow! There needed to be a place that I could feel you. I finally thought of a place I hadn't looked yet. It was the place we liked to hike in the summer by Kelly Canyon. I thought of all the wonderful times we had shared there and thought surely if I made the effort to haul both our kids up there and hike the trail I would feel something. Have some kind of reassurance that you were near.

So I put everything into the car with tear filled eyes and tried to find my way up to that stupid mountain. I don't know what it is about that place but even though I have lived her all my life I can never find it or find my way home without getting lost a few times in the process. I found it by asking directions when my map proved to be too confusing and drove quickly up the road to the trail. The whole time I was driving I secretly hoped that something would happen to us on the way. Maybe we would get in an accident with another car or lose control and go off the road. It was frightening how much I really wanted to die in that moment. I don't want anyone to think that I would ever consider killing myself, but at that moment I really wished someone or something else would do the job for me. It was just too painful to imagine going on that way. I even scared the pants off of my sister with a message I left for her on her phone. It was fairly innocent sounding, I just said "Hi, I am going up to Kelly Canyon for a hike with the kids. I just wanted you to know so that if you couldn't get a hold of me you wouldn't worry." but what she heard was, "Here is the place to send the search party." She is pretty perceptive sometimes...

Anyways, after my panic stricken drive up to the mountain I finally pulled up next to the trail. No one else was there and I quickly put Little M in the wrap on my front and Little E in the hiking backpack on my back. She was all excited to go for a hike and Trek was pretty happy too. I even wore your hat because I thought somehow it might help me feel like you were there too. I huffed and puffed my way up the trail, back and forth across the stream, and got about a half mile up to near where we took that picture. It was very pretty, but kind of cold and I knew I couldn't go much further carrying both kids. So I let Little E down to play near the stream and look at the little water falls.

Its really funny but even though I didn't "feel you there" I did feel better. Part of it was just the exertion and that I was doing something instead of just holding still and grieving, but it did help. I slowly started to calm down enough to consider going back to my parents house. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle going home yet. Right about that time a nice man came up the trail. He looked at me and said "What are you doing up here with two kids by yourself?" and I explained my situation. The poor guy was pretty shocked and wanted to give me some money, but I told him how well you had taken care of us and said that if he really wanted to help he could help me get Little E back up on my back. It was pretty tough getting her there by myself. He did and I hiked back down. There were  a couple of horse back riders getting ready to head up the trail and Little E had a good time petting them before we got in the car. Then we finally headed back down the mountain... and got lost for over an hour... I really hate that drive! The worst part was that Little E was throwing a fit the whole time over a berry that I hadn't let her keep. She is holding it in her hand in this picture. She called it baby berry and I was nervous she would eat it while I was driving and not watching her so I made it a little bed and put a leaf over it like a blanket trying to appease her even though she couldn't have it... my plan didn't work. I just ended up with a screaming toddler in the car. :(

Anyways, that was one of the worst days yet, and I am truly amazed at how different I feel now, a month later. This week I am doing pretty good. I am slowly coming to grips with the reality of your absence and I realized something important. I don't need you. I know that sounds terrible, but it is important for me to know. I don't need you. I really really want you, and I wish you were here all of the time, but I can and need to do this without you here. I don't have a choice. That's the ugly truth I have to face. So its important for me to remember that "I can do hard things." I also am realizing that I have so much help around me. My parents are willing to do anything I need, my sister and her husband help Little E to feel like her family is complete and are great at distracting me. My ward is truly amazing, I am getting invitations to do things all the time (I haven't been able to do most of them because we all keep getting SICK! Blah. I can't wait until winter is over and we are healthy most of the time again.) So with all of this help available, I am coming to grips with me having to live without you, and living with the fact that I can do that. That I am going to do that and that I will enjoy my life even without you here. I know that this is a good point and that I will most likely plummet back down on my constant roller coaster ride in the near future, but I wanted to point out to myself how different I can feel in such a short time. Because someday I will probably need the reminder.

I love you so much. I miss our long hikes together, talking about all of the cool things in nature and the wonderful plans we had for our future. I miss so much about our life together. Little E asks for daddy stories every night now. She loves hearing about you and when she wakes up in the night she begs for more stories. She really misses you too. Tonight I told her about our last Saturday together and you swimming under the kayak and blowing bubbles like she had in her bath tonight. She laughed and laughed and told me she remembered that. I think that she remembers more than I realize. I hope that she can hold on to those memories. I will try to help her be able to. I want her to always know how much she meant to you.

Love,
Jenny