KJF Golf Tournament

After months of planning, the Kadence Jae Foundation annual golf tournament was a huge success!  I thought I would share some pictures from the day!

 

Top 5 Pictures- Alivia

I thought I would pick my second cousin Alivia for my Top 5 pictures post.  It's been entirely too long since I've done one of these, and it seems fitting since she's now a big-bad tenth grader!!

 

 Absolutely love these pictures from the beach in June of 2007.  Here we are with Brie and Talia too!

 

 This was at a get together at Gram's old house in the Summer of 2007

 

 This picture was from July 2012 when Kadence first got sick and Alivia organized a Kills for Kadence volleyball tournament

 

 So proud of her and all she put together!!

 

This is from our annual beach trip this year, 2013.  We had a blast!!'

 

Friends may come and go, but family is forever!!!

Central League

If you've followed my Facebook page, you would have seen that Jason's summer baseball team won the Central League Championship this year, which hasn't been done since the 1980's!

What's even cooler is that there wasn't a photographer at the game that night, so the local newspapers printed my pictures :-)

How awesome is this!?!

One Year

It's so hard to believe that it's been one year since I got that call during In Service that I needed to get to Penn State Hershey immediately.  It was a Tuesday, and we had just been to the hospital Friday, Saturday and Sunday the weekend before, but I knew this time was different.

 

That weekend, we had seen a decline in her functioning after her seizure, and in increase in her discomfort, but nothing could prepare me for that phone call.  Jason and I had been bouncing calls back and forth since we had both gone back to school by then and were in and out of meetings.  It was after lunch that I realized that this wasn't just another bump in the road, this was a serious pothole.  I was crying so hard that I couldn't even see to get myself down to the office to ask to be dismissed to get to the hospital.  The next few hours are a complete blur.

 

From doctors reports to waiting with family, I was just counting down the minutes until we could see our princess.  We all took turns with her saying our goodbyes and telling her how much she was loved by us, and my chest still gets tight remembering that room.  The staff at the hospital were amazing and allowed someone to always be with her, and those last visits were priceless.

 

I didn't know how to say goodbye to one of my favorite people in the world.  What do you say?  How do you remain strong when all you want to do is hold her in your arms?  She was my buddy.  When we would have a get together, we would play on the floor with her favorite toys, we would play school and she even could convince me to help her clean up her room.  Watching her grow up was incredible.  She could draw the best pictures and her writing was advancing at a dramatic pace!  At Thanksgiving 2011, we wrote out Christmas lists for some family members and she decided what she thought each of them should get from Santa.  Those lists provided many chuckles, of course she thought Nonny wanted a fake rose for Christmas, it showed just how creative her little mind was.

 

When telling her how much I loved her during those final days and nights, I know that she could hear us.  She was with us as we all painted our fingernails to match hers so we could share a piece of her.  To this day, my toe nails still match hers and my future daughters will have the same nail polish so they can remember their cousin and how loved she was.  These pictures are our last memories with her and they are worth a thousand words to all the people who were there.

 

Our sweet angel has shown us so many signs lately, but the beautiful sunrise was the icing on the cake.  We have been so blessed to have our amazing niece in our lives and we think of her everyday.  She has taught me so much about life and I can't wait to tell our future children about our first love, our niece.  While the love may be different, we will always love her to the moon and back. <3

New Look!

I finally bit the bullet and took the next step to customizing my blog and making it something I'm more proud of.  What do you think?

 

I bought a template from Kristie at The Dandelion Girl Designs on Etsy, and she made me feel like a genius!  Part of the reason I didn't want to take the next step was because I was afraid of the installation.  Not only did she create my template, she gave me step-by-step instructions on how to install it!  She even made customized social media buttons as well.  She's AWESOME!!!

 

If you are ever looking for something, check out her page!!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thedandeliongirly

 

Also, she created some signature options for me, so I'm looking for your input!  Thoughts?

 

#1

 

#2

 

#3

 

P-a-t-i-o

One of my favorite things to do at my parents house was sit out on their screened-in-porch.  While I knew I'd never win the screened-in vs. patio battle, I couldn't wait to get a backyard that I loved to spend time in.

 

Cue the backyard that we moved into...

 

 

Beautiful, huh?  While it wasn't our dream backyard, we got a steal on our house, so we knew we could eventually make it what we wanted it to be.  So what we did originally is just rip up the gorgeous hideous mismatched pavers that were so strategically put in place, run where the sump pump puts out the water to farther away from the house and we got this once the grass grew in:

 

 

 

 We filled in the big hole in front of the Bilco doors and gave them a fresh coat of paint as well.

 

We didn't spend much time out in the backyard even though the grass grew in, instead we were those people who sat on their driveway in folding chairs at nighttime to enjoy the outside.

 

We saved up for two whole years and finally got the ball rolling with Travis from Webster's Landscaping and of course I took pictures to document the process.

 

This was the end of day 1, ground leveled and graded, and ready for day 2.

 

Day 2 was full of stones and compacting

 

 

 

Day 3 was pavers, pavers and more pavers.  Somehow I even got roped into helping with this day.

 

 

 

Finally, Jason added some new beds, we put out our patio furniture, and we're starting to get the yard back in order with grass seed and straw.

 

 

 

We have already spent many nights out on this patio and cannot wait for all the memories to come!  It's FINALLY finished!!!

 

Check out pictures from this project and other house projects here: http://jasonandmalerieshouse.weebly.com/