Happy Birthday Taylor!!!!

Wow… Yesterday was just awesome!  What a great day.  God is so good.  Thank you to all who said a prayer for us!  I definitely felt “…the peace of God, which passes all understanding…” (Philippians 4:7) yesterday as we celebrated the birthday of my baby brother, Taylor Ryan Carr, who passed away on September 20, 2012.  He would have been having a blast if he was there with us!  

Not only did God give us a beautiful day with sunshine and a warmer temperature, but he gave us tons of family and friends to surround ourselves with to remember the life of someone we all loved very much!!  

There were about 70 people in our group, TEAM T.CARR!!  We started the day off participating in the COLOR DASH!!!!  It’s a 5k race where you wear as much white as possible because throughout the run at different points you get different colors of powder paint thrown at you!!  It was way fun!  

 Everyone in our little family was there to celebrate.  We had Audrey and Hannah in the stroller and whenever we came to a point where we would get hit with color, we just threw a white sheet over the top of them.  Roen was having a great time!  He walked most of the way, only needing a piggy back or shoulder ride occasionally.  Audrey got out of the stroller and thought she would run for a little bit like everyone else.  I think she thought she was running reeeally fast, too! ;]  Hannah got sick of sitting, so she was carried for the last mile of the race.  

At one point we passed by the cemetery, right near Taylor’s resting place.  So we all made plans in advance to meet there.  My dad said a prayer and then all the children released birthday balloons into the air!  This was attached to the balloons!  I hope someone finds one someday, somewhere and lets my family know!  That would be so cool!

Everyone was having such a great time, laughing, playing, and throwing paint at each other!  What an awesome way to spend the day!  At one point I was looking down to put my number sticker on me.  Just as I bent down, Derek threw a big handful of paint at me and I got it right in the face, and in my mouth!!!! Mmmm, sure was tasty! :P

After the race, we all headed to the park where we would have some food and share some great memories!  Dad and Loretta invited the woman who did Grandma Cleo’s funeral to share with us.  She showed some illustrations about loss which I thought were very fitting.  She laid three large terra cotta pots on a few tables and then asked people to smash them with a hammer, signifying how we feel broken after the death of a loved one.  Then she handed out rolls of duct tape and told us to put them back together.  It takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot of help.  Also, when you put it back together, it’s never the same as it was in the beginning.  I was very thankful that she shared that we can only find real peace and healing through God!!  Amen!!

My dad shared some really great memories.  It was so much fun to hear these stories, some of them for the first time.  He thought he was up there boring everyone, but I could have listened all day!  

I shared a song that I had written months ago about my brother.  It’s called “Taylor” and it’s to the tune of the Taylor Swift song, “Ronan,” about a little boy who died of cancer.  I did it without background music.  I originally wanted to sing it right there for everyone, but even  the thought of it would bring me to tears.  The first time I sang it for Derek I couldn’t even get through it.  So we recorded it onto a CD and played it.  I was pretty embarrassed because I don’t like hearing my voice recorded, and I haven’t sang solo in front of a crowd since I was in 5^th grade.  The thought of singing in front of anyone but my little family is a big fear of mine!  Also, I had to make a disclaimer that I DO NOT by any means think I am a wonderful singer!!!!  This was just a special way for me to express some very deep feelings that I needed to get out.  

We all ate cake and ice cream and then released some more balloons.  The table tops were decorated with little flower pots, painted white with a picture of Taylor on the front.  Everyone got to take one home.  Roen and Audrey each got one with a photo of them with Taylor.  Hannah got one too, a photo of Taylor being silly.  Sadly, there will never be any photos of Taylor and Hannah together as she was born 4 days after he passed away.  

I’m just so thankful to God that this turned out to be such a wonderful day.  I’m so thankful for the peace that He alone has given me in light of a very, very awful life experience.  I’m so thankful that He carries me when the days are too hard.  I’m thankful that He gives healing to broken hearts.  I’m thankful that Dad and Loretta are looking to Christ for their comfort and for their salvation.  It’s amazing to see good come out of something so bad.  I praise God for it all.  

Now… enjoy these awesome photos, and go hug your little brother, if you have one!!!!! :-D

A Mommie Day!!

I just have to say, once again, how much I love my husband!  This week I was feeling very overwhelmed and so he arranged for me to have a personal day today – ALL DAY!! :D  Very special thank you(!!!!!!!) to Grandma Kerri and family for watching the children for me!  I’ve been racking my brain, and I do believe that this is the very first full day that I’ve had to myself since Roen was born… that was nearly 4 years ago.  Wow!  I think it was a little over due! 

I’m just thankful that I got to have this day to do whatever.  I didn’t use it exactly the way I would have liked to (This morning I had a flat tire that had to get changed in town and I had to make a trip to Mason), but I’ve enjoyed it, regardless!  Right now I’m just relaxing, writing this post, and uploading photos from our collection of memory cards onto the computer.  

I’m also loving the fact that, even though it’s still chilly out and we had snow this morning, the sun is shining through and warmer days will be here when they get here!  :]

I do have a big favor to ask.  Please pray for me, Derek, and my family.  We’ve got an emotional day ahead.  Tomorrow, Saturday, April 20, will be my brother’s birthday.  It will also mark exactly 7 months since the day he died.  He would be 19 years old.  Now he is, as I say, “forever 18.”  Very heartbreaking. 

We have been planning for months to spend the day together as a family.  It just so happened that Dollars for Scholars, the H-D high school’s senior scholarship club, is having a Color Dash 5K that same day!!  What a fun way to be all together!  So we’re all signed up, all ready to participate!  The weather will be nicer than it has been the last few days, and sunny, but still not as warm as you’d think it would be in late April!  Oh well!  “This is the day that the LORD hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!” :]  

I created a personalized design for our group, TEAM T.CARR!!  (That was Taylor’s nickname, T.CARR)  This will appear on the back side of our color dash t-shirts.  This whole thing kept getting bigger and bigger and now there are around 70 people in our group!!  Crazy!  

After the walk, we’re going to a rented building in town where we can all be together, eat food, and share sweet memories of my brother.  I asked friends and family members to please send a birthday card to Dad and Loretta – one they think Taylor would have loved, and to write something special in it.  I thought it would be a nice keepsake for Dad and Loretta.  We’re also asking anyone and everyone that is celebrating with us to please come prepared to share a memory, their thoughts and feelings since his death, and maybe if they have something special that they’ve created, like a poem they’ve written, etc.  I am going to record a song that I wrote for my bro and play it for everyone.  I originally wanted to sing it at the party, but even just thinking about singing it in front of every body chokes me up and I can’t get through it.  I’m pretty nervous because I’m not like a really good singer by any means, but this is something special that I’d like to share with everyone.  

We’re also planning at some point to visit Taylor’s grave site and do something special.  I’ll report on it later.  

I’m very excited to be with family and friends again and to talk, talk, talk about Taylor, but I’m also unprepared for the emotion that has been hitting off and on throughout the week in preparing for this day, and the flood that will probably hit while it’s happening.  It’s very hard to grasp that he is not here and I will never see him in this life again.  It really hurts.  I can’t describe the pain and the feeling of loss.  I miss that kid so much and life is moving on whether I want it to or not.  

So as I said, please, pray for my family and I.  We’re in for a heart wrenching day ahead.  I know there will be many tears, but I also know there will be many big smiles and lots of laughter and fun.  It’s very sad that Taylor is gone and we won’t be able to build any new memories with him, but I’m so thankful to God that the memories I do have with him are just awesome!!  The last day I ever saw my baby brother alive is one of my favorite memories with him.  He gave me a big old hug.  But that was just like Taylor.  Always ready with a hug.  That was the last thing I ever got from him and I’ll never forget it.  :]

My Baby Brother

My Step mom just sent this to me.  I wanted everyone to see so you could get a little glimpse of my brother.  It's very hard for me to watch.  I miss him so much.  Just click on his name and it will take you to a different webpage.

Taylor Ryan Carr