Our Young Warrior ~ Evan Matthew: One Month . . .

. . . since my beautiful boy was born into our arms and then shortly after into God's.

This past month has included precious moments and has been full of my loved ones and I sharing beautiful memories, surviving challenging times, making new memories, enjoying family, friends and fun. Some of this I will share on my son's blog now.

September 1st our second child was born and our daughter met her baby brother. Our family met our beautiful boy. On this day time stood still for a moment but when it did come time our family stood by us . . . walked with us as we continued our journey and said goodbye to our beautiful boy.

The following day, September 2nd, we were blessed to have Evan's first party in our home . . . Evan's home . . . to celebrate his life and welcome our sweet boy into our lives. Thank you again and again to those who were there helping us celebrate Evan's precious life.

We were blessed with family and friends who stayed close by helping us with our daughter, our home, and our grieving days after Evan's birth.

Two weeks after Evan's birth my husband, daughter and I went on our first ever family camping trip. I had wanted to do this for a long time and felt anxious about going. We had wanted to take advantage of our time together. I wanted to be as close to nature as possible thus hoping to be close to Evan but couldn't help feeling a little nervous about going this soon after Evan's birth. We had a great time packing, loading up the car and on our road trip to our destination. The moment we arrived and turned into the camp site where we would be setting up camp moments later we saw them . . .

. . .a momma and baby deer. It may be difficult to see them but because I was in such amazement I hadn't thought of getting a picture until they were walking away. When we first pulled in and saw them I was simply excited to see two deer standing so close to our car, staring at us and not running from us. Then, we watched as the baby deer went to his mother and began nursing. I knew at that moment that my family was going to have a beautiful camping trip together on our first of what will be many family camping trips.

Here is a picture of us on one of the hikes we took while camping. It was so much fun and I'm so glad we thought of using the timer on our camera! :-)

We were happy to have family join us on Saturday.

Sis in law, Jen, and nephew came for a day of fun!!

Spending fun time in the tent with my sister, Abbey, nephew, and daughter while it poured :-)

Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pics of my bro in law or father in law but they joined us too and we had a great time. As we exited the park on Sunday afternoon there were two deer standing near the gate as if to say thank you for coming and please come again. :-)

We visited a beautiful park where we (and some of our family) have purchased a memorial brick in honor of Evan. I would like to give a HUGE thank you to Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc. I encourage everyone to visit their website (http://www.nationalshare.org/) to learn more about the services they provide/offer and to find an office close to you. This agency and the people working for them are highly recommended by me! This agency is phenomenal and the women that I have met at our local office are amazing. We are looking forward to three very special Share events coming in October, November and December that will bring us much hope, comfort, peace and joy as we honor and remember our sweet boy. Thank you Share!

Below are two pictures of the park where our bricks will be placed in honor of Evan later this month or early November. Also in this park is a beautiful statue of the Angel of Hope.

I picked up t-shirts for our team that will be walking at the National Share Walk for Remembrance and Hope later this month. A huge thank you to Share again for this event that I am truly looking forward to and a HUGE thank you to all those walking with my husband, daughter and I in honor of our sweet baby boy!! We are so grateful! Your presence during this journey has been and continues to be so very much appreciated!

This past week I sat around the table with my daughter, mom, and two sisters, Kristy and Abbey and made buttons for the Share walk with Evan's beautiful face on them. Doing this with these amazing ladies was wonderful and I am grateful for them, their time and creativity!!

Also this month, I was able to request that Evan's name be written in the sand in Australia by an amazing woman, Carly Marie, who lost her son, Christian. She has dedicated her time to create a beautiful memorial for parents all over the world by writing children's names in the sand on Christian's Beach. Her name, work and story can be found at this site: http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/. Evan's name written in the sand can be found here: http://namesinthesand.blogspot.com/2011/09/evan-matthew.html.

My family and I went to the zoo this past week. It was a beautiful day and we were lucky to have my big sister in town to join us. We began our walk around the zoo starting with a peek at a black bear. Immediately after seeing the bear and at the beginning of our day at the zoo we saw this: