School Girl charm

Monday, May 16, 2011

Remembering Karinne For Her Birthday - Part1

On Sunday, May 8th, we had a celebration with extended family and friends in honor of Karinne's birthday.  It worked out well that the grandparents, aunts & uncles, and cousins were in town for our son Noah's and my niece Jaelle's 6th birthday party on Saturday.  Then everyone came to our house on Sunday for Karinne's.

For church, Curt, the kids, and I all wore pink for Karinne.  We also each wore a Karinne pin or necklace I had made from various special photos of her.  I had sweet little corsages made for myself and the grandmothers too.


The service included a few special moments in honor of Karinne.  It was youth sunday - where the high school youth group kids did everything for the service.  Since we are dear friends with the youth minister and since I have several of the kids in my art classes - I had requested that I would love it if there could be some special touches to the service for Karinne.  During worship, we sang "Blessed Be Your Name" which holds special meaning to our family since we sang it at both the prayer shower and the funeral last year.  Later, several of the girls sang "In Your Hands" (on the playlist) and sweet Hannah read a beautiful dedication to Karinne before they started.  It was SO lovely and special.  And of course - it all made me cry. 

We ate a yummy meal at our house after church and then hurried around to meet friends out at the cemetery at 2:00 for a balloon release.  When we pulled up to the cemetery and saw how many cars and people were gathered there - I was overcome with emotions.  It was just SO GOOD and SO OVERWHELMING to have so many there to remember Karinne with us.  My sister Jessica passed out balloons and we passed around markers to write on them.  We had filled 50 balloons and used them all - so we had right at 50 people there!!




 


I turned on "Blessed Be Your Name" on our van stereo and we sang along with it as we let the balloons go.  What a lovely sight!  Then we played "I Will Carry You" as we watched the balloons fly away to the north and Curt & I walked around sharing hugs with everyone and thanking them for coming. 



It was a very emotional time but a special time too.  And also a very HOT time!  Believe it our not, it was nearly 100 degrees that afternoon, so we were all plenty hot and icky by the time we left the cemetery!

The other special thing we had planned for the day was to make garden stepping stones.  We had the kids plan theirs out while the cement set up a bit.



Unfortunately, we had a combination of things go wrong:  too much gravel in our cement mix making it difficult to push the embellishments down AND waiting too long to do it so most of the stones got too hard.  So we were only able to decorate 4 out of the 13 or so tha we had mixed up.  Oh, well - live and learn - and we'll try again another day.


At the end of the day, it was time for cake.  Oh, how I wished Karinne could have been there to blow out her candle and get all messy.  It was hard and strange to have the cake without a cute little one-year-old to enjoy it.  But it would have been even harder for me to have NOT made one for her.  At least I was happy with how cute the cake turned out.  A sweet cake for my sweet girl!




We gathered the siblings and cousins around for a photo - like we always do.  And we sang "Happy Birthday" to Karinne.  That was VERY hard for me to get through.  Then we let the kids blow out Karinne's candle.  Oh --- if only..........


It was a special day.  It was a hard day.  It was a day I wish could have been different.  But it meant a lot to me to honor her with family and friends as we did.  Thanks so much to all of you that were a special part of our celebration of Karinne's life. 


11 comments:

  1. I am not sure how to write this. It is all still fresh for me.I couldnt seem to find any sort of button to allow this to email to you without posting on your blog. As I was doing an assignment today I needed the synonym for Acrania and came across your blog.Oh where was this in march i thought. I read your story and cried. I had just went threw this back in march, we lost our little girl at 19 wks and 5 days gesation. She also had acrania, unfortunetly i did not have the strenght you do and carried to full term. honestly my body wasnt going to let me regardless of what i may have wanted. reading your pages has given me hope that it will get easier at some point in time. congrats on the wonderful new addition you are adding to your family and also bravo. I can not imagine having another baby right now. I have one healthy baby girl, well she is not really a baby anymore shes almost 2, that i thank god for everyday. at least i know that no matter what god has given me one perfect angel and another watching over me. How do you do it? how does your family get threw it everyday? i admit more of my days are getting better to handle, i dont cry as much anymore and i dont sit and wonder what if all the time but there are still many days that i dont know what to do. how do i handle this? i am 21 and just lost a beautiful little girl that i will never be able to watch grow up and play with her big sister or have all the wonderful moments together that sisters do. again i wonder how do you do it? your daughter looks like an angel and i can not believe just how strong you seem to be. I honestly could not have a picture of my Serenity because it hurts so much. how do you do it? I know to put it in God's hands and let him help but somedays it seems like I need more than that. Like I need someone else who has been there and knows what I am talking about but honestly I have not found any sort of anyone, until now, that has been threw this. What do I do? How do i get threw this?

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  2. All of the things you planned for Karinne were so special. Thank you for sharing more about her special day with all of us. Wish I could give you a big hug!

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  3. What a beautiful way to celebrate her birthday! Thank you for sharing!

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  4. Beautiful day...beautiful family. You love well....so proud of you.

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  5. good job, Mama... what a beautiful celebration of Karinne's life. and I love the fact that you all wore pink!! ♥

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  6. Everything sounds so beautiful, I love that you all wore pink, love the cake. I'm so glad you were able to have a special day for Karrine. {{HUGS}}

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  7. To Katie Rose: I'm so sorry to hear about your sweet baby. I would love to talk to you through email. You can write to me at kdlarshus@yahoo.com . I keep meaning to add my address, but haven't.

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  8. Sounds like a beautiful day. Everything is so pretty and perfect. I love the cake. Karinne is a very loved angel. Hugs to you and yours.
    Julie (Mackenzie's mommy)

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  9. What a celebration...Karrine has probably gathered all 50 ballons and is enjoying them in heaven. What a great idea! Happy Birthday, little girl!

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  10. Just perfect for Karinne! You made it so special!

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  11. Lovely! Just lovely! I love the pink and her cake and just all of it!

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