Favorite Foto Friday - Mother's Day Edition

Today's FFF theme is "Mother's Day." (I'll fill you in below on what I've been doing in just a few) O=-) It was hard to decide in which order to start sharing these pictures. Did I start with my favorites? (Those that have Brent, Zach and Gabe in them) Or those that have my own Mom? Well, I decided to start out honoring my Mom first. She probably deserves a medal for raising my sister and me. (Although, I'm quite sure I caused MORE trouble.. LOL!) I also want to give an honorable mention to my sister, Kerry since for almost a year she was our stand in "mom" for Zach & Gabe while Brent was in treatment. Yes, she and her husband selflessly took our boys in and kept them when our world began to fall apart. (St. Jude housing rules will only allow 4 to a housing unit - there were FIVE us in all) We decided rather than trying to alternate which of the other two boys would be with us, we'd just leave them together and visit when we could. Their little lives were in shambles too... why separate ONE of them from the rest of us? Anyway.. they moved in with my sister's family and they brought them to see us every week that we didn't get to come home.


So here's a picture of my Mom, my sister (Kerry) and me.






The next is a FOUR generation shot with my Mom, my Grandma, Zach and Gabe, and me.





Now, to share some of our boys and me. This is one of my FAVORITES! Yes, I know my hair is blowing all over my head, it's special to me because it's one of the last "formal" pictures that was made with all of our boys together. My cousin Stephanie offered to come and do a photo shoot at our home just before Brent entered treatment again. (We'd JUST learned that he'd relapsed)





Our sweet Brent & me..





This one is a little older... It was one of the last "formal" pics that was made of our boys & me JUST BEFORE we learned Brent had cancer in 04.





Another with Brent... (EVERYTHING seems to fall under "pre-cancer, during, or after." It's CRAZY like that...... This is DEFINITELY a "pre" photo.





One with Zach... (Also a LOONNNNGGGG time ago.. LOL!)




One with Gabe... it's about a MILLION years old.. HA!!!!!!!





I'll end with one of my all time FAVORITES. It was also taken by my cousin Stephanie. If you've been to Brent's caringbridge site then you've already seen it... A "kissy moment" with Brent (Okay.. I'm a dork, I forgot it's also on my blog. HA!!)








Okay, so I said I'd fill you in. Well, I'll have to do it quickly because I'm about to keep Allie Grace for the day. (WOOHOO!!!!!!) I'm just a little excited. LOL!

I don't know if I mentioned it here, of if it was on Brent's site but I've been dreading Mother's Day just a bit. Please don't think I'm ungrateful for what I have. I'm SO THANKFUL for all THREE of our boys - ESPECIALLY for the time we all had with Brent. It's just a little hard to think of celebrating being a mom without the FIRSTborn here with us. With that said, I've been trying REALLY hard to keep busy. Hopefully, I'll share some pictures of what we've been doing around here soon. All is "well" here on the home front... just missing Brent a little more these days.

Now, I'd like to end with one of my most memorable "Mother's Day" memories EVER. It was May of 05 and Brent was nearing the end of his treatment. (Although we didn't know it at the time... we wouldn't know it at all until we heard "No Evidence of Disease.") Well, we were living in the Target House (St. Jude Housing sponsored by Target) and I was SO SAD to think of celebrating my first Mother's Day EVER without having all of our boys TOGETHER. Link was driving us around Memphis (we were killing time). It just so happened (I'm pretty SURE that GOD was pulling the strings) that we were just heading back to our "place" when I got a call from my sister. She SAID she was just checking in... however, when we got out of the truck and looked around we saw them. They'd driven up with our boys to spend the day with us. It turned out that we weren't separated at all!


Yes, I'm SO VERY THANKFUL for my loving family, friends and these PRECIOUS gifts of LIFE that GOD has given us! Brent, Zach & Gabe changed our lives FOREVER in the most POSITIVE ways!!! Thank You, JESUS, for BLESSING me with such precious gifts - I LOVE them MORE than life itself.



HAPPY Mother's Day, my FRIENDS!!!


For more posts on this "FFF" visit Sarah at Kiss The Frog 4 Me.