Celebrating Our Angel's 1st Heavenly Birthday!

Facing this day had been giving me so much anxiety for many months.  I just didn't see how I was going to get through the day.  I knew I wanted to do my best to remember my baby girl on this day.  I guess I really should not have worried because it seemed like God just worked everything out.  Our plans were finally made to take balloons and cupcakes and celebrate with family during lunch and then going up to Mattie's little spot on earth to take her balloons and then release them to go up to her in heaven.  We ordered some of my new favorite cupcakes from Whole Foods with pink frosting of course.  Since Whole Foods doesn't use any artificial coloring and only uses natural ingredients, the frosting was made with real strawberries and just tasted divine.  We met Grandma, Papa James, Aunt Naomi and Uncle Sam for lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant in Daddy's hometown.  Mexican is always one of our family's favorites so I know Mattie would love it too. The boys sang "Happy Birthday" and then blew out their sister's candle.  Then, everyone wrote special messages as "birthday cards" on the balloons to send up to Mattie.  The balloon release could not have worked out better.  It was actually raining a little on and off through the day, but the clouds had cleared over the cemetery and allowed a circle of blue sky to peek through.  The balloons floated right on up through the clouds, and we know our little angel received her messages of love from us!

Pink birthday balloons for our birthday princess.

Making a special wish for baby sister.

Blowing out the candles together.

Sweetest big brothers in the world!

Can you just imagine the big hugs Mattie would be getting from these two?

Mommy enjoying a yummy cupcake for her baby.

Enjoying a good meal and dessert with family.

Writing our messages to Mattie.

Evan's message

I wrote Brody's, and he added some drawings.

Aunt Naomi's message

Daddy's message

Mommy's message

Since pink and aqua have tended to be special colors for our baby girl, we took some pretty new pink flowers with an aqua bow and a cute little sparkly butterfly to decorate her special place.

Her birthday flowers and balloons.

The boys spending sister's birthday with her.

Our whole family together.  And yes, you may notice I look a little different.  I had just colored my hair a vibrant shade of red for a change so it was still looking pretty bright before washing it.  I have always been a little envious of red heads like my son so I thought I would try it out for a while after being blonde all my life.  

Evan getting ready to send his balloon to heaven.

Mommy with her special balloon for Mattie.

When I gave Brody his balloon to hold, I just knew he would let it go right away; however, that was not the case as he did not want to let it go and got a little upset about it. 

Daddy with his balloon

Grandma with her balloon

Aunt Naomi, Uncle Sam and cousin Grady all sent special balloons.

The whole group preparing to release our balloons.  

Daddy smartly set up the camera on the tripod set to take a rapid succession of pictures of all of us releasing the balloons.

Sailing straight up to heaven. 

They kept going up up up so we know Mattie received them! 

We hope you enjoyed your special day, sweet Mattie!  We enjoyed celebrating you!