Toy Drive 2011

We received $200 in monetary donations, and approx 25 toys donated to our Gifts From Gavin Toy Drive this year! I just finished our order from the Charity Mattel catalog and we were able to get so many toys...8 baby rattles, 8 ring stacks, 4 block sets, 2 shape sorters, 2 baby dolls, 6 mini magna doodles, 3 Dora microphones, 6 Disney princess Barbies, 14 Disney Princess play sets, 6 Batman action figures, and 36 matchbox cars! That's 95 toys!!!! So we collected 120 toys total!!! AMAZING!!! I tried to divide the resources evenly between baby toys, and girl and boy toys. I'm SO excited for the toys to get here so we can take them to the hospital! Its going to be awesome.

Thank you, thank you, thank you SO much for your donations! This is so very special to our family to be able to help the kids at the hospital, and to honor Gavin's life at the same time. I will post pictures of the toys in the next week or so!

Toys 2010

 

Can you spot your toy??

The cardboard box Evienne is holding is the portable dvd player we ordered with the cash donated.

 

We printed these labels to stick on all the toys.

Sarah helped us bring the toys in...she was Gavin's nurse a couple of times and remembered us. 

Thank you so much for all your donations! It was really special for our family to be able to give them to the Children's Hospital. They will help the babies and kids there SO much!

Gavin's 3rd Birthday

 Our Cub Scouts planting Gavin's tree! 

They did such a good job...they even dug the hole all by themselves!

 Yummy cookies...

...and milk!

 

Halfway to hitting our goal of signing up 15 people to be  registered organ donors.

 

Everyone who signed up got a green awareness ribbon for Organ Donation.

We hit our goal!!!
All of our Cub Scouts earned their Donor Awareness Patch! :)

 

All the toys donated!

Gavin's tree with yellow ribbons of remembrance tied on by our family & friends. It is a Flowering Pear and should be covered in white flowers in the Spring.

Thank you to everyone who came to Gavin's Party. It means so much to us. We only have one day a year now to celebrate our little man's life. Sometimes it feels like he was only here for such a short time that no one will remember him. So this is our way of saying he was here, he lived, he mattered and we love him and miss him still.

Donating Toys on Monday!

The portable dvd player we ordered online (from the cash donations) came in the mail today...so we'll take it and all the toys donated at Gavin's Party to the Children's Hospital on Monday. (thank goodness, because I'm tired of policing them from Olivia!)

If you didn't get a chance before, you can still drop off a toy donation this weekend! Just stop by whenever!

Even just one little baby rattle can make a WORLD of difference to a little child and their family that is stuck in the hospital for a long period of time. We used to anxiously await the Child Life Specialist's visit to Gavin's room so we could pick out a new toy for him to play with.

Its especially hard for babies and toddlers because they are stuck in their crib all day and all night. (you don't exactly want them playing on the FLOOR! ugh!) If they have anything contagious, they aren't even allowed to go to the playroom. And worst of all, most of the time you can't even go outside, either because its too hot, there isn't a child play area, or you don't have permission from the doctors.

We spent a whole week stuck in a tiny hospital room with Gavin one time...it was really hard. All he could do was watch dvds or play in his crib. (That's why wagon rides were the BEST- he could actually leave the room!!!) But unfortunately, most of the babies at the hospital don't have parents with them all day and night, so they are just alone in a scary, new place. The nurses can't be with them all the time, so they have to just leave them in their rooms crying. We would hear little ones crying all day and all night and calling for their Mommy and Daddy, and it just broke my heart.

So if you're able, we'd love to take your toy donation to the hospital when we go! :)

2nd Annual Gifts From Gavin Toy Drive

It would be Gavin's 3rd Birthday on October 6th, and we're doing another toy drive for Banner Desert Children's Hospital to honor him! We're also going to plant a beautiful tree in our front yard in his memory. We'd love to have you celebrate his life with us!

Stop by for a few minutes, drop off a {new} toy for the hospital, tie a ribbon of remembrance on his tree, and eat birthday cookies & milk! We'd love to see you...even if you only 'know' us through our blog, or through a friend of a friend of a friend! Being able to help others is the ONE thing that makes his loss a little easier for us to bear, so we hope we'll be able to donate LOTS of toys to the kids at the hospital where we spent so much time with our little man!

 Wish List for Children's Hospital:

  (new in packages & unwrapped, please!)

• toys for ages infant-5 years
• board books
• white noise machines
• crib mobiles & music players
• bouncy seats
• portable dvd players
• preschool age computer games
• a cash jar will be available, too (to be used towards a portable dvd player(s)!)

We've had some Out-of-State friends ask how to participate, you can order a toy online and have it shipped directly to our home (our new address is on the invite above!), or donate cash through paypal using Andre or Bethany's personal e-mail! (funds will be used to buy a portable dvd player(s) for the hospital!)


Another neat thing we are doing is having our neighborhood cub scouts participate in the event. I happen to be a Den Mom to the Wolf & Bear Cub Scouts (including my son, Joenick!) and I thought it would be special for him and his buddies to help out. So they are going to try to earn their Donor Awareness Patch by having a booth for people to sign-up to be registered donors. Each boy needs to sign one person up, so if you've never gotten around to it, they'd appreciate it if you could help them earn their patch! This is what it looks like...pretty cool, huh?

We've only ever had a couple people sign up when we've had register forms out in the past, and we have 11 cub scouts (!) so I hope we have enough people sign up for each boy! If you only have the sticker on your driver's license, but have never formally registered through the Donate Life Network for your state, you'll still count! (Out-of-State people can help, too...just register through the website above & let me know so I can add you to our tally!) Thank you!

Here's some more information:

• Facts about Organ Donation
• Common myths of Organ Donation
• Religious Viewpoints on Organ Donation
• A Mother's Plea

2 years

2 years gone.

If Gavin had only gone on a church mission, he'd be coming home today.

I'd be holding him today.

I'm immensely jealous of all those who've had that reunion with their children. I don't get letters, e-mails, phone calls, or pictures. And he's not coming home. Ever. There won't be a homecoming for us...at least not in this life. And so it may as well be never.

In all honesty, today hasn't been so bad (comparatively). Just one more year in a long, long life of years to come. One more notch in my stick. One more blink of an eye. One more long sigh. One more day of tears and longing.

It won't be the last, so there's no sense in giving it all I've got. There are plenty of years ahead of me to perfect my sorrow.


I miss you, baby.


"I Miss You" by Avril Lavigne


I miss you
Miss you so bad
I don't forget you
Oh it's so sad

I hope you can hear me
I remember it clearly

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found
It won't be the same

I didn't get around to kiss you
Goodbye on the hand
I wish that I could see you again
I know that I can't
I hope you can hear me
Cause I remember it clearly

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found
It won't be the same

I've had my wake up
Won't you wake up
I keep asking why
And I can't take it
It wasn't fake, it
It happened you passed by

Now you're gone
Now you're gone
There you go
There you go
Somewhere I can't bring you back
Now you're gone
Now you're gone
There you go
There you go
Somewhere you're not coming back

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found
It won't be the same

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found
It won't be the same

I miss you

September

September sucks.

I didn't think this year would be so hard. The last few months have been so good. I've been happy.

HAPPY.

I never would've believed I could feel that way. So I thought, its getting easier, its going to be fine from here on out. How soon you forget about the tidal waves...

I didn't even realize how close the anniversary of his death was until a few weeks ago. I kept thinking 'its been a year and a half" and then all of sudden it was just a month away. Since then, the storm clouds have been rolling in. I feel anxious and weighted down. Its nauseating. No matter how I try to ignore it, I can feel the pressure increasing. Its like even if I don't realize it, my soul does.

That part of my life feels like a dream now. Everything is fuzzy around the edges. I try to hold on to it, but its sand through my fingers. Sometimes this makes it easier to bear...sometimes its just really depressing. I want all of him to remain crystal clear, but with that comes the sharp, glass edge of pain.



"Wake Me Up When September Ends"

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

like my fathers come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when September ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when September ends

summer has come and passed
the innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

ring out the bells again
like we did when spring began
wake me up when September ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when September ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

like my fathers come to pass
twenty years has gone so fast
wake me up when September ends
wake me up when September ends
wake me up when September ends