This past year has brought so much change; Shortly after my last post I discovered that yet again I was expecting, I was scared, I cried myself to sleep every night for 2 weeks. The morning of the first ultrasound I shook. The technician held my hand, she smiled and asked how many children I had at home, I knew then that this baby was gone just like the others before. I was wrong she laughed and showed me TWO tiny hearts beating away, they were perfect, they still are on December 27 2010, we welcomed the final touches to our family. At 10:44 and 10:45 pm Finn Madden and Emerson Maxine Brinkworth entered this crazy mixed up world. Finn came in at 6lbs5 and Emerson was 6lbs11 with both being 20 inches, they have more than healed a broken heart.
What else has happened to us, well.................We got sunburned playing in the pool all summer, baseball was played until we could no longer see the day and we ate snow cones until we became sick, baby chicks hatched in our hands and we saw life close up.
We chased sleep away as we laid under the stars and giggled over nothing and sang songs nobody else had ever sang. Camp fires smoldered and marshmallows burnt as we looked at each other and smiled the smiles that only those like us can share.
School started and the days became shorter, the winds again turned cold as the leaves fell and crunched under our feet.
We met family that before we had only heard about. We visited, we ate. And then we visited some more.
I reluctantly said goodbye to my Grandmother, we both knew it, and we held it off for as long as possible. We held hands and she let go first, she said without speaking that she knew, and that it was all right for me to walk away.
Braxton turned 12 and now smiles at us slightly every Sunday as he proudly walks the chapel in his white shirt and passes us the Sacrament. He is now also the proud owner of his first gun a .22, it took him 2 months to decide on the model.
Carsten is now 10, it seems like it was just days ago that I held him for the first time. He is still the little blue eyed boy that stole my heart.
The Holidays came in a blur, Thanksgiving was fast and easy. I was too big and uncomfortable to cook much in the way of a "traditional" dinner, I remember a turkey.
It seemed fitting that this year as we celebrated the birth of our Savior we oh so impatiently waited for the births of our babes. We made 2 failed trips to the hospital before "the day" and then it went so fast, my liver was failing, I felt awful and now looking back at pictures I looked worse. Our "perfect ending" and "happily ever after" came quickly via emergency c-section on what became a very snowy night.
My Grandma died.
There I said it, she suffered a massive stroke and in the early hours of morning, when the colors of night change and the shadows hold secrets, she passed silently through the veil. On the day that my tiny innocent babes, that only months before she had felt fighting for space inside of my body reached their first month of life she let hers go.
Mike took a long needed break from "the park" the stresses of long days that were only broken up with tragedy was taking a toll on him. He spent time with us, gave the new pilots the training they would need for the windy days at "The Big Ditch" and played modern day cowboy herding deer with a helicopter with the Game and Fish.
Our first miracle baby turned 4, he is such a wonder. I shudder still when I think back to the day he arrived and was quickly taken away. Only my memory of that day shows scars.
It's Spring again, the winds are back with a vengeance that only we here can understand. Tiny balls of fur are beginning to venture out of burrows and small calves, their belly buttons still unhealed are wobbling and wandering beside their proud mothers.
Ardynn turned 9, the baby sister that was so proudly announced to the world by a loving older brother as Mardynn Argeret is now a whirl wind of life.
We have faced the illnesses of children, known ones and some just met that strike fear with their mystery. But we face them with hands clasped and prayers in our hearts and on our lips.
Kallison turns 7 in just eight short days. How she brightens our lives. She is so innocent and is ever the easy going one.
Our lives continue, the days go fast and are filled with so much sound and color, it amazes me the way it all melds into the life we call ours, mixed up, turned sideways and some days are even backwards, but there ours and we love them............
Ya we're back and we are here to stay!
