April 10th 2011

Everything was there...the cake, the balloons, the guests. The only thing missing was the birthday girl- my beautiful angel Audrey. Her party (all planned by the amazing Serena Lemmons) was absolutely perfect. The weather even decided to stop being cold this day.

As I woke up that morning, I decided the day could go one of two ways. I could have started the day angry...Mad that my baby wasn't there to celebrate her 2nd year of life. I mean, seriously I believe I even have grounds to have been upset. Everyone else gets to celebrate THEIR kid's 2nd birthdays...and 3rd...and 4th... It just didn't seem fair to all parties. Audrey will never be around to anticipate an upcoming day completely devoted to her. A day where she is in the spotlight and the envy of every other child. And I will never get to plan a day where I can completely spoil my little girl.

Option two was to wake up and to live the day like she were here. Simple as that. This is the option I went with.

I got up, got myself ready and rushed out the door to meet my friends to set up for her party. We baked the cake, blew up the balloons, and had the most pink birthday party ever. I spent the day surrounded by the people who have been here for me 100% of the time...through good and bad. Through my good days and my HORRIBLE days... no questions asked.

As I stepped back and though about everything my friends had done for me..I recalled something my psychologist had told me (yea I'm not afraid to say I'm a nut job in therapy haha). "If you only expect the bad, you will only notice the bad". I realized that I had lived the last 4 months expecting nothing but the worst things to come in life. Noncoincidentally, I only saw the horrible things happening in my life. But as I looked around at all the smiling faces of my friends around me, I realized how lucky I am to have the love and support from them...

So as the wind blew, preventing me from being able to light the candles, (which I am convinced was Audrey trying to blow them out), And As I opened the most sincere gifts imaginable, I decided to try to live life positively. To try to see the good things happening around me...

And as I sent a bunch of balloons to Audrey in Heaven, I knew that she would have loved her party and the people there.