October

 I don't remember much about October besides trying to keep as busy as I could. I was mostly in a fog and Halloween and the boys' birthday hung over me heavily.

But the beautiful thing about children is the excitement they have over holidays and birthdays. Even though we felt so sad without Keith, we knew Cole and Ally deserved to have a fun Halloween. And we knew Keith would want us to celebrate, too, since it was his favorite holiday. 

Ally was her favorite princess, Snow White. Good thing I chopped her hair, right? I decided to be the evil queen from Snow White. I found my dress at Goodwill for $6.  I added a fake (and scary) pair of eyelashes to complete my outfit.

Brent went as William Wallace from his favorite movie, Braveheart. The mullet wig was pretty stellar. Almost as awesome as Cole thinking his dad was wearing a skirt.

Cole was "Ninja #5" for our church Halloween party. This look included jeans and a superhero t-shirt, a Sheriff Woody vest, a Batman cape, a ninja hood with a #5 on it, and various weapons. I regret not getting any pictures that night! We were in charge of the ward Halloween party so it was an insanely busy night.
The night of Halloween, Cole decided to be "Iron-spider". What is that, you ask? Well, it's a Spiderman head and an Ironman body, of course. Cole was offended whenever anyone at the door asked him what he was for Halloween. "Grrrr...I'm Iron-spider!"

Caden and Hunter joined us for Trick-or-Treating as Ironman and a monkey, respectively.

I wish I remembered more about October, but I don't. I started to read through my journal from then and it mostly just sounds sad. So I think we can call it good with Halloween. We sure missed Keith and all his Halloween excitement. Cole and Ally had a lot of fun and we just did our best to join in.

September

September was the strangest month I've ever experienced in my life. It started, obviously, with Keith's passing and funeral. I felt like I was walking around observing my broken life as an outsider. I responded to people normally, I think, but it was as if I was on auto-pilot while remaining detached most of the time.
I wanted to include some pictures of Keith's funeral. Our Funeral Director recommended that we take a picture of Cole and Ally with two special pairs of something. The kids would then place one in the casket with Keith and have one to keep for themselves. I thought this was a great idea but stewed all week over what the kids would use. I wanted it simple but somewhat meaningful. The night before the funeral, it all came together.

Cole is holding a pair of bears my mom gave me at my baby shower when I was expecting the boys. Cole remembered which one belonged to whom and was very careful in putting Keith's bear next to him.

Ally is holding Bernard and Bianca from The Rescuers. Anyone who spent time with Keith last Spring/Summer knows how much he loved that movie. One of my sisters and my mom found the pair of mice on Amazon last Summer and Keith got to enjoy them briefly before he passed.

Keith is buried in an LDS section of the cemetery next to the Zoo and Children's Museum. He is as close as a plot can be to the Portland Temple monument.

Anyone who attended Keith's viewing or burial, can attest to Cole's attentiveness to his brother. He rarely left Keith's side and would remind other children to be reverent. It was the sweetest and most heart-breaking thing I've witnessed. But I want Cole to know if he doesn't remember it, how he truly was his "brother's keeper" that day.

Cole and our beloved Bishop Eckhardt.

Aunt Darel and Cole at the luncheon.

Me and some of my besties from BYU. They were so sweet to come from  AZ and CA to support me.  15 years and 13 children later, it's pretty awesome to have such great friends.

Smartie Sibs

Uncle Shea and Ally

The day after Keith's funeral, we took our trailer (did I just say that? Yes, we co-own a trailer with Clint and Julie. My sisters will never let me live it down). Anyway, we hauled our trailer 10 hours in 2 days to a special fishing spot of Brent's. We camped, fished, hiked and just got away for several days. We were in the middle of nowhere. No cell phone service, no internet. Fishing on dry flies took enough concentration to help distract us anytime we were on the river.

This is the first picture we took as a family after Keith died. I remember it so well because I just hated taking it without Keith. Brent's parents came along for the first few days which was nice so they could help with the kids when we felt pretty unmotivated to do much of anything.
I appreciated such concentrated time with Cole and Ally. I had often felt bad about not spending the time with them that I would have liked to in recent months. We went on countless "witch hunts" around camp. Just this week they asked to go back so they could look for good witches and bad witches in the forest.
As a side note, I had Chelsea register me for the Boston Marathon while we were camping. I only had a short window to try and get in and of course, I had no internet. So, Chels registered me while we were camping and I found out the day we returned that my registration was accepted. I wasn't even sure I wanted to run it. My heart couldn't have cared less about a race at that time, but Brent strongly encouraged me to have Chels register for me while we were gone so I would have something to focus on throughout the Winter. He was right. I'm glad to have it to focus on right now even if I don't care about it as much as I once did.

Blog Blitz

The task of catching up over the last few months has overwhelmed me to the point where I've avoided it. Obviously.
In an effort to right my wrong, I'm committing to a Blitz. One post for each month, starting with September. I'm not going to write anything fancy. I'm just going to post some pics and say a few words about the month. If I can just get caught up, I can get back to blogging regularly again. Because every time the kids say something funny or I think of something remotely interesting to share, I feel like I can't update because it's weird to just jump in and start writing when I've been absent from the blogosphere for so long. If I haven't completed the Blitz by Sunday, Sydney: you can shave my eyebrows. There, I said it. No turning back now. Ready, set, go.

Let there be lights

As is customary every Christmas season, we headed to Zoo Lights again this year with some friends and Aunt Chelsea. Chels is our official family photographer--one of her many talents. We rode the train first. Keith LOVED riding the train so we had to do it first.

Brown-eyed girl. Those enormous, dark-brown eyes almost always tip the scale in her favor. Unless her dad is involved, and then they tip the scale EVERY time.

 Monkeying around.

 Why is it that our kids spend more time playing on the statues of animals than enjoying the real animals at the Zoo?

 See? She's got her Dad right where she wants him. He's just eating it up.

 Cole and I were having a contest to see who could stick our tongues out the farthest. I think I won.

 This is for all you WVHS grads out there. Ram Power!
I'm such a nerd. I'm going to want to delete this picture in the morning.

 I wish I could remember the details of what Cole was talking about here, but something about Superheroes and some electricity gone-wrong in the magic gingerbread house. He gets so specific sometimes and I get lost in the details. It was intense. That's all I recall.

 And getting a little loopy on the way home.

Couldn't have done it without Aunt Chels!

We had as much fun as we could possibly have without sweet Keith. We missed him and we talked about him. We went to his grave on the way home since the cemetery is one exit from the Zoo (and the Children's Museum), which is partly why we choose that spot. He's near at least two of his favorite places. We took him two little Christmas trees: one decorated with candy canes and one decorated with green and red ornaments. Ally helped pick them out and Cole helped take them to Keith's spot. Even though it was cold and he was tired, Cole really wanted to help place the tree on Keith's grave. He is such a good brother. We're proud of him.

***
I think I'm supposed to be catching up and I will, I think. But not tonight.

"Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!"

This is what Cole and Ally would be singing to me if they knew it's been over 2 months since my last post when I committed to keep up on this old blog. At least if they were singing the "Liar! Liar!" ditty, it would give me a brief reprieve from the "Batman smells" version of Jingle Bells that Cole sings literally all day long. I'm not joking. When he's not belting it at 85 decibels, he's humming it or playing it on his air guitar. Or my personal favorite, he makes up new versions that include Spiderman and Lizardman or Wolverine and Magneto. His Spiderman one from this weekend went like this:
"Jingle Bells,
Spiderman smells,
Lizardman got away!
The sewer just got stinkier
And Green Goblin played ballet!"

A budding Axel Rose. We're so proud.

I'm really not sure how to catch up so I'm going to just give a quick update and do my best to catch up throughout the week. I think the number one reason why I've avoided blogging is the pictures. I hate to post without pictures and I really hate not having any pictures of Keith to post. I have hardly taken any pictures in the last 3 months. It's not fair to Cole and Ally, I know. I've got to do better. It's just really painful to take pictures of "the kids" and not have Keith in them.
In an effort to right my wrong, I took some of Cole and Ally on Sunday after church and the reason I felt like I could post them is because if you look closely, by Cole's right arm, you can see a sweet, smiling picture-ornament of Keith hanging on our tree. (Thanks to his nursery leaders three years ago). So, he's still in the photo which makes me feel better about posting again. I didn't plan it that way at all which makes me even more convinced that I should keep writing. His presence is still here.

 And Cole insisted that if he smiled for a picture, that I needed to also take a picture of him singing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells..." So, as promised, here he is singing below. Ally's bewildered face and physical distance says it all.

 I took Cole and Ally to see Santa and two of his reindeer on Friday: Comet and Prancer. They were so excited to hand Santa their lists. Cole has an extra piece of paper in his hand where he drew a picture of Santa and Keith and himself. I wanted to keep it but Cole really wanted Santa to have it, so I guess I'll have to get him to draw me another one. Santa said he would put it on his fridge in the North Pole though, so I guess that's almost as cool as being on our fridge at home.

Cole and Ally talk about Keith throughout every day. It's actually becoming more often instead of less, which surprises me. I know there will come a time when they won't talk about him as much and that will make us really sad, but for now, we are so grateful for the memories they have and especially that they have a desire and a safe place to share them. I try to record them every week in my journal but there were a few this weekend that I thought I would share.
Out of the blue on Saturday, Ally said, "Mom, you know what Keithy liked to do? He liked to scoot around." And then right after that she said, "Hey Mom, you know what Keithy didn't like? He didn't like stretching his feet." (I would have to stretch out his heel cords which was miserable for both of us.)
As Ally was eating her second candy cane of the day yesterday, she said, "Keithy LOVED candy canes!" with a big grin on her face. She also prays in every prayer to "please bless Keith" and "we're thankful we will be a family again" and sometimes she even prays "that Keith can come back soon". That gets me every time. 
My dad told me that after my brother died at the age of 1, (I was in first grade), that I would pray every night that he would come back. I guess children can't help but ask for what they really want, especially when the idea of "permanence" is not a concrete element for their developmental age.
Cole prays every day that he is "thankful for Keith and glad Keith will always be my brother." Cole always wants to hear stories about when he and Keith were little(r) and he is constantly taking things to the cemetery for Keith. His latest items have been a sword from the dollar store, a McDonald's toy, some bracelets he made and a green candy cane. A few weeks ago, Cole and Ally colored at least 20 coloring sheets to take to Keith's grave and they were all colored green since that was his favorite color. I had to put them in a plastic bag so the rain wouldn't completely ruin them, but up to the cemetery they went.
This weekend Cole wanted to sleep in Keith's bed so of course we let him. We split the bunk beds into separate rooms when Keith was referred to Hospice since we thought it would help both boys sleep better. So, we now have "Keith's room" and "Cole's room" which is a little strange since they always shared but for now, that's the way it's working around here. Cole's clothes are all still in Keith's room because that's the room they shared together. This way, Cole can create disaster zones in not just one bedroom, but two. It works out really well for the maid...I mean, me. I actually think it's been good. Not the maid part, the part of having Cole's clothes in Keith's room. Cole is in there several times a day so it hasn't become an "off-limits" space or anything like that. Aunt Chels has slept in there for several nights and when she's gone, I've been known to slip in there for a night or two. I keep trying to capture his scent. It's really fading which makes me so, so sad. I know it can't last forever, but I wish it would.
Cole had my iPad yesterday and I noticed that he googled his own name and had done an image search. When Brent and I asked him "why", he explained that he was searching for pictures of Keith and himself. Brent went through our blog with him to show him some pictures and we reassured him that he can look at pictures of the two of them anytime. (This was also a parental "note to self" moment that I need to supervise Cole more closely on the iPad. He can google his name? And do an image search? Good thing his name isn't Hugh or he might have discovered some pretty spicy images pop up).
Cole is always telling us about things that Keith liked or did or if we see a new movie, he will say, "Keith would have liked this show, Dad."
I'm grateful for where we are as a family as far as communication goes. I can sometimes see people bristle when we say Keith's name or talk about him so freely but for us, that's the best way to handle it and I'm glad we can feel like he's still such a part of us when we miss him so desperately.
I could say a lot more but I'm calling it a night. I've just got to get at least one post up so I can start to catch up! If I try to do too much, I'll never post again.
So, I'll just leave you with a small window into the skyscraper of Cole's imagination. Last night before bed, he was explaining to me that he, the blue Power Ranger, was pretending that our little Santa statue was a robot Santa, made with wires and electricity, but he didn't know he was a robot Santa. Instead of giving toys, he had been stealing the toys. Hence the bag of stolen toys slung on his back. So, Cole was there to investigate and to fight the robot Santa so he could save the real Santa. It sounded more complicated and cooler when he said it, but basically that was the jist of his scenario he was acting out. I got a few pics before he noticed me.

And Ally, such a little squeeze, trying to run around as fast as she can so she doesn't have to go to bed.

Also, I feel like I should explain Ally's shorter hair style these days. The day after Keith's funeral, I was not in a good place emotionally, obviously. So, when Ally got out of the tub and I couldn't get a comb through her locks, I literally grabbed the closest pair of scissors, got a brief and hesitant nod from my sister, and chopped a good 6 inches off her hair. It was supposed to be less, but she turned her head right when I snipped and then I had to even it out, or at least my version of evening it out. I was never very good at drawing straight lines, so it was pretty haggered for awhile until my Mom took her in to get it fixed. Ally didn't seem to miss it one bit but it was her dad that I feared. He loved her long and unruly mane but probably because he didn't have to force a comb through it or tackle Ally to the ground to attempt a pony tail every day. Thankfully, Brent took it easy on me and actually, dare I say, has grown to love it. I mean, who wouldn't love any hairstyle on that face? Also, I thought it would work better for Halloween since she was going to be Snow White. It was all part of the plan. I think.