A short one today

Hi everyone,

I was all excited to tell you all about our Hallie today, but time is just not allowing it. Exactly 5 months ago today, our sweet Hallie went to be with Jesus and her big brother in heaven...it seemed a perfect time to tell you about how amazing our little girl was and about how we saw God so much through her life. (Incidentally, I was never a girl that liked pink - too frilly for me and I told everyone Hallie wouldn't wear a lot of too cutesie pink stuff. Well, almost every blanket she had was pink, I bought pink things for her, and I LOVED to see my pink baby in pink - she was so girlie and I LOVED it!! I chose the pink backdrop on this page in honor of her.)

Today is also my Mom & Dad's 44th wedding anniversary, and Reagan and I are getting ready to pay them a visit. (They are vacationing in Port Aransas, about a 4 hour drive from us.) We are leaving in about an hour and I have laundry to get ready and packing to do, so I will keep this short today and hope to get back to share about Hallie on Sunday.

I want to share three quick notes on this day - the first is one of the main things we learned from our precious John's life. We really saw that you never know what life will bring and you have to treasure each moment you are given and make the most of your time with those you love. John's short life had a tremendous positive impact on the quality of our time with Hallie, and we are forever thankful for the influence that he had over us. We interacted with her so much more, and we have so many positive memories to hold on to thanks to John.

The second quick note is when I think about Hallie's last day, I am overwhelmed by the peace God gave us, by the truth in the Scripture that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, and by the joy I now feel knowing that Hallie is whole and healthy in the presence of God. There is just too much to share here and I will try to do it justice in a few days.

The third is a 'moving forward' note - the genetic variant that Hallie had showed up in Reagan's chromosomes as well, which means it was probably a normal variant and not the reason she died. We are meeting with a genetic counselor on Feb. 18th to find out more, but right now, it looks like Hallie's condition was not genetic and that is GREAT news!!

In the meantime, please pray for Sam Owens and Kayleigh Gurzinski. Hallie was on a prayer list with these two precious ones. Sam appears to have some internal bleeding and his parents may have to make some difficult decisions if his condition does not improve. Judging from her mother's posts, Kayleigh would have been Hallie's best friend - they would have danced together and partied in pink all the time...she is having a lot of GI problems and may have an infection to deal with on top of all that, so please pray for these two precious children of God and their families.