Hudson's 1st Birthday - Dec. 22, 2009

While back home in WA over Christmas, we celebrated a very important day in our family, that will always have a special place in our HEARTS.  We celebrated our Warrior's first birthday.  It was certainly not how we anticipated celebrating his first birthday, without him here with us on earth, but we still CELEBRATED nonetheless.  See, we know that our celebrations here on earth cannot compare to the celebrations Hudson is a part of on a daily basis in heaven.  But while we're still here, we will continue to celebrate his life each year on his birthday, and remember the special time we spent with him while he was here with us.  This year, for his first birthday we spent a few hours at The Dancing Brush, painting some pottery pieces in Hudson's honor.

Conner & Mike working on their projects

This is the jet Conner painted to remember Hudson

Malynda's heart jewelry box & my Warrior's Heart coffee cup

Conner's tugboat plate - also to remember his little brother

We visited Hudson's grave-site as well, which is always a little different for us, knowing that he is not really there - it's simply a marker on the ground in remembrance of his journey.  We know he is dancing in heaven, not buried beneath the ground.  

Shortly after Hudson passed in April of last year, one of the ideas Conner came up with was to let some balloons go fly up to heaven for baby brother Hudson.  This has become a regular occurrence, and in fact almost every time we go to Red Robin we get an extra balloon to send to baby brother in heaven.  We carried on this tradition on Hudson's birthday with some birthday balloons, one from each us to Hudson.  It is a pretty cool way for Conner to remember his baby brother, especially since it's an idea he came up with.

While this past  year has most certainly presented us with a fair bit of hardship and pain, the overwhelming and un-waverable JOY found only in our faith in Christ has been what has sustained us. There were plenty of days when we were unhappy, and frankly downright sad or even angry at times.  But even in the midst of the myriad of emotions we've experienced, the JOY of the Lord is our strength.  Joy is not dependent upon our emotional environment or circumstances surrounding us, it is a constant that does not waver, does not falter.  It is the Joy that is only found through our Faithful Father.  It is this Joy in which our hope remains, the hope of our own individual future glory, in which we will one day join our precious Warrior who awaits our arrival to our perfect home in heaven.  Until we arrive there Hudson, we miss you and we love you so dearly.  Not a moment goes by when we don't think of you.  You will always be our second little boy and will never cease to be included as a very important member of our family - a son, little brother, grandson, nephew, and soon to be big brother as well.  We love you Warrior!!!