Remembering Jill

Three years ago our sweet friend entered the gates of Heaven.  I STILL think of her so often and selfishly miss her.  Sunday night on the way home from our weekend at my parents, Cory and I had a long conversation about her.  We talked about her life, her ministry and her death.  We reflected on how we each met her and knew her individually and collectively!  I truly treasured my friendship with Jill.  She mentored me and kept me accountable through the scripture like no one ever has. She knew how to make the most mudane activity fun and she constantly had a heart to serve others. 

I think of her often and miss her sweet presence. 

And because life moves on, look at this Halloween picture I stole from Scott's facebook of Bryce(Jill's son) .  There is no denying who his momma is.  Praying he grows up knowing what a special momma he had.  I know there will be hundreds of people to testify to it. 

Sweet boy.

Celebrating Strawberry Shortcake style!

We spent the weekend in El Do celebrating Mady's 3rd birthday and Lucy's 1st birthday Strawberry Shortcake style!  Before the party festivities began I caught some shots of the kiddos playing.  Dr. Mady was on call in case anyone got hurt while playing...

Lucy loves playing with her baby dolls

Lincoln is a musician at heart.  He found the piano first thing and became a little possessive of it. 
Real men play pink pianos.

Our attempt to get all three cousins to take a picture together

Mimi with the girls

Lovin' on Mimi

Let the party festivities begin....

Lucy's smash cake



We loved getting to see how big Bryce has gotten.  He still favors his sweet momma and I pray he always does. 



Close up of the sweet guy! 
It never fails that my eyes fill up with tears when I think of her.  I am so grateful God chose to leave a little piece of her here on this earth for us to enjoy. 

Lincoln checking out how the bubble machine works

Lucy could not look anymore like her daddy if she tried!

A very tired Lincoln was not a fan of the slip and slide.

Lucy enjoying her cake...

And Bryce enjoying it too! :)

On Sunday, Cody's church celebrated the graduates which included himself.

A graduate of seminary!

Congrats, Cody!

Family shot

Wicked Reunion

In mid-November, we headed to Central LR for the weekend. Our DCM crew decided it was time to get together again. We met back up at the cabin we stayed at last year for chili and fellowship. It was a short time together but we managed to get in lots of laughs. It blows my mind that it has been two year since Jill passed away. I still have days where I am overwhelmed by her absence. She played a huge part in my spiritual life and I miss her greatly.

DCM Divas.

The boys chatting it up.


Clint and Beka. Soon-to-be-parents in February.

Mountain man, Dustin.

The crew.

We didn't realize that my camera takes 2 pictures when its set to auto timer.

Later that night, my mom and I dressed up, ate dinner at Ya Ya's and attended the most wonderful Broadway show, Wicked. I had a fun night with my mom.

And of course, Lincoln had to have his picture taken with some of his grandparents before heading out on Sunday.

Wheww...what a day!

Wow. What a day we had! I'm sitting here watching the Razorback game on TV in my pj's and decided to reflect back on this day....

It started this morning with our 36 week appointment. I have been having lots of aching and pain in my lower stomach so I was hoping that Dr. P would tell me I had made some progress. However, I wasn't quite expecting what she had to say to us. She said I am 2 cm dialted, 60% effaced and Lincoln is head down and "very low." I was just hoping for one of those things to be happening but never expected ALL of them to be happening so soon! She said "This means this is likely one of your last weekends to get the last minute things done -- you need to pack your hospital bag and install your car seat!" Cory said my eyes about bugged out of my head. YIKES!! Her estimate is that he looks to weigh about 7.5 pounds at this time and that I have more like one to two weeks left. I thought I still had three more weeks EASY or more but it looks like I better get myself in gear. Luckily we are about 90% ready and can conquer the last 10% this weekend. I go back Wednesday morning for my next appointment.

After that Cory and I went to visit a daycare or "learning center" that we are considering for child care. We were able to meet the owner and take a tour. Child care has definitely been one of the hardest parts of this process. I find myself not even knowing what questions to ask. Just lost. I really liked what I saw at this facility and it will definitely be one of our top considerations for August.

Then, on I went to work. My head was spinning with all the things I needed to do to get ready for Lincoln and what things at work I needed to wrap up in order to leave things in good shape. I found myself sitting at my desk wondering where in the world I should start. I managed to make sense of my desk and workload before 3:30 hit.

At 3:30 my school where my office is located threw me a baby shower! My other two schools that I serve were invited as well. It was awesome! We have been extremely blessed with amazing showers and outpouring of love throughout this whole process. (I have a post started that I will finish soon recapping all of our awesome showers!)

Once this awesome event ended, I headed home to meet Cory and head out to dinner with an old friend and a new friend. Tonight we had the awesome priviledge of having dinner with our very good friend Scott and his girlfriend Amy whom we met for the first time. Prior to meeting her, Scott described her as someone that Jill would have loved to hang out with and after meeting her I completely agree. She is a jewel and a great fit for Scott. Scott has told us lots about her and I enjoyed putting a face with a name. We could not be anymore excited for Scott and look forward to seeing what the future holds for him and Amy.

Now, we are home and cheering on the hogs. My brain is tired! This was a big day with lots of fun news, a fun shower and meeting a fun new friend. I have a feeling that more fun days are in our near future as we approach the day of Lincoln's arrival. We could not be anymore happy!! These are exciting days at our home.

DCM Reunion 2009

Our crew got together two weekends ago for a reunion. We are trying to be diligent to see each other often and hang out when we can. We all live hours apart so it takes lots of planning to get us all together. But well worth it because we had the BEST time!

We met up in Conway Friday night and had dinner at Market Place. I never laugh as hard as I do when I am with this crew! Serious belly laughs!! They are all just so fun.

Then, all of us (except Clif and Kristi who had to head home to take care of their son and twins) headed out to the Hospitality cabin at Soaring Wings Ranch. It is such a nice cabin. We stayed up till 2:00 a.m. talking and having a good time! The next morning about 9:00 a.m. I woke up hungry!! I went to looking around the cabin and EVERYONE was still asleep. I took a shower, checked my email, did some reading and by 10:20 I had grown inpatient! I decided to relive some old memories and go stand over Lindsey's bed eating Ghardetto's to wake her up! And it worked -- everyone got up and we had breakfast at about 11:00 a.m. We hung out the rest of the afternoon watching the Razorbacks (lose!).

A very fun memory that I will forever have from this weekend is that the baby gained the nickname of "Baby Kankles!" In one of the conversations on Friday evening the word "cankles" came up. I just thought it was the funniest word and somehow it became the baby's nickname. The next morning, as I was waiting for everyone to get up, I just laid there laughing about that word. I went to put it as my status on facebok and spelled it with a "K." Cory said "its cankles with a C." I, in all seriousness, looked at him and said "How do you know that?" He said b/c the work is calf and ankles rolled into one. I started laughing so hard I was crying. I had no clue what the word meant! I thought it was just a word someone made up in conversation and all night I had laughed about calling our baby that and I didn't even know the meaning!! That made for good times once everyone woke up and I had to tell them that I didn't know what "cankles" was.

We had such a fun time and love getting together with everyone!! Us girls love to have fun chats about our memories of Jill. We all still miss her so much it hurts but it is nice to have the support network there to talk with each other!!

I love this group and hope to have many, many, many more fun memories together!

Party Weekend.

This weekend we celebrated lots of birthdays! Friday it was my birthday. A wonderful friend at work made me a cake and they sang to me! :) Friday evening we headed to Bryant where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and cake with my parents and Lindsey. The Friday night party was for both Cory and I since his birthday is Sunday! Saturday, Lindsey and I loaded up and headed to El Dorado to celebrate Bryce's first birthday party. Lindsey volunteered to take Bryce's 1 year old pics and pics at his party. It was so fun to visit with Scott and see how BIG Bryce's has gotten!! He is so social and loves to smile and laugh. And he could not look anymore like his sweet mother! Lindsey took some great pics of Bryce in downtown El Do. You should check them out here. Here is a picture of us with the birthday boy!

We had a FULL day Saturday running around town visiting friends and family that live there. We were exhausted! Sunday (today) is Cory's birthday. We headed to church with my parents. For lunch us four met up with Cory's mom to eat lunch at a Sushi Bar/Hibachi Grill (Cory's favorite!). We hung out for the afternoon with both of our families and headed back home this evening. We had such a fun weekend. I love it that Cory and I have birthdays so close to one another! Its fun to celebrate together.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Happy Birthday Bryce.

Today is Bryce's 1st Birthday!

I know his mom would be so proud of how big he is and how social he is (that is what I hear at least b/c I have not see him in person too often!). I know several of us girls think of Jill often and wish we could just pick up the phone and talk to her. I thought of her so much when I found out I was expecting because she would have one of the first I would have called to share the news. I can just imagine the excitement and encouragement in her voice. It still doesn't seem real that she is no longer with us but o how sweet her days have been at the feet of Jesus. We all miss you so much, Jill.

Check out this picture I stole of Scott and Bryce off Jill's facebook page. Isn't it the sweetest picture of the two of them! He looks so much like his sweet mother. I love that about him.

Hope you have a wonderful 1st birthday Bryce. Enjoy your Razorback Birthday Bash!

Amazing Weekend with Amazing Friends, well practically Family!

Let me start by saying that we had the most fabulous, the most enjoyable and the most fun of weekend. Now that you understand, let me tell you about it.

Friday night we drove to stay the night with my parents. On Saturday we met up with 6 other friends to drive on to El Dorado. We had been planning a surprise visit to see Scott Attebery and his 7 month old son Bryce. This is the husband and son of my dear friend Jill Attebery that died in a car wreck on November 2, 2008. Go here to read that story. All of us use to travel with Scott and Jill for youth conferences. I traveled with them on about 4-5 trips per year from 2000 till 2004. This group is nothing but a ball of laughs.

So, we were going to surprise Scott but we hadn't really worked out the details as to HOW we would do that. One of the guys went ahead of us and did not say anything about the rest of us coming. When we got into town they had left eating at El Chico and had run next door to Walmart. Dustin (the guy with Scott) had sat in the car while Scott ran in to get some baby food and stuff for Bryce. So, we go over to the Walmart parking lot and find Scott's car. We all decide to pile into Scott's Sequoia (8 of us). We thought we would just surprise him when he got back in the car. So, soon we saw Scott coming and all tried to duck down. When he got in the car he saw Dustin in the passenger's seat and turned around to put his groceries in the back seat. When he did we all kinda yelled "Surprised!" and he took a quadruple take. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He was like "What are ya'll doing here?" and Lindsey yells, "We are staying the weekend" and Scott replied in a mimicking voice "With you?" We were dying laughing. We all piled out of the car and explained a little more about our trip to see him. He was SO shocked. We all get back in our cars and follow him back to his house. When I got back in the car with Cory I told him that Scott looked mad and this was a BAD idea and we should all just go back home. (Or Abort, Abort as Nick would say!!) Cory agreed that his reaction was not one of excitement. At this point we were thinking that this was WAY too much for him to take in.

When we got to his house, he seemed a little more at ease. On the drive he had called Adam (his youth minister and our friend who had been our contact to help us pull this over on Scott) to ask him about who all we were going to stay with. He felt better that there was a plan. I think he was like "What am I going to do with all these people?!?" We hung out at the house and go to see Bryce!!! O, he looks just like his sweet mother. I see Jill so much in those big eyes and his content disposition. Here are some pictures of him. I stole these from Lindsey who took them and is a professional photographer. That is why the quality is so good. You can see Lindsey's photography blog here.

This is when we gave Scott the scrapbook full of the 77 letters to Bryce from people all throughout her life. What a memory!

Even Bryce enjoyed the book...Although at this point in his life I think he would rather chew on it than read it, but I know one day he will cherish it!
After we hung out at his house for a while he took us up to see his church. They recently built a new building and it is awesome! The church has a book store and a donor gave money to have a section of the store dedicated to Jill. It will be a girls/women section full of books that she was always giving away to other girls. In fact, Scott said that when he got ready to do his taxes he pulled out the folder that they kept receipts and tax info in and he found a HUGE stack of receipts of all the book she had given out over the last year. After the tour of church, we drove to Ruston to have dinner at Chili's and coffee/hot chocolate at Starbucks. The whole weekend just consisted of bringing up old stories and crazy memories. A lot of stories were about Jill and something crazy or silly she had done. It was fun to recall all those memories.

Me and Beka at Chili's

Scott drinking his hot chocolate through a straw...b/c as he says "its not as hot when you drink it through a straw!"

Diva Cari and Diva Lindsey (as we named ourselves back when we all traveled together.)

Micheal and Ashley. Poor Ashley, I'm not sure how she puts up with Micheal. :)

Diva Lindsey and Diva Beka

Cory (he is such a good husband) married into our little DCM "family". He was at all the events and traveled with us but it was b/c he was recruiting for the college.

We all stayed with different families in the church on Saturday evening and Sunday morning we headed to Sunday School and church. I had done pretty good with my emotions on Saturday but Sunday morning when we walked into church a wave of emotion about knocked me over. We went on to Sunday School and it was really good. It was just so fun to be apart of Scott's church. After that we went on to church. Scott preached and did a great job. I laughed to myself b/c it is amusing to see Scott as a pastor! I think he has been back preaching for about a month now. At the end of the service he stood up and said, "Well church I just want you to know that I have the most friends here today!" Everyone laughed and he explained who we were and how we had surprised him. He then looked at us and said in front of the whole church, "I just want you guys to know that this has been the best weekend since the funeral!" He got teary-eyed and I lost it. That was enough to just make your heart melt.

After the service, we took the opportunity to get some pictures with Bryce and a group shot.

I love this sweet face.
The whole family!

Top row: Micheal, Cory, Scott, Nick and Dustin

Bottom Row: Bryce, Me, Beka, Ashley and Lindsey

O, how we had SO much fun. I do regret that I never made it down to visit when Jill was still alive to see her in action as a pastor's wife. It was an honor to be a part of such a fun weekend for Scott. Several members of the church came over to thank us for visiting Scott. After lunch on Sunday, we all had to leave. Scott shared that he really missed Jill and enjoyed talking about her. I think it was pretty therapeutic. He asked when we were coming back!! We have decided to make it at least an annual event and hopefully more often. Scott LOVES and I do mean LOVES the razorbacks! He said he plans to come visit soon for a Razorback game. I hope he brings Bryce!!!

Well, if that wasn't enough to cram into a weekend we had ONE more stop. Our friends -- Clif and Kristi -- were also apart of the DCM group mentioned above and traveled with us. However, they were unable to come this weekend b/c they just had TWINS about a week ago! They lived about an hour or so away so we had to stop in and see those babies!! Cory and Clif (the babies' daddy!) have been friends since childhood. We cannot say enough good things about this couple. They have been a huge influence on us and our marriage. On Friday night February 20th, they were born! She carried them to about 38 weeks! Their names are Samuel Strong and Sophia Jill. And yes, Sophia is named after Jill Attebery. I am so glad they chose to name her that. Scott was so honored. I did take the opportunity to take some pictures of the twins. Sorry for the downgrade in the quality of photos. Where is Lindsey and her stellar camera when you need it!

Samuel Strong

Sophia Jill

Samuel

Sophia

Jack the I'm-not-sure-what-I-think-but-maybe-if-I-close-my-eyes-then-the-two-new-babies-might-dissapear-big-brother!

And of course, we had to get a photo opt with both of us and both babies!

Congrats, Clif and Kristi. We are so happy for you guys!

I am still basking in the happiness of this wonderful weekend. Hanging out with Scott and Bryce and the rest of the crew was so familiar and relaxing. Of course we all miss Jill but instead of focusing on that we talked about how much fun she was and what an inspiration she is to all of us. It is awesome to see the book store that will house a section in memory of her, to hear about the scholarships that are going to be created to send other teenagers on mission trips and to look into those eyes of Bryce and see the living legacy of his mother. I cherished this weekend. It was therapeautic for me as well. I have written so much on my blog about Jill, but I still feel like I never convey how amazing she truly was. I have seen lives changed because of her death and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.

Continue to lift up Scott and Bryce in your prayers. It is evident that Scott's hope rest on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.

CEC.