Carleigh’s 3rd Birthday

I wasn’t sure how year 3 would be. I was hoping it would be a good day but you just never know how emotional or not it may be. Thankfully, both the day before and her actual birthday were good days. Even the days leading up to her birthday weren’t bad. I only had a couple moments. I think maybe I would have had more had I not been so busy with everything and taking care of the girls. The girls certainly keep my hands and mind busy just themselves, especially Lainey!

The day before her birthday something neat actually happened. The 27th was the day we went into the hospital for my induction with Carleigh. In the early morning on the ride to the hospital I was able to feel Carleigh hiccup for the last time. On the morning of the 27th around the same time Evanee got the hiccups. It was just really neat and I wanted to share. It totally took me back there but not in a bad way. It made me smile to remember that time because I think of Carleigh’s last hiccups as a gift from her.

The week before Carleigh’s birthday I ordered her cake. I knew I didn’t want to get a huge cake and have a ton of it left over like the previous year so I got a small cake and browsed the internet for possible designs and customized it with the colors I wanted. I think it turned out really good. The cake ended up being bigger than I thought it would and we still had cake left over so I took it into work the next day to share. It was delicious!

I had Anthony pick up the cake the morning of Carleigh’s birthday and also some balloons too. Before we left the house I made sure to get a pic of us all in our purple and with Carleigh bear of course!

We went to the cemetery so that I could change Carleigh’s flower arrangement to a more spring one and to also release the balloons we had gotten. I let Kyndra release the balloons when it was time.

After we were done at the cemetery we spent the day as a family at an aquarium. The girls really enjoyed it, especially the shark tunnel. Carleigh bear even came along! We visited a candy shop next door to the aquarium and picked up some goodies for all of us (cotton candy for me!).

When we got home we had steak and twice baked potatoes for supper and then cut into Carleigh’s cake.

I had wanted to go through Carleigh’s pictures and perhaps some videos too but that didn’t end up happening. By the end of the day I was so tired I just wanted to go to bed! I did spend a little time the day before though looking at a few items in her memory chest so I’m glad I at least got to do that.