Ally's Song

Tonight I played Ally's Song for the Relief Society Christmas Party. I kind of need to still work on it and I need to put it to paper. I still haven't finally completed Evie's song on paper and I wrote it 3 years ago. I'm almost done putting hers on paper. But I just finished Allyson's. So far my collection of compositions are for passed people. I wrote my first one for my nephew Benjamin Charles Fletcher who was stillborn in December 2006. I wrote Evie's Song in 2007 before her birth in June. I then wrote my cousin's baby Ruby a song. She was still born in September 2007. Ally's song I finally wrote from a song that I made up previously for one of my friends two days ago and my first performance was tonight. All in all I thought it went great. The ending needs some work. I wish I could put it on my blog so everyone could hear them. I was told today that when playing you could picture my Ally dancing around. I hope that is what each of them do when I play there songs.

Ally

Jordan Remembers Ally!

Last week at the Jensen Family Dinner we were delighted to have Kedra, Jeremy, and little Rebecca at dinner with us. Kai, Mia, and Jordan had a great time playing with Rebecca. All though Jordan insisted that Rebecca's name was Baby Ally and called her that the whole time Rebecca was there. Kai and Mia decided to call her Baby Becca. Poor Jordan misses Ally too. So do I.

Another story of remembering Ally!

i Mel! I just have to tell you what happened at the Festival of Trees tonight:

Carson and I were walking along looking at all the trees and he was happy to keep up with the fairly quick pace I had set. Then we came to your tree and we stopped to admire it and when I took Carson's hand to move on to the next tree, he didn't want to come with me! He just stood and gazed at your tree, pointing at all of the angels on the ground, excitedly waving his arms and saying, "Dat! Dat!" Every time I tried to take his hand, he would pull away and refuse to move on.

I thought he would be excited about the electric trains, cars, dancing Santa, other toys, etc on other trees, but your tree was BY FAR HIS FAVORITE. I really believe that the veil is still thin for him and that he remembers his friend Ally and could sense her presence there. It was a truly sweet experience we had at the Festival of Trees tonight that I never would have expected but am grateful to have had.

I just wanted to share that with you. The tree was beautiful! I love you!
Laurie

CHERUBS Organization!

Josh and I just recently found CHERUBS which is a charity that is directly for CDH Awareness, Research, and Support. Josh is so happy to find them and has been brainstorming Ideas to get the word out and do fundraisers in the West part of the US. The East part of the US does tons. Josh and I want to do a Masquerade Ball in the spring and a Snowman Making contest this winter. More Information will hopefully come on this. Josh has never been so excited about anything before. He calls me 3 times a day just to tell me his brainstorming ideas. I think it is fantastic. Not a a lot of people know what CDH is and there is much money need to find out how to prevent. CDH is what Josh and I call the most deadliest birth defect no one has herd of. It is more common then Cerebral Palsy and spinabyffida. And yet know one knows about it. it has a 50% infant mortality rate. 2500 babies are diagnosed each year. Josh and I are a very rare case. Out of the 2500 babies there is only a 2% chance of having it happen again. I haven't met anyone with 2 fatalities yet. But I have met some families who have had it twice. Most of them have had one that has passed away from CDH and one who is a Survivor. Most also have other normal children as well. Josh and I are so thrilled to have found the CHERUBS organization. There a support group for grieving parents, expectant parents, grandparents, and survivors. It is just great to know that there is other people out there that understand what you are going through and have been there too.

Anyway. We met the head of CHERUBS Dawn on line the other week. We told her that we wanted to be involved as much as we can. We are both one of the reps for Utah now. Josh got the great idea to do a Tree for the Festival of trees this year using the CHERUBS as a sponsor. We asked Dawn it that would be ok. Dawn loved the idea and gave us permission. She also told Josh that she had purchased all these cherub ornaments and didn't know what she was going to do with them. She said that she must have been inspired to get them because we needed them for the tree. Josh and I have received some great decorations for the tree. Today my mom and I went to Modern Display. We found some of my favorite things so far. A Statue and 3 Cherub ornaments. I want to keep them. So excited for decorating day on Nov. 29. Please let me know if you would like to donate to the tree.

Cherub tree!

I think the tree turned out quite will for only having 3 weeks to finish it. the festival of trees runs November 30 to December 4, 2010 at the South Towne Expo Center. 9575 South State Street Sandy Utah 84070. Come and see. All proceeds earned go to Primary Children's Medical Center. Our tree is on B308.