Jordan's First Birthday! Balloon Release!

For Jordan's First Birthday we wanted to really celebrate the miracle and joy we had in meeting Jordan and in knowing that he is now and forever in Heaven joined with our Lord! My first thought was to have a huge balloon release and to order balloons with his name printed on them.

After giving this more thought, I realized that Jordan would not be spending his special day alone, and there would be many much loved and much missed babies gathered around him. I asked my dear friends if they would be willing to allow me to release a balloon for their children as well. Thankfully my friends were willing to join in our celebration! The balloons pictured to the left are the balloons from my sisters at
http://hannahsprayer.org



It was an amazing task to inflate and write names on these balloons, knowing how precious these little ones are.
We put great love and great respect into every balloon, recognizing the love and trust these moms put into allowing us to represent their children at his party. Even my teenage sons treated each balloon as if they had been entrusted with the actual much loved babies the balloons represented. It was a very precious time.
The balloons to the left here represent the dear friends I met at http://hyperemesis.org/forums









These balloons represent babies from http://www.rowantreefoundation.org/
Most of these babies were lost to Trisomy 18.
We released many balloons not individually shown here for babies of mothers I have a personal relationship through emails or our personal relationships. For some reason I didn't think to do a group shot of those babies' balloons.

Some balloons had names of children born alive who later died, like Jordan. Some were balloons of children miscarried in the second or third trimester like Joshua. Some were for babies lost even earlier like Autumn, first trimester or even as dearly loved and hoped for Embies.





With all of these babies represented I really only had one trouble maker and I had to write this note to her Mother...

Now Stephanie, I need to talk to you about your little Isabella. I think she may be a bit silly and wanted to make sure that you knew she was having fun today. My son inflated her balloon, I wrote her name on it, he inflated Lucas' balloon I wrote his name on his, then about ten minutes later, their strings had fallen off. I retied the strings and put them with the other balloons, and a few minutes later Isabella's balloon popped! I got her a fresh balloon in a new color, wrote her name on it, tied the string on, and the string fell off!!!!! Ok, retied the string, put it in the dinning room with the other balloons and while everyone was here her NEW BALLOON popped!!! So I got her a new balloon, the prettiest one I could find a beautiful shade of purple with a silver string. I told her that was the prettiest one I had, and I rejoined her to her siblings balloons. From then on she was fine. I think that she just wanted some attention, and for her mommy to get a personal note about it! I told her too, I said, Now young lady, I am going to tell your mother about this! Her
personallity sure seemed to be beaming down!

As you can see in the photo to the left, we had over 200 balloons. That is a huge party in Heaven! Thankfully some of these babies had grandparents who were probably attending the Heaven party with them!! Just think how busy those laps must have been?!








As we were sitting around eating, the doorbell rang and it was a beautiful bouquet of balloons from Suzanne and Erin!! Now here is the really cool part... I had bought Jordan a special mylar balloon that said "1st Birthday Boy", I had wished I had gotten two of those so I could save one and let one go. THE EXACT balloon was in the bouquet!!! We saved the bouquet and let the other one go with all of the other balloons we had planned to release!! Isn't it so amazing how God works these things out?













Here is our group just moments before the release. Another miracle we received is that all the week before and every day since, the weather has been rainy and terrible, but for Saturday only, we had clear skies!!











UP!














UP!!

















UP!!!



















And Away to Heaven!!!