Birthday Party Complete

Wow! I am pretty sad to be finishing my last birthday blog. I have enjoyed telling each of you about Hayden's birthday celebration. If this is your first blog to read in awhile, you can go back and read from the beginning four blogs ago.

We enjoyed Hayden's birthday week! Hayden started the week out in Florida. He concluded the week with a birthday party at Black Bayou Hunting Club. We had many loved ones travel from across the United States to see Hayden turn one! We are blessed with so many people that care. More importantly blessed with so many people that express their caring hearts to us directly. Brent and I would not have strength to continue with our lives if it was not for the positive thoughts and words from friends and family. We have gained so many friends through this difficult time in our lives. Thank you for treating our child equally. Thank you to such an awesome group of supporters that love Hayden like their own!!

Hayden began his pre birthday dinner with a meal at Shermans. He was so excited that his Uncle Andrew could celebrate with him. Andrew had to go out of town for Hayden's birthday. He was devastated. We surely missed Uncle Drew. I am so thankful for the bond that each of my brothers have developed with Hayden. As young men, I must admit that yall are truly going to be awesome father's one day! The meal was amazing. He even ate a bite of lemon ice boxed pie. He then got lots of kisses from his Aunt Meg and Aunt Kelli. Kelli snuck alot of birthday loving as Hayden was in an amazing mood!

The following are pictures from the family and friends that attended the Sherman's Pre- Birthday Celebration! THANK YOU for helping kick Hayden's Birthday party off right!!!!!

 Thank You God for the Perfect Birthday week!

 He is so thankful for his Aunt Meg and Aunt Kelli! He loves both of them dearly!

 Aunt Kelli and Uncle C! Wow where would I start? Helpers, Encouragers, and friends through THICK and THIN! Thank you for your love for our child. We can not wait to return the favor one day!

 Miles and Miles to come celebrate a birthday party! Thank you Linda and Paige for driving 14 hours to celebrate this special day!

 Nona and PawPaw Love!

 Nana and PaPa Love!

Hayden had his birthday lunch with his Nona and Papa at the Yacht Club. He was pretty excited about turning one! He decided to sleep through lunch to prepare for his birthday celebration.
Hayden then went to visit his Nana, Cousin Linda, and Paige. He stayed with them while Mommy and Daddy rain to the grocery store. He loved getting some Nana love!

Hayden then had a birthday party at Brown's Pharmacy. The girls wanted to give him a birthday gift! They love Hayden. We LOVE them too!

Hayden hurried home to get ready for his birthday dinner at the Cowpen. He was able to meet his cousin Cash for the first time. I am pretty sure they could become best buddies! We enjoyed seeing Mindy, Missy, Matt, and Micheal! I sure wish I could see our family more often! We are so fortunate to have some awesome family! Dinner was great! Hayden received another piece of pie!


Cheesecake for the Birthday BOY!

 Cousins were worn out after a late night dinner!

We hurried home to sleep and rest up for our big celebration on Saturday. He was greeted at the birthday party by many loved ones and friends. My grandmother's family all came down. We were only missing our sweet Aunt Jerry and Uncle Lee. Mrs. Angie's family was all able to make it! Hayden's great grandma Mrs. Mrytle even made it! We were so excited that she felt well enough to arrive! WOW! So many family members were there to encourage, love, and show our family support! Remember support is what gives Brent and I strength!

FAMILY!

 MORE FAMILY!

 FAMILY LOVE AGAIN:)

 AGAIN:)

 LOTS OF LOVE:)

AUNT MEG LOVE

 

FAMILY LOVE

COUSIN LOVE

 MILES AND MILES OF FAMILY

MINUS DREW:(

They love each other! Uncle B was able to get a large smile out of  His Chi!

We are so thankful for Aunt Patricia. She does not care what time of night we call her. She always seems to make us feel better. A nurse in the family is a plus! Especially a caring nurse!

My Daddy is awesome! He has an awesome family! So glad they made the drive for Hayden's day! Cash is an amazing cousin!



Friends! Wow! What would we do without each of you? Thanks to each of you for caring so much. The friends section is nothing more than a simple thank you. With over 100 people at his birthday party, I'd never be able to place a picture of everyone. I just selected a few random pics:) Our friends seem to understand us so perfectly. They are such encouragers. They pull us out of the hole when we fall deep. They invite us over when we need a smile. They bring us supper when we have a bad day. They send simple messages when we are down. Thank you to each of you for being apart of our life.

Thank  you to each of you for being such great friends. Lauren: We've been friends for awhile! Thanks for becoming even a closer friend when we are at our worse. Thank you for understanding our heartache. Thank you for loving Hayden like your own! Lacey: Thank you so much for being such a supporter to Hayden. Your prayers are heard. Your meals have been wonderful! The love your child gives Hayden is memories in my heart for a lifetime.

  Lisa: Thank you so much for all of your tears, screams, and yells with me. Thank you for all of your hospital visits. Thank you for allowing your children the opportunity to understand that Hayden is just as wonderful as a healthy one year old. Thank you for allowing us to love your kids like our own. Thank you for loving Hayden like your own.

 Hmm... Where do you begin? Thank yall! Thank yall! Thank yall! The love that yall give our child is something that brings tears to my eyes. The way Hayden looks at yall is amazing. We would not be the people we are today without all of yalls advice. Lauren, I know your not very strong. I know you love to cry. I know you have left my house crying a ton of times. I do thank you for not giving up and staying strong for Hayden and myself. Hayden loves each of you like family.

 Hmm. Where do you begin! A HUGE THANK YOU TO BOTH OF YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES. FROM GREENVILLE TO INVERNESS, WE LOVE THE DILLS AND GRECO'S! We are so glad to call yall friends! Thank you for all of your sweet morning messages! Hayden loves each of u!

 We are so thankful for all our friends that came to Hayden's party. Thank you for stopping your busy schedules to be apart of Hayden's special days! Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your motivation! Hayden can not wait for you to move back home Miss Carrie!

 We are so blessed with so many new friends that have hearts of gold. We are so blessed with awesome supporters and friends! Thank you Leah for all of your help with the fundraiser and more importantly your kind messages and genuine prayers.

 Neighbors? Hmm! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! We had dreams of our boys playing on a dirt pile. We had dreams of running around chasing our boys. Our dreams have been slightly altered. Thank you for still loving us! Thank you for not giving up on our dreams. I can not wait to watch the boys run around together one day! Oh what a glorious day!

 Okay, I am getting slightly emotional as I think of how blessed we are. Thank you friends from new to old. Thank you Holly for being there for us. Thank you for explaining how you dealt with your brother. Thank you for sharing your amazing mommy with me.  Thank you to my high school bestie for treating Hayden like your own. Thank you for the kisses to the outfits to the feedings etc as the list could go on. Thank you for being the first person that I called to scream at. Thank you for driving to Jackson to hear the doctors say our little boy would never walk and talk. Thank you for not leaving my side as my dreams were crushed. Thank you for reminding me of how lucky I am!

Thank you to all of the other friends that are not picture. Everybody is amazing. Hayden's birthday party was amazing. I am slightly upset as I do not want to end this blog. I am ending this blog with a large amount of emotions and questions in my mind. What does the next year hold? Thank you God for answering my prayers. Thank you God for allowing me to see his first birthday. I am slightly selfish as I want to start planning his second birthday. My prayers have changed. I hope that I can write this blog again next year. I pray that this is only the beginning and not the end. I am going to do my best to remember that tomorrow is not promised for Hayden or anyone in pictures above. I am thankful for the 376 days that you have given me with Hayden. I hope that you give me more.

Well I guess it is that time. Time to end this blog. I hope that I am blessed with the opportunity to write a blog this exciting again in my lifetime. I never thought I would see Hayden's first birthday. God answered this huge prayer for us. We are so thankful! I am going to pray that I receive the opportunity to plan a rainbow and sunshine party next year.  Brent and I rarely saw each other until the end of the party. We took all of the balloons outside together as a family of 3. We had a moment together to make a wish and a simple prayer. We released the balloons into the sky. We wished for a good year of zero suffering. We sent the balloons to heaven to Thank God for allowing us to celebrate with Hayden on Earth.

As the balloons floated into sky, we simply smiled a happy smile. A smile of joy, a smile of hope, and a smile of receiving a miracle. Hayden Brent is the Sunshine in our life. Without Hayden, we would not have such a large ray of sunshine! Thank You God for the best year of our life!

Wow! I am back! I LOVE LOVE LOVE to BLOG on Hayden's Birthday!

I would never be able to blog on each individual gift that Hayden received so this is more of a simple thank you! Opening gifts for Hayden was once again bittersweet. The main reason was the word TOYS. I WISH that Hayden could get a tractor, car, and a swingset. Instead people had to use their imagination. I had thought about donating toys to Batson like we did at 6 months. I then decided that I wanted to VOID the hospital out of his first birthday. I wanted Hayden to be treated like every child in America. Remember the saying Treat others as you would want to be treated?  I am mighty proud to say that Hayden has some creative friends. The first gift that I opened was a card from some dear friends. They had made a slide show to all of Hayden's photos from the year. I cried and cried! Creative and Awesome. Hayden received a football signed by Archie and Eli Manning. He received adorable clothing. He received crosses, angels, frames, albums, books, paintings, gift cards, money, pediasure and the list goes on. We are so proud that our friends made his birthday perfect. Thank you for giving us a lot of smiles. Thank you for helping us make his first birthday a special memory.

WooHOO Diapers:)

I am thinking of hanging this above his bed and redoing his bedroom!

He even received creative outfits that matched his birthday theme. This outfit made me so excited that I changed him during the party:)

 He received many inspirational verses. He loves his bean bag chair from Aunt Meg too:) He is relaxing:)

 He has a wardrobe FULL of adorable new clothes:) Mommy loves her stylish little angel:)

Hayden also received many cards in the mail. He LOVES getting mail. ENCOURAGEMENT is the way  to staying strong. Hayden received over 50 cards during his birthday week! He even received some extra ordinary gifts. Hayden has an angel friend  watching over him in heaven. She asked her mommy to give Hayden a gift card to red leaf  for deer handprints. We are going to do our deer handprints Thursday. Thank you Landry for caring so much for our angel! I would love to blog on the 60 plus gift he got. Unfortunately, I'd never be able to say enough great things about everything.

I had an Elementary friend named Mary Beth. She has followed Hayden's blog. She went through the trouble of getting Hayden an autographed shirt, ball, and cardinal mascot. WHAT an awesome birthday surprise! Hayden was so excited! I am going to frame his shirt. We will have a wall of autographs for Hayden in his "big boy" room. Mitchell Boggs #41 from the St. Louis Cardinals has a new number one fan! I am sure to him its nothing more than a signature. To our family, its so much more. His signature is a memory, a precious smile, and an experience. We are so thankful for his simple signature. We are so thankful for Mary Beth's creativity! We love the fact of allowing Hayden the opportunity to experience more in a few  years than many kids do in a lifetime. How many one year olds have Eli Manning and Mitchell Boggs autograph??? Hmmm.... We might have to take him to a football and baseball game instead of the beach :)

An autograph is nothing more than a signature to a famous person or an athlete. An autograph to a parent of a terminally ill child is tears, smiles, and memories. I am so thankful for these awesome people!

GO CARDINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the worse parts of Hayden's disease is that I have nobody to talk to. It is so rare that finding somebody living with it is few and far between. HEARTBREAKING. Well until my blog ended up on Christine's computer screen. She has been such a rock to me! Bethany and Christine sent Hayden this book!

Do you believe in Miracles? Do you believe in angels? Do you believe in HOPE? Do you believe in teaching your children life lessons? If you answer YES to these questions, I'd recommend ordering this book. Thank you Christine for a simple reminder of why I will NOT give up on Hayden. Thank you Christine for reminding me that I HAVE HOPE FOR HAYDEN!

Wow! I feel like my blog was SOO long last night! The problem is thats only the beginning. Our angel turned one! Our angel beat all odds! I am sure that you now understand how PROUD we are! We spent 4 months planning for the perfect day. I would go look for Micheals and Hobby Lobby's over baby stores on vacations. The one thing that I did not have to worry about was the cake. Most of you are probably thinking YEAH RIGHT! You are always buying unique cakes monthly for Hayden so why would I not worry about this one. Well believe it or not! I did not see Hayden's cake until everyone else. I will admit this made me extra anxious!I applied Hayden for Icing Smiles in December. He was accepted to their cake program in February. I figured that I would have to drive to Jackson to pick the cake up. Little did I know they would be 40 minutes from me. Little did I know they would be the sweetest people ever. 

Icing Smiles is a nonprofit organization that provides custom celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by the critical illness of a child. Icing Smiles brings together a long-held passion for service to families affected by childhood illness with my newly discovered ability to turn cake batter and icing into smiles and joy!

I am sure many people think I have lost my mind for making such a huge deal out of the first birthday or infact have monthly celebrations. The following quote was found on the icing smiles website:

"We all celebrate birthdays.  But cancer parents?  We relish these days.  Birthdays are no longer celebrations of the day our child arrived - they are moments to scream to the Heavens - "She's still here!  THANK YOU!" This is exactly how Brent and I feel about Hayden's birthday! THANK YOU GOD, THANK YOU GOD! We had the BEST DAY EVER! THANK YOU ICING SMILES AND THE SWEETERY BAKE SHOP FOR MAKING OUR DREAM CAKE.

Please visit their website at http://www.icingsmiles.org/

What a great organization to donate too??!!!!

You can also find them on Facebook!

I received an email from icing smiles 6 weeks before Hayden's First Birthday. They informed me that The Sweetery from Cleveland had agreed to making Hayden's cake! I was in tears! This was a Bake Shop close to home! We would be able to easily pick the cake up! We would not have to drive to Jackson! WOOHOO!

All I did was tell them that my main colors were orange, aqua, and yellow. I also told them that I was wanting an outdoor, happy,  and You Are My Sunshine theme! The rest was up to them! They were creating Hayden's dream cake! I told them to only worry about it feeding 40! Well Guess What??? They chose to make it feed 100 plus. I told them a flat cake was perfectly fine. Well Guess What??? They chose three tiers. Have I mentioned that it was the best cake ever! I told them that we would come pick it up because it was a long drive and early in the morning. Well Guess What??? They insisted to come set the cake up! Can you tell how awesome these people are? They were just as excited about the opportunity as we were! ( I am glad that I let them bring it) The cake had to be touched up from driving down the rough levee. I am pretty sure it would not have made it if I would have picked it up!

 Hayden is so sick. I was so discouraged that he would never eat nor smash his face into his small cake. I have loved and had a sad heart seeing all these one year olds smashing cake all over their face. I just wish my angel could do the same thing. Well guess what? They still brought Hayden a cake! We even let him have a bite! It was so sweet!

 The finished product was so so so sweet! We LOVED the cake! We never imagined it being this cute! We are so blessed. Many of you are probably thinking that a cake this cute can't taste very good! WRONG! BEST CAKE EVER! It was still MOIST and FRESH a week later! The top of the cake will be his 13 month cake celebration!
                               
 The cake had the words to "You Are My Sunshine"! We LOVED IT!

Each layer was different. We had choc, white, and then a swirl of both:) We had over 100 people at the birthday party! Look how much cake we had left:) I would definitely say that they outdid themselves just to make us have a HUGE SMILE.

 An upclose picture of Hayden's Dream Cake.  Hayden's brain does not allow him to recognize and express his thoughts and feelings. I have learned to DREAM BIG for him! I am SOOO proud of our DREAM CAKE! Hayden's birthday was a dream come true!

Hayden would like to thank Icing Smiles, The Sweetery Bake Shop, and the supporters and contributors to icing smiles! Without the organization, we wouldnt have had the opportunity for a suprise dream cake. We would like to thank The Sweetery too! Without their caring hearts, they would have never known about Icing Smiles organizations. They spent hours making Hayden's dream cake. They spent time away from their families to give our family the opportunity to smile. We can not thank The Sweetery Bake Shop enough. We also would like to thank the people that have contributed to this organization. I am sad to say that it took me having a terminally ill child to find out about this organization. I am so proud to know that so many people are supporting an organization that is allowing parents and childrens dreams to  come true. A birthday to a family of a terminally ill child is simply a PRAYER ANSWERED AND A MIRACLE GIVEN.