My sister was in town for a few days this week.  She got in on Wednesday evening and on Thursday morning she got up early and left for an appointment.

When I woke up I realized it was a bit late and wondered why the kids were sleeping in so long since they hadn't woken me up.

It was quiet in the house and I was surprised to find the Peanut sitting at the bottom of the stairs casually flipping through a comic book.  I asked him what he was doing.

"Waiting for Aunt Treesa to come down."

I told him she had left for a meeting and he looked at me like I was deluded.

"No, she can't have left.  Her shoes are still here."

Sure enough, her sneakers were there by the door.

"Buddy, she wore a different pair."

He gave me a confused look and asked to go check her room.  He would not believe me until he had confirmed her absence for himself.

Later, the Princess woke up.

She picked out her clothes for the day.

A dress paired with a skirt.
Her argument was that they went together because the skirt was twirly and the dress has a pretty pink ribbon.
Can't argue with that logic.

So I made her tuck the dress into the skirt.

We went on about our day and around noon I told them to get shoes on because we were going to be leaving in a minute.

Is that an outfit or what?

My husband was coming home on lunch and we were going to do our taxes.

She was ready to go and said to me, "As soon as Aunt Tweesa comes down we going to leave?"

Again, I found myself explaining that Aunt Theresa wasn't upstairs.

Again I was faced with a quizzical expression.


"But... her shoes are here."

Speaking of taxes, there are two things certain in life.  And it seems they don't mix well.

The worst part of grieving for me is the unexpected moments.

There are times when I know something will be hard.  I can prepare for it.

But the unexpected moments are harder to deal with because I am not prepared.

Yesterday was one of those moments.

I knew we would have to bring Matthew's birth certificate to file our taxes.  I was prepared for that.  It's always hard for me to see it because stamped right across the top in bold letters is the word DECEASED.

I just wish that didn't have to be on his birth certificate.

I would like to have that souvenir of his life without it having to be connected with his death.  If that makes any sense.

Just like I wanted two Christmas ornaments for him.  One for his birth and one for his "First Christmas in Heaven."

I just like to keep those precious memories of our special hours with him separate in my mind.

Aside from that, I figured it would be pretty simple.  There is a reason we have an expert do our taxes.  He knows what he is doing, they keep all the records, and if anything goes wrong we can trust them to deal with it.

When it came time to go through our dependents, my husband pulled out Matthew's birth certificate and let the man know we had another dependent but he had only lived two days.

"Do you have a social for him."

"No, he only lived two days."

"You want to claim him but you don't have a social."

"No, we don't have a social but we have his birth certificate and his death certificate if you need that."

"Why didn't you get him a social?"

At this point I am getting pretty worked up.  Did he seriously just ask that question?!

My husband calmly replied.

"They don't issue social security numbers to dead children."

My husband is my hero.

The guy finally asked a coworker what to do and his coworker told him to just leave it blank and see what the computer prompted.  The computer popped up with a list of reasons for no social.  One of those was death.  Pretty simple.  Why do we pay someone for this again?

Last night we went to see "Guys and Dolls" at the local high school   The guy who did the lighting was amazing.  Never seen anyone do such incredible work with a spotlight.  I am proud to say, it just so happens, that talented fellow was my nephew.

During intermission my niece checked Facebook and found this picture posted by my other niece who had stayed home with Granny and my kids.
The best part was the caption.
"They took a pic wen I wasn't looking not kool lol"
Cari @ Clan Donaldson has started this Theme Thursday link up for people to practice their photography skills.

I instantly knew I would not be participating for the same reason I never participate in any of those fancy schmancy writing link ups.

You can add photography to my list of non-talents.  I have been blessed with many.

You may not have noticed my painfully obvious lack of photography talent because I always take pictures of my kids.  Their cuteness overrules my bad picture taking abilities.

Cuteness

Which is why I included them in my sun-flare pictures.

Because of course I just had to prove to myself how bad I actually was.

And when Cari picked sun-flare/haze as the theme, I couldn't help but think of how beautiful the sun looks streaming through the glass door.

I always want to capture how pretty it is but never quite can.  I figured I could at least get a sun flare.

So, I took lots of pictures but they never quite caught what I was seeing in person.  I figured if I fiddled with the camera settings (non fancy schmancy camera) maybe I could get a better picture.  I learned that I can actually fiddle with the camera settings.  Like do more than just setting them to daylight, nighttime, portrait, etc.  I can even set the focus to manual?!  Of course, I have absolutely no clue how to do any of that so I didn't touch it, lest I break it.

Now, I shall inundate you with a bunch of bad sunflare pictures and link up with Cari and all the real photographers.

Yup, it's a link up within a link up.  Because I just can't seem to participate in a link up without making a mockery of the whole thing.  And I can't possibly be on time... #notthursday

Bad sun-flare picture.  Note window is actually clean. What you see is the fogginess in between the two panes of glass because the seal went bad.  Does that count as haze?

Settings: Flash off.

See?  Add kids = instantly better picture.

Awww, cuteness! ;)