The number you've ALL be waiting for...

People amaze me! Loni and I had a very successful first Baby Steps Memorial Race! We were able to donate a GRAND TOTAL of $9,000 to The Amelia Center.

That's me on the left, Andy McNiel (from The Amelia Center) and Loni Hodge. What a great team!

The center was VERY happy to receive such a large donation. We could not have done it of course without all of the participants, volunteers, sponsors and donors! You guys know who you are!!! We want to thank everyone for their hard work and kind heart!

Loni and I decided to donate the funds into a Remembrance Funds for Braden, Brody and Maddox Elise. This is something new for The Amelia Center.

Here's what their website says about the new opportunity - "A Remembrance Fund, bearing the name of a family member or friend, can be established to provide annual support to The Amelia Center by making a memorial gift of $500.00 or more. This can be made as an individual memorial donation or a combined memorial donation by you, family members and friends. Once a Remembrance Fund is established, friends and family can make contributions throughout the year to support the fund. The Amelia Center will send annual updates to those supporting the fund regarding opportunities to contribute. At the end of each year, a portion of the Remembrance Fund will be used to support Amelia Center program costs, the remainder of the fund will be sustained to build upon for the next year. Remembrance Funds will be acknowledged in the Tears to Hope newsletter and by letter to family members and friends at your request. In addition, each fund will be recognized on the “We Remember Them…” wall in The Amelia Center lobby."

We chose to set up the Remembrance Funds so that The Amelia Center can use all or part of the race donation before the end of the year. This type of donation allows them to carry over part of the funds into the next year if they wish. I'm very honored that Braden and Brody will have a plaque on the "We Remember Them" wall. I decided it would be best to have Braden & Brody one plaque rather than two. They came into this world together! They drifted from this world together! They belong together!

Donations

For those of you interested Bunco for Babies has been a HUGE success.

April - We had our first Bunco night. It was so much fun and I enjoyed meeting all the new people! We collected disposable cameras as our "item of the month" which Loni and I took to Trinity Hospital's NICU. They gladly accepted our donations.

May - Our second night was wonderful. Although we had a lot of people who weren't able to make it, we had several new players. Our "item of the month" was small blankets. Loni and I made a trip to STV East Wednesday and donated the blankets, bouncy seat, socks, hand mitts, breastfeeding drape and a womb sound bear. The women in this NICU were VERY excited to receive the donations. They made us feel extremely welcome. Their charge nurse Melanie even shared with us that she too has lost infants. It's amazing how many people have lost infants but are not vocal about it. There are so many of us out there and we have to support each other.

I am so thankful that Bunco for Babies has been such a success. Each month brings a bigger smile to my face and I'm happy to share the memory of Braden and Brody with these special women!!!

A bad week that isn't so bad!!!

As Braden and Brody's birthday creeps up on us, I expect this to be a bad week. Easter is their Birthday!

Although the week isn't over, tonight I was HAPPY!!! Loni and I started a Bunco for Babies group and we had our first game tonight. We had 16 people and raised $160 and had 26 disposable cameras donated. It was a success and I really enjoyed myself! All that worrying for nothing! Everyone seemed to have a blast and I thank God for allowing us to do this in memory of our children.

What a Happy Birthday to my baby boys!

Here's our 1st Bunco group. Thank you ALL for making this such a great success!!!