The Big 5!!!

Posted on June 30, 2013 by natalietrew

5 years ago on the 30th of June at 11.55am, my beautiful 10p 2oz baby girl was born. I still remember like it was yesterday pulling her from my inner soul to discover she was a girl!!!! I was so over joyed. After having a boy first, I really wanted a little girl and my wish was granted! She was MASSIVE (lol) but oh so devine. She never whimpered once and looked around at us all as if to say “I’m ready to take on this world!”

Sienna Lynette Trew has been a shining star from the minute she took her first breath on this earth. She is kind. She is thoughtful. She is so beautiful and sweet but also very funny and feisty! She never wants for much and is so easy to please. She has an anxiety attack if you mention the word dress (lol) and would prefer to wear shorts and joggers over skirts and ballet flats, but she has a great sense of style of her own. Sienna is the type of child to give you her last bite of food if you were starving or her last dollar if you were broke…she is just amazing!!!

Sienna was so so excited to be turning 5 this year, after all it is a whole hand worth of fingers to hold up now!!! And after what has been such an emotional month for our family, it was a lovely way to end the month on a happy note for once. Now that Sienna is in school, she had several celebrations…..

First was her school celebrations where I baked a batch of cupcakes for her and her fellow prep H students. They all sang happy birthday to her and enjoyed eating their cupcakes for morning tea…

Second was her party with her friends. Sienna was in control of her guest list and food, I just went out and bought and baked it all for her. She knew exactly what she wanted. I offered to put a tea party on with a few of her girl friends but she insisted on having her closest boy friends invited so the park it was. The day was spoilt by the weather, but that didn’t stop all the kids from having a ball….

The third and final day of celebrations was her official birthday which was yesterday! She is becoming so particular with what she wants it’s so adorable! Her request was straight hair and nails painted like me:), bowling with the family and of course lots of cake! For presents her only request was a microphone. So by granting her all of this, we had one very happy 5 year old on our hands yesterday….

The Cake:
Due to the passing of my dear nana at the beginning of the month and the weeks of her being in hospital leading up to her passing, I haven’t baked or decorated a cake or cupcake since grandad’s birthday on April 20th. That day, unbeknown to us, was the last birthday in the family celebrated with nana present – so to say Sienna’s birthday was bittersweet is an understatement!

It was nice to get back into something that I LoVe to do though. Sienna loves rainbows so this year’s birthday theme for her has been rainbow colours with purple as the predominant colour. I’ve always wanted to try a 6 layer rainbow cake and when I showed it to Sienna, she was so excited to be getting that as her birthday cake. This is how it turned out….

Sienna loved it as did everyone and I was extremely happy with my first attempt at a rainbow cake – one of my favourite cakes to date!

All in all Sienna had a wonderful 5th birthday filled with lots of love, fun and laughter. She was very spoilt and got a beautiful assortment of presents from one direction merchandise to matching nike shoes like mine. But her favourite present that she hasn’t put down is her microphone…we may have a singer and dancer on our hands! After such a turmoil month, I sincerely hope Sienna’s birthday marks the beginning of many happy memories for our family!

Thank you to everyone for all of Sienna’s birthday wishes and for anyone who helped make our little girl’s 5th birthday extra special!

Running Free….

Posted on June 21, 2013 by natalietrew

Body upright, one foot in front of the other, I can do this!
I have children, I have a husband, I have parents, grandparents, siblings, nieces, nephews, family and friends who I need to keep going for!

The past two months have been like a living nightmare that I just want to wake up from. So much devastation. So much heartache. So many tears cried. So much bad news!

Wednesday morning I was awoken to the third piece of devastating news that someone in my dear family has had to endure over the past few weeks. I was left feeling beaten with sadness. Yet again the tears flowed. Just when you think you’re all cried out, your eyes just seems to keep weeping fluid of hurt and despair. I laid under my doona and imagined running away….

I imagined running free from all the hurt, the pain, the sadness, to a place where it was full of happiness and no stress. Everyone was healthy! There was no such words as death or illness, only fun and fortune! I imagined scooping my party of 5 up and whisking them away to a secluded island where we played in the sun, sand and water all day and couldn’t be contacted by anyone….this is how I felt on Wednesday! Clearly this was a women on the edge of her emotions, who couldn’t bear to see anymore of her loved ones go through pain!

Then I woke up on Thursday and I did run. I ran 5km pretty fast, which helped me to pull myself together. I told myself while I was running that everything will be ok. At the end of this dreadful cycle there will be happiness and good health. We will all come out of this stronger than ever and our family unity will be as tough as nails!

Now that I’ve kicked my own butt back to reality I’m ready! I’m ready to support my loved ones who are hurting and going through the lowest of lows! I need to be there for my grandad and mum. I need to be there for my other family members who are suffering broken hearts at the moment. I need to be there for my children, who in this disaster cycle look at things so innocently. I need to be a supportive friend to those who need me the most and I need to keep calm for myself. If I don’t keep calm and my heart is affected by all the added stress that is going on I won’t be here to support my loved ones!

From today I’m going to take each day as it comes. Take each situation as it comes and deal with it appropriately. I will stop and enjoy the small things in life. I will accept help when offered and I will stop and breathe when I feel overwhelmed! I will fix a situation where I can and let fate take care of the rest! If I’ve learnt anything over the past month, life is what it is. There is nothing we can do to change a bad situation, but we can make it easier to deal with by being there for each other and only keeping those ‘running free’ thoughts as imaginative ones!

To all my loved ones who are going through a tough time, I love you and am always here for you xoxoxoxox!

What Becomes of a Broken Heart?

Posted on June 16, 2013 by natalietrew

Life is precious. Life is a treasure. But sometimes life is just unfair!!! After watching my nana suffer with Parkinson’s Disease for the past 5 years, we found ourselves saying a lot, that is was just ‘unfair’ that nana had to live out her life with a debilitating disease that day by day took her ability to live a good quality life. Then to pass away the way that she did, we found ourselves again saying that it was just unfair!!! Our hearts broke in a million pieces the day nana took her last breath on this earth…now what becomes of our broken hearts??

If that wasn’t bad enough, last night my cousin and her husband had to say goodbye to their precious baby boy at the young age of 6 weeks old. Now how ‘unfair’ is that! Having to cope with a broken heart from losing a love one is one thing, but losing your child has to be the most unfair card dealt in a lifetime…now what becomes of their broken hearts!

17 years ago my uncle lost his wife, 7 years later his first-born child was tragically killed in a car accident – again how ‘unfair’ is that and what has become of his broken heart??

There are so many sayings that keep going through my head:
Whatever doesn’t break you makes you stronger…
Things happen for a reason…
Things happen to people who can handle it…
But why does it need to happen in the first place!?!?

This year has been terrible! I feel like it’s been one bad news story after another and not just with our family with lots of people! Every time I turn the news on or read any social media, someone is grieving or someone is fighting for their life….from this means lots of broken hearts have happened – what becomes of them?

I believe I am a very positive person and try not to let things get me down. But lately, with what our family has been through over the past few months you do start to question the faith that you’ve always held!

As my beautiful family try and start to rebuild the faith that has been lost of late, I’m trying to keep a positive mind and focus on the things that do become of a broken heart…
*strength
*courage
*character building
*the bond of a family unit becomes even more united
*the legacy our loved ones have left, allow us to keep moving forward in memory of them!

No one can mend a broken heart, time is the only thing that will help it to heal. The time is not measurable but with the love and support of family and friends around it sure helps take the edge off!

Our Pathway Back to Normality!

Posted on June 13, 2013 by natalietrew

It’s been over a month now since my beautiful nana passed away. The road back to normality has been bumpy with a few twists and turns. I know it’s going to be like that for a while. Each day starts a new step forward. Some days you feel like you’ve made progress with a couple of steps and then other days you feel at a standstill and even regress a step. It only takes the kids doing something funny to put a smile on your face or the feeling of satisfaction when your house is clean, the washing is up to date and a nice meal has been cooked to feel like you are moving forward. But then it only takes a song, a photo or a smell to bring back a memory – a memory that is so great your heart hurts like anything!

With the school holidays coming to an end and a new semester of school about to start, I’m hoping the pathway back to normality will start to form shape. Over the past two weeks, having all the kids home and celebrating my eldest daughter’s 5th birthday has started to pave the way for some happy times. We’ve done many things to keep ourselves busy such as: play dates, lunches, walks, movies, trip to town and just relishing in each other’s company!

School holiday fun:

It’s been nice to do things around the house that I haven’t had time to do. It’s been nice spending time with my party of 5. It’s been nice to get back into my baking and cake decorating again and it’s been nice just to sit back and take in what my life holds and appreciate it!

Now it’s time to release myself to the world again….bit by bit I’m starting to want to do things again. I’ve enjoyed spending time with some of my beautiful friends over the past two weeks. My running goals are set for the rest of winter and I plan on blogging more than I have been. The past few months has led me to focus solely on the most important things at hand and that has been my loving family. We will continue to be there for each other during our grieving process, but slowly but surely we will start venturing out a little bit more. There are still things I haven’t brought myself to do yet, but I know once the winter months are over and the sun shines brightly more and more, I will feel the urge to do those things.

For now though, as I sit here and enjoy a day of sunshine, I will continue to be the best I can in all the areas of life that I am. There will never be a day where I don’t think of the courageous women I call my nana, nor will I stop shedding a tear from time to time. But I will live life and enjoy it just like my beautiful angel would want me to, all while she travels along side of me each and every day!

Moving Forward….

Posted on June 7, 2013 by natalietrew

It’s been a week now since my nana left the world in which we live. Since then we’ve shed many tears, reminisced about the wonderful times we’ve shared with our beautiful lady, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried some more and we came together to share in a memorable service to celebrate the fabulous person my nana was!

Now it’s the aftermath….
The time when everyone goes back to their respective places of dwelling, work resumes again and the times spent together are fewer than they’ve been. It’s during this time, now the formalities are over, that the real grieving process begins. Over the coming months we’ll feel as though we are climbing a sea of mountains with many peaks and troughs! Today we feel worse than yesterday, but tomorrow we may feel better, until the next day rolls over when we feel worse again. And it may just take a song or a piece of material to remind us of the hole that nana has left, but together and with the ever lasting memories of nana we will get each other and more importantly grandad through this difficult time!

It still feels so wrong that we’ll never be able to hold nana’s hand again, help her out of her chair or brush her hair to make her feel relaxed, but to save our own health and sanity, we have to make peace with the fact that nana isn’t suffering anymore and that she will always live on with us everywhere we go! Nana would want us to pick ourselves up and keep soldiering on and in her memory we must do that! If there is anything I’ve learnt from the dearest grandmother I know, it’s not to feel sorry for yourself. My whole life I’ve seen nana in pain as she had scoliosis from a young age and was told she would be in a wheelchair by the time she was 50. At 75 she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and was still walking and never once in the 33 years I was blessed to have her, did she ever complain or say “why me !”…even when her daughter and grandson passed away!

It’s quite ironic that although nana isn’t physically here anymore, she will be the one to help us move forward. Every time we weep, every time we feel sad or mad about the situation all we have to do is think of how nana coped with all the terrible things thrown her way. Time after time she moved forward and with such grace and dignity…if nana could then so can we!

To my beautiful family: we can do this! It isn’t going to be easy but we have been given a gift from nana and that is the gift of strength! Nana taught us how to love, how to nurture, how to laugh, how to be creative and most importantly how to be strong. It’s with this strength that we will feel happy and content again. It may not be today or tomorrow but the day will come when our tears are less and the smiles are greater. It’s a hard pill to swallow the thought of picking yourself and finding ‘normality’ again. Moving forward is not about forgetting nana, it’s about enjoying life for nana as she is unable to anymore…..

My Party of 5

Monthly Archives: June 2013

The Big 5!!!

Running Free….

What Becomes of a Broken Heart?

Our Pathway Back to Normality!

Moving Forward….

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