Kaitlyn with Grandma Lewis

Because it's September and I'm blogging to catch up, I now know what I couldn't have known on Kaitlyn's birthday.

On that day things were especially busy.  We had soccer practice that evening that Stephen had to coach for Sam's team and I had my monthly Public Affairs Meetings.  I had initially planned to skip my meetings but an unexpected change in Stake Presidency leadership made my attendance critical.

Kaitlyn has always been a bit resentful of the time my calling takes me away from the family even though I try to minimize it.  But especially on her actual Birthday, the fact that we were SO busy and wouldn't be able to celebrate it how she'd imagined was hard.

When she heard this, my mother, took time off from work, met her when she arrived at home from school and took her for a pedicure.  THEN she took her to James Avery to get her a new charm on her bracelet.  This was such a generous birthday for her from my parents, much more than is typical and I was a little concerned but didn't say anything.  These are some sweet photos from that afternoon that were taken on mom's phone.

The nail polish was still on Kaitlyn's toes about 7 weeks later when my mother was killed by a reckless driver in a head on collision.  Kaitlyn spent the rest of the summer refusing to take off the polish and letting her nails grow (and get trimmed).

On the 3 month anniversary of my mothers death, and to celebrate the end of summer and as a treat for the start of school, both my girls and I returned to the same pedicure place to get our toes done.  I'm sure mom was with us as Kaitlyn had the last of her previous pedicure's polished removed and replaced with something new.  I miss my mom....