Prayers for friends

As I sit in my living room on this beautiful morning complete with sunshine and birds singing, I am thinking of my Gracie and how terribly much I miss her. This week has been a hard and emotional week for me. I haven't gotten much sleep and I'm exhausted from the things buzzing through my head constantly. I've been saying lots of prayers for my friends daughter who is at the same hospital Gracie was at just a few doors down from her room.

I have been following this babies story since February (she was born Jan 25) and last month I went to visit her and her Mommy. She was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome but after her first surgery the left side of her heart actually started growing and they diagnosed it as Unbalanced AV Canal with small left ventricle. This change in diagnoses would mean that she wouldn't have to have any of the other 2 surgeries on her heart. This was fabulous news! On April 25th they finally got to bring Nalia home. She had a great week and on Sunday night she was brought back to children's by ambulance and put back on ECMO (heart and lung machine) with full support. This was so devastating to hear. I cried so hard and prayed for little Nalia. The doctors are not sure what happened but this sounds like the same exact thing that happened to Gracie. She had the best week of her life and then she just all of a sudden crashed. Nalia thankfully hung on long enough to be put on ECMO, Gracie could not. I reached out to Nalia's mom, Ashley, and asked if there was anything I could do or bring her and she asked me to just keep her company at the hospital. I went down on Tuesday and just sat and prayed with her and her husband and kept her company. There were no words I could say to comfort her but from experience I know how much it means to just have someone there with you that has gone through the same situation. It's comforting. Ashley asked me how I could be so strong and come down to see Nalia like this, I told her that it was hard, really hard, but I have become the type of person that doesn't shy away from these things. It may scare me and make me sad, but I think letting myself be in these types of situations is good for me, it makes me a stronger, more brave person then I have ever been. I wanted to be there for her and I wanted to pray for them.

Friends I need you to pray for a miracle. This baby girl is fighting for her life and really needs your prayers. Will you please take a moment out of your day today and say this prayer?

Dear Lord,

I come to you now to pray for baby Nalia. She has been so strong through her short life thus far but she needs extra strength now, strength that only you can give her. Lord, I just pray that you will have your hand on her in the upcoming weeks and that you will guide these doctors to make the right decisions.

I also pray for Nalia's family. That you would give them comfort in knowing that you're there in that room with them. I pray that they can be brave and not get overwhelmed by the machines and the chaos. I pray that they can get the sleep they so desperately need. Give them hope Lord, give them strength.

I am praying for a miracle for little Nalia, that her heart will beat on her own and that she will be in her Mommy's arms gazing into her eyes once again very soon.

Through you all things are possible! Thank you for all this!

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Thank you for saying a prayer for this beautiful and blessed family. I have fallen in Love with Miss Nalia and her Mom has become a good friend. They may not know it but they are a huge blessing to me. Please keep them in your prayers.

Nalia's Facebook page is "Nalia's Heart"

Thank you Ashley for the beautiful note on Facebook this morning. It touched my heart! :-) (attached)

Memories of that last week...

As I was prepping yesterday for a big week of baking I received a phone call. As I answered the phone the woman on the other end began crying and introduced herself as Jaime. I turned off my music that was playing in my kitchen and sat down. I had heard about this family earlier in the week from someone at church. They just had a baby boy on April 12 and his name is Gabriel. They spent about an hour with him before he passed. This was the first time an angel's mommy had reached out to me for support as so many have done the same for me. I instantly prayed that The Lord would give me the right words to say to her.

The days between following a loss and leading up to the funeral were probably the worst And the hardest days I have ever lived. Some of the moments were a blur, and some of them were heart wrenching. I remember not being able to sleep at all that week. I would stay up at night planning my daughters funeral so that it would be perfect and special. We went to different appointments planning this and that and ordering flowers and picking out urns and then we had the chance to see her one more time at the funeral home. She was laying in a small empty chapel still dressed in her pretty pink dress. She didn't look the same to me. The makeup on her face was dark, her eyelids and lips looked smaller and darker. When I touched her she felt cold, hard and limp. I just stood there and stared at my princess and cried. I sang her special song to her one last time and held her hand with my finger as I always did, I brushed her hair with my hand and kissed her face, and her forehead, her arm, and her feet. I said goodbye and then I didn't feel her presence there anymore. That body was no longer hers, and then I felt peace. I felt ok to go, to leave that beautiful body there.

After that phone call yesterday I sat and thought about all these things again as I do almost everyday. I thought about how far I have come since that last day of seeing her. I thought about what she's done in my life and how truly amazing she is for being this small infant, that couldn't even make noise, she couldn't cry, she couldn't talk, but she did speak to me through her eyes and her look, and she still does speak to me through the songs she plays for me when I am baking a cake, and when I look at her picture hanging on the wall, her eyes still speak to me and every time they say " I love you Mama! I love you for who you are and what you are! Thank you for loving me so so much!"

When I tell people Gracie's story now everyone says how strong I am. "How can you talk about her without crying, you are so strong." I don't feel strong. When I tell her story, it makes me happy BECAUSE I'm talking about her. I LOVE talking about her. That's the part that people don't understand. I am her mom, and just like every other mom, I want to talk about my kids. If you ever meet anyone that has lost their child and you don't know what else to say but "I'm sorry," next time ask them to tell you about their son or daughter. Ask them to tell you their story or a memory about them. If it was a pregnancy loss or still born, ask them what their favorite part of their pregnancy was, or ask them what you can do to honor their babies memory.

Now Gracie has another new baby friend to show around Heaven and to play and laugh with. Jaime asked me if I would make cupcakes for Gabriel's funeral. She wanted cupcakes to celebrate Gabriel's birthday. So I am making 120 cupcakes for the funeral on Friday and what Jaime doesn't know is I am making a special cupcake called "Gabriel Bear" for them. His middle name is Bear so I am making a chocolate ganache cupcake with baby blue buttercream and a chocolate bear on top of each one.

So my busy week coming up. I have 2 birthday cakes for Friday, 3 dozen cupcakes for a shower on Friday, 120 cupcakes for a funeral on Friday and 300 cupcakes for the Hope in Grace fundraiser on Saturday. Lets see how this all pans out, lol! Love what I do!

8 months old...

Dear Gracia,

Yet another month has gone by without you here.
There are days I feel you near.

How I wish I could hold you again.
I can still hear your heart beat in my head.

You still inspire me everyday.
I'm reminded of how strong and amazing you are in everyway.

I always told you how pretty you are.
I imagine you having pretty red curls to bring out your pretty blue eyes.

There are some nights I need to sleep with your elephant, Fern.
Holding her tight makes me feel a little better.

I miss you.
I love you.
I cry out for you.
I need you.
I want you.
It's hard being here without you.

But I will press on and smile everytime I see your face.
I will still sing your songs and know your singing along.

I think of you when I see a butterfly.
I imagine your wings carrying you to wherever your heart desires.

In Jesus' loving arms you'll forever be, but save some hugging time for me!

Hugs and kisses.

Love your Mama. <3

7 months old...

God and Gracie have been working so much in my life over the passed 2 months. For those of you that don't have a deep relationship with Christ and don't KNOW Jesus, I encourage you to pray about it, because he will show you exactly what he wants you to do today, tomorrow, next year, maybe not right away, but he loves you so much and wants you to trust him, he wants you to throw up your hands and say I don't know what I'm doing Jesus, please help me figure this out, show me the plans you have in store for me God. If you pray this prayer, be patient, he will show you when the time is right.

In January I asked God to speak to me to tell me what decision I should be making about my career path. He told me "make your cakes Becky." The next day I asked him again, he said "follow your dream and make your cakes Becky, make them all for Gracie, tell her story and give your cakes away to kids like Gracie, put smiles on their faces with your cakes!" And so I am doing just that.

God has also been pushing me to step out of my comfort zone with several things. I got an inquiry about a fondant cake, now those of you that know me well know that I have very strong feelings about fondant. I have worked very hard on perfected my recipes over the years with a strong emphasis on tasting homemade. I also strongly believe a cake should look like a cake and fondant just doesn't fit this profile. I have a hard time turning anybody down and it took me about a week to realize that I had to say no. I had to start this business out right and stick to what I am gifted with. God told me "I made you a painter, not a sculptor." :-)

I was at a connect group at church a week ago and of course I told little bits of Gracie's story to a small group of people at my table. When it came to the end of the meeting the Pastor asked if there was anyone that wanted to share their story with the entire group. Nobody volunteered, he asked one last time and there went my hand up in the air! I have never been the best speaker, over the years my nerves have matured a bit, but I still get some anxiety when I'm in front of large groups, I was always fine singing solos in front of an auditorium, but speaking, that's a whole different thing for me. So I grabbed the mic and began telling Gracie's story, I was emotional in the beginning and I think I may have confused some people at one point but I got through it and told them all about Gracie and how God is using her to inspire me to do great things.

Yup, he's pushing me to do things I am uncomfortable with but he's teaching me that yes, I can overcome these fears and well, he's making me into a business woman too. He has got BIG PLANS PEOPLE!

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Gracie would have been 7months old today and It's been a hard day for me thus far. Yesterday I was making a birthday cake for a 5year old girl. As I was finishing up the cake I was piping butterflies on the side of the cake and I was listening to Pandora, as I always do, and "Healer" started playing. This is the song I sang to Gracie every day. Well, I broke down of course and I felt Gracie in that moment, she was guiding my hands to put that butterfly on this cake. She really is with me when I make every cake and I am so thankful. After she passed in October, I have only wanted to be in the kitchen making cakes. I have never felt so happy making cakes before and I can't wait to make the next one, because it makes me so happy. I hadn't figured why until yesterday, it's because Gracie is with me and I feel so close to her when I make cakes. I don't know how better to explain it, and those of you that have lost a loved one knows what I mean. She's amazing isn't she?

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I don't consider myself a great writer, but I like to think I'm good at it and I do enjoy it. I was asked to write a few articles for Lasting Imprint's Newsletter this month. One about Gracie and one about Faith's Lodge. I have gotten a lot of great comments about it and encouragement to keep writing and do more. Hmm... maybe someday I could write a book. ;-) Well sometimes words are hard to come up with, the right way to say something or even what to say. God put a lot of these words into my head, I just wrote them down. I can honestly tell you that I have never loved so much, felt so much, given so much, or thought so much as I have in the passed months since Gracie passed. Jesus is working in my life and I feel that he is so proud of me and that makes me love him and want to know him so much more. We all have a mission in this life, that is to be obedient to God and to reach others for Him. We were all given great gifts that are all different, mine is making cakes, singing and sharing stories. I'm not your traditional writer, I write like a talk and I speak with my heart.

Here are the articles... http://myemail.constantcontact.com/News-from-Lasting-Imprint.html?soid=1104770033433&aid=H7tzhiuv1eA

Thank you for reading!

Becky

http://cakesfromgrace.com

Happy Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day!

Today is Valentines Day and I was never really big on this "holiday" but this year has been different. It is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day as well. I never knew there was such a thing and never payed attention to CHD Awareness before we knew we were having a baby with one. This time about a year ago, we were just finding out that our baby would be very special. She had only half a heart and would need to have more surgeries in the first three years of her life than most people have in a lifetime. I have made it my goal to share and spread Gracie's story around and to make some really special kids very happy with Cakes From Grace. If you haven't already, please find our page on Facebook, like and share it with your friends. I have a lot of smiles that I want to put on these kids' faces so keep those orders coming!

Here is my Mission and Vision for Cakes From Grace...

Cakes From Grace "Cakes to warm every broken heart - in loving memory of Gracia Lorraine, born with half a heart."

Vision Statement:
To be a leader in taste, customer satisfaction, and artistic design while putting smiles on faces of kids with broken hearts.

Mission Statement:
At Cakes From Grace, we make all our own recipes from scratch with the freshest and purest of ingredients. We use classic and cutting edge techniques to create each individual cake that is truly unique and superior in quality. Our ultimate goal is to be a leader in taste, customer satisfaction, and artistic design. Cakes From Grace also donates cakes to organizations raising awareness about Congenital Heart Defects and to families effected by CHD's. We want to bring a little bit of happiness into their hearts, and put smiles on their faces through each cake we donate.

Quality
Our recipes are made completely from scratch, we use fresh, whole strawberries, bricks of dark chocolate and even that cookie on top of your cupcake is made from scratch, nothing is store bought! Our cakes are always freshly baked and iced and never touch a fridge or a freezer!

Customer Satisfaction
"Describe it - we'll make it!" Here at Cakes From Grace, when it comes to design and flavor, anything is possible. We love coming up with new flavors, so whatever your inspiration is, we will work with you to make it possible.

Value
You'll find that our prices are very generic and you won't find anywhere else that puts as much time and detail into every part of your cake. Since we do make everything little thing that goes on and into your cake from scratch, you should expect only the best from us.

Donating
Part of our Mission is to put smiles on faces of kids born with Congenital Heart Defects through the cakes we donate to CHD organizations such as "Lasting Imprint" and " Parents for Heart." We also discount our prices for any "Heart" family. To find out more on why we support Congenital Heart Defect Awareness and "Heart Families" please read our story at www.cakesfromgrace.com (coming soon.)

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Yes, a website is in the works and Shawn and I are building it from scratch. Mine as well keep the "scratch" thing going, huh? :-)

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Last weekend I did my first event for Lasting Imprint. I donated lots of Cupcakes for their CHD Awareness week bowling event and everyone loved the cupcakes. A couple people even said my cupcakes are "life changing" maybe I should work that into my vision, eh? Parents For Heart also had an event last weekend, although I couldn't be there since we were out of town, I did donate a cake for their fundraiser.

I did want to also mention another event coming up on April 20. A lady contacted me this week that had heard about Cakes From Grace asked if I could be a part of the event.

The parents of another beautiful Grace created this organization after she passed away in the summer of 2009. Her CHD diagnosis was hypoplastic right ventricle with tripcuspid atresia, pulmonary atresia, and aortic transposition. They, like myself, hope that Grace will never be forgotten so this organization was established in her memory.

This will be the 4th Annual Hope in Grace Fun Run/Walk in Blaine, MN. Last year there were over 300 participants and 50 volunteers. They have raised more than $53,000 to support pediatric cardiology research and reward excellence in children’s intensive care nursing.

I wanted to share this with you all because I will not only be donating a whole bunch of my specialty cupcakes to the event but I will also be participating with my family. We would like to have another Team Gracie there and maybe even make t-shirts. I wanted to invite you all to join our team as well. If you feel you are up to the challenge please contact me, it's for a great cause! Beckyahunt@hotmail.com

Here is the site... http://www.hopeingrace.org/

Today I will leave you with a picture of one of my Valentine cakes and a few facts for you all to get a little more Aware. :-) Happy Valentines Day!

1 in 100 children are born with a Congential Heart Defect, and annually 100,000 babies worldwide will sadly not reach their first birthday, all because of CHDs.
Did you know that annually CHD’s take the lives of more little one’s than all the childhood cancers combined?
It’s a pretty taboo subject, and children’s heart defects desperately need more awareness, funding and research.
Also a new bill is being worked on to get passed by a friend of mine for a really important baby screening. If you missed the news last night, check this out...
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2931035.shtml?cat=1

Happy Half Birthday Gracie Girl!

6 months ago today I was in my recovery room at Abbot Northwestern in a lot of pain but feeling so unbelievably blessed to be a mom. 6 months later I am still a mom, but I'm a mom that longs for my baby girl. Today we would have been celebrating our Gracie Girl's half birthday. She would have had 2 of her open heart surgeries done by now and we would be at home loving her up every day. Instead, I'm mourning and all I want to do is see her pretty blue eyes staring at me, watching me and lighting up the way she always did. I miss her silly scrunched up faces and her cute little nose and beautiful profile. I miss the way she would tell a story just by looking at you and how she loved to hold out her hand to find a finger to hold onto. I miss her soft hair and skin. I miss holding her and watching her fall asleep as I sang to her. I loved watching her take a bottle for the first time when the doctors said she wouldn't and making her occupational therapist cry when she did and then reached out her hand to touch my face.

I never got to dance with her, never got to bake her first cake, never got to take her on a walk or push her on the swings. I never even got to take her home to see her beautiful butterfly room.

All of this is very frustrating and unfair, but mostly it makes me sad. I cry at the little things that remind me of her, when I know no one else understands it. I cry when I see other babies and I can't even walk by the baby section at Target, I have to go around it. Some people have asked me are you going to have more kids? The answer is we would like to have more kids, but unfortunately, that won't be anytime soon since I had to have a C-section. I will continue to have this longing to have a baby around until we do, and even then no child can ever ever replace my Gracie girl. There are days I can't physically eat and days I don't want to get out of bed. But you know what, I do it because I have to, because I need to, because that's what Gracie wants for me, she wants me to be happy and healthy. I'm doing my best baby girl, but it's not easy.

The other day I was baking in the kitchen and I heard this huge crash of something hitting the ground. It was our huge floating shelf above our tv in the living room. It had fallen completely down. In this shelf I had all these little willow tree angels and snow babies that remind me of Gracie, some were given to me this passed Christmas that even look like her. I had picture frames of her on there as well. Most of these angels broke along with some of the frames. I sobbed and sobbed, I was so upset, why did THIS of all things have to fall down?! This among other things has happened and upset me the passed few months but there has always been something or someone that makes it ok and I don't let it get me down. After the shelf event happened a friend on Facebook told me that she was convinced that it was Gracie on the shelves looking at all the Angels. i'm thankful for these kind of people in my life.

So today I will celebrate her half birthday by wearing her best color, bright pink (and thank you to those of you that wore pink for her as well), and sing all her favorite songs, pray for all her friends' mommy's and daddy's, pray for all the kids and babies that struggle with their broken hearts here on earth, and continue to spread awareness about congenital heart defects, but most of all share Gracie's story forever and ever and ever. I hope you all do the same.

Gracia, I know God is celebrating you today, I send you all my love and kisses. I don't know if someone in Heaven has made you a cake, and I'm sorry it won't be as good as Mommy's cakes, but I hope it's pink and purple with lots of butterflies on it just for you!


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jbHrIYR3GE8

Torn... Need your input...

Hi all, so some of you have been telling me that you are having trouble with leaving comments below. This whole time I just thought that nobody was reading my blog! Lol! I have been trying to investigate and apparently you have to have a blog account somewhere to be able to comment on someone else's blog. That's bogus! Well, somehow I came upon some settings and added an "anonymous" option. So, if you would like to comment and don't have a blog account yourself, please choose the anonymous option and just sign you name after the comment so I know who left it. Thanks!

The reason I looked deeper into the comments thing is because I would love some feedback today. I have been doing a lot of planning, organizing, designing, even started working on a website. Now I've come up with a slogan for my business but I'm still debating the name. I'm torn between "Cakes for Grace" and "Cakes from Grace." I had originally thought of Cakes for Grace because I wanted to make every cake in honor of Gracie, as if I were making every single one for her. But Cakes from Grace stuck out too, because it is only through the Grace of God that all of this is happening. God showed me and told me this is what he wants me to be doing with the talents he has Graced me with. -and then I also had a thought, all these cakes are Gracie inspired, so maybe she is helping me, she has a hand in each one. I'm torn! So I need some input, what do you guys think?

Here is the slogan I have come up with...

Cakes from Grace
"Cakes to warm every broken heart
...in loving memory of Gracia Lorraine, born with half a heart"

Cakes for Grace
"Cakes to warm every broken heart
...in loving memory of Gracia Lorraine, born with half a heart"

Thank you in advance for your comments!