Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halloween

Today has certainly been a challenging day as well as trick or treating last night. It is just another example of continuing to live without Evan and all the life experiences we will miss with him. Evan absolutely loved Halloween. He loved to dress up! I used to say that everyday was Halloween in our house because the boys always played dress up, mostly in Superhero costumes.

Times like these are emotionally draining. Last night, the tears came when I was getting Noah ready to go trick or treating. I should have been getting two little boys ready to go. I kept wondering what costume Evan would have chosen. What Superhero would he be into now? His favorite costumes were his Spiderman costumes! He loved the red and the black. As much as I didn't want to let it go, we tucked his red one in his little casket and buried it with him. We thought he needed it more than we did. I will never again get to see Evan dressed up and ready for Halloween.

While these times can be filled with emptiness and pain, Nate and I are just so grateful to still have Noah to do these things with! While Evan is no longer here on earth with us, we still owe it to Noah to give him everything we have and to make his experiences wonderful. However, it breaks my heart for Noah not to have Evan by his side. I live with this thought everyday.

Halloween used to be such a great holiday for our family. We would begin thinking about costumes in August! The month of October was filled with lots of fun activities and trips to the "BOO at the Zoo" or Eckerts Fall Festival. Now, some of the things associated with Halloween such skeletons or headstones bring nothing but pain. This is the first of the big holidays we have to get through this year.

Here are some Halloween pictures of the previous years. In Evan's case, these pictures are all I have to hold on to...

Evan's 1st Halloween


This Halloween was my favorite! Evan wanted to be a pirate and was so insistent upon Noah being a parrot! He told me that "a pirate has to have a parrot!" So I spent hours cutting, stitching, and gluing felt into wings. Evan always came up with the cute ideas!



This was our last Halloween with Evan...


Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Final Total!!


We officially have a final total for A Night For Evan! After all the hard work everyone put in to making this event happen, we are able to send $13,000.00 in honor of Evan to SUDC! (Sudden Unexplained Death In Childhood) This money will help parents like us who have little or no answers as to the cause of their child's death. The SUDC Program has helped us in so many ways, and for that, we are truly grateful. We are so happy to do something that Evan would be proud of! Thanks to everyone who made this possible!!! We could not have made this happen without all of the support!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A Night For Evan!

All I can say is WOW! Our trivia night to raise money for SUDC (Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood) was extremely successful! Nathan and I were completely taken by the amount of support we had and how many people came to honor Evan. We had around 400 people, not counting the workers from "Team Evan". For the past three months, "Team Evan", which consisted of about 20 of our closest friends, worked their tales off to make this event happen. We solicited over 300 businesses and spent countless hours working on letters, flyer's, baskets, food, and various other arrangements. We could not be more grateful! God has certainly blessed us with an amazing amount of support in our time of need.

Our Trivia Night was a night that revolved around Evan. He loved Superheros so we thought that would be a great theme! Most people came dressed in some type of Superhero attire. Many even wore costumes! We also had a contest for the table with the neatest table decorations! The two winning tables consisted of a superhero table with everyone dressed in costumes and a handmade Spiderman decoration. Evan would have been so proud!

We also had about 75 items up for auction, all of which were donated from surrounding businesses. Then we had about 20 items for table raffle and about 40 items for silent raffle. We had items ranging from $10 to $900. During the big intermission, we had a live auction consisting of St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia. It was amazing! A BIG THANKS to all who donated to our event! We are so grateful!

People keep asking us what how much money we raised. We are waiting until Friday to announce the big total! Here are a few pictures from "A Night For Evan."
"While we try and teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about."