How do you take a picture of your family when your family isn’t complete?  I’ve seen families include a portrait of their lost one, but I don’t really feel comfortable doing that.  We went for a subtler approach.  In 2009, for Cora’s birthday, we bought a Shining Stars stuffed beagle with a code to name a star.  We named a star near Orion’s belt for our Cora Rei (okay, I know it’s not really legitimate, but that’s okay).  Anyway, we then took a family portrait on Cora’s birthday and included the puppy to signify her.

Well, we got a great coupon for The Picture People, and since it’d been so long since we’d had a professional portrait done (we hadn’t had one since!), we got one done today.  And the puppy joined us again.

I don’t know how long I’ll include him.  As long as I can.  It’ll probably be weird once I stop having young children, but I don’t care.  It makes me feel like she at least got to be in our family portrait somehow.

I really wish I could have a picture of all my children together.  It breaks my heart to see family photos that are incomplete.  I hate having this invisible hole in my family.

This is the closest I’ll get:

It was taken on Cora’s birthday last year.  The puppy was one we bought for her, and it had a code to name a star after her.  It was also wearing her name bracelet around its paw.

I really wish that it could have been her in that picture. *sigh*