Today was not a hard as I thought it would be, I know God was carrying us again as we had to face Melissa first Birthday since she passed away. Thank you all my wonderful friends and family who prayed for us to get through today.
A few years ago a wonderful Pastor preached a sermon on raising your children and one thing that has remained in my head every since then "Pick your battles with your Children don't argue over every little thing and make sure it is worth the battle" I put it on the back burner so to speak and it all came back to me when we lost Melissa. As you know she was a ring tail tutor and gave us a run for our money and I did pick certain battles however not as good as I should have. Please raise your children (no matter how old they are) as it will be the last day you would ever see them no matter if they want highlights at 10, talk back to you, get into trouble at school, fight with their brother or sister, date someone you don’t think is right, take something that doesn’t belong to them even if they confess because you raised them to have a conscious. Be thankful when you see them walk into the room even if they are not perfect like overweight, have tattoo’s if you don’t like them, purple hair or have been injured from an accident or birth. Because today I would give anything to be able to be still picking battles with Melissa but I can’t; you see I have to go to the below picture to tell her Happy Birthday and that I love her. You need to be thankful you don’t have to and my prayer is that you never ever will have to.

Happy Birthday Melissa Ann Zingelmann Caldera

Daddy will always take care of his baby girl.

We had this waiting for us when we got home from telling Melissa that
we love her to the moon and back. It was from her Best Friend who became a daughter to us Chelsea and her mom Robin.
Chelsea dad is the wonderful minister that told  me to pick my battles.