Happy New Year

Our family self portrait before a 6pm dinner at John Holly's with the Condons..you know, Senior Citizen Special style with the two babies. It was a great dinner...until we hit 7pm and SJ wanted to go to sleep and life in general made her mad.

We were on our way home by 7:35....but I don't think any of us really cared. Good dinner, good friends and home early before all of the crazies are out on the road. We made it to 10pm where upon we celebrated along with the East Coast and than went to sleep!

2012 was a good year- it wasn't perfect, but are they ever? We had a HUGE life decision that is literally changing our lives as we speak. A decision that makes me so happy and proud of us for taking the steps to better ourselves and the life of our darling daughter. There is going to be a whole lot less of the BDews when we ring in 2014!

2012 was a huge year of firsts for SJ. She is nothing short of amazing and I honestly cannot believe she is mine. She is so funny and it seems like everyday has something new to show us. She is starting to talk and there is nothing more precious than hearing "Mama" as she reaches for me. She just makes everything right in my world.

We lost Bobbie &Sadie in 2012 but gained sweet  Ruxin who we adopted in October. I still miss those girls of mine and still find myself randomly looking for them during the day.

We lost Granny this year as well. It was sad but her poor body, mind and soul were ready to go. She left behind a beautiful legacy in SJ and I am forever thankful for all she did to make my dreams of becoming a Mother come true. We will head to Catalina in March '13 to spread her ashes so she can finally be with Unkie again.

Brian was signed by Donna Baldwin Talent Agency and is loving hisVoiceover work and is now taking some acting classes as well.  I hope 2013 will bring even more jobs...how awesome is it to get paid for doing what you love?

 I was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to work from home full time this year and that has been an amazing change for me. I love it. Work has been so stressful but having a good boss and working from home outweighs just about everything else.

We took an awesome trip to Puerto Vallarta this past summer and had a great time. We were visited by Brian's family for SJ's 1st Birthday too.

We are blessed and looking forward to improving ourselves and our family in 2013!

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas 2012!

We celebrated at Nik's house and were spoiled rotten...seriously rotten!

6 years

Who cares that we actually let the day come and go without realizing December 6th was our 6 yr anniversary? Who cares it was December 12th before I realized it? I guess things like our beautiful daughter are more important these days than celebrating a Match.com lunch date.

Happy 6 years, Babycakes!

So excited for the year we have in front of us as we transform our lives!

Sandy Hook

Friday we were all horrified to learn of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT. I was obsessed with news coverage all weekend. I cried over and over again each time I watched but couldn't seen to turn my eyes away.  I am literally sick at the events and I honestly cannot even imagine how those parents are coping.

SJ woke me up at 12:30 on Friday night....just another night in a long week of sleepless nights due to her being sick. As soon as I heard her, I jumped out of bed...so thankful that I have a baby calling for me. When I got back in bed, I couldn't sleep. It was now 2:35am CT time, what were those 20 Mothers doing? Were they sleeping? Could they sleep? Were they able to even leave the school, knowing their babies were still inside? Brian and I both discussed how we wouldn't be able to physically leave.

President Obama said it best when he quoted the saying that when you have a child, you begin to wear your heart outside of your body....your most precious and vital organ, on the outside of your body. Any of you Mothers out there reading this right now probably agree.

My heart just aches for these family and can only imagine what the coming weeks and months will bring....including Christmas, which is almost too much to bare.

God Bless you Sandy Hook!

Seriously?

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!

Brothers

Its been a long time since Deacon engaged with another dog like he used to do with our Zachey Poo Dew. This picture made me smile!

Christmas has arrived!

After much debate about Christmas trees and if a 13 month old could be controlled around one, we plowed forward with our (my) favorite shopping trip of the year....to Home Depot for our tree. Syd, dressed in an adorable snowman outfit, wandered around and was in awe of the chainsaw the men were using to cut the bottoms off of the tree.

Once home it was lunch time, which what that really means is we lucked out that she was strapped to her chair for 30 minutes while we got the tree up without the interruption of small fingers and grabby hands.

We went with a much smaller tree in hopes the branches would not be hit by passing dogs and babe and so far it is working out perfectly. I love the process of hanging each ornament and remembering the trip, vacation, person and dog that it represents. Each year it is a new surprise and I love it.

I can't wait until Syd is big enough to have the anticipation of Christmas like I do!