Granny

 In early March we all flew to San Pedro, CA to say our goodbyes to Granny (thank you Lisa for watching our Punk for 5 days)! We stayed at a hotel in the Cabrillo Marina area and spent each evening on their terrace enjoying wine, family and beautiful weather.

 We took a yacht out to the coordinates where Unkie was laid to rest. There were 35 of us on that boat and it was pretty cool to look around and see all of these people that only exist because of Granny. In the words of my Mom,

We are your Legacy,
We brought you home...
to the city you love, to the water you love & to the man you love.

Granny wasn't the most conventional Granny, but she was there when I needed her most. She helped us out when our bank accounts had been drained by fertility treatments. We are parents because of her help. We couldn't have done it without her. There are no words.

Punkalicious

Punk is growing like a week- almost 17 months old. She is the light of our lives and noone has ever made me laugh like she does. She is saying a few words, signing a few words and gives the best open mouth kisses ever!

She gives the dogs "love,love" and pats them when they pass by. She teases them by playing with their leashes and they always think they are going for a walk! She runs, climbs and laughs all the time. She loves her baby dolls and being read to.

She LOVES to Facetime with Grandma, Auntie Nik and the boys. She will stomp her feet if they don't answer.

She is very headstrong (wonder where she gets that)- if we tell her no, she does it one more time....or 100 more times. She tells us "no" all the time and gets so, so, so mad if she can't do what she wants.

She is everything that is good in our world.

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!