A day late but not a dollar short.

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I have so many great memories from from my childhood and a lot of those memories are from the holidays. The decorations, the food, the family and of course the giving and receiving of presents. I hope to create the same lasting memories for my children.

My husband's job requires him to work odd hours and holidays. He was supposed to be home on Christmas morning but found out he did indeed have to work. Both he and I grew up celebrating Christmas on Christmas morning. We threw around the idea of doing everything on Christmas Eve or after he got home from work on Christmas but it just didn't feel right. So we agreed...we'll just do Christmas a day late. We'll have Christmas Eve on Christmas and then Christmas on the 26th. Our oldest son is still too young to know the difference so we wanted to keep with tradition.

So on the evening of the 25th we made cookies for Santa and opened the traditional one present each. We then read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and tucked the boys in tight for the night.

We woke up on Christmas morning, Santa had come and we still had our "Christmas morning" as a family. We were able to celebrate Christmas in our own time and in our own way. It may have been harder for us to have to wait an extra day than it was for the kids. I must say though, it was well worth the wait.


I'm sure one day, when the kids are older and wiser, we will have to open presents without Dad. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But as for this year, I'm glad we could pull it off. As for New Years...I don't think I've been awake at 12 am on New Years Day since Jacob was born. At this point in my life I can't imagine a better way to ring in the New Year than cuddled up next to my husband in a peaceful slumber....ahhhhhh :)

One of those times...

So I'm going to kind of go out of order here. My second son, Charlie, was born on April 20th of this year. During the last trimester of my pregnancy I was going to the bathroom a lot. I'm not going to get too graphic here, but we're talking over 15 times a day. The Dr.'s couldn't really tell me what was wrong since they couldn't do all of the tests and treatments they wanted to since I was pregnant. It finally started to improve after about six weeks (I know, SIX WEEKS). His birth was perfect, very quick and problem free. We brought my little guy home and assumed it must have just been something about this particular pregnancy that caused me to have that kind of reaction. Anyway, about two months later it hit me again like a ton of bricks. Only this time it was accompanied by horrible cramping and pain. I became dehydrated and after a few days decided to go to the hospital. They did a CT scan and said I had colitis (inflamed colon) and send me home with a couple prescriptions for antibiotics and told me to follow up with my GI doctor. The antibiotics didn't help so my GI set me up for a colonoscopy. Long story short, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis and prescribed steroids to get rid of the inflammation and another drug that I would be taking for a lifetime. I had to stop breastfeeding and was devastated. I had been healthy as a horse up to this point with no history of this in my family. But I digress...

Back to my point. Charlie sort of got lost in the shuffle during this time. He had different people caring for him, he was suddenly switched from breast to bottle, he went from sleeping next to me to sleeping in his crib and he took it all in stride. He has been the easiest and most accommodating baby ever. I'm so thankful to have been blessed with such a great little guy. He turned 8 months old on the 20th of this month and I could not be happier to have him in my life. He is the kind of baby that makes you want to have a million babies (okay, maybe just three or four).

Which brings me to what made me want to write this post in the first place. One of my favorite times of the day early in the morning with him. He usually wakes up before his older brother and we cuddle up on the couch under a blanket as I drink my coffee and watch the news. He is perfectly content to be snuggled up next to me with no toys or books or other baby entertainment. Just me, his Mom. My heart melts when I look down at him and he looks me in the eye. I see all of the unconditional love that I have for him reflected back at me in his gaze. In that moment, I see a little boy who is the center of my world and me the center of his and I wouldn't trade this moment for anything.

Beginnings

I've had lots of beginnings in my life. I like to think that I've had many more beginnings than I will ever have endings. Throughout my life I've tried like hell to hold onto the things I love while still trying and embracing new things. So begins this blog. I've been following the blogs of others for quite some time now and always find myself wondering why I haven't begun one of my own. I used to think that I could remember all the big moments in my life as if they happened yesterday. How could I ever forget the details of my wedding? How could I ever forget the flood of emotions the day my son was born? How could I forget when he took his first steps or the way I felt when I saw him holding his little brother for the first time? But, as time passes, I've begun to realize that those moments are fleeting and the things I thought I would remember forever have become harder and harder to recollect.

So here I am at another beginning. The beginning of documenting all of the things that I deem important in my life in order to never lose grasp of these precious seconds that seem so imprinted on my memory but might fade with time. Why choose blog form you ask (or don't but I'm going to tell you anyway)? I love reading about the lives of others close to me and sometimes I learn something new that I can apply to my own life. So I figure...if I'm going to be writing about all of this "stuff" then why not let other people read it and maybe pull something from my life that they can apply to theirs. Or maybe something in my life might put a smile on the face of someone having a bad day or give company to someone who thinks there is not one other person in this world that could be feeling the way they do or enduring what they are enduring.

So here is my life...for all to read. But more importantly, here is my life in writing so I never have that moment where I say to myself, "I really wish I would have written that down." Because though many of my memories have been lost to time there is always room for new beginnings. So here's to the beginning of preserving a moment in time. The beginning of an end, the end of forgetting. Now that's an ending I don't mind having at all.




Who would ever want to forget those faces? Not me, that's for sure.