2010

I know I've said it several times already, but I really can't think of a better description. This year was the worst year I've ever had and this year was the best year I've ever had. How is that possible? Well, if you've been reading for a while, I'm sure you are well aware.

On February 11th, mine and Brent's lives changed forever.

On June 7th , our lives changed forever.

On June 18th, our lives changed forever. 

On July 1st, our lives changed forever.


Our lives changed for the better and they changed for the worse. I guess the only worse thing is simply knowing Cohen and not having him here with us physically. The better is looking forward to seeing him again and processing, and learning from, everything he and our situation has taught us.


2010 was all about Cohen for Brent and I. It will always be about Cohen.

I think these slideshows best summarize our year. As far as videos, this one was my favorite...Cohen opening his eyes when I talk to him :)

I guess it's bittersweet for me to see this year go. As much as I hated this year, I still loved many moments, parts and pieces of it. Even though the years will pass, I'm pretty certain 2010 will be our most memorable. It has been QUITE the roller coaster, but being totally honest...it's ending on a high. I have peace in my heart even during the times where I feel so sad Cohen isn't here. God has answered so many prayers this year and some I may never know the reasons, but nonetheless, I know it's the way it should be.

I do look forward to 2011. I pray it is a better year all around. We will continue to carry Cohen with us in 2011 and for all the years to come. I won't have those 12 days any other year like I did in 2010, but I'll always remember them.

 

 

We thank you all for your love & support this year! I'm seriously amazed out how wonderful the blogging world has to been to us. Your words of encouragement have been so uplifting and I'm very grateful to you all! We wish you a happy new year!!

Weekly Fun Phone Pics

I know, no original title. I suppose it is what is is :)

I'm pretty addicted to taking pics with my phone.

I'm also obsessed with "shake it" photo app. That's what all the pictures below are taken with.

I told myself I wouldn't hit any after Christmas sales. I really didn't "need" anything. Well, I ended up coming across a few things I couldn't resist. They were extremely cute and very inexpensive...

I got this tray at a local boutique. It caught my eye and of course now angel wings have a whole new meaning to me. Not sure if you can tell, but it's painted a pretty silver and has glitter blended in...

I managed to come out of Target with only 4 Christmas clearance items.

A few ornaments to go on our kitchen random-ornament-tree...

I probably don't need another serving piece, but who could turn down this for $5?

  

While at Target, I couldn't resist InStyle. I use to have a subscription but it either got lost in the move or ran out. I should probably check on that. I love Gwyneth Paltrow...

I had one of my favorite salads this week. It has mixed greens, pineapple, dates, feta, strawberries, spiced pecans, sunflower seeds, croutons (I get it without) and champagne vinaigrette. YUM...

I'm still obsessing over my Nest holiday candle. It makes the entire house smelly delightful, when it's not even burning....

 

While returning something at TJ Maxx, I came across this china plate. Have a mentioned I collect random china plates? I do. Loves them... 

My friend, Jen, gave me this finger nail file with Boston Terriers on it :) Too fun. I love that when people see Boston Terriers it makes them thing of us.

Because, I mean, how could you get this sweet face out of your head....

We've gotten several party/shower invites this week. They are so cute and hopefully we can attend. I love getting things like this :)

 

I had the below for dinner one night this week. I'm not ashamed. I needed it. I hadn't had dessert in so long. 

 

Hope you all are having a good week! I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of this year. That is crazy.

Cohen's Ornaments

This year we got some very beautiful ornaments to honor Cohen and that will always make us think of him. A few of the ones I'm posting below, Brent and I saw and purchased and some we were gifted to us.

Brent and I missed many weddings and 1st birthday parties in 2010. We weren't always on top of sending gifts either. I thought it would be a cute idea to send all those people an ornament with their name (and some 2010) on them. I looked high and low and finally found Cottage Joy on Etsy. I order many ornaments and Karen did a wonderful job! I decide I would get Cohen one as well :)

Brent and I got all of these.....

Since we believe Cohen really liked music, we got these :)

A sweet friend, Melissa, made this for us. I LOVE it! So creative. She is also a NOLA girl and got us the fleur de li down below as well.

We got the 'C' and our friend Kasia got us the sweet angel and the hearts below. So perfect for us and thoughtful of her!

The doggy ornaments and the cupcakes Brent and I picked up this year. All pretty random, but we thought they were fun.

All of these are on our kitchen tree and/or living room tree. I left Cohen's tree as I did it this year here.

I think it will be bittersweet packing Christmas up. Can you hire people to do that for you? haha

Hanging Holiday Cards

I posted here about how I have displayed my holiday cards last year. Actually, I've done this now for two or three years. I was asked some questions and thought I would answer :)

Here are our cards this year...

All you need to do this is ribbon, tacks/push pins and some sort of clip to hang. The last two years, I used small binder clips like these. This year, those were hidden away after the move and I came across these at Wal-Mart....

I thought they were super cute for hanging the cards.

So, simple as that :) I will say, I made the length a bit short on the rows, so the last card on the left are each tacked in. My husband doesn't seem to notice the holes in the wall either. I love when he walks in every day and goes to look at the new cards we have received.

I think to maybe take up less space, you could perhaps try to hang the ribbon vertical. I like having the wall space we do to do horizontal.

I LOVE getting cards in the mail. It really was one of the highlights each day during the holidays. We got such beautiful ones. Thank you to all of you who sent one. If you want to trade next year, let me know :)

This Christmas...

This Christmas was pretty good. Well, I suppose it was as good as can be expected. We felt as though someone was missing, of course. I think all of our family felt that way. I had several breakdowns Friday, but Saturday I did pretty good. Brent and I did our typical Christmas morning gift exchange Friday night. Therefore, we kind of just slept through Christmas morning, which probably helped. We then moved right on to spending time with our family. This Christmas made me think a lot about last Christmas.

We had a nice time delivering goodies and receiving goodies.

We got wonderful gifts and I plan to share some of those in another post. 

Here are some pictures I took all on Thursday (except for the last.) They are all iphone pics..sorry : / I was a bit lazy in using a camera the rest of the weekend. 

Getting sweets ready to deliver. Pretty Paperie Printables did the gift tags for me :) They say Megan & Pam, but most credit should probably go to Pam. She is my mom and she did pretty much all the baking this year. One year, perhaps I'll have the time/energy to do more.

Thursday we ate lunch with these silly girls (our nieces).......

I was so tickled to come home to a porch of packages on Thursday.

One of my best friends (who works at Stanley Korshak) sent me the Nest holiday candle. It is DEFINITELY my favorite. It smells so, so, so GOOD. Love Stanley Korshak, too.

My sweet friend, Katheryn, sent us these chocolates :) The chocolate covered oreos and toffee were my fav.

We received another package on Thursday but it will be included in an "ornament" post I want to do this week. Cohen got some beautiful ornaments this Christmas.

Speaking of chocolates, my mom made a chocolate cheesecake with raspberries. It was AMAZING. I wasn't going to eat any and then I took a little nibble, which turned into half a piece probably. On the goodie plate is a mini rum cake, peanut butter balls, banana bread, fudge and cinnamon glass. I'll share some other recipes soon.

The only pictures from Friday are of Cohen's cookies to Santa. I'm having a hard time letting those go.

Today, we've been pretty lazy. We think it's hilarious when Elton props up on my legs. Brent snapped the below picture. I'm not sure if you can really see how he is sitting, but it's pretty funny.

I believe my next giveaway will be next Monday.

This week, I'll have a few more Christmas-ish posts coming.

Hope you all have a good Monday!

Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered this giveaway! It was kind of a busy week so the competition wasn't quite as hard!

Random.org selected a winner...

The Dishy Decorator! You are the winner :) Congrats, email me and I will give ya details!

My next giveaway will probably be next week!

Cohen's Santa Cookies

Merry Christmas, everyone :)

Last night Brent and I made cookies for Santa....

We think he will like them.

If it's possible for us miss Cohen more, today/tonight/tomorrow might be one of those times. I honestly think I just woke up that way this morning. I don't think there is anything wrong with it either. Probably pretty normal.

We are still enjoying time with each other and our families. It's nice to have all our immediate family living in the same town. We are still counting our blessings.

Thanks for all the sweet comments on our Christmas card!


Luke 2:13-20
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Our Christmas Card 2010

When the first time Christmas cards crossed my mind this year, I immediately thought that would not be doing them. We had anticipated our card with Cohen on it. Like any new mom/mom-to-be, I had pictured it in my head. Since he wasn't here with us, I couldn't imagine sending one out without including his sweet face. Our year was Cohen

Brent's mom typically does a photo shoot and puts the card together. She was swamped at the end of this year, so she decided to take a break from the card making. That kind of helped my decision.

Well, the cards started rolling in. There were picture-less cards; there were cards with entire families. I guess I decided I wanted to show our family off from this year like everyone else :)  I felt weird not sending one out after we had been for so many years. I was also worried people thought I just hadn't sent them one. So, I talked to Brent and he said he was fine with whatever I thought. We agreed our most favorite picture with Cohen would go on a card. I contacted our designing friend, Jessica, as she had decided to do Christmas cards this year. She whipped something up for us and we got it within days. She also thought it would be a nice gesture and people would have a somewhat hard copy of the he picture, if the liked.

We were VERY pleased with the card.

Yes, a lot of people did tell us they cried when they got it. That wasn't our intentions, but I can totally see where it may have that affect on one.

I would love to send you all one, but that might break my bank! So, so many of you showed us love and support this year. We are so grateful. I actually did end up with extras (because Jessican's printer people are so nice) so if you must have one, let me know :) I'll see what I can do. There were many I thought about sending one too and I suppose I was just shy to ask for the address.

We've received so many beautiful cards this year. It honestly makes my day to check the mail and have Christmas cards! It's a nice change from the typical mail. I'll show my card display soon!

Thank you Jessica. Diamond Doll Designs did an excellent job :)

We've been doing cards since 2005 and I'm glad we kept the tradition going. I've been blogging since 2007, so those are:

2007

2008

2009

(I wouldn't waste your time reading most of those posts, haha. I was just blogging for my family to see what we were up to since we had recently moved.)

I'd love to see your Christmas card. If you blogged it, feel free to leave the link in your comment :)

*Don't forget about the giveaways for the week here!