And now its January

January. It had to come around sometime.

We have been dreading it. One year ago in January we lost our precious girl. Every event since Thanksgiving has seemed pale in comparison to previous years. We miss her so.

I've been stalling with this update - the one that shares our holiday memories - because I really don't know what to share. Our sadness at missing Rowan and the happy smiles on Laurel's face are such polar opposites. How can we feel both at the same time? Its such a mystery to me.

Now you know why I haven't posted in so long, which I'm sure you guessed it, but now I've shared it.

We kept a pretty low key holiday season. Tried to only do what we really wanted to do. We had a lovely Christmas Tree, decorated with homemade construction paper garland (we have so much garland) that Nanny and Laurel had made. Bryan, Laurel and I made simple photo ornaments and decorated our tree with angels and pictures of Rowan. Not fancy, but beautiful.

I didn't send cards. Although I enjoy exchanging cards, I really hate actually addressing and mailing. So I didn't. I took some wonderful photos of Laurel, which you can see here, and everyone got a family photo that I took October of 2008 (except for the few of you who will be getting one in the mail because I didn't see you).

Our family has been so loving and supportive, and we have to thank them for that. This year, and for many years to come, we will have much sadness in our hearts. And we thank you for handling us with care.

As we look to the month of January, we will be observing Rowan's Angel Day on the 24th. We've been talking about what we like to do in her honor. The list is short so far - play some ABBA. She loved that music. Maybe at 7:10 PM we'll all be thinking of her, and remembering happy memories.

To lighten up this post a bit, here's some news about Laurel: She's doing great. We are starting to work on potty training earnestly, and we're having some success. She's attending a preschool program 2 days a week, 3 days at home with Nanny. Considering the snow and the cold we've had, she really prefers to be home, and not so much at school - although she's never ready to leave when its time to go home. Two-year-olds can be fickle.

She's learning her numbers and talks with full use of language now. There's not much she misses. So don't even try to fool her. On Christmas Eve she played heartily with Max, Aunt Connie's Yorkie, and really enjoyed it - and Max seemed to enjoy it too. However, Grammy and Papa's gentle giant Madison (a Burnese Mountain Dog weighing in at 160 lbs.) was a little stressed by Laurel. Laurel enjoys playing with her Buzz, Woody and Jessie dolls that Santa brought her, but really enjoys the Princess dress up costumes that come with shoes, tiara, magic wand and a DIVA PERSONALITY. The costumes have been in time-out on occasion - thank you to the Hoppes and the Shefticks for these gifts - she loves them.

Bryan has been working on his workshop. He got new workbenches for Christmas and that spurred us to do some cleanup in our basement workshop. Its coming along nicely. His work is going well, apart from some troubles with technology during the Holidays - all of which ment some extra hours for Bryan. He will be traveling to Germany in late February.

I've been busy with various projects at work, but mostly year-end financial stuff. I'm most excited about my sewing. After I finished sewing Christmas gifts, I cleaned up my sewing room, did a couple of projects for myself, and started an online journal of my sewing, which you can read here. I hit the craft store after Christmas and stocked up on some sale items and now I've got lots of ideas. RIght now I'm working on finishing up a quilt from the class I took last fall. I've got lots of notes for what I'll be working on next. If only I could figure out how to have an endless amount of time to do what I really want to do, and less time doing what I have to do.

That's all I can think to write about for now. I hope that you are all safe, sound, healthy and keeping warm on this very cold January day. And until my next post,

Be well.

Colleen