To my little love bug, love muffin, boogar bear...........

Dearest Declan Brady - 

   How do you put into words the amount of love a mother has for her child..........her first born child. I know you can't play favorites but damnit, Declan, you are my FAVORITE!!!!!!!!!!! :) This whole past year has been the most challenging yet easily the most fruitful year of my life. When your daddy and I first got together and up until this day, I look at him and I think "there's no way anyone could love another person the way and how much I love Paul...no way." But there is.....because I love you in a different way, but I love you just as much. When I hear you giggling and talking to yourself in the morning in your crib, my heart melts. When we're driving and I look in the rearview mirror back at you and you see me, I can't help but break out into the biggest grin on earth and you quickly follow with the same. When we're in different rooms and all of a sudden you walk over to me with the biggest smile on your face waving and holding your hands up for me to pick you up and cuddle, I just crumble a little bit inside. 

  Sometimes I hug you too tight little boy and I'm so sorry but I just want to hold onto these moments forever. Literally forever. I want to freeze time and remember this particular goodnight kiss or that particular smile and laugh you gave me. After your bottle right before bed these days you will drop your bottle to the side of the chair, you turn over on my chest so we are heart to heart (my favorite!!) and you will either go to sleep right there OR you will be mr. flirty and we'll giggle back and forth for a few minutes. Your new favorite thing is trying to find my face in the dark, putting your forehead to mine and we both shake our heads "no" and you giggle like the little crazy man that you are :) It is absolutely hysterical and as much as I love it, I try not to get you too riled up so our little fun mommy/Declan time doesn't last too long at night.......but truth be told, I would stay up there until the wee hours of the morning and do that with you if I wasn't such an uptight sleep freak mom :) 

  Like I said before, I look at you buddy, and I swear there has never been nor will there ever be a baby as cute and happy as you are right now. My heart bursts with the amount of love I feel for you honey and while I never knew I could be this happy along with your daddy, I am so thankful we are where we are and we are with who we are with. God put me on this earth to be your mommy, I am sure of it. And we are a team, you and me. You have given me one of the greatest gifts imaginable, and I want to thank you because you are only 1 year old but you have made me such a better person. I always say how important it is for the people in your life to challenge you and while I hope you grow up to surround yourself with those who are only going to lift you higher, little Decky, you have made me soar. And you don't even know it. Before you, I was probably a little too dependant on your dad for my own happiness. He just lights up my life and I feel more myself with him than without him. That is not a bad thing, but when he travels as much as he does, it just got to be pretty exhausting going from so high when he was around to so low when he was gone. Enter...........you! When you were first born, daddy was able to stay home for about a week with us and it was an absolutely PHENOMENAL week. But, it was only a week. He had to go back to work pretty quickly and in just a few short weeks, he was back on the road recruiting! I honest to goodness thought there was no way I could take care of you on my own and I had a major meltdown but my mom said something to me that I will never forget and I think has, along with you, spurred this change in me. She said "yes you will.....you will be strong if for no other reason than you need to be strong for that little boy." It wasn't about me anymore. It was about you. I needed to be strong, confident, self-assured and positive for YOU. You were so little, Declan, but I would look at you and you gave me the strength I needed when I didn't think I could face a day, let alone a night, let alone a week full of nights :) all by myself. My goal has always been and will continue to be to raise a confident, independant, strong, respectful, happy and healthy young man but how can I do that if I'm not all of the above myself. So there it was. I couldn't rely on daddy to make me happy, I had to do it myself and I have to say little buddy..............................you were the key to it all.

  Declan, you are only a year old, but you have given me the best gift of all. Yourself. And you've given me a little chunk of myself back. I love you more than words will ever say and more than you will ever know - and that's ok. Its ok to not be able to express it - its just a feeling and I hope to the heavens one day you will get to have this feeling with your own baby because there is nothing better in this whole universe. I love you, I love you, I love you. Happy 1st Birthday to the sweetest little boy ever to walk this earth. Thank you for the best year of ALL of our lives :) 

Mommy

Due date!

I don't know if its going to be like this the rest of my life but every Thursday I think about the Thursday that Declan was born..............every day around 4pm I think about the moment that he finally entered this world. Every month on the 11th, I think "oh gosh Declan's 7 months old now........" and now, on February 8th, I'm taken back to one year ago today, thinking holy smokes little buddy, you are late and I am OVERRRR this pregnancy!!!!!! We went to the doctor in the morning where she told us, "yep, nothing new, we'll plan on seeing you Thursday for the induction" - not the news I was looking for but it did give my mom, Paul and I a wonderful few days together just enjoying our time...........the last few days before Declan Brady Hogan came into our lives and changed everything forever.

February 8th was a great day. It was a day I looked forward to for 9 months straight. February 11th was even better.

Video blog?

I apologize...........................I have absolutely no flippin' clue where my camera charger is :( My camera's been dead for a few weeks and I don't think we will find it until we unload everything in SC which could easily be months. All I have right now is my phone sooooooooooooo videos is all you're gonna get.
AH! Anyone have a charger I can borrow?!?!?!!!?!?

Every.Single.Night

He is such an animal. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

GiGi and PopPop!

Eating breakfast with PopPop! They look like TWINS!!!!!!!!

So our trip back East wouldn't have been possible without the help of my mom and dad!!!!! Sunday night thru Tuesday night, they had little buddy so that A) Paul and I could spend some time together and B) we could really be productive and not worry about being back at the house so someone could nap................ya feel me?

I can honestly say, not once did I worry if he was eating ok or napping well or happy and playing - whatever. To be frank, I think he might have had more fun there than with me in Colorado! We now are going to have get a dog though because little buddy had SOOOO much fun with my parent's dogs. They bonded. In a serious way and I loved getting videos from my mom of the babies playing together :) Below are a couple good videos that my mom sent me!

THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!! LOVE YOU SOOOOO MUCH - can't wait to actually get to see you guys on a regular basis - what a concept!

OH OH OH - My dad made his first bottle EVER :) My mom had to teach a class one morning so Jimbo was on baby duty :) and he did amazing...........but he had to make his first bottle among other things and I know he was super nervous. Merging companies probably seems easy to him compared to taking care of a crazy almost 1 year old. Just ask him......he'll tell ya. Proud of you daddy!

Almost back East..........FOR GOOD!!!

Last Saturday morning, Declan and I packed up ourselves and hopped on a flight to Charlotte! Shoutout to the very nice flight attendant who voila - made the seat next to me suddenly appear open so that we could take Decky's carseat on and he could nap! Shoutout to the very rude flight attendant who made me back up all the way down the aisle with a diaper bag on my back and a baby in the front so she could walk down the aisle for really no reason.............I was almost to the potty, chic!....instead I hit every single person with the diaper bag (those aisles are the most narrow things on this planet!) on my way back down and then back up but that's another story for another day.

  Either way - WE MADE IT! And Declan and Paul had the best hug everrrrrrr in the airport. I cried like a big ole sissy watching the two of them. It was so beautiful, so long overdue, and so heart melting :)

Saturday was a GORGEOUS day in Charlotte so we played, played, played outside......ALL of my brothers were there which is always such a treat, Big Gin and Big Jimbo cooked up a feast and we just had a genuinely nice night. Decky, who is usually the easiest child ever to put down for the night, knew he hadn't seen his dad in ages so it took a loooot of cuddling to get him calm enough to go night night. Not complaining though - I've missed those family cuddle sessions so I'll take it any day of the week. After Declan was out, Paul and I went out to meet my girl Meg and her husband :) Going out and baby tending do NOT go hand in hand however as the next morning was less than pleasant. And I had A beer - I'm crazy I tell ya.

Sunday was again, absolutely gorgeous and our good friends Steve and Lindsey Jaco brought over their sweet baby girl Hannah, Meg came over after church and we all just hung out on the patio for a couple hours catching up. This is one of the reasons I just can't wait to get back East. 99% of my friends live back East and mostly all in the South so it will be unbelievably nice to every once in awhile, get together on the weekends (be it at the beach or elsewhere :) ) and just relax, catch up, hang out on the patio and talk. I miss those days.............Sunday was a gem.

Sunday we also got to go see both sets of GREAT grandparents who are all doing pretty well. Gammy and Grandy moved into a new home awhile back so this was my first time seeing it and it is beautifully perfect for them. Best part : the minute we got there Grandy says, "It's cocktail time!" like nothing has changed, and Gammy had out her nice little meat, cheese and cracker assortment. Deelish!

We had a quick Chinese takeout dinner and then Paul and I started the trek to Myrtle Beach, SC!!!!!!!!! The weather changed pretty quickly from 70 and drop dead gorgeous to cold and rainy so by the time we got to the beach it was a good sold 40 degrees and wet. Niiice. Monday morning, Paul and I slept in a little (until 8am - holler!) and then he had to go meet a recruit for a few hours so that left me to workout in the weight room and tour campus! Below are some pics!

YEA BABY

This is what working out in the humidity again looks like - sweaty and red-faced. I am the hottest. ;)

CCU's business school!

Beautiful little walkway btwn buildings!

And this is something you will not see in Boulder. Welcome to the beach!

Football stadium!

When Paul was done with his recruit we went to downtown Conway - heyyyyyyy - and had a great lunch at this super cute little restaurant right in the middle of their downtown. Pretty comparable to NYC I would say ;) The lunch was actually wonderful and it was a cute little downtown - we will certainly have to spend some more time there but I think (hope) it's got some potential! The rest of our trip was pretty packed with checking out some houses, looking at daycares, etc etc etc...............it was super quick but very needed and extra productive! It was so so so SOOO (get my drift?) nice to see where Paul has been living this past month, where he is working, who he's working with, meet his players, all that fun stuff. It has to be said that every single person I met was unbelievably friendly. And Southern.....shoowee! I will have my accent back in a hot minute! Everyone seems to love Coastal and Paul has already made an impression as so many of the other coaches and administrators just popped in to his office to say hi and it was like they'd been friends for years. Very cool. Not surprising though - he has that effect on people :)

So proud of my head coach husband. He is going to be so amazing there and we just cannot wait to be with him. 

Updates coming soon :)

For now though, we had a phenomenal time back East. And yes, I cried (a lot) when Declan first saw his daddy after almost 4 weeks of being apart...............................it was all that I imagined and more. They are so sweet and my heart finally felt full again with the three of us back together. For 2 days.

Soon enough.