My Little Man

My little man Ben is growing way too fast. We got his 9 month pictures taken at Kiddie Kandids in South Portland today. I can't believe he looks more like a little boy than a baby. As always, he takes wonderful pictures and Kiddie Kandids does a great job. He's the bestest nephew any auntie could hope for. Hope you like the pictures.

Thank you, God

Thank you for showing me how amazing people can be.

One of my favorite discussion boards to visit is www.disboards.com. The budget board is my favorite because there are usually threads about how to save money and good deals that are out there. This morning I posted a thread on the budget board about Cody. Cody goes through multiple pairs of pjs a day and I posted a thread asking if anyone knew of any deals/sales that stores might have for them. I briefly described that Cody had just been diagnosed with Leukemia and was in the hospital for a while. I had so many people email me and ask if they could have Cody's address so that they could send him some pjs and other things that he might need. I was astounded that so many strangers could care about one little boy. I hope that in the future I can be in a postition to help someone out when they need it the most.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to say Merry Christmas from our house to yours. We had a very nice Christmas. It was such a treat to see the Christmas magic through Ben's eyes. This was his very first Christmas and I think it went pretty well.

These pictures are when Uncle Chris came to visit:

And lastly, this is a video I took of Ben on Christmas day with his new radio flyer toy. When I took the video, I didn't realize I had my camera going the wrong way. So if anyone can figure out how I can rotate the video, I'd be forever grateful. I spent forever trying to see if I could fix it, but no luck.

Happy Birthday Dad

This post is in memory of my dad. Today would have been his 76th birthday. Growing up, he certainly wasn't the best of fathers and we didn't have the best of times. There were some good times and some bad ones. Through all this, he was my dad and I loved him. I was 10 when my mom and dad divorced. After that, he kinda slid out of the picture. I really wish that things could've been different but it wasn't meant to be. I love my mom to death and I don't know what I would do without her, but I always wondered what it would've been like to have a real dad like everyone else. I'm so glad that Ben will get to grow up with a dad who loves him so much. Dad died in 2002 and it took me a long time to make peace with that and him. I still miss him.

One thing I'd like to credit him with is my love of genealogy. After he died, we were given a huge book of family research that he had done. I started to pick up where he had left off and had the time of my life. I've now researched all of mom's side of the family (this includes Grammy of course, or Meme as most people called her). I've done quite a bit on my dad's side too. A couple years ago my mom and I went to Massachusetts to visit gravestones~ my dad's, Lee Jr.'s, dad's mom, brother and sisters. We also went to North Reading where I found gravestones of ancestors from the 1700 and 1800s. It was really cool to be able to connect with something so long ago. On my dad's side, we're related to John Proctor who was hanged during the Salem Witch trials. On Grammy's side, we're very distantly related to Madonna and Celine Dion. Who knew? So if you're related to me and ever need to know anything about the family, just let me know.

Okay, here I am

Alright, I finally caved and decided I would create my own blog. I don't know how often I will update this, but we'll see.

We had a family gathering yesterday. We don't get together that often, even though most of us live close by. It was nice to see everyone and I always love an occasion where I can take pictures. Ben is growing up so fast and it was fun to see him interact with the other babies and kids. We got to see Grayson for the first time too. What a cutie pie he is. It's hard to believe that Ben was once that size.

Hope you enjoyed the slideshow! :)