2011- Trace's Year

Dear friends and family,

This year I just couldn't find the words soon enough to send an actual Christmas letter. There are so many things I want to tell you and it is hard to put them into one neat little package of words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Christmas cards and letters are one of my favorite things about the season and I save my favorites from year to year and I love looking back on them. I save my mother's, grandmother's and mother in law's letter each year (as well as the photos from friends and family) and I love looking back at that little piece of paper that so nicely wraps up the year. My mom's newsletter is usually a similar version of itself each year. She states she has the same job, same family, same house, same life.

I wish that I could also do the same.

I often daydream about how things would be if they just stayed the same. A little "same-ness" around here would be nice, don't you think?

But that is not life. Life is always changing although it might appear on the outside everything is staying the same.

2011 started out very hopeful for us with a new baby on the way. I had visions of how our life would be with two sweet babies in our lives. I was, of course, nervous about having two children so small but so excited to have a little new baby in the house again. The pregnancy was uneventful and the delivery was smooth, thanks to a scheduled c-section. I will never forget how excited I was when Scott told me "It's a boy!" with the biggest smile on his face. Trace was perfect. Two boys. I was the luckiest mother in the world.

Trace so much a part of our family right away, a true blessing. Isn't it funny how things happen in your life and once they happen you couldn't imagine it any other way? I think of my life moments like this often, they are like ticks in the timeline of my life: the moment when I knew I wanted to be a music teacher, the moment when I first met Scott, the moment he asked me to marry him, the first time we brought sweet baby Michael home in his little baby carrier, Trace. They are the moments where they happen and then afterwards you are like, "what now?" because you can't imagine your life ever being the same.

I am trying to wrap my head around everything that happened to us in the past year and one thing that is true is now nothing will ever be the same. It is hard to live your life and know so strongly that a part of you is missing. It seems like such a short period of time when you say we only had Trace for four and half months. Four and a half months. It isn't even half a year. But in my mind it seems like so much more than that. It is hard to even give that period of time a label because it is so special to me. From the moment Trace was born he was a part of our family and had our whole hearts.

There is no doubt will we always think of 2011 as the year we lost Trace, but I am trying so hard to think of it as the year we got Trace.

2011 is the year of Trace.

Trace's year.

I wish I could say that I hope next year will be easier, but I know in my heart it won't. He will always be missing from our family.

So while it appears from the outside that everything on the outside is the same with our family (same house, same jobs, same activities), really everything is different. We are forever changed. We are thankful for many things, and we are most thankful that we got to have and be blessed by Trace.

And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
-Luke 2:12

We are sending lots of love your way,

Scott, Rose & Michael