Mixed Bag Of Rant

Like every new year, I start out thinking about all the things I would like to accomplish in the year ahead. I don’t like to think of them as resolutions, but aspirations maybe?

2019 was interesting and ripe with change. Amazing things happened such as winning an industry social media award and welcoming our new puppy Stella to our family. Scary things happened such as having a nanny (yes, when you are as type A as my husband and I… nannies are scary), Mackenzie started Kindergarten (OMG) and Jackson started middle school.

I always feel so motivated at the beginning of the year, but it is hard to put anything tangible together because let’s face it. You just can plan for everything. So while I may have aspirations, I also have forgiveness for myself.

2020 Aspirations

• Continue to advocate for Mackenzie and ensure that she has the same opportunities to do things as any other kid. 
• Be patient with Jackson as he heads into adolescence and is learning how to navigate middle school. 
• Date my husband. Our marriage is in dire need of TLC. 
• Meet my weight loss goal – I started Profile by Sanford in May of last year. I want to reach my goal! Just 15lbs to go! 
• Not just run this year to run, but REALLY train and improve! I started doing Daily Burn 365 and I am confident between that and getting in some gym time I will start seeing some PRs this year. 
• Read one book a month. I know that doesn’t seem like much, but it is considering I maybe read two books all of last year. If I want Jackson to read more, I have to show him that it is enjoyable – I need to be a better role model. 
• BLOG MORE!! I miss writing. I miss sharing. I think it would help me sort out and navigate this crazy life. 
• Spend quality time with friends. 
• Not be afraid to make new friends. Mom life is hard. Feeling awkward among other moms is harder. 
• Work my business. I LOVE my Monat products so why on earth am I so shy about telling the world how amazing they are? 
• Make the church and God a bigger part of my life. I always feel more whole having it in my life.

I had to chuckle when I saw this in my blog post history:

Clearly, I have had many ideas and thoughts but absolutely zero of them have come into fruition to be worthy enough to be published.

My little blog has certainly changed since I started it in 2006, you know, back when I was inspired by the likes of Perez Hilton and didn’t have kids to complain about. It changed from American Idol recaps, to infertility to raising a baby to health and fitness to… nothing? Yikes.

I think that defines this place for me perfectly. A mixed bag of rant. A rant of all the things. This is LIFE. So what does this mean for its future? No more overthinking. No more trying to find a deeper purpose for my blog.

As I sort out my life as a mom, wife, friend, professional and everything else that life is going to choose to spit out at me, I need a place to let it all out. A place to cheer. A place to cry. A place to rant.

You will not find politics of any kind here, so if that is what you are looking for, look somewhere else.

You will find a wife who loves her husband and desperately wants more alone time with him.

You will find the mom of two kids – 1 neurotypical 8 year old with a genius level brain and teenage level behavior and 1 sweet-as-pie special needs 3 year old who has a brain disorder, hemimegalencephaly, who has turned our world upside down in some of the best and worst ways that a human could ever go through.

You will find a friend – or at least a friend who longs for her friends and wishes she had more time for them.

You will find a runner who hits the pavement for the better part of the year for reasons mostly unknown, but will tell herself it is for health & fitness but it is really her escape from reality. Perhaps even a form of punishment and torture?

You will find a working mom who has flip-flopped for 8 years whether or not to continue pursuing her career or being at home with her kids, but somehow continues to pursue the career. Tomorrow she’ll want to be at home with her kids.

You will find a person just trying to pick her way through life. Will you join her?

Did you know? Today is National Superhero Day!

While this day was created to encourage people to become heroes in their community, which of course is awesome, I can only think about my own superhero:

Mighty Mackenzie

She’s got the whole world in her hands

Since being faced with her initial diagnosis of hemimegalencephaly back in September, we have gone through what I look at as similar to the grieving process. Grieving that our daughter didn’t match what a “perfect” or “normal” child is. Grieving that she may not have the life we envisioned for her those 9 months I carried her in my tummy. Grieving what it means for our family – that we may not be able to do the things “normal” families do.

But yes, overall it was the 5 stages of grief.

1. Denial and disbelief. How can this be happening?
2. Anger. WHY her? WHY us?
3. Bargaining. This was my fault. I should have stopped taking that med sooner. We should have seen something in her ultrasound.
4. Depression. For months I was sad. Mourning the loss of a so-called perfect child with the perfect life. Every photo and story of normal babies were heartbreaking.
5. Acceptance. At the end of the tunnel there was acceptance and an overwhelming love in a way that I never knew existed.

The biggest part of acceptance comes perseverance. We will never stop fighting for her. Advocating for her. Giving her the best shot at having the best life possible.

Let me tell you why she is my hero. This little girl never ceases to amaze me. With every goal that we set for her, she continues to kick ass through it. Despite the limitations that her brain is supposedly causing, she is breaking through her developmental milestones. She is constantly being poked and prodded. She has to endure blood tests, ultrasounds and skin biopsies. Yet she takes it all like a champ.

With the help of physical therapists and orthotics, she can run. RUN! My daughter can run!

With the help of speech therapy my daughter is starting to talk and communicate more than ever. Just the other day, she smiled and looked her daddy and said, “Dada.”

She dances.

She laughs.

She gives kisses and hugs to everyone she sees.

But more than anything her smile lights the world. Everyone should live life like Mackenzie does. She is a blessing and my hero every single day.

I know it has been a while my friends.

Since I posted back in September, when we found out about Mackenzie’s condition, I have run the gamut of emotions.

Confusion. Sadness. Anger. Depression. Helplessness. Desperation. Guilt. Fear.

I could probably come up with about a hundred more.

Around the new year, I came to an important realization: this is my reality. I can sit back and feel sorry for myself and wallow in “why me’s” but that won’t really do anyone any good.

It was time to find ME again. The strong me. The positive me.

I wish I had more to share about our sweet and Mighty Mackenzie. We are proud to announce that she finally started walking just a couple weeks shy of her 2nd birthday and are now heavily focused on speech. Even though she isn’t able to speak many words, she fully understands us. We still don’t have a finalized diagnosis on her condition – just bit and pieces – all of which we are treating individually. To say that it is frustrating not to have answers is an understatement. There are a lot of assumptions, but nothing that is definite. We ache to have some kind of understanding about the kind of life she is going to have. Jackson is envious of the attention that we have to give her and that has caused stress.

Yet, there is one constant: love. This little girl is loved like no other. Despite the mounting tests, therapy, poking, prodding and monitoring she continues to be just the happiest little person you will ever meet. I’ve said it before – her smile is the answer to world peace. While my heart aches in so many ways, it is impossible not to be overpowered by the amazing spirit this child brings to the world.

As abnormal as her world is, you would never know it by watching her. We want to pop the bubble we have put up around her and our family to do everything possible to be normal in a very abnormal situation. What we really want is to be the family we dreamed we could be. Maybe it doesn’t look like we thought it would, but it still has the two key ingredients: love and faith. Neither of which we can live without at this point in our lives.

Inspired by my amazing daughter I created a playlist for her on Spotify – I hope you are as moved by these songs as I am! Mighty Mackenzie on Spotify

To follow Mackenzie’s journey and join in her wonderful support community go to: www.facebook.com/mightymackie

Her smile will change the world…

When you become a parent you fear everything – from the first time you put them in that big crib at night and close the door behind you, leaving them at daycare, injury and illness (just to name a few).

No parent wants to hear that there is something gravely wrong with their child.

I have spoken a few times about my Mackenzie’s developmental delays and all of the things we are doing to get to the bottom of it.

After what seemed like an eternity, we were finally able to get Mackenzie’s MRI scheduled and cleared for sedation. Having to be at Gillette Children’s Hospital for any reason is not fun. My heart ached for every single parent there. Looking around, we actually felt fortunate that Mackenzie wasn’t as dire as some of the other children we saw there and I felt horrible for even thinking it.

We were able to meet with her neurologist right away the following morning to discuss the results. Her first words were, “We finally have an answer to why Mackenzie is having delays, but I’m sorry that it isn’t good news.”

My worst fear has come true. There is something wrong with my baby.

Mackenzie has a number of issues – from right hemihypertrophy (one side of her body is longer/different than the other), myopia and a staphyloma in her left eye and the worst of it: she has hemimegalencephaly – the left side of her brain is larger than her right. If you are looking at these words with confusion, you are in the same boat as us. To tell you the truth – I don’t think her neurologist knew exactly what all of it meant either. Telling us that she needs to do more research on her condition does not exude a lot of confidence for us. Our next steps is to work with genetics to determine if she has an underlying syndrome attached to all of these symptoms of hers. Of course, in order to work with genetics, our insurance needs to provide a pre-approval which from what we’ve been told is going to be an uphill battle.

For the most part, from our vague understanding of her conditions, she is at risk for seizures (and may have already been happening for all we know), gross motor delay and speech delays. Since it is her left brain that is not working right – it is her processing capabilities that are affected. On the fortunate side – her right brain is perfect which is where we get her beautiful personality from. Mackenzie goes to physical therapy regularly to help her with gross motor issues such as walking, we also see an occupational and speech therapist from the school district’s early childhood intervention program. We figured out that she is able to communicate with us through sign language and have been stepping up our efforts with it so that we can better understand her needs.

Since receiving her high level diagnosis a month ago, I have been a mess of highs and lows. Most days, I go to work like a robot with my brave face on. I don’t let anyone in to see how sad and scared I am. I try not to think about what went wrong when I was pregnant with her. Was it a fluke? Did I eat something? Take something? I want someone or something to blame – I am my own easy target. I would do just about ANYthing for her – to make her life easier and better.

Try as I may to cling to just getting by day-to-day, it is hard not to think about her future. About our family’s future. Will she need brain surgery? What is her life expectancy? What will her life be like? Will she ever be able to be independent?

So many questions with very little answers.

The only thing I have to cling to is my faith and to ask for prayers from anyone and everyone who is willing to give them.

For regular updates and to offer up your support and prayers, please visit our Mighty Mackenzie’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/mightymackie 

In all my frenzy over Mackenzie’s issues this year, I haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk about one of my biggest running goals and challenges to date:

Running my first half marathon.

I am now more than halfway through my training program (I am using the Nike+ App Coach) and am about to head into my peak week. That means, my short runs are about 5 miles and my long runs are reaching the 11-13 mile range.

It is beast. It is hard. Sometimes, it even seems impossible.

My colleagues poked some fun at me when I told them that I share my runs and training via social media. I got the “Oh really Jo, you are that person? The person who shares their workouts?”

Yup. I am THAT person. I am keenly aware that there are people out there who are annoyed by this. I don’t post it to show off (I don’t even post my pace… which is still embarrassingly slow in my mind). There are a handful of people who always, ALWAYS hit the like button on my post. And when they hit the like button and I am out on my run? My Nike app sends a cheer to me. Getting a cheer at mile 9 when I feel like I want to die and crawl back home is about the BEST thing ever. So go ahead and be annoyed, but to those who are supporting me and cheering me on… THANK YOU.

There are many times when I admit that I might have bitten off more than I can chew. The training is rigorous and you cannot let up on it (unless you want to be injured, unable to walk for a week or in extreme measures DIE after the actual race). At this point, I am tired. I am sore. Most nights it takes every ounce of motivation to get me out the door and run for an hour or more. And my long runs? I honestly dread them and the mental anguish I have to put myself through to do them.

Yet despite the naysayer in my head, I am determined to do this.

Thankfully, I am not doing this alone. Two others from my running group are also running the half marathon with me – and for us of us this is our first. Words cannot express how grateful I am for their support and for keeping me going. I honestly don’t think I would do it if I had to do it alone.

Kathy – My Sole Sister

Then there is the question of WHY.

This, my friends, is a very good question.

The answer is two-fold:
1) For me. I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone but myself. I want to know that I can set a goal and keep it. For months, I have been starting and quitting Beachbody and DailyBurn programs, but I have not yet quit running. It is my time. Time out of the house. Time to exercise. Sweat. Work out daily frustration. Enjoy the beautiful Minnesota summer. I want to prove to myself that at nearly 40 years old, my body is capable of doing amazing things.

2) For charity. The half marathon I am running is the Minnesota Half Marathon – RBC Race for the Kids. I have run a lot of races in my short running career, and all my high cost fees usually go to charity, but this is one that I truly take to heart. The charity is Ronald McDonald House. Ronald McDonald House Charities, Upper Midwest provides a home-away-from-home for families with children facing critical medical crisis.  They are founded on the belief that a child and family heal best when they are together. I am a mom. My daughter has special needs and my family could very well need these services someday. I want to know they are available not only to me, but other families who want to stay together when their kids are critically ill.

With that said, I am passionate about this cause and about running. So much so, that I am fundraising for the cause. Will you consider a donation? Even $5 will help me in reaching my fundraising goals. More importantly. Do it for the kids!!

http://rbc.kintera.org/raceforthekids/joannekoenig

Those of you who know me know that I never do this kind of thing, so I am hoping JUST THIS ONCE you will consider helping me in raising money for a really great cause.

I promise to start blogging on the regular too and keep you all posted on my journey to the Half as well as my sweet Mackenzie’s progress.

Mackenzie – 18 months

I have been mostly open about my sweet, little Mackenzie. About her… differences.

I am a part of a Facebook mom’s group for babies born in December 2013. They are the most supporting, amazing and wonderful women and moms on the planet. All of our kids are wonderfully unique in their own way, but for the most part, all of their babies did MOST developmental things around the same time.

That’s when I started to worry. Why isn’t Mackenzie doing these things?

Since the time she was about 3 months old, we knew that Mackenzie was likely to have some challenges. We discovered vision issues in her left eye very early on (which is a rare discovery in a baby). However, it was unknown what the impact of these issues would imply. There was also the discovery of her skull ridge, lipoma in her tummy, a small hip joint and one leg longer than the other.

Put ALL of these things together and what do you get?

Overwhelmed, emotional parents of an 18 month old who is severely developmentally delayed.

But Mackenzie… she is special. She is happy. She is blissfully unaware that there is anything wrong with her. Of course, being parents, we want only the best care for her. We don’t want to keep her in the older infant room at her daycare anymore as she belongs with her toddler friends, learning toddler things.

I am sensitive to the fact that she isn’t doing what he is “supposed” to be doing at this age. I don’t go around doing the usual bragging that pretty much all mommies do, so most of my “friends” (speaking of those specifically on social media) are unaware that my daughter has any issues. My husband and I have chosen to keep Mackenzie’s developmental struggles in the family. It just feels too personal to make it a social “thing”. On the other hand – am I not giving my social media friends enough credit? Is the truth that I am worried about being judged?

For the most part, I have brilliant, smart, supportive and mostly Christian social media friends. They would pray for and cheer on Mackenzie as she learns at a year and half to crawl, sit up and pull herself to stand – most things that that the “average” 10-12 month old is already doing.

Mackenzie is very quickly practicing her mastery of pulling to stand. SO much so, that she did it last night from about 2:30 – 5am. With 2 paci’s over the side of the crib, 2 parents who are tired as hell, we finally gave up and let her “figure” it out. She fell asleep around 5am sitting up.

Quickly we learned that just because Mackenzie is delayed, doesn’t mean we aren’t going to go through ALL of the same things every other parent to a baby went through about 6 months earlier.

Yet – I kind of want to scream to the universe that she did this all night long. I’m so proud of her. Physical therapy is hard work for her – they push her to the baby brink and it is sometimes hard to watch. But nights like last night tell me that the hard work is paying off. She’s definitely doing what she’s supposed to be doing – even if she’s giving it her best go in the middle of the night.

I don’t think any parent ever anticipates having a child with special needs. I struggle with work-life balance. I struggle with my desire to succeed and provide as well as my deep need to be with her at therapy every week. I struggle with trusting her daycare to work with her on the exercises she needs to work on. I should be there.

Despite our struggles and setbacks, I love her with the fire of a thousand suns. I love her in a way that is different from anything I have ever known. Of course I love my son to the moon and back, because well… mama’s boy, but Mackenzie… oh Mackenzie and all of her special, unique qualities makes me love her and want to protect her in way that only I, her mama, can understand.

Judge Judge Judge

We moms, we judge all the time. We judge others (even when we don’t mean to). We judge ourselves.

All of that judgment equates to a whole lot of guilt.

I will be the first to admit that I question and judge other’s parenting choices. Vaccinations and putting the car seat in the wrong place in a shopping cart at Target top my list of judginess.

Before this conversation strays into a vaccination debate or whether or not to breastfeed, I will say this, WE PARENTS ARE ALL GUILTY. If you have a stance on any of these subjects you are guilty. GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. Of course, as I stand here on my soapbox, I will say that I keep these judgments mostly internal. So, I shall use my blog in the passive aggressive way that I always do. But this brings me to another point: go ahead and have your opinions. We all have them. We have the right to them. But can you just keep them to yourselves? It’s hard enough being a mom without someone shoving reports, studies and other bullshit in my face.

I read a post this morning on the Scary Mommy blog which is one of my favorite blogs on the entire planet. It was titled, “Why Developmental Milestones are Bullshit.” I was so happy that someone finally told me to stop worrying and start living.

I haven’t been the most verbal in publicly discussing my 15 month old daughter Mackenzie’s slow development. Those close friends, family and colleagues that I have spoken with about my worries all echo the sentiments of the above blog post. Stop worrying. Trust your pediatrician.

But you see, that is hard. I am one of many new mommies out of my 300+ Facebook friends who had babies over the last year or two not to mention the private Facebook Group I am a part of who all had December 2013 babies. I see them posting videos and pictures of their babies already walking and talking. I see them being toddlers. Suddenly, I am afraid to post things about my baby. Afraid to admit that my daughter doesn’t seem to be like the rest of them. Afraid that all of my mom friends will suddenly stand in judgment. Judging whether I did something wrong. It’s as if I can see in their faces with that look of pity or suddenly get a slew of PMs saying “You should really get that checked out.”

While I do agree that developmental milestones are a little bit of BS, I also do believe that they stand as markers for pediatricians to determine if there is a larger problem at play.

Mackenzie hasn’t “technically” missed any milestones. She is still well within the range of when her expected first steps should be (she has up to 18 months before they will considered her truly delayed). We have had a number of red flags with her though. She has a football shaped eye which is causing extreme nearsightedness in her left eye and she will wear glasses for the rest of her life (and yes, getting a 1 year old to wear glasses is as hard as you might imagine it to be). Around 6 months we discovered mass in her belly – it turned out to be a lipoma; however we are slowly learning it could be the result of a bigger problem. She had mild hip displaysia as an infant which thankfully resolved itself. She also has one leg longer than the other. We don’t know if any of these issues are contributing to her slow to develop major motor skills like pulling up and walking. We have now been referred to a neurologist and likely a geneticist. There have been million letter named syndromes that I can barely pronounce thrown at us – most with scary repercussions such as a heightened risk of cancer. All we really want to hear is “She is fine.” If it costs me thousands of dollars to hear those words, then so be it.

My husband thinks our little girl is just a little diva – that she is going to determine when she wants to do these things. Not when the “developmental milestone” markers are telling her to do them. Despite some of the bigger things, such as walking, she is a champion eater and sleeper. Her language is developing just fine and we’ve heard her verbalizing mama, dada and even Jack Jack (which is often confused with dada). She also uses her sign language to tell us “more”, “food” and “milk”. Her “delays” should definitely not be confused with stupidity.

All of this to worry about and I’m worried about what others will think? My daughter is flipping gorgeous and funny. She is an absolute joy to be around. I should be sharing all of her beauty with the world.

Those who stand in judgment can suck it.

Look at how beautiful she is!

She’s ridiculously happy most of the time

She falls asleep sitting up.

She’s going to be a champion texter someday. Also… those CURLS!

She adores her brother.

Works on her computing skills daily.

She is insanely curious about everything we are doing.

There are a few important things that have gotten me through motherhood: the love of a good man, a supportive family and caffeine.

However, there is another important thing I have done since I became pregnant with my son 6 years ago: build my mommy network.

I became a part of an online community way back in my early TTC and infertile days. Starting with my clomid buddy group where we clamored together to scrutinize for that oh so precious faint line on our pregnancy tests, to my 2008 due date group and all the way to my December 2013 due date group. These groups have been my lifeline for support and information. Over the last few years I have also grown my Twitter mom network and have amassed a group of really fantastic moms to network with about the victories and woes of motherhood.

I honestly do not know where I would be without this network of fabulous women.

They are my sounding board. My source of information. I really (REALLY) look to my mom network both via Twitter and Facebook to be inspired both as a person and a mom. I am SO GRATEFUL to all these mommies for their advice, feedback, support and most importantly their friendship. It’s so easy to fall into the rut of comparing yourselves and your BABIES  to other babies (seriously… WTF. Why do we do this?). Fortunately, despite the crippling desire to constantly size up, I don’t have to encounter this much in my (troll-free) online communities. While we are a positive crew of ladies, I know the mommies in my network will not always agree with me. I make it no secret that I formula feed and vehemently support vaccinations. I am a working mom and send my kid to a daycare center (you cannot imagine how many people find this abhorrent). My son slept in a carseat for the first 4 months, so yeah, who am I to judge? I do not know any moms who are perfect or who don’t have any struggles. If there are moms who think they are perfect? Well good for them.

That brings me to the one thing all of us moms do agree on: we do what we gotta do. I don’t force my views on anyone. I refuse to engage in mommy wars that our wonderful passive-aggressive social world festers up. You raise your kids your way, and I’ll raise my kids my way. Will I share my trials and victories? Absolutely. Do I care if someone is going to judge me over it? Nope. I know there are a million ways to get to the same place and I will always open my eyes and ears to new ideas (I mean… how else would I have discovered the Merlin Magic Sleepsuit??). But I will never tell another mom who is simply trying to survive and do what she feels is right for her and her kids, “You are wrong.”

I’m thankful that at 2am I can always find another mama out there who is up with their little one to chat with. I love seeing pictures of their kids and babies. I find joy in seeing how big they are getting and all the milestones they have tackled. In my 2008 group- our 5 yr olds have started to losing their teeth! My 2013 group have babies rolling over, smiling and laughing. I love to see all of it. I NEED to see all of it. It reminds me that I am not alone in this.

I see other moms who are as exhausted as I am. Who are struggling to lose the last 20 pounds. Who are struggling to lose the first 20 pounds. Moms who agonize over whether or not to give their babies formula. Struggle whether or not to do any kind of sleep training. Or no sleep training. Moms who broken heartedly go back to work leaving their babies in the hands of strangers. Moms who can’t stand the idea of leaving their babies with strangers and become SAHMs. The list could go on and on…

All I can do is share my experience and hope that maybe it will help. Perhaps my advice is offensive? That is never my intention. Don’t agree with my opinion? I don’t expect you to. I am blessed to be a part of communities that are pretty much drama free. They are collaborative and supportive. These women make me laugh as well as keep me motivated. I may never meet any of them in real life, but I am more grateful to my mama communities than they will ever know.

We are in this mom thing together!

I was woken up yesterday by the pitter patter of little feet and an excited little voice, “Hey guys, my bunny is awake. It’s time to get up! It’s Christmas!” It’s hard not to get caught up in his excitement. Tired, I stumbled downstairs to get some breakfast ready for the kid and feed the dog.

We had planned on having our own family Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, before the festivities with my parents in the afternoon. Just us. Our little team. As we sat down to open our gifts for each other, I opened the blinds and as if it was ordered up for me, it was snowing the most perfect, light amazing snowfall. With every present my son opened, they were all (even his new bed sheets) welcomed with, “This is awesome!” and “WOW!” After all the presents were opened, my husband and I exchanged a hug, kiss and Merry Christmas and as I turned, Jack ran up to hug me, jumping up into a full arms and legs bear hug. He kissed me on the cheek, looked me in the eyes and said, “Merry Christmas, Mommy.”

When you are infertile, it is moments like those that you can only dream about. Moments like those that make every ounce of struggle and fight to bring them into this world worth everything.

Overall, I have had a very enlightening holiday season. I discovered things about myself that have really helped to bring everything full circle. I didn’t give myself enough credit for my weight loss. I took a lot of things for granted. I was so inside myself that I didn’t realize how many people I was pushing away- including my husband. This clarity? It has utterly changed my life. I am so overflowing with love and happiness that I wish I could bottle it up and gift it to others.

My Christmas was about as close to perfect as it could get. A kid whose child-like wonder is contagious. Seeing him perform in his first Christmas program a week ago was a moment I do not ever want to forget. A moment I waited and wanted ever since I knew I wanted to be a mom.

Singing with my best friend, regardless of my lingering pneumonia and tempo mis-cue on this song, still so much fun. So grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to do one of the things I love the most.

If there is one thing that has become the most clear to me over the last month, it is that being happy, positive and enjoying life is much more fun. Life is entirely way too short to spend time being unhappy or trying to solve things that are beyond our control.

I am beyond grateful for everything that I have. The life that I live. The incredible people I am surrounded by. The special people who inspire me every single day. They are always in my thoughts and hold the most important pieces of my heart.

I cannot think of any better song to sum up how filled with joy I am this Christmas- Unspeakable Joy
 My cup runneth over.