Giveaway Winner and other ramblings...

well, i'm going to do the important stuff first, and announce the winner of the 2nd giveaway - a blog makeover by franchesca at Small Bird Studio. the winner was chosen, with Juju's help, by the same technical process that the previous giveaway winner was chosen {i liked incorporating Julius in the selection}. and the winner is..............................................

Brigette!

congrats, brigette! i hope that winning this contest has brought you a little bit of sunshine on this valentine's day. and i hope this blog makeover gives you another way to memorialize your dear Kael like it has helped me do with Juju. please send me an email, and i will put you in contact with franchesca.

thank you to everyone that participated. if you didn't win, and would like to have a blog makeover, stop by Small Bird Studio and see the lovely franchesca. she is amazing to work with, is reasonably priced {she even offers a discounted price for baby loss parents}, and a portion of every blog design this month will be donated to march of dimes - team KJ.

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and now for the rambling...

this weekend was a very difficult one for me. saturday was the 4 month anniversary of Julius' passing. and as expected, i woke up with tears in my eyes and an extra heaviness in my heart. i miss my little boy tremendously, and milestone days like that day just amplify all the emotions i'm feeling. since it was saturday, it was zumba day, and so i decided to teach my class. zumba has been an outlet for me, and i always leave class feeling so loved and happy {i've got some amazing people in my class}.

well for a few days leading up to saturday, i had been thinking of buying a storage bin and packing some of Julius' things away. so after class, i headed over to target {which was a nightmare itself because it seemed like every.single.baby in this freaking city was there that day} and bought one. i was a bit wounded when i arrived home, but was still feeling brave enough to tackle the task. and so, i walked over to the glider that since his death has been filled with sympathy cards, and packed them away. i walked over to our dresser, which we kept his clothes in, and which had not been opened since his death, opened his drawers, and packed his clothes away. and as i did all of this packing away of my son's life, i cried, and i cried, and i smelled and held his things, and cried some more. i moved onto the closet and his changing table and packed some more of his things away. i didn't sort through anything - and don't plan to for a while. but i just wanted to put everything of his together, in a safe place. and on the side of the storage bin, i wrote a little message to him: "i carry your heart, i carry it in my heart."

since i didn't get a chance to share a pic of him yesterday. i will share a series of pics of him today. one of the hardest set of pics for me to look at are the pics from his baptism. i even turned off our digital picture frame because it seemed like every time i looked at it, it was on these pics. that day was very special/stressful for me. besides the obvious of my son being baptized, i was stressed about how he would react {most babies tend to cry during their baptisms}. and then while at mass, which we went to right before, he decided to that he was not going to take a bottle. at all. {and i was not in a breastfeeding-friendly dress}. so in order to get him to stop being fussy, i bounced him to sleep. and asleep he stayed... 

until the pouring of water on his head...

and then he was awake...

but instead of  crying, he actually thought the whole thing was really funny...

yep, my son smiled at Father the entire time. he was a charmer, who could melt your heart with his bright smile.

Juju,

Happy Valentine's Day, baby! I wish you were here to celebrate with us. I wish I could shower you with extra kisses and hugs today. Daddy and I miss and love you so very very much. We carry your heart, we carry it in our hearts. ♥

-mommy