April 11

If you were here, today on your birthday, I would tell you how much I love you and how ever since the moment I watched your soul leave your body I have never been the same. I would tell you that I'm afraid of living the rest of my life without you. I'm afraid I will forget all of our memories and stories. I'm afraid I won't know who I am or know which way to turn, because you were always there with the wisdom and insight and perspective. I would tell you all about my kids and how funny they are and how proud you would be of them. I would tell you all the boring details of my life, because you cared, and were the best chatting friend a girl could have. I would tell you that I long and ache for you with every cell in my body. I have physical responses to my grief - my breath is literally taken away several times a week when I realize that you are really gone forever.

Happy Birthday Andrew. I love you always.

Our first home

We closed today on the sale of our home! This has all happened so fast, it is still hard to believe it's real. We listed our house when I was 38 weeks pregnant with Sonja and had it listed for about 8 months. We had many showings, but not a single offer. We took if off the market and decided to just stay put. Lately we've been feeling the urge to get out of our house, but not really sure how we'd do it. We spent many days and weeks discussing all the possibilities and came back from our Maui trip with a plan. However, it was not the plan that was suppose to happen! We got a call that week from a real estate agent who found our house listed on the MLS under the expired transactions. He thought our house was perfect for his client and we showed the house that weekend. They wrote up an offer an hour later and we accepted it the next day. We could not believe it! We then started our own hunt for a new home, either to buy or to rent. After just 3 weeks a house come on the market that was perfect. We wrote an offer and they accepted ours over 3 other offers. The best part was that Tyler was on a work trip so I bought the house without him! It is a 1924 restored farmhouse with plenty of room, an awesome sundeck and a beautiful yard. She was a gardener, so there are already 4 raised beds for veggies. I will have my work cut out for me! Thankfully it's coming at a time in my life where my kids are a little more self sufficient and I can wrap my brain around a garden. Having my hands in the soil will be good for my soul too.

I am sad to move to a new house. Change has always been hard for me, but I've finally come to a place of peace, knowing this is the right move for us. Since having lost Andrew, any big event or change in life is always laced with an extreme amount of grief and sadness. This is the home that Andrew knew we lived in, it's the home that we celebrated events with him in, it's the home he would visit. He's been inside these walls, so it's hard to want to leave. Moving to a new home means that my life is moving forward without him in it. It means he will never ever visit my new home and although that reality is the truth, it is very hard to accept. I know that nothing in my life will ever be the same, but there will always be a part of me that just wants to go back to a time in life when Andrew was alive and happy and healthy.

I recently took a grief class at my church. It was very informative and helpful and the timing couldn't have been better. One of the things the teacher talked about was having a ritual when something comes to an end - it helps us to heal. So for my sake and my kids sake, we are planning a few goodbye house parties. No big party or nothing fancy, just a few different times to have people over to help ease our transition. And of course I've already been planning a big housewarming party!

Goodbye to our first home, a home we poured our energy and resources into. A home we brought our first puppy home to and our two baby girls. A house that was full of years of love, tears and laughter. A home that was always open to friends, despite the size! A home that gave us what we needed but now is time to say goodbye.

Tyler's Birthday

Tyler's birthday was a few weeks back on March 6. He was gone on a week long work trip over his actual birthday, so we had to celebrate when he got back. We had a pile of presents and dinner waiting for him when he got home. We were so happy to have him home and shower him with love! I love to extend birthdays so we had an amazing combined birthday dinner party with friends that weekend and even got to ski together with some friends the next day (THANK YOU Claire for watching my kids!) It was a fun drawn out celebration. Happy 32nd to my wonderful husband. I love you more every day.

Sonja : 18 months

Sonja turned 18 months on Wednesday March 14. At her doctor's appointment she weighed in at 21# (10%), is 32" long (60%) and her head circumference is 19" (90%). She is a very busy toddler now! She loves to climb, stand and jump on anything and everything. I can not turn my back on her for one second because she is always getting into something. She doesn't have too many words, maybe just 10 or a few more than that. She understands everything we say and gets very frustrated if we can't interpret her screams and pointing! She loves to read books, especially about animals and babies. She is constantly following Riley and wants to do everything just like her. She is quite funny and we will often find her walking around the house with a sweatshirt over her head giggling, trying to make us laugh. Her expressions are priceless. She is a mama's girl through and through. She still nurses about 3x/day but that will come to an end next month when I go away for the weekend. Hoping the weaning process goes well! She is our little ray of sunshine and we all just love her so.

Maui

We spent 10 glorious nights on Maui at the end of January. We traveled with our good friends the Young's and had a wonderful trip. Even though we were there for 11 days, I could have stayed longer. I think all the kids were ready to come home though. They all spent the last few days begging us to not go to the beach. They were missing their toys at home. Ha! We tried to convince them the beach was 100 times better than their toys. We stayed in two different spots - the first part of the trip in Puamana, near Lahaina and the last part of our trip in south Kihei. We went to the beach every single day, snorkeled, stand up paddle boarded and cooked lots of yummy food. The guys had an afternoon of mountain biking on the volcano and us girls got to paddle board and swim with dolphins in the wild (AMAZING experience!) then end the day with a treatment at the Four Seasons. We were spoiled rotten and it was exactly what we needed. We saw whales breach every single day while we were there. Almost every time we looked out to the ocean we could spot them. A few times the whales were just off the beach and they were jumping and breaching right in front of us. It was a great experience. Other than playing on the beach, we got to see some good friends that still live on Maui and we even got to hang with my friends Carrie & Jeff from Seattle the last day we were there. We will definitely be going back to Maui as soon as possible.

February

This month sure is a drag! Especially since we spent the first week in Maui (that post is coming!). Tyler has been on a few work trips this month, my kids have been sick and the weather has been cold and rainy. Plus, the daily grief of missing my brother and trying to wade through what that means has all added up to a long month that I'd love to soon forget. However, we have had several moments and days of fun and joy. I am trying to focus on that, although the weight of the grief is sometimes just too heavy. I am trying to be very gentle to myself, even though taking care of myself is often the last priority. I am focusing on simple things I can work into my busy every day life. I know that this journey of grief is long, so I am being patient and ready to settle in for the long haul.

But, oh, every day I just wish Andrew were here! That's the part that seems unbearable. The loss of the friendship is huge in my life. He was my mentor, my greatest fan and my best friend. To go from communicating with a person on a daily basis to one day nothing is completely startling. And it's not just for one day or a week or even a month. It's for the rest of my entire life. I will never again get to see him or talk to him or know everything about his life and he about mine. Not until it is my time to die and we can be reunited in heaven. I have now become obsessed with heaven and want to read and know all about it. Andrew is there, and I want to know what it's like! I have also been soaking up books about the meaning of life as well as books on grief. They seem to offer the healing salve that my heart needs.

Now on to pictures of my kids. This month we've been busy with preschool, birthday parties, dinner with friends, sledding and walking/bike riding when we can. I seem to be seriously slack in the photo taking department lately. I take a lot of pictures with my phone and post them to instagram, so follow me there if you're not! (ekdenton)

For Valentines day we went all out and make cards, cookies and set the table for a super fun family dinner

Sometimes things get a little crazy around here

Drinking their breakfast smoothies in pj's in front of the fire...so cozy!

Sonja's first painting venture. She loved it and kept screaming at me for more paint!

My super funny 17 month old

We spent all of yesterday in our pj's playing around the house. (And I can't ever get Riley to look at the camera!)

Ashley & Andrew

I will never forget the first time I met Ashley. I was visiting Andrew in the hospital with my kids and she walked by his room, decked out in her crimson WSU scrubs. She looked in and saw the kids and stopped in his door. She smiled and said, "I wore these scrubs for you!" Andrew (a staunch Husky) and her had a laugh. She was beaming and excited to meet my girls. She left the room after a few minutes and I turned to Andrew and said, "WHO IS THAT?, she is CUTE!". He told me who she was and that he liked her. He said she was kinda seeing someone, "but don't worry...I'll get her". From the moment I saw and met Ashley, I loved her. Over the months they became fast friends and quickly realized they had both found true love.

Ashley became a Moritz sister, though not by law, but by love. We love her as our own and she will always be one of us. She and Andrew didn't have long together on this earth, but their love was real and true in the most magical way. It was beautiful to witness. She was sent to us, to him, to love. Andrew had said that he was afraid to die with out ever meeting someone he loved. But he said, "but then I met Ashley". He told me he was so sad to think about life without Ashley. He died holding Ashley's hand. They will one day be together again.

The Moritz Sisters

(photo by Kristen Gough)

5 days after Andrew died us sisters went and did this:

(photo by Kristen Gough)

Something I never thought I would want to do. But when someone who is a part of you dies, you are compelled to take extreme measures to remember and honor them. This tattoo is an almost exact replica of one of Andrew's tattoo's. He got his "Drew" tattoo in college on his right arm. We took lots of pictures of it and gave them to the tattoo artist. He shrunk the size down, thinned out and shaded some of the lines to make it a bit more feminine. I love my tattoo. Every time I look at it I am proud of my brother and am honored to have a piece of him with me.