My baby,

Hi, handsome. We are settled much faster than usual in the house because Gma and Pap helped bring it all together. I cannot tell you how amazing it was to move into a house yesterday and have a comfortable bed to sleep on the first night. Usually we are sleeping on air mattresses or even daddy’s little sleeping mat for when he was in the field, which I slept on before we moved from Tennessee. We didn’t have the baby monitors that night, so I laid in the doorway between your room and Ellie’s room in case one of you woke up.

The dogs got here tonight. They were so happy to see us and then went around the house checking it out for about ten minutes. I’m laying with Ellie right now and Bella has already found her spot on the couch in the living room.

We obviously haven’t adjusted to the time change yet. Everyone fell asleep last night from pure exhaustion, but it’s different tonight. Elijah actually fell asleep first, but it’s 10:30pm and Lucas is still up. He is so confused about why he’s having such a hard time falling asleep. I’m trying to explain to him that it’s only 5:30pm Hawaii time and it’s going to take a little bit to get into the groove. We also don’t have our fans or the internet yet, so everything is very quiet in the house. They’re used to falling asleep with the noise from the fan and either Amazon story time playing or Christmas music.

I knew I would miss you as much as always, but I didn’t know I would have to completely grieve different things as if it’s the beginning. I went to Aldi today. Since Hawaii didn’t have an Aldi, I haven’t been there in about three years. Guess what I found, your pizza/calzone thing. You were absolutely obsessed with that thing. You got excited to go to Aldi just for that thing and still talked about missing it when we were in Hawaii. I bought one. Just one, though. I don’t know why, it made me too sad to buy enough for everyone to eat? You were the only one who ate them before. Just being in an Aldi without you was hard. I know that as time goes on here, it’s going to happen again and again. When we go down to Simmon’s Park, the zoo, the wooden castle park that you loved, I will need to go through the memories of you there for the first time since I lost you.

I’m going to have to learn how to now cook for four people. It was a crazy curveball after we lost you, cooking meals without you. I don’t think I had even mastered cooking for five people yet and now I’m cooking for four people every night.

My friends Beenie and Jacki came over to visit today. They brought these wonderful activity/dinner baskets so I don’t have to dedicate brain power to what’s for dinner for a few days. Ellie is most excited about the apron she gets to color on and decorate. You’d probably just want to use the peep waffle maker, every single morning. I even get to reuse the baskets in the pantry to organize the mess. I just complained about it last night.

I always felt so uncomfortable receiving things, but losing you forced me to get rid of that. When they asked about making a meal train for us when we first lost you, I said that I wouldn’t say “no” to anything. My brain wasn’t able to process anything after your loss. I’m still uncomfortable with people caring, but it has been absolutely amazing. Your loss forced me to actually look at and receive from people that cared. I always thought my “village” was so small with all the moving around. My “local” support systems were smaller, but that also meant that I had all these other support systems around the country. It has been an amazing realization and I will never be able to repay anyone, but they have all changed my life.

Uncle Brandon and Aunt Meg got all of you guys LED lights that spell your names and yours is red, your favorite color. It’ll go in your room. I already put your Steelers sticker on your door. I showed Uncle Brandon that I also had the green hat that he gave you before we left for Hawaii hanging on the door.

Ellie’s excited, but she says it just feels “different” and I agree. Just moving without you and then daddy is different. Our house is amazingly all set-up, but obviously our things aren’t here yet. Maybe once we add our things to it, it’ll seem more like “our home”. It’s definitely already cozy and homey, just different.

I love you more than anything, sweetie. If you could, please send a sign to us in this new house. We all miss you so much. Goodnight and sweet dreams.