NYE on the hardest year of my life

Most New Years Eve we are in bed by midnight, or we just have a quiet night at home. Some years I will take Jay out to see the fireworks from a distance while Aaron stayed home with the other boys as it was too hard to take them out so late, especially Noah if the weather wasn't that nice.

Today the weather was so lovely and we had been thinking a lot about what the new year means to us, so thought it would be nice to go out with the boys to watch the early fireworks in town. We headed out about 8.30 pm and waited to meet up with Alison.

It makes me so happy to see my boys running around, playing happily together.

Harri and Kobe had actually never seen fireworks before, so they were really excited, especially after we showed them a video of some on YouTube.

The boys loved it (after Kobe was scared at first and not so sure about it).

In the end Kobe acted all tough and said 'me wasn't even scared at all!' :)

The boys had fun playing afterwards with their glow sticks.

There is so much I can say about 2011 but I just don't have the mental energy to even start.   I have mixed feelings about the new year.  I'm happy to know that the hardest year of my life so far is over and am looking forward to hopefully a better year next year, but sad to know that time continues to move on and now I'll have to say 'Noah passed away last year'.

It's also strange as I don't really wish that 2011 was any different.  I'll forever miss Noah and wish I could just have him here to hold but I don't have any regrets about how things went.  I know that we gave Noah the best 10 years that we could, and I know that we couldn't have done things any differently.  He lived an amazing ten years and we were so blessed to have him with us for that long. He was so sick and tired in the end and it wouldn't be fair for me to wish for him to still be with us because it's not fair for anyone to live like that, but then I wish he was here because I miss him so much. Wishing that he was still here and saying it was an awful year makes me feel sad for Noah, as it was the best year ever for Noah as he's now free. I'm sure he knows how much we miss him, but I just hope he knows how I'm also happy for him and know that things are how they are meant to be, even though it's hard.

So hard.

I know that we are most likely going to continue to have another hard year, but I hope by the end of 2012 I will be able to look back and see how far we've come emotionally, spiritually and as a family.  I'm glad we decided to do something fun to welcome in the new year, especially as it would've been easy to just sit at home and wish away 2011.    I'm taking lots of deep breaths as we take on 2012.