Happy Holidays!

December 2025

Hello!

We've made it to the point where we can call this an "annual" happening. Hooray! People seemed to like our inaugural holiday note from 2024. Some say a sequel isn't as good as the original, but we'll give it a go. So without further ado, here's the 2nd Annual Bleiweis Family Holiday Note.

2025 in Review

2025 has been amazing, hard, fun, sleep depriving, inspiring, challenging and enlightening, all because of the arrival of our girls. Daisy Brynn and Ruth Jean made their debut late in the night on Wednesday, March 5. After a nearly three-week stay at the NICU, they came home and have thrived ever since.

If there's been one piece of wisdom that has stuck with me since the girls were born, it's been from my brother-in-law, Alex, who said once the girls were born, you won't remember life before it, and the months after that will be a blur. He couldn't have been more right. January and February happened. All I remember was the baby shower.

As much of our time in the spring was devoted to the girls and feeding them every three hours, many things took a backseat. The garden went on hiatus for 2025, but we're hoping to plant a bunch in 2026. Outside of the new Taylor Swift album being put on repeat while in the car — that explains why she's so highly ranked in my Spotify Wrapped — we’ve also been very much in a cultural bubble since March. For example, if you ask “Have you watched…” we’ll cut you off there. We haven’t watched it.

In the summer, as we all began to sleep longer through the night, we enjoyed spending time at the Delaware beaches with the Chappells and the Outer Banks with the Bleiweises to celebrate my parents' 70th birthdays. That's right, the girls survived the two 9+ hour drives to and from North Carolina. We also took the girls to the Baltimore farmers' markets a few times.

The fall flew by, but a lot happened. Daisy started moving and is army crawling wherever she can, and we think Ruth is not far behind. We started getting out of the house more. We took the girls apple picking and they made their first trip to the diner at the end of our street. New niece Zoey arrived in October, and we were happy to become chopped liver and no longer in the spotlight. With the help of friends, we built a breakfast bar in our back kitchen that the girls can hang out at in their clip-on high chairs. We made a trip to Durham and did another year of "Marathon Thanksgiving," driving to see our families and friends in Pennsylvania and New York. Fortunately, the girls are great travelers.

Cat Corner

Stella and the girls became best friends very quickly. Stella loves the attention. The girls love aggressively grabbing her. Win-win?

Gracie enjoys occasional pets from the girls but doesn't go out of her way to seek attention. For those wondering, Gracie’s Box of the Year, courtesy of one of our many takeout trips to the aforementioned diner at the end of our street, was used primarily in the spring and early summer this year.

In closing...

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. And thank you for all of your love, support and help over the last year. We wouldn't be here without you.

With love,
Jon (old), Emily (old), Stella (10), Gracie (9), Daisy (9 months) and Ruth (9 months) ❤️