More than a decade after the harrowing murder of their son Daniel, Bruce and Denise Morcombe are smiling again as they await the arrival of their grandchild.

Daniel's twin brother Bradley and his wife Anna have announced they are expecting their first child, and while the sex isn't known Anna has a strong feeling it's a boy.

"I couldn't think of anything more fitting after everything that everybody has been through," the expectant mum has told the Women's Weekly.

"It's something we have dreamed about for a long time," Bradley said, adding not a day passed without thoughts of Daniel, who was forever in his heart.

Bruce and Denise are looking ahead to a future no longer dotted with upcoming court dates after Daniel's killer Brett Peter Cowan lost his last-ditch High Court appeal earlier this month.

Cowan his serving at lest 20 years' jail for abducting the 13-year-old Sunshine Coast schoolboy as he waited for a bus in 2003, and then taking him to a secluded site and choking him to death when he tried to escape.