A new decade, a new year, an old blog.

Well hello again, it's been a while.

I'd really like to get back into blogging and this will be my first attempt to get back into it. Hopefully there will be more to come.

My husband had to work so we spent Christmas at home. It was nice being able to wake up and let the kids run downstairs to see what 'Santa' brought them. Their little hearts were just filled with excitement, my oldest even started talking to herself at one point, holding her chest, telling herself to calm down. *squee* That's the moment that parents wait for at Christmas time.

Santa was good to them too. They were very specific this year. They asked for Purple Unicorn Pillowpets, A Baby Alive Feeding Baby, and a Doctor Set. Santa can live up to those expectations!



If you really want to see excited though, we'd need to look back to a few days prior. We took our annual trip to the 'North Pole'. For some reason the girls got it in their head that the local Lightfest is the North Pole. We probably put that in their heads being silly at some point, but they believe it and it always seems to work in our favor. The drive isn't that far but we usually go late at night so it's dark and they don't know where we're going. The line is long so they typically fall asleep until just before we enter the gates, and you drive through all of the lights to the end where Santa is. They get to go in and talk to Santa in their PJ's, get a pic and drop of their letters in the mailbox. It's good family fun, but back to my original point - this is what excited looks like according to my 4.5 year old:



Don't you wish you were 4 again?
Or maybe you want to be a 3 year old mommy?

Yes, that's right. My baby just turned 3 on New Year's Eve. I can honestly say that I have no idea what happened to the last three years. It feels like I was holding this sweet little baby in my arms yesterday and now all of a sudden I have a preschooler. The sweetest, smartest preschooler that I know. She amazes me each and every day. She came home the first week of school and signed the letter 'B' and said she wanted to take Barney as her letter B item for show and tell. All throughout the Holiday Season she's had us in good spirits with her constant caroling, and best of all she smothers me regularly with her awesome hugs!

We're in Pennsylvania visiting family for the New Year so we celebrated her birthday with cupcakes and ice cream and we'll do it all over again once we're back in Michigan. She's cute, so we let her slide like that.. having two birthdays.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, we're having a great time. We don't get to visit nearly as often as I'd like but when we're here the girls have a blast. Sure they eat too much sugar, stay up to late, don't get enough sleep and they're cranky... But they get to see their grandma and pappy, their grandma sassy and all of their cousins, aunts, uncles, etc... That's the one thing about living so far away that gets me, they don't get to see their family - I don't get to see my family.

Pretty soon though it'll be back to Michigan, back to work, back to school, back to the realities of life. 2010 brought sickness, heartache, family drama, a financial crisis, difficult jobs, too much stress, too much mess and I'm glad that we're putting that all behind us.

2011 is a fresh start and I'm looking forward to it. After all a few good things did come out of 2010 that will pave our path in 2011 like the Church and Church family that we've become a part of. It has been our saving grace, literally. We were both saved and baptized at CrossPointe in 2010, and we're definitely looking forward to the exciting things to come at CrossPointe in 2011. We also found an amazing school that the girls are going to. N is in the Preschool 3's and K is in the Pre-K class and they love it! We couldn't have found a better school!

So goodbye 2010, Hello 2011 - I'm looking forward to the adventure that lies ahead!

Happy New Year everyone!