Reflections on 2009

I trust everyone had a blessed Christmas! We certainly did. This year was special as it was our first year to stay home on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and start our own traditions. It was very fun and I enjoyed it immensely! Steven built a train table for the boys which was a huuuge project and I was so pleased that it was not only completed, but completed beautifully and we have a fantastic train table now! The boys love it!

We’ve been so blessed this year. We have a new home, four healthy sweet children, new friends, a supportive family, a loving church family, and new opportunities abound. I wasn’t able to keep all my new year resolutions from last year (surprise surprise), but I still feel that a lot was accomplished this year and can definitely see progress from last year. That is always a very rewarding feeling! Of course I still have a long way to go and many goals in mind for this new year! I love how new years are so refreshing and inspiring!

In recent weeks I have already begun re-tackling some health issues, improved our diets, and even lost some weight. Why I started that project just before Thanksgiving, however, is a mystery. I guess I was trying to get a head-start on the new year! Next up is to add back in exercise which should be easier now that Steven gave me an elliptical for Christmas! My interest in natural health and herbal remedies has grown and improved this past year and Steven has encouraged me further by giving me a beginners herbal medicine kit. I had my eye on it and was very excited to receive it for Christmas also! (Yes, he spoils me!)

This year one of my main resolutions (besides the same ol’ same ol’) is to not move! I’d like to stay at this same address for quite some time. God’s in control, but He knows the desires of my heart and I have faith in his goodness to my family! Another resolution involves my desire to become a better teacher to my children in general as well as in my responsibilities as a homeschooling mom. It’s an overwhelming task and I am completely dependent on God to supply what I need in this area as I know myself and I am in no way good enough to do this!

I am excited about 2010 and also in disbelief that it came so quickly. Here’s to another year full of growth and new lessons to learn! Ready or not, it is upon us!

 

Our Home

Our Family – 2009

(From l-r): Ephraim (1), Will (2), Claire (3), Emily (5)

 

A favorite recent shot of me and Ephraim

 

The kids watching Polar Express together.

 

The train table Steven built for the boys!

 

I got lots of books for Christmas so this is my current “to read” stack! (Not including one I’m borrowing and also a magazine subscription!)

Enjoying Christmas

I have always wished for a slower-paced more relaxed Christmas season so that I would have time to enjoy it with my family. I’d like to have more Christmastime traditions too. But as a musician, this will just never be the case unless I take the entire season off, which we simply can’t afford! I have had rehearsals and/or concerts nearly every day so far and add on top of that the fact that I also have my own Christmas shopping and preparations to make and you have stress. But miraculously, I’ve gotten a lot done and have kept up pretty good spirits. I’m reserving the few days before Christmas JUST for my family. I have no other gigs except for one on Christmas Eve (which I think will be very enjoyable and not stressful).

We have a few ideas of fun family Christmastime type things to do and I’m getting very excited about that time to just relax and enjoy the season.

One of the concerts I’ve been the most excited about is tomorrow night and I am getting nervous! Hopefully I’ll feel better about it after tonight’s rehearsal. My trio will be featured and I’ll also be playing my electric violin on a few of the selections. My parents are coming in to see the concert since my dad gave me my electric violin a year ago and I’ve yet to perform on it! I wanted Dad to get to hear it. I’m pretty stoked about that!

Tomorrow is a big day for another reason also. Will is turning TWO! Every time the girls ask what we are doing for Will’s birthday, I say “We are having a concert for Will’s birthday!” (That’s about as far as I have gotten…) What a lucky two-year-old! haha

In other news, I’ve been working on some organization in our house. I’ve been displeased with our linen storage system (or lack thereof) since there are no linen closets in this house and the measly little cabinet we bought for the purpose was overstuffed and NOT working well. Since we can’t afford to buy a nicer/bigger piece of furniture for the purpose we found other solutions. I got three under-bed storage bins. One for each of the three bedrooms upstairs. In each one goes the sheets/blankets for the room it is in. So in the girls’ room under one of their beds in the bin are all the extra sheets/blankets for the girls’ beds. Same for the boys’ room. And for our room. We also installed some hooks and shelving in the girls bathroom for their towels. Now our little linen cabinet only has to house our regular towels and it’s just big enough for that! I feel much better now that I know where all the linens are and they are stored neatly and safely out of sight.

I also tackled some laundry issues. Our laundry is constantly getting backed up because of what a jumbled mess comes out and no one wants to attempt to fold/put anything away. It gets really overwhelming. For me part of the problem was that once the laundry is folded there are about a million different places to take the stacks of clothes in order to put them away. So even if it got folded, still no one wanted to put it all away! So now I have 3 new labeled laundry baskets. (Sound familiar?) Yup, you guessed it. One for each upstairs bedroom. (Though they are kept in our room so far.) When the laundry is clean I sort it before folding into the laundry baskets. Girls’ laundry, Boys’ laundry, and our laundry. I take each basket to its assigned room and then fold it all and put it away in that room. It definitely saves my sanity since it’s all in the right room before even being folded! Makes it a bit less overwhelming and it feels simpler.

The boys laundry in particular can be quite perplexing as their sizes are somewhat similar and some of their clothes can be really confusing. So I even went so far as to label all the boys’ drawers with what goes inside. I can usually remember these things but even I was having some trouble with it. And it was completely blowing Steven’s mind. haha! We will both greatly benefit from the added labels.

And speaking of laundry, Steven found a pair of Claire’s bloomers in his sock drawer recently. I did NOT do that!

As far as Christmas readiness goes, I’m feeling much better this year than last. Most of my biggest projects are done and I only have a few more odds and ends to get together and then… wrapping! I hope to be done with it all before next week!

I hope everyone is having a blessed Christmas season and taking time to remember and ponder the true meaning of our celebration!

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snooooooow!

It pretty much just doesn't snow here so we were pretty excited to wake up to this on Saturday morning....