Looking Back on 2008

The year started off with Rob and I being very very sick. We both woke up with a terrible stomach virus on New Years Day and could not get out of bed or keep anything down. So, it was the perfect start to our 21 day fast that we did. It was not a total fast, but we did the "Daniel Fast", basically, you can only have fruits, veggies, and whole grains, no meat, dairy, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, etc. It was really hard, but we were determined to make it to the 21 days and we did it. Rob lost about 15 pounds and I lost 10. Towards the end, I had to start adding back in some things because my clothes were falling off. I stared making protein shakes with soy milk and fruit and that helped.

So, the rest of the winter I was busy with work and I joined in a lot of playdates. I found a group of women my age all with babies Maddie's age and we met once a week and did all kinds of fun stuff together. It was great for Maddie to socialize and I made some good friends. I really miss them alot :(

Easter was really good this year. The last Easter, Maddie was only 5 days old, so she didn't really get to enjoy it. This year, the mom's group that I'm a member of had an Easter egg hunt that was a lot of fun. Then we went to church on Sunday and went to the park after that and Maddie got to spend time with her cousins.

In March, Maddie turned 1. This of course, was a huge milestone. I couldn't believe how fast her first year went by. I guess we were so busy, it was just kind of a blur. We had a great party for her at the house. Tons of people came and mom made her an awesome Hello Kitty cake. I weaned her from the bottle at about 14 months with no problem and she started walking a few weeks after she turned 1. My baby girl had officially become a toddler.

I continued to dance taking ballet and jazz at Dance Etc. in Richardson. I loved taking dance there, I made so many good friends, everyone was almost like family. I miss them so much. I worked really hard that spring and my body was telling me I was over doing it. I got really sick in April with bronchitis and for the first time in my life, they told me I had asthma and I was almost put in the hospital. I had to beg the doctor not to make me go because I had a meeting with my boss that day (she had flown in town from Kansas just for the meeting, I couldn't miss it). My knees were aching on a daily basis, but I was determined this would be the recital I ever did. And it was, it was great. We danced to "Bittersweet Symphony" in ballet, which I have always dreamed about performing to that song, it is so powerful. So it turned out great, but I was sure ready for a break after recital was over.

The summer was long and hot. We spent most of it at the pool. The pool in our back yard wasn't that great for Maddie because there was no shallow area so we spent a lot of time at the public pool in Plano. It was great because they have an area just for toddlers and moms could just chill and get some sun while the babies played. We were hit with some hard times when Rob was laid off from his job in July. With him being in sales, we were kind of used to this and knew that it could happen pretty much any time. Although it was very stressful, it turned out ok because he got a little bit of a severence pay and he found another job pretty quick, which he like much better and he was so much happier.

The most important event in 2008 was that we finally became home owners. We had been talking for a while about making the big move back to Ft. Worth. It was a really tough decision for me and I was really torn. On one hand, I had come to love living in Plano. The neighborhood we lived in was great, we had wonderful neighbors, I had my playgroup friends and my dance studio. But we hated the house we were renting, the high utility bills were killing us, and I hated being so far away from my family. It was so hard and stressful on us, we had no one near by to help us with Maddie, which just added to my stress. We couldn't even go out for a movie or dinner without driving to Ft. Worth so my mom could watch her. So after weighing all the pros and cons we decided that we were definitely ready to buy a house, but we knew we couldn't afford to buy anything in Plano and I knew that I was going to have a nervous breakdown if I didn't get some help with Maddie.

So, we stared house hunting. At first we were going to have a house built, but that didn't work out. But it was ok because we found a great house just the right size and well within our budget and it is only 1 mile from mom and dad. So we made an offer, they accepted and we closed on it in like 3 weeks. It all happened really fast and before I knew it, we were back in Ft. Worth. Maddie had a hard time adjusting at first, but Cowboy was really messed up. It took him a good 2 weeks to adjust. I found a little Mothers Day Out program at the church around the corner from our house and I enrolled Maddie so I could at least have 2 days a week to get some work done.

So soon after we got settled in our house, the holidays were creeping up on us. We had a great Halloween. It was the first year Maddie understood the whole trick-or-treating thing, it was a lot of fun. Lisa had a Halloween party for adults and we got really drunk and had a blast. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas just sort came and went really fast. They were both great and relatively unstressful for the first time ever!

So, I have to say 2008 was all in all a great year. I am very blessed and cannot wait to make 2009 even better!

Out with the old, in with the new......New Year's Resolutions

Yes, I am one of those people who always makes New Years Resolutions. Sometimes I stick with them, sometimes I don't. Last year I resolved to live "greener". Now that I have a child who will have to live on this earth way longer than me, I wanted to really start doing my part. So, I bought the nylon reusable grocery bags, stopped buying bottled water, and we started recycling all plastic, glass, and cans. I have to say, I have done pretty good with this. The recycling is just second nature now. Sometimes I slip up on the grocery bag thing when I forgoet to put the nylon bags in the car on my way to the store and have to use the plastic bags at the store. But, every time this has happened, I always take them back to Wal-Mart to be recycled. My other resolution was to read as many books as possible in the year. I didn't set myself a specific number of books to read because I just wanted to see how many I read if I just took my time. Well, I didn't do too well on that one. My life is so busy and crazy, I just don't have all that much time to read, although I love to. I am really embarrassed to admit it, but I only read 15 books the entire year. although a few of them were really long books.

So, for 2009, I have set the following resolutions:

1. Read at least 30 books (yes, I'm doubling this from last year since last year was so pathetic)
2. Read the Bible every day
3. Get in better shape financially (work on paying off credit card, etc)

So, there you have it. I think putting it in writing may help me stick to these better. Will check back in a year and see how I did!

Christmas with Grandaddy

So we were still continuing the Christmas celebrations this weekend. Since my grandparents are divorced, we always have a separate Christmas with my grandaddy, who we don't get to see very often. So we had it over at my cousin Misty's house. Mainly it was just all the adults drinking and playing pool while all the kids played. I managed to get a few really funny pictures. I can't believe my dad played pool with my grandpa. For one thing, I have never seen my dad play pool in my entire life, and he played against Grandaddy of all people, who is know to be a major pool shark! But, it was all in good fun and I got some great blackmail pics :) , although some of them turned out blurry for some reason.

Christmas 2008

We had a great Christmas this year. I was so happy because Maddie is finally old enough to kind of understand and enjoy it. She loved looking at all the Christmas lights in our neighborhood, and loved our tree. We got a little train that goes around the bottom and she wanted to watch it go all day long saying "cho-cho"! Also, this is the first year of my adult life that I have not let the Holidays stress me out. One thing that really helped with that is that we didn't have to travel anywhere this year. Now that we're in Ft. Worth, we are only minutes away from all of my family and Rob's family came to our house this year.

The festivities kicked off on Christmas eve, we went to Nanny and Boompa's house for lunch. I was a little nervouse about going there because of the drama we had last year with a certain person who forgot to take her meds, or should I say took to many meds.......anyway, this year all was good. We even got to see my great uncle Wayne, who we haven't seen in like 16 years. The only problem was that he was rude enough to smoke in my grandparent's house so it was rather smokey and hard to breath in there, so unfortunately, we couldn't stay long. After that, we came home and took a little nap before going to mom and dad's house for dinner and opening presents with them. It was the first year that we added 2 extra kids to the mix. We now have Bill's kids, Bailey and Cameron. It was nice to have some little ones for Maddie to play with, although they are not really "little". Bailey is so good with Maddie, she plays with her and keeps her entertained just like a big sister. Maddie got so many presnets over there. She was so overwhelmed. Her favorite thing was the "cozy coupe" car that my parents got her. We couldn't get her out of it all night.

So on Christmas morning, Maddie woke up to find her loot that Santa brought. She got a play kitchen and a table and chairs among other things. Out of all the cool stuff we got her, the only thing she cared about at the time was a little thing of chapstick that was in her stocking. I guess we could have saved ourselves a lot of money and just bought her a few tubes of chapstick. But now she really loves her kitchen, she plays in it every day. She tells me she's going to "cook"! Then Rob's family came over and we opened presents with them. My mother in law got her the Elmo Live. That thing is pretty cool, even the adults got hours of entertainment from that thing. Of course Maddie loved it, anything Elmo is like the best thing ever for her.

Santa was really good to me and Rob too. I got Rob a big toolbox and a workbench for the garage so he can finally organize all his tools and stuff. He got me a new Ipod Nanno! I was so happy, I didn't even ask for that, but it is the best thing he could have got me. He also got me the Racheal Ray cookware set and the Jessica Simpson perfume, Fancy. So I really got everything I wanted and more. We are so blessed in so many ways and I am so thankful to God for everything He has given us. I can'b believe how fast Christmas came and went and how fast Maddie is growing. Sometimes I wish I could just push the "pause" button, but since I can't I will just try really hard to truley enjoy every moment with her before she is all grown up!

I can't believe Christmas is 3 days away!

Time really does fly. I am so proud of myself that I have not let the craziness of the Holiday season stress me out this year like it usually does (well, knock on wood, it's not over yet). But so far, so good. We had a really good weekend. We went to the Fellowship church candle light service on Sat night. It was awesome, there were so many people and the music was beautiful. All you could see was a sea of candle light in that big dark auditorium. Last night after Maddie went to bed, Rob and I put together a gingerbread house and watched cheesy Christmas movies. It was fun! All my shopping is done, now if I can just get my house clean I will feel totally relaxed.

Never a dull moment

Some of the things Maddie does just crack me up. So last night I was running her bath water. I told her to come into the bathroom it was time to take a bath. So she came in there and I walked out of the room for just a second to grab a towel and when I came back this is how I found her. To make matters even worse, she had a poopy diaper......I'm sure you can imagine what a mess that was!

Then after she went to bed, I went to check on her after she had been asleep for about an hour, and this is how I found her! I'm not sure how she managed to get herself in that position, but she was just snoozing away as if it was a comfy as could be.

Day 3 without the pacifier

This is a HUGE deal around here. Maddie has always been so very attached to that stupid thing. My plan was to get rid of it before Christmas. I was going to tell her to throw it away and take it out to the trash outside so that she could see for herself that it is actually gone and not coming back. Well, Friday morning she was walking around the house with it and in the midst of playing, she dropped it somewhere and I could not find it. She started crying and throwing a fit for it, but I tore the house apart looking for it and it was nowhere to be found.

So, I figured this was as good of a time as any to say bye to it. So I told her "sorry, it's gone-gone". She cried and got really upset for a little while, then she said to me in the saddest voice you have ever heard "my paci is gone-gone?". I said "yes, it's gone-gone, but that's ok, because you don't need it anyway, you're a big girl now". So she dried her tears and didn't really seem too concerned about it the rest of the day.

Then, the real test came: bed time. She has never gone sleep without it in her whole life. So I got her ready for bed, gave her her blankie and her Big Bird and she said "paci, gone-gone?" and I said "yep, paci is gone-gone". And she seemed to be fine with it, she didn't cry or anything. I read her a story and told her night-night and closed her door and walked out. I turned on the baby monitor and I never heard her cry once. It did take her quite a while to fall asleep, but she never cried. I was worried that she would wake up in the middle of the night asking for it, but she never did. Then all day Saturday she was without it, she went to sleep fine without it. And all day today she has been without it. She has only mentioned it a few times all weekend, so I think she has almost forgotten about it. Yea!!!!!!!! I did it, I am so proud of mysfelf!!! I was starting to doubt that this day would ever come!