New Year, New Beginnings

Wow, this poor blog has been collecting dust for a while! Sorry blog...one of my New Years resolutions is to blog more regularly. No, really! Pinky swear.

Let's just begin with a bang, shall we? Baby #2 is on the way!!! Due July 13, he or she will be arriving at an opportune time, as I will no longer be caring for kiddos during the day, and will still have some weeks to recover before they return. (I'd like to take a moment to give a shout-out to NFP and breastfeeding for helping me space my kids so nicely. Thanks guys, you rock.)

George officially works for the new company now. We're dealing with a new insurance and some changes to budgeting, since now he gets paid weekly, but nothing too tumultuous.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with the Brown side of George's family. His aunt and uncle moved from PA to KS this summer, so it was nice to be able to celebrate the holidays with them.

Christmas was fun. We celebrated with the Labers (Janice's family), and enjoyed being able to share the news with them in person. Amy came home with quite a haul.

It was hard not to be with my family for either of those holidays, but we're hoping to see them in the next few months, so I'm hanging on.

We had a simple Christmas as a family. I think we both prefer it that way. I'm looking forward to next year, when Amy is older. I'm already thinking of Advent traditions we can do as a family, that she may be able to start understanding.

We've started prayer time as a family every night before bed. As soon as George takes the holy candle off the mantle, Amy hits her knees next to the fireplace. I think the main draw at this point is the candle, but I know that eventually she'll pray the prayers with us. At the very least she has learned to kneel without getting up, and that we look at but don't touch the candle. We're working on the sign of the cross. So far she has the "In the name of the Father" part, which is mostly just a smack in the forehead. I hope we can instill the importance of both family and individual prayer in our children.

I'm not caught up on pictures yet, but I hope to get some up soon.

One prayer request for the next few months: my best friend and her husband had their first baby on Dec 29th. He was 13 weeks early. So far, he's been very stable, and already reduced to a lower ventilator. He also had clean brain scans that showed no signs of bleeding. He does have a heart murmur that they're hoping to correct with meds. Please just pray for his continued stability, and for their new little family as they navigate the very long road ahead. Mom and Dad are soon to be separated, as they're a few hours from home and he has to go back to work. This will be hard on them both. The baby's name is Calvin Jesse. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

We'll be moving in the next couple months. I'm not thrilled about it, but our landlord is selling. We're hoping to find another house, but the pickins have been slim. But God has always come through, and we know He will again.

I guess that's it from here. I really will try to post more. I was doing pretty well before my last one in November. And the biggest reason for the long silence was the news of the new baby that we couldn't share just yet. That's all I really wanted to post about! We'll be finding out boy or girl at the end of February.

Hope you all had a blessed Christmas, and you're in my prayers for a wonderful 2011!