Happy New Year =)

oh my.. where did the past week go?!  It’s hard to believe a week has gone by since my last post.  The new year has brought new challenges and new journeys to our family.  I started back to work full time yesterday.  Luckily I was swamped with work so I didn’t have much time to sit and think about what I was missing at home.  I’ve never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom more than I do now but sadly that is in no way an option for me. Having these past 12 weeks with my kiddos was great, except I felt like I wasted my leave.  The first month was spent recovering from Gage’s birth, the second month was spent planning Gabby’s 1st birthday party and the last month was spent preparing for Christmas.  So now I want another leave.. to make up for the time I missed with them.

I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the resolutions I posted at the end of 2009 to see how I did..

• Lose these last 15 pounds of Gummy Bear weight – big fat fail here!  I still had those extra 15 lbs when I discovered I was pregnant with Gage and obviously couldn’t really start to diet then. *New resolution – lose these last 20 pounds of extra Gabby/Gage weight! 
• Try new foods as often as possible – ACCOMPLISHED!  I really did ‘branch out’ this year and try new foods; and I actually found a lot of things I really like that I never thought I would!
• Be more patient with everyone and everything – I’ll give myself a 50% for this one..
• Strengthen my relationship with Christ and display His love in all I do – again, I will give myself a 50% – I definitely feel the relationship has deepened, and I have Gage to thank for that ;o) but I can’t honestly say His love was displayed in all I did over the year..
• Be a better wife, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, niece, sister, sister-in-law, friend, counselor and witness – some passed, some failed – we will leave it at that for now 
• Run at least 4 races - distance not yet determined =) – big fat fail – I didn’t run any races in 2010 – I did spend almost the entire year pregnant so I will let this one slide – hopefully 2011 will be a different story ;o)
• Save $ and make wiser financial decisions – I’d say this was accomplished, to an extent – we did save $ so I could take maternity leave (which was unpaid since I used all my vacation time for my leave with Gabby and no one plans to have two maternity leaves during the same year!) but now that my maternity leave has expired so has that $ that we saved.  Dave Ramsey ‘debt diet’ here we come ;o)
• Get a tattoo in honor of my children – fail, but in the works for 2011! 
• Somehow develop a love for cooking – big fat fail – let’s be real.. I don’t know that this will ever happen.. but I know I do need to really try.
• Paint a few rooms in our house – fail – the $ that would have gone towards the paint went into the savings account so I could take maternity leave – hopefully this will happen in 2011!

I guess this means I earned about a 50% – lets try to make it 100% in 2011!

Love & blessings!!