2014 Recap

I decided to make a list of the top five things I'm walking away from 2014 with. I won't lie, 2014 was hard in terms of my emotional health but lately things have been looking up. As a naturally cynical person, it's easy for me to only look at the things I remember as being hard in 2014, but there are lots of good things too. Here are just 5 of those things for you:

1.) I watched the girls grow from babies to toddlers. Last January they were 4 months old. In just a year they have covered so many milestones and grown into such capable and awesome toddlers. Their personalties have begun to emerge. They're mobile. They're so fun to interact with. Some days are still hard, but there are a lot lot lot of very good very fun days.

2.) I started sleeping again. This deserves it's own spot on the list. My life changed when Mandy Hose helped give me the confidence to help my babies to sleep. And I gained my sanity back.

3.) I lost some weight but more importantly started running again. I'm slowly losing the weight I gained in pregnancy. That's not really my primary focus though. I started running again and began to feel like myself again. I'm signed up for the Shamrock half marathon too. Training officially starts next week!

4.) Brad finished his Master's degree. Just a couple weeks ago, Brad finished his Master's degree and participated in his graduation ceremony. No more school for him! I'm so proud of him!

5.) My family spent Christmas with us and it was amazing. I was sad when they had to leave but very very happy they were able to come down and see the girls and celebrate with us. My brother met the girls for the first time. Of course we all did get sick and Amelia was basically out of sorts the whole visit from being sick and then 1 year molars made an appearance. But overall, the visit was awesome! I wish I could post a million pictures, but I didn't actually take that many. I wish I had taken more, especially of the girls hanging out with my mom and dad... Between clingy sick babies and just enjoying being in the moment I don't have many pics. oops!

If you'll notice, a lot of these things just happened basically from September to now. It's not that I have a short memory, it's that the rest of the year was spent just trying to survive. I am so glad I'm out of total survival mode. Let there be no illusions here. 2014 was one of the hardest years of my life. Not because lots of bad things happened, but because having two babies with feeding and sleeping issues consumed me a little bit. I have so many cherished memories of snuggling and rocking, but I am also very much looking to make 2015 a better year in terms of my overall health. I have another post about my 2015 goals for you to read tomorrow. :)

Happy Advent!

Since my last post, I have to say... sleep is still going very well. Hallelujah. I feel like I've joined humanity again. ;) I don't have any 14 or 15 month updates or pictures of this girls. So here are some random snap shots I've taken recently and here's what we've been up to lately.

For Halloween, we did take the girls to a couple of houses to go Trick Or Treating. We had a lot of fun. I dressed Amelia as a Dinosaur and Eleanor was a Monkey. They both seemed to like getting dressed up. And Brad and I enjoyed the candy. ;)

Thanksgiving was great. We went to our friend's house and ate lots of food and hung out. I greatly enjoyed my dinner, especially since I ran a 10k Turkey Trot that morning. That was so exhilarating and I loved doing it. I have a whole other post about that coming up this weekend, so you have that to look forward to!

I thought I would talk a little about Advent in our house. Brad and I want to be intentional about focusing on Christ around Christmastime. We don't have any particular Advent traditions here yet, but we want to start them. This year, while the girls are still young, we are using this plan to read from the Jesus Storybook Bible. It's definitely NOT really a Bible so if you're looking for that, this is probably not the thing for you. It's more of a collection of stories inspired by scripture that "whispers His name" in each story (that's the tag line of the book).

In the future we will incorporate other Advent-y things when they are more age-appropriate. I've been very humbled this advent season to realize that these two little hearts have been entrusted to me. It makes it feel much more urgent to start these traditions and even just every day making it a point to show them who Christ is.

We also have some less heavy traditions going-- one of which is Elf on the Shelf. I know I named him last year but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. So we re-named him Elfie (hopefully I won't forget...). I have a few shenanigans planned for Elfie but for the most part he just does simple things like hangs out in a stocking or jumps on the tree for a day. I think he will be a lot of fun every year. I don't plan to emphasize the fact that he's a scout elf sent to spy on you to report to Santa. That's just weird (and we've "lost" the book that goes with him). Our Elfie just comes out to help us celebrate Christmas time.

My family is in town for Christmas. Brad went up to Indiana to walk in his graduation ceremony at Perdue University. The girls and I were unable to go with him, but we will be watching him walk across the stage via web streaming. I'm so proud of Brad for finishing his Master's degree. It seems like more of an accomplishment after having two babies! :)