The Best of 2009

Before I get into my top ten for 2009, I would like to apologize for being such a slacker during the holidays. Many of my wonderful friends and family members took the time to send Christmas cards and letters and I never responded back or made a Christmas card/letter a priority. I love getting updates from everyone and I had every intention of doing the same, but it just did not happen. Please don't cross me off your Christmas card list and hopefully next year I will do better. I thought I would post a 2009 top ten list to take the place of my update Christmas letter.

These are what I consider to be the highlights of 2009 for me and my family. Some of the things are big events, and some are a culmination of a month of events and some made the list because they helped me enjoy all the precious little moments in life.

10. Finally getting Beck potty trained. He still has some accidents when he gets so busy playing and just doesn't notice he needs to go, but he does pretty good.

9. Kate entering pre-school. She loves it and it has been much easier for me to run errands with only two kids instead of three. She has a lot of fun field trips that we wouldn't be able to do as a family without the pre-school organizing it and they had a fun Christmas program. Pre-school also highlighted one of Kate's hidden talents-singing. She really enjoys singing and does really well memorizing and keeping the tune of songs.

8. Eli's new job. He still works for the same company, but has gone from software engineer to management which has been his goal for a very long time. I am proud of all he accomplishes in his profession and am happy to support him in his next goal of getting an MBA.

7. Finally getting our basement finished. Okay it is not 100% complete since we are still working on the bathroom, but the playroom has been such an improvement. It is much easier to contain the toys in one central location instead of having them take up my entire living space and to have a little more peace and quiet.

4-6 I am having a hard time putting these in order because they were pretty similar. I really enjoyed halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Each of the holidays were tons of small moments that made for a month of fun memories.

Halloween included going to the pumpkin patch, Mickey's trick-or-treat party, and halloween themed fireworks at Disneyland, in addition to the regular halloween activities.

Thanksgiving was another road trip to Denver and even though it was shorter in duration it was also jam packed with fun little activities and some much needed couple time.

Christmas is the best when you have little kids. Everything was great including nativity plays, visiting Santa, Christmas parties, making treats, eating treats and especially spending time with family. If I had to have my life be the same everyday like it was in the movie Groundhog Day I would want to relive October-December of 2009 over and over.

3. Family Vacation to San Diego and Disneyland. It was so fun and I am so excited for all the future vacations. This picture my husband took on his phone and I never saw it until now. I think this is Kate right before the big hill on Splash Mountain.

2. The birth of my nephew Roman. What a cutie. We waited a long time for his arrival and we are so happy he is here and healthy.

1. The birth of my third baby and second daughter. I love her so much and consider myself so lucky to be her mom. I am so happy that she is healthy and learning so much every day. I can't get enough of her and sometimes I don't even want to put her down to bed at night.

2009 was a wonderful year and I am looking forward to 2010. Hopefully I will be better at managing my time and hopefully there will be a little less of me in 2010 than there was in 2009. It is definitely time to lose that "baby" weight now that she is 9 months old. Time to develop some self-discipline.