New Year, New Goals, New Challenges!

The holidays are over. They always go by too quickly for my liking, but it makes me appreciate that time of year even more. John finished up the semester strongly and is very excited to be done with his art history class. Too bad he still has one more to go. We had the opportunity to fly to Florida for the Christmas break and visit with family and friends. Samantha was an angel on all four flights. She kept everyone around us amused with her grins and her waves. It was so nice to spend time with family and just relax some. Samantha learned a lot on our trip-how to do "SO big!" say "uh oh" and give noggin (bump heads with another person). She is still very adventuresome and happy. She will be a year old in less than a month!

Christmas was wonderful. It is always a wonderful time and I am grateful for the day that Christ was born. Someone at my church explained that perhaps the reason we all make New Years Resolutions is because of the Spirit that we feel through the holidays. We reflect on our many blessings at and are a little more Christ-like through this time. These feelings and acts of goodwill and service fill us with the desire to continually do better and improve. Hence our New Years Resolutions. At least I like to think about it that way.

School has started in full swing and both John and I are loving our classes. John is taking a few GEs and some cinematography courses. He is so unbelievingly talented. I am looking forward to seeing his work through the semester. I am taking 5 courses including a British Literary History course (which is amazing thus far) and a Astronomy course (which I love as well). Samantha is doing really well with the schedule change and loving the time she gets to spend with her Daddy.

A few new developments: Starting this month I will be an author on a parenting blog called Notes on Parenting. It is a really great resource for parents that talks about many topics. Also, I will be starting a Photo365 project here in the next few days and will be posting the photos here. John will soon be finding out whether or not he will receive the ORCA Grant to work on his amazing animated project, Bert. Samantha starts a tots swim class next Saturday as well. We are definitely staying busy! 

The Holiday Season

Well, the past few months seemed to have flown by. Samantha had her first Halloween and helped carve her first pumpkin as can be seen here and here. She loved the gooey mess, and especially liked trying to eat the seeds and the newspaper the pumpkins were sitting on! She went trick or treating as a lamb this year and enjoyed all the colorful little pieces of wrapped candy she got every time someone opened the door.

She really is growing like a weed and is active as ever. Samantha's been crawling for awhile and now can walk along the furniture. Nothing is safe anymore from our little goat (she tries to eat everything!!) She is so bright and is a people person. Whenever we go to the store, she always talks to the other customers. I cannot believe that her first birthday is just around the corner.

We took Sammy's 9 month photos as well as a family photo last month in the leaves. I am happy we did it when we did because it got cold and rainy/snowy the very next day! Trying to keep the leaves out of her mouth was a challenge, but we all had fun.

Thanksgiving was great. This was the first time that I had to cook all of the meal, and I think it turned out pretty good for the first time around. We have so much to be grateful for and it was wonderful talking about it. We started a new tradition this year as well--the Thanksgiving Jar. The week preceding Thanksgiving, we each wrote something down on a slip of paper that we were grateful for and then after dinner on the big day, we opened and took turns reading the papers. I loved the opportunity each day to think about the thing that I am grateful for. This is definitely something that we want to continue with our kids each year.

Now we are into December! The year has just flown by. John is finishing up his last finals before the break. We are both extremely excited because on Saturday we are flying home to FLORIDA!! It will be so great to spend time with our families. I love this time of year and the warm fuzzies I get thinking about the blessings we receive because of Christ. I really am grateful for my wonderful husband and and beautiful daughter. I don't know what I would do without them.