Remembering 2009

January: We were sick a lot and more anti-social than usual. We celebrated Dane's 7th birthday and I got brave by painting a very tall wall nearly all by myself. The color still reminds me of a Wendy's frosty. Yum...

My little sister moved to Georgia and I was very sad about it.

February: It was a nice little month. We stayed happily hunkered down at home for the most part and Bryce was constantly cracking me up. He was so delightful.

Ella and Dane were really enjoying pre-school and 1st grade respectively.

March: We went to Disney World!!! Quite the trip with three kids smashed into the back of a sedan with Bryce swatting constantly. I told Cam we wouldn't be able to come to Florida anymore. We hit the park circuit hard and loved every minute of that. We saw dolphins and 'gators and enjoyed the beaches near St. Petersberg. Ahhhhh...

April: In April I aged and celebrated with a concert. Cam is wondering if I'm becoming a teenager, getting into music again. Again? Is he kidding? I am music! Dane also lost a his first tooth. It was a big deal to the both of us, though to date he's only lost those two bottom ones.

The down side of a mostly pleasant month was our van being broken into while in our church parking lot with my wallet and camera being stolen.

May: Our Oquirrh Mountain Temple was finally completed! Ella graduated from her 1st year of preschool! Cam and I 'got away' for the weekend to St. George. I don't know that we'd done anything like that since Bryce's birth at least. We also took a bitter-sweet trip to Las Vegas as a family to attend the funeral of a cousin, wanting to be with his daughter Becca, who is very dear to us.

June: New Movie! Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince

New Computer! Thank you, thank you!!!

New City? Cam and I went to New York City for the first time. Amazing! Wonderful! Six months later I can truly say I left my heart there. We are so going back.

July: One of my favorite months. We celebrated the country's birthday after the usual fashion, in Provo. We also began to teach Bryce to sleep through the night/go to bed/sleep in his own bed in earnest. We've been much happier since it all finally came together. At the end of the month, with the weirdness that is year-round school, Dane began 2nd grade.

August: We wound up the summer with a lot of outdoor playing. Dane rode his bike a lot. We celebrated Bryce's 3rd birthday and Ella began ballet. Finally, the actual day of our 10 year anniversary arrived (though we'd pretty much been celebrating since March) and we enjoyed a brief visit to the Mt. Timpanogos temple with our kids to show them were our family began.

September: We got away with the kids and had a nice overnight stay in Park City. Dane let me remove his training wheels and he took off like a shot. Ella began preschool again and I became a soccer coach. Ella also had her birthday and her first friend party. We adopted a pet spider this month as well.

October: My little sister visiting from Georgia and a fun Halloween were all that mattered from this month.

November: Dane won a digi-piano. I went to New Moon and we all traveled to Hawthorne, Nevada for a wonderful family-filled Thanksgiving.

December: Whirlwind month. It started with Dane going off-track, taking his ALPS tests and all of us working steadily toward Christmas. We also notched up our efforts to prepare Dane for baptism next month. Then the call came that my sister was having a necessary scheduled induction on the 16th and my mom asking me if I was going to Georgia with her. I did and though I robbed myself of 5 crucial days of Christmas prep, I was so blessed to be there on the day that my beautiful nephew made his way into the world. Oh beautiful boy! I got home and the rest of the year has honestly been a blur, but a blessed blur indeed, of family, holidays, magic and me marvelling over how much three kids can grow in just five days.

This year was spent with Cam being out of town A LOT for his job, but loving it.

I spent waaay too much time on the computer, with a continual love/hate Facebook thing going on, but I have signed off that for the last time. I felt like it was a somewhat painful year of growth for me as a person with some extreme ups and downs in there, but I'm so thankful for an awesome husband who remains my best friend and love through it all.

Dane worked at getting better at piano and pretty much lost the bad attitude about it.

Ella is all girl and is so sweet and cute and emotional, pouty and easily offended. Female and five.

Bryce spent the year keeping us entertained and went from sleeping with Mom at some point every night and wearing diapers to loving bedtime and using the potty like a champ.

Happy New Year everyone!!! Looking forward to 2010!