New Year's Day

We spent a relaxing day at Nana & Pappy's. We enjoyed the usual New Year's feast of pork roast with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

Mommy snuck away to make some returns and go shopping. (By the way, New Year's Day is a great day to go shopping at Wal-mart -- hardly anyone was there and I walked right up to the return desk.) Daddy watched bowl games to his heart's content. The girls played the new games they received for Christmas with Nana & Pappy. And Isaiah napped a lot!

Makenna playing her new kid's charades game.

Every year for Christmas Pappy decorates the tree for the grand kids -- this year it was decorated in blue for the grandson! (Also pictured) Isaiah eating a banana all by himself. No more cutting them up in little pieces. He is getting so big. This time around it's a little different because I know it's our last. Another story for another time, but he "graduated" to the Toddler class at church. =(

Pappy and Isaiah playing with the keyboard. They would boogie and make faces when the music played.

We are becoming an electronic game family. Daddy bought me a Nintendo DS last year since the company I keep isn't very challenging, and I can use it to play "brain" games (as Nana calls them). Makenna received a Leapster for her birthday last year. She added two more games to her collection -- math puzzles and animal facts -- which she loves. Nana received a Nintendo DS for Christmas, so she can keep her brain active now that she is semi-retired. It is fun playing all the different games and challenging ourselves. I love it that my kids like educational games.

I pray that 2009 brings blessing to all you. New Year's resolutions never worked for me -- as a matter of fact, I started working on some things in my life on Monday, December 29 -- why wait for January 1? My hope is to keep life positive, less-stressful and more focused on me! Now before you start thinking I'm selfish, I'd like to clarify . . . a big part of my purpose in life is to make my husband and my family happy and to make our home a haven. This past year made me realize that I stress out too much trying to figure out how to get everything done around the house, with my kids, at church, etc. Most of the time we all end up frazzled and frustrated. So I'm going to take a different approach and see how it works. Whether it's a few minutes of exercise in the morning or a few "quiet" moments in the bathroom away from the kids to play my brain game or a few extra minutes in the shower to pray, I'm going to do my best to relieve as much stress as possible and focus more on my home and family. By doing so, I feel that is putting them first.