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Looking back on God's blessings to us this year:
- Seeing Sam's personality come out. He's 90% jokester and 10% hug enthusiast. He is a little firecracker who has really livened up our family. =)
- Having Isaiah home from school this year. It is really nice having him around to play with Sam. Our daily schedule is fairly relaxed. There's the slight interruption of my being gone for three hours in the afternoon. But other than that, it's nice to avoid the crazy running around of having a kid in school. And it's nice to not have to worry about sending the bear holding the banana for "B" day and stuff like that. =)
- Teaching my middle and high schoolers. It is such a nice break in my day to go to school and be a professional person, to help students grow in their musical abilities. The nice thing about the job is that I can kind of make it what I want it to be. Last year I wasn't able to do as much, because Sam was still little and I don't think I had the energy to put into teaching that I do this year. This year, I was able to have my band and choir play and sing in the Grandparents' Day chapel, and the choir went caroling at a nursing home, and the band played at PPG place. I really appreciate my middle school choir director making the extra effort to take the choir out to different events like singing at a home for disabled veterans and singing on the steps of the bank at light up night in my town. Those are some of my best memories from middle school, so I want to pass those good memories on to my students. So I'm glad I have the mental and physical energy to put a little more into my job this year.
- Adding two super-talented musicians to our church's worship team. Our guitar player and drummer have been so wonderful to work with and have enhanced the music at our church this year. Our hope is that we are playing relevant music that will lead people in worshiping the Father.
- Two words: Dave Ramsey. I've known about Dave Ramsey and his financial theories for a while. For the last few years, Dan and I have been more into investing than in paying down our debt (mortgage and student loans), which I think was fine. But watching his show has helped me realize how advantageous it can be to pay down debt. So we're shifting some of our financial priorities with this new plan.
- Playing piano in two weddings and accompanying the elementary choir's Christmas concert. I just like playing piano in circumstances where I am not in the spot light. In a wedding, everyone is watching the bride and groom, and it's no big deal to play piano in the background. And for the Christmas concert, all the parents and grandparents are just watching their little cuties sing Christmas songs, so, again, no big deal to play, and just a lot of fun.
- Laughing at Isaiah's quirky, imaginative comments all day long. We have particularly enjoyed the addition of his imaginary friend, Caroline, her little brother, Thomas, and their mother.
- Experimenting with fun recipes. I have really loved Sam the Cooking Guy's recipes. Some good ones we have tried and like are the spicyish sausage pasta, Katherine's meatballs, hot pastrami wrap, roasted tomato pasta, hoisin beef skewers, open face london broilers, and the fresh mozzarella and tomato pizza to name a few. =)
- Flylady. Her simple routines have helped me manage the house more efficiently. No one ever teaches you how to manage a household. The laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning, meal planning, organization, etc can be overwhelming as your family grows. But flylady's simple morning, afternoon, and evening routines break up this seemingly unmanageable task into something that anyone can accomplish.
- Our minivan. We bought a '99 dodge grand caravan earlier this year. It has been a great van. And now that our road and driveway will most likely be snow/ice covered for the next several months, we are so very grateful that it has four wheel drive. Also, the dual sliding doors make loading the boys much more convenient. Granted it is a 10 year old vehicle with some quirks, like how the dome lights blink while you're driving if you don't give the driver's side sliding door a shove after you close it. Oh, and how the speedometer, odometer, tachometer, and fuel gauge don't work because we need a part in the dash replaced. But it really is turning out to be a reliable vehicle!
This is how we found him sleeping last night... too much Christmas!
He was excited to get his busy book from Grandma.
