Are you ready for 2010?

2009 is almost over and I'm ready for a new year. This afternoon I had fun creating the cover page to our family album for 2010. I plan to accent every month with a different color while highlighting each week's events. The pages will then be posted for family and friends to see.

Happy New Year!

Did you reach your goals for 2009?

At the end of each year I make an effort to come up with personal goals for the upcoming year. I've heard that choosing 3 goals or less is best. These were my goals for 2009:

1. Create and maintain a family blog
2. Eat more fruits and vegetables
3. Earn 6 more graduate credits

I can very proudly say that I accomplished 2 out of the 3 goals with flying colors while the third one is questionable. I definitely created and maintained my family blog and actually earned 9 graduate credits. Whether or not I ate more fruits and vegetables is hard to determine.

My goals for 2010 are:

1. Lose the pregnancy weight that I've been carrying around for over 4 years
2. Catch up and then stay current with my scrapbooks
3. Blog at least once a week and not everyday!

Which photos are your favorite from 2009?

I had a TON of fun taking pictures this year with my new camera. I still have a lot to learn with all of the different features and I am hoping to take even better photos next year. It was great to look back at the thousands of pictures I took. My 2 most popular subjects were Leah and Elizabeth. I put together a bunch of my favorite shots of them from 2009.

Are you an organized person?

I thrive on being organized and it drives me crazy when I can't find something. In fact I even enjoy organizing. If I wasn't a teacher, I think my career could be a professional organizer. Since school ended for winter break I've spent a large amount of time getting things a little more organized. Last week Leah and Elizabeth helped clear out their playroom to make room for their new Christmas items. While we were cleaning and sorting (for over an hour) I heard Leah comment, "This is fun!" Elizabeth wasn't into the whole concept though. My organizing continued as I cleared out and reshelved things in the office closet. That was a huge task and long overdue. Then today while the girls were at their Grandma's house I went to school to reorganize. I spent hours cleaning out my cabinets, clearing out old files, and placing papers for the 6 IB units shown above into new 3 inch binders. Even Tim has taken the organization idea seriously because as I write this post he is picking up his "man cave". I am really looking forward to starting 2010 as organized as possible!

What are you going to blog about today?

It is hard believe that today marks the beginning of the last week of the year 2009. Our family has been very busy and yet blessed with health and safety. I have enjoyed being able to use this blog to record all of the year's highlights. When I created it I had NO idea what it would turn into. It's become a passion and quite frankly an addiction. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought about what to write about. The blog has been my journal, one that I've actually kept for a whole year. With the exception of 1 day (when I didn't have Internet access or know that I could post ahead of time), I've been able to add something to it every day. Keeping a blog has been a wonderful experience that I have enjoyed throughout 2009.

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

The parties are now over and the Christmas gifts have all been unwrapped. Looking back at all of the great gifts we received, I asked each member of the family to choose their favorite gift. These are the choices:

Elizabeth - Laptop

Leah - Julie (American Girl Doll)

Tim - Rifle scope

Jenn - Tools Caddy from Creative Memories

Where will you be celebrating Christmas?

This morning after opening Christmas gifts at our house we will be traveling to Wheaton to celebrate with my family. We are looking forward to another fun time with family and remembering that the greatest gift ever given was Jesus Christ!