New Year

Excuse: We have been really busy lately and that's why I haven't posted a blog in a while.

Reality: We have been really really really busy lately and that's why I haven't posted a blog in a while. But I feel fairly guilty about it and only realized 2 minutes ago that my last post was at the end of October. So we are going to update in a quick list.

Ben turned seven months old.
What. A. Ham.

I cut my middle finger on my left hand slicing open french bread. Luckily Greg was only a few minutes from home and it was one of the easiest weeks for him at academy. Ben stayed home with his Uncle Matt while Greg and I spent some quality time in the E.R.

Greg graduated from Fire Academy! It was so wonderful when he was finally done. We had waited so long for it to be over. It made us realize that him working and going to school full-time would be a lot for us to handle, and that even though his schedule has some challenges, we really enjoy it -it works well for us.

Did I mention that Greg graduated with honors and was also awarded the Company Leadership Award, which is considered the highest honor in the academy? He doesn't like to mention it, but sometimes I like to brag about how awesome my husband is.

We celebrated Thanksgiving.
My brother John and his wife Amy were able to spend some time with us in the morning before returning to her family's Thanksgiving meal. And we spent the afternoon/meal with the Zarko family.

Then things got really crazy...
We bought a car, Ben turned eight months old, we found out we are having a GIRL!- so glad to know that my gut wasn't fooling me, I cut my hair -a lot shorter than intended (tears were shed), we visited my brother-in-laws girlfriend in Peoria to see the festival of lights, Ben figured out how to self-feed, we finished up Christmas gifts and mailed out Christmas goodies to friends, we found a place to rent, and we moved...all within about 2 and a half weeks.

Helping Dad chalk to the tub and Grandma and Grandpa's

Baby Nora

Eight Months!

Yep, we moved the Monday before Christmas. But it was good. And we are happy.
It was only a pain to travel so much for the holidays and Ben was ready to be done.

And then we celebrated Christmas. Greg's schedule worked out so that we were able to spend Christmas together again! It was so special and wonderful to spend Christmas together and to be able to share Ben's first Christmas as a family. Even though we moved to close to Christmas we were committed to getting our tree up, I think that made it official for us.
Merry Christmas

Then we celebrated New Year's. But the night before New Year's Eve we spent the night with Greg's family, and I very foolishly forgot Ben's snowman on the bed when I packed our bag for the overnight stay. Needless to say we had a fairly sleepless night and there was no way Ben's parents were going to make it to midnight. So we went to sleep and awoke only when the neighbors and every other person in the entire town set off fireworks to ring in the new year. Ben didn't awake, which makes me fairly confident that as long as Ben has Snowflake by his side he could sleep through the night in a war zone.
Trying to break Snowflake free

Since we have been moved it's been hectic because of unpacking and managing the holidays, but we have found time to have some fun around the house and to get outside (no snow yet!) and do some more geocaching.