Happy 2011!!!

I can't believe that 201o is now in our past. History. What a year it was. And I have a feeling 2011 will bring even more to the table. It already promises to!

To ring in the new year, here are my new year's resolutions:

1) Put into practice letting go and letting God.
2) Make love and romance a center piece of our marriage. It is not enough to just be content.
3) Create an environment that is conducive to raising a happy, healthy, active and creative family. This primarily includes a lot of patience on Mommy's part.

I think that's more than enough to keep me on my toes. I asked Mia what her resolutions were. We came up with these together:

1) Cry less, Laugh more
2) Talk in complete sentences so my point gets across loud and clear
3) Get potty trained
4) Grow hair

I think they're all achievable. Well, jury's still out on #4. Let's keep our fingers crossed! =)

LOVE

You can find us here this week: LOVE

Dear Mark,

Sweetie -

The house is so quiet and feels so much emptier without you & Stoli here to keep me company. Fortunately, I will get to see Stoli tomorrow and you again on Friday! Thank goodness for family and short business trips.

At least Baby is here to keep me guessing. Remember a few weeks ago when I said Baby's movements felt like a fish suddenly whipping around and swimming away in an aquarium? Well it's not so tonight. These days, Baby is too big to make such large movements in this small aquarium. Tonight, I'm quite certain that Baby is just as ready to meet us as we are to meet our love. Tonight, Baby feels like it's trying to kick and claw its way out... through my belly button. It's the weirdest feeling ever. And I'm sure that in another 3 weeks... when my skin has stretched to its utmost limits... if Baby keeps this up, it will do just that.

Come home soon. I miss you.

Love,
me

Attitude

Yesterday while Stoli & I were outside tinkering with some patio furniture in the front yard, one of our neighbors passed by on her return home from a walk with her dog. We let the dogs play a little bit in the front yard while we chatted.

She congratulated us on our new adventure and asked us all the typical questions. When are you due, what are you having, etc, etc.

Once we finished with me, I asked how they were doing. She said that her house is like an infirmary these days. I must preface that last summer, her husband suffered from 3 heart attacks in the span of about 2 months. Scary stuff. The last one he had, they schedule a quadruple (I think that was how many it was) bypass. We stopped by the hospital to visit him and even though he could barely breathe (some of his ribs were broken), he was still in good spirits and tried really really hard not to laugh throughout the visit. We saw them a few weeks later walking around the block and doing their thing to help him recover. He's much better this spring back playing golf and doing the lawn. Always with a friendly smile and warm chit chat as we pass. So it came as a surprise to me that yesterday, his wife mentions that he's now been diagnosed with Lymphatic cancer. Can this man not catch a break? He just had his lymph nodes removed out of his left underarm and is at home recovering. But she said, "You know how he is. Great attitude. Nothing's really all that bad. It'll be fine."

Apparently that attitude has rubbed off on his family. Amazing how one person with a good attitude and affect so many. Including this one writing.