Year In Review

we started 2008 with the anticipation of possibly adopting a child thru the children's shelter, even though we were told that our expectations of wanting a 2 year old or younger with mild special needs were not realistic. little did anyone know that on february 11th our daughter, shorty girl, would come home to live with us forever. with that began a rollercoaster ride with a lot of ups and downs. it is difficult bringing home a newborn - i remember when the boy came home. it is infinately harder bringing home a 2 year old with another 2 year old in the house. it was a rough start, but completely worth it.

shorty girl had only been home 2 months when i got a call from jami saying that we needed to go and pick up her niece, mackenzie, so jami could adopt her. long story short, jami and i both adopted our daughters this year.

after mackenzie came home, richard got mono. he wasn't able to be around us for at least 3 weeks, maybe even longer. i had just become the mother of 2 two year olds, and was freaking out at the prospect of being a single mother of 2 two year olds. my mom flew down and we drove back to her house in Missouri. throughout the summer, we made the trip 1 more time. it isn't a bad drive, and it is much cheaper than flying!

august came and we legally became shorty girl's parents. it was a wonderful ceremony in which we were the first family to be legalized. we had friends and family there which made it even more special, given all of the bull sh!t we had gone through the previous 6 months. the next day we celebrated the boy's 3rd birthday. we had a fun mickey mouse party at the house and, again, it was nice to have all my fmaily be there.

in october i turned 30. i didn't really celebrate it due to the fact we had just put our house on the market and I was sick. richard made my day memorable by getting me a laptop, which i had been asking for forever! the kids took me out to dinner and i believe i was in bed by 9pm. maybe next year I can have a big party.

in november, after a bit of house hunting, we signed a contract to have our house built in a new neighborhood. the new neighborhood is right across the street from our old one! the house is 2676 sq. ft., 4 bedrooms, a HUG loft, and we are on a corner lot. they should be starting on the building of the house within the next 2 weeks, which will be exciting to watch!

after our house was on the market for 6 weeks, we got an offer. he was the 5th person to look at the house. we accepted his offer, after a bit of negotiating, and closed on the house december 31st.

so, as i write this, i am sitting in my in laws living room....aka our home for the next few months. i am excited about all of the new adventures to look foward to this year. my new years resoultion? enjoy life. take one day at a time. i live in the future, and need to work on enjoying the present. my kids are growing up so fast, and i don't want to miss a minute of it. our family is embarking on a new journey with our new house, and i can't wait until we can move in.

happy new year!