Fun Monday: News update

I decided not to ask for resolutions, but instead, a life or holiday update from everyone. Take your pick, tell us how your holiday went, or your year. This is what I wrote at the beginning of January last year:

I look forward to Holidays where we could INVITE people over! Guest room! 2 Bathrooms! A laundry area and pantry and coat area! I also look forward to filling that space with love. With saying ‘I’m going home’ and REALLY meaning it. With being able to think about the future in solid terms, because we know where we are settled. Looking forward to my husband’s pay raise, (tee hee), to potty training, to a sweet little miss instead of a diapered, nursing baby. I’m not rushing her, but happy to see her grow at her own pace! I’m looking forward to dreaming again, having a place to really cook, spread out projects without having to clean up the instant something else needs to be done, to quiet nights where our room is across the hall from Keeley’s not connected to it, where we can watch tv or do whatever else without disturbing her  (get your minds out of the gutter)… In short, I’m looking forward to dreams really coming true!

For our holiday update — let’s just say we DID invite people over, we had extra bathrooms, a coat closet that everyone’s coat fit in, and of course everything else has fallen into line as well.. in transition from baby to toddler and apartment to our own house.

So… 2010!!!! What have we done? In short, all those dreams above.. they did really come true!!!

January 2010- By then I had picked out all of Keeley’s spring/summer and fall/winter clothes. I even posted pictures of them. Boy has she grown! All the ones that were 4 inches too short are now fitting fine! We were trying to pick out a nursery/toddler room theme and it still is NOT done. Nothing. Poor kid. She’s in a bare room. Please is no longer her favorite word — it’s NO! But that’s okay, she’s 2!!!! Her vocabulary has increased quite a bit since January as well!

February 2010- The foundation for our new house was dug, concrete poured and so on. Our landlady wanted us out of one apartment, and was soon to sell the second one out from under us, as well. That was SUCH a sucky time. I mean we were REALLY excited about the house, but getting the run around from our landlady, while dealing with our nasty neighbors (bless their hearts) who were constantly waking us up at all hours, and knowing with all our hearts it would be a while before the house was done… it was almost my undoing.

March 2010- The grass was starting to green up, and it rained, and rained, and rained, and delayed and delayed and delayed our house. Our house got trucked in… and we got delayed again. There were beautiful spring flowers everywhere! Keeley loved playing with the gravel and dirt from our new driveway! We watched our house being set the 30th—And I was wondering if everyone in blogland was pregnant but me. Most of these people have newborns or are expecting their arrivals any day now!

April 2010 – It was Easter, Keeley stopped nursing 🙁 and learned to say I love you the same day. The whole month was pretty much waiting on the house.. Keeley turned 18 months, and at the end of this month, we moved into our new house!!!! So exciting!!!!!

May 2010-This month was all about being outside and taking walks and enjoying our fresh country air and NOT being bothered by insane ‘other people’.  Keeley had to relearn how to walk in the country, first on the gravel, and then through the tall grass.  I wrote a mother’s day post for a cloth diaper blog and won $10– I got a diaper sprayer with it, and it totally rocks at spraying poop out of training pants, by the way! Great investment! I was looking forward to my cousin’s wedding — I was really hoping Matt and I could have some fun–a few drinks, enjoy ourselves and all of that. It was a total bomb. He had a headache. He ALWAYS gets a headache whenever I ‘get’ to do something fun. Never fails. Ugh. Anyway, there was a freak hail storm the first week of the month and Keeley had about 20 words. That’s so funny to me now!

June 2010 – We played in the dirt, played in the grass, played in the rocks. Mommy mowed grass. Again, and again and again. Soon Keeley was yelling MOW and pointing at the mower, requesting that I mow, whether the grass needed it or not. Note: The grass always needed it because it would not.stop.raining. ugh! We painted our laundry room and hung 2 shelves. Awesome to have a pantry! We have 4 in there now and they are FULL! I need a 5th one for oversize kitchen plastic containers and such at the top! This month I started sitting Keeley on the potty so she would get used to it. Keeley got her first ponytail and began to express an innate desire to be with DADDY a lot. So far, that hasn’t changed!

July 2010 – This month was all about freezer pops and playing in her plastic pool. She ran around without pants for the most part which prompted several questions as to whether she EVER wore pants, yes, she did, she just was too busy to put them on for the most part! Our wildlife quotient really amped up, foxes, owls in the daylight, fresh fawns and deer, and so on. It was a really stressful month, attempting to get our upstairs finished enough to get our mortgage approved, and Keeley wanting nothing to do with me, and only wanting her daddy, who was justifiably too busy to be with her much. What is a kid to do though? Take it out on mom, and then have daddy frown at you when you can’t keep yourself calm after 12 straight hours of kid being mad at you because you’re not what they want. I’m glad all that is behind us now.

August 2010 – Did I mention it was hot? Keeley started climbing really well, and her imagination started blooming! She really appreciates Elmo now, and plays simple games on the computer (hit the keyboard to make it make noise). Fresh tomatoes from the farmers market, pretending, and and going to the park were all the rage. We enjoyed late summer flowers and building our decks.

September 2010- I started making felt food for Keeley’s Christmas. Wow, did it really take me that long? Yup, it did!I also started remembering what made ME, well, ME. Favorite music, things to do and incorporating them back into my habits. Getting a small radio for the kitchen and playing my old CD’s while cooking or playing with Keeley makes me feel young again.

October 2010 – It was a month of planning for her birthday, visiting with a friend, and ultimately, her party! I made ‘monster faces’ of her lunch pretty much every day, just something fun and kind of Halloweeny. I had an epiphany as to why I’m always so cranky: my main companion is a 2 year old that is never happy with anything for more than 2 minutes. That would drive anyone insane, and so I am allowing myself to feel just a bit crazy and just deal with it. I made homemade cinnamon rolls and did another contest, which netted me 5 diapers. I have yet to blog about it, but will soon. We got rid of the high chair (in the garage) and got a booster seat. Growing up so fast! Now she has around 150 words, with new words every single day, and more and more understanding and communicating!

November 2010 – Was Thanksgiving really over a month ago? Hmm. I started making cookies in my 8 weeks of cookies series. I highly recommend this (even 4 weeks worth of baking and freezing) instead of doing it all at once. I worked on felt food, and worked on it, and worked on it! I did NABLOPOMO which got me back into blogging every day. I have continued it through December and am pretty pleased. It’s nice to have a record of daily happenings. Keeley and I enjoyed the outdoors SO much even though we needed long sleeves! Matt and I saw the Harry Potter movie and did some Christmas shopping. We really have enjoyed the new church we started going to. Sometimes just Keeley and I go and that’s okay. Matt’s busy with more house stuff (oh my God will it ever end?)

December 2010 – Still was making felt food, getting Christmas stuff ‘ready’. Ordering Christmas cards, making cookies, and just in general trying to soak up the season. We’ve had some bad heating problems and it’s irritating to say the least. It bugs me SO much when the heat kicks on. I’m hosting fun Monday this month, my dad retired, I did a diaper review, and Matt got some more stuff upstairs finished, but not totally. I really, really hope it gets done, soon, since it’s been 8 months now. Matt took days off to potty train Keeley (oh did I mention by the way, today ALL DAY DRY! Woo!)

I’m really looking forward to 2011. My dream is for my house to be WARM without the heat kicking on every 15 seconds. For Matt to have NOTHING to do but be with me and with Keeley. We really need that right now, I think. The semi-constant having to work on the upstairs, or the crawl space, and having her be with me when she CLEARLY wants to be with him has been frustrating. I look forward to the end of diapers, the heralding of TELLING US she has to go to the bathroom. I also hope that Matt and I can take a nice vacation, sans child, this spring or summer. We can’t really afford it, but we really need it. Okay, I need it and have since this past spring. The house has constantly come first and I can’t wait until it’s just AHHHHHHH hanging out!

January 2011’s host – Ari from http://www.prawnoffate.blogspot.com/