The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I love reflecting on past years. And every year probably starting around Junior High I would write in a journal all about the past year. I would divide the paper in half and on one side write all of the good that came out of that year in my life and in the world. On the other half I would write all about the bad that happened that year. Some things ended up on both sides because there was good and bad about a certain situation. So, here is some of the good and the bad of 2009 both in my life and in the world.

The Good of 2009

-my son Zander was born on March 24, 2009

-I had 3 months of maternity leave

-My husband was out of work and was able to stay home with Zander for 3 months after I went back to work

-After a short, 36 hour stay in the special care nursery, Zander is a healthy boy

-All of my family is healthy and safe

-My parents and sister were not injured in the house fire this summer

-My parents have lived 1/2 block from our house since June

-My husband got a job in September and he loves it

-My in-laws watch Zander 2 days a week now that my husband is working

-Zander is a very happy, and easy baby

-I love my job =in the E.R.

-We have done so much this year- Trips to a couple of different zoos, baseball games, picnics, and time with family and friends

-God provided for us financially while my husband was out of work

-My older sister, Abby got married

-many new babies were born to my family and friends (a total of 9 new babies were born this year to our friends and family)

The Bad of 2009

-my husband was out of a job until the beginning of September

-the house I grew up in caught fire and had to be demolished

-my little sister's dog, Coal, died

-my Uncle Ron died

-Zander had to stay in the special care nursery for 32 hours after he was born

-Micheal Jackson died

-Brittany Murphy died, she was the same age as I am

Goals for 2010

I have so many goals for 2010. I decided to call them goals this year instead of resolutions. I tend to want to achieve my goals. I am a very goal oriented person, so I figure I will succeed better if I call them goals instead of resolutions. Here are just a few of my goals for 2010 in no particular order.


1. I want to get closer to God. I want to read my bible and pray more.

2. I want to get my house organized because we want to sell our house.

3. I want someone to buy our house and for us to move into a bigger house. We are so tight in the one we are in now.

4. I want to exercise more and eat a whole lot healthier.

5. I want to drink less pop. I use to try to stop drinking pop altogether, but the most I ever got was about 30 days. I am addicted to pop. What can I say. It is a bad habit, I know, that is why I would like to drink less.

6. I want to print more photographs and put them in albums.

7. I want to start editing my photographs.

8. I want to write more to Paul, the little boy I sponsor through Compassion and I want to be a better sponsor to him and his family.

9. I want to cook more. At least 2 to 3 times a week. I hate cooking so for me that is a lot. Plus my husband works evenings, so I would only be cooking for myself, unless I cook for lunch and make it our dinner.

10. I want to be better at blogging. This is my way of recording the new things Zander is doing and the fun we have together as a family, and just the two of us.

11. I want to be a better wife.

12. I want to be a better mom to Zander.

Well, that is all of the goals that I can think of for now. 2009 was a great year. This year I am most thankful for my son, Zander. God blessed us with a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I love him so much. I love being a mom. I have wanted to be a mom for so long. God has blessed our family in so many other ways. 2009 started out with my husband not working, but it ended with my husband having a wonderful job that he absolutely loves. Tragedy struck my family when my parents home, the home I grew up in, caught fire and had to be demolished because of the extent of the fire. That was a very hard time for my parents and my little sister who was living at home at the time. They lost almost everything. But God prevailed even in this tragedy. Everyone, including the family dog, got out of the house safely. God is so amazing and I am so thankful for a great 2009. I am looking forward to a wonderful 2010. Happy New Year!!!

9 month doctor's visit

I took Zander for his 9 month check up today. Zander weighs 21 pounds and he is 31 inches long. He is in the 50th percentile for weight and in the 90th percentile for height. He got 2 shots. He took them like a trooper. As soon as the second shot was over, I picked him up and he then stopped crying. He is a healthy boy.

And because I love to share pictures of my adorable son, here are some to enjoy.

Zander got this cute outfit for Christmas from his Great Uncle Ken and his second cousins Heather and Tim.

I love the little ears on the hood. Zander is not a fan of the hood. In this picture he is attempting to take the hood off his head, instead he just covered up his face.

Wordless Wednesday

My favorite gift

Is this little boy!

The Art of Crawling

Zander says, "I'll show you how to crawl daddy."

Zander says, "Lets go daddy, follow me."

The Kiddos

My nieces and nephew are in from Fort Wayne and staying with their Grandma and Grandpa (my mom and dad) until tomorrow. Today we spent most of the day with them. They love playing with Zander. They are so good to him.

We went to Beggars Pizza for dinner. Growing up it was called Pipes and Pizza and that is what my nieces and nephew call it. They have a gorgeous organ with pipes all over the restaurant. It plays beautiful music. It is a very fun place. The kids love it and go to this restaurant every time they are in.

Here is the organ and you can see some of the pipes on the wall above the screen.

Here are some of the keys for the organ. It is very interesting how they have it set up.


Zander was fascinated by it. At times, part of the wall lights up and he loved that part.

Play Time

I love watching my son play. And I love to play with him. Today I had to work, but Zander took a late nap at my in-laws house, so we had some playtime together before bedtime. I love watching him explore new things. The other night a few weeks ago I taught Zander to knock down block towers and he just loved it. I have to post the video of this because it is so cute. His giggle in the video is adorable. I love watching my son climb, and pull out his toys from the bins.

I just love watching him play.

I also learned tonight that Zander takes after his momma when it comes to photos. He loves them. Ohhhh it makes my heart so warm. My screen saver is a slide show of my photographs that are on my computer. He loves looking at them. He even waves to the people in the photos. It is so cute! I just love that boy.

I also danced with Zander tonight. He didn't seem to interested at first. As I held him in my arms and held his tiny hand in my hand I said to him "One day we will be dancing like this at your wedding." Except he will probably be much taller than me since his daddy is 6 feet 4 inches. And then it made me get teary eyed. I'm not ready for my boy to grow up. I am glad I have many, many, many, more years until I dance with Zander at his wedding.

Relaxing day

We had a very relaxing Sunday. We totally needed it. We went out to breakfast with my family. My brother and sister-in-law and their children were still in from Fort Wayne so my whole family, except my brother, Zane, and his wife were there. It was a fun breakfast and I had a yummy peppermint cappuccino. Of course I didn't get any pictures of our breakfast. After breakfast we went to church. We didn't go to our church today, instead we went to Lormier Baptist Church, because our friend Sam was preaching. Sam is in our small group that meets on Thursdays. Sam and his wife are our good friends. Sam preached a great sermon about going and making disciples. I was inspired. I hope I actually act on that inspiration. I want to invite my neighbors to our small group. After church we headed over to Sam and Jen's house. It is also Sam's birthday today so our small group got together to celebrate his birthday and watch football. Sam is a big Steelers fan. And he was ecstatic when the Steelers won today. He was very stressed during the game; it was a close game. He wouldn't watch the game on the TV, but instead got updated by his laptop computer. He found out before us that they won too. Here he is watching the computer.

Happy Birthday Sam!

John and Jen

Katie and Sam (2 of Sam and Jen's kids) and Mike

Me and Jessica

My hubby, Brian and Zander, my son

Zander getting a little tricky!

Ed, Agnes, and Sam

I am way behind on my blog posts. I started a bunch and haven't finished them. I am going to try to catch up and post my old ones, so you may want to look back in November and December to see my posts that will be coming soon now that I have a lap top.

Happy Christmas Eve

I worked on Zander's first Christmas Eve, 3 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. But I got to spend the day with him. Happy First Christmas Eve Zander. Remember Jesus is the reason for the season.

Zander's got new clothes

And they are so cute. I ordered some cute outfits for Zander on macys.com and I got a package in the mail today for Zander full of clothes. I don't usually shop at Macy's. I was looking for a cute outfit for Christmas for Zander and I stumbled on Macy's website. Macy's was having a great sale. The outfits I got him were really cheap. And I can't wait until he wears them. Some of the outfits are 12 months and some are 18 months. I also got him a cute Christmas sweater vest and a cute Christmas sweater. But you will just have to wait to see those cute outfits.

I won, I won, I cant believe I won

I had a bad night and after checking out one of my favorite blogs, I found out I won. I won a very cute personalized ornament. I am so excited. I have never won anything by reading and commenting on a blog, until today. It totally made my day. Thank you McKmama for helping make my day. I know it was randomly picked, but it made me happy. Thank you God for helping make me happy by making me a winner. Now, if I win the computer on that blog I will be really excited. You haven't seen anything yet.

Computer Contest

McKMama is giving away the coolest computer ever. Go to www.mycharmingkids.net to enter.

Or click Here to enter. Just leave a comment after the post.

Kelly at Kelly's Korner is also giving one away so you can go Here too AND ENTER!


Good Luck.

Wordless Wednesday

More of my sister's wedding

Abby and Andy got married on Friday, December 4, 2009 at 3:30 p.m. We had such a great time at the wedding. Here are some more pictures of the fun day!

My family

The bride walking down the aisle with her Dad (both were crying)
The gorgeous bride, Abby
I pulled Zander, the honorary ring bearer, down the aisle in a wagon. I wanted him to sit up in the wagon, but he kept reaching for the handle of the wagon and I was afraid he would fall out of the wagon.

Abby the bride with me, Allie, the Matron of Honor
Abby with her Maid of Honor, Jane
My two sisters, the bride, Abby, and the bridesmaid, AubreyThe Bride and the Groom
Abby and Andy
All of the flower girls and ring bearers with the bride and the groom
Our extended family
My nieces and nephew, the flower girls and one of the ring bearers
The entire wedding partyZander fell asleep after the ceremony, while we were taking pictures

The kiss

Mommy and Zander
He loved his pacifier that day

Husband and Wife off to the Wedding Reception/Masquerade Ball

My in-laws picked Zander up from the church after we took pictures. They watched Zander to their house and watched him over night. Zander had fun at his grandparents house and we had fun at the Masquerade Ball.