Hannah Says...

The past few weeks...

• We have had a great year so far. 
• Lots of things going on with us and around us.
• Brent started a class at YVCC at the beginning of the month.  Organic Chemistry.  (The chem part sounds fun to me, not the organic part.)
• He's been working evenings since his class is in the mornings.  Not so much fun for Emmett and me, but we are making it work.
• My grandma got pnemonia a few weeks ago and was in the hospital for 8 days.
• Now that she is home, Emmett and I have been taking care of her.
• I'm not glad that she got sick, but I am glad that I have a reason to go and see her every day. ( Not that we need a reason to go and see her!) 
• She's feeling a lot better, still on oxygen (much to her chagrin!), and is fun to be around.
• Emmett has been hilarious lately.  I really need to do a post of Emmett quotes, but half the time I can't remember what he said.  Other than the fact that he loves quoting movie lines.  (Is he his father's son or what?!)  Because when he watches movies, he has a few that he wants to see over and over, so he's memorizing them.
• We been trying to have date night more often.  Friday we did, and sent Emmett out to Brent's mom's house.  All we did was run errands and pick up the house, but when Emmett isn't there we just get to be husband and wife.  And we had a lot of fun!
• I think the most exciting news is that Alex got to come home from Haiti to Abby and Scott!  I can hardly wait to make a trip to see him.  As all of you know (at least I'm pretty sure all of you are my facebook friends) it was a couple of weeks filled with up and down emotions, panic and hope, tears of frustration and tears of joy.
• So Alex is home 6ish (?) months earlier than expected.  And all it took was an earthquake!

Resolved

If I learned one thing from 2009 I think it would be that you can never truly plan.  Which was really hard for me because I like to know exactly what is going on in my world.  I like to have a schedule, and have things in order, and know where I am going.  But 2009 really threw me for a loop.  Because it didn't go according to the plan!  At least it didn't go according to my plan.  I have a feeling it went just how God had planned it for our lives though.  With every "loss" there was an opportunity for something better. 

I just looked back at my "resolutions" that I set for myself last January and feel like I haven't made much progress.  Although I could look at it differently and try and find some sense of accomplishment in there.  Let's have a look, shall we?

• "Be better about our budget".  Wanna know a great way to do that?  Cut your income, by a lot!  Then you have to be better about money!  It took some learning on my part, but we have made it through a whole year and are still doing perfectly fine.  Sometimes I really have no idea how, but the Lord always provides.
• "Be more ok with where we are in life".  I'm pretty sure I mentioned that sometimes I took my job as a sahm mom "begrudgingly".  Really?  Because being a working mom (even part-time) isn't always fun either.  (Although I am extremely grateful for my job, and my mom who is super flexible boss.  In some ways.  But that's a box we really don't want to open.)  The good thing about working is that I do get some time to myself and it makes the time I do have with Emmett a little better.  And, I used to totally judge working moms.  Not anymore.  Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
• "Have more time with Brent".  Oh my goodness, we didn't know how good we used to have it!  We actually have to schedule time together now, especially when he works evenings.  (Which he has started recently because he's taking a class at YVCC in the mornings.)  We try.  We really do.  But we do always get 8 hours together every night!
• "Be better about time with God."  I have learned to rely on Him more than I ever have in the past.  I have come to love the verse 2 Corinthians 12:9 "Each time He said "My grace is all you need.  My power works best in weakness."  I didn't know how weak I really was until I was put into a time of need.
• "Relax, not stress."  I still need to work on that one, but I've gotten a lot better.  Because life is going to happen whether you stress about it or not.  Most of the things we worry about never actually happen.  But they might, so you take them as they come and know that they happened for a reason.
• "I'm excited about the new year and the changes we will experience."  That's how I ended my post.  Little did I know what was around the corner.  We experienced a lot of changes last year.  (I don't like change, especially unexpected change.)  Very little of the change was particularly fun and none of it was exciting, but it wasn't too bad.  It could have been worse, for sure and I think we made it through better than either of us had expected.

We know we have big changes ahead, even though we don't know what for sure.  For some reason, I feel a little better about change when I know it's there.  Plus, they're good changes ahead.  (I'm saying that warily because we really don't know what's going to happen, but I'm pretty sure we have good changes ahead.)  And we have some plans.  "Plan A" and fortunately we have a "Plan B".  I know God has great plans for us this year.  Even if they are totally different from what we have in mind.  I'll be honest though, that I hope they line up for what we have in mind.   For now we are living in the now and a little bit of unknown.  (Which I also don't like, but we're here so I just have to accept it.)  So, with that being said, I really do look forward to a new year.

Christmas 2009

Well, another holiday season has come and gone.  It always feels like it takes forever to get here and then it's over in an instant.  We had a great time this year and Emmett had so much fun.

Christmas morning we gave Emmett his stocking.  As he took each gift out, he would exclaim "This is so cool!"  We could have stopped there and he would have been perfectly happy.  But of course his Buzz and Woody were wrapped neatly, hiding under the tree.  After he opened some books and a couple of games, I handed him his two big presents.  He opened one and saw that it was Buzz, so he pointed to the other one and said "That one is Woody!"  He loved them both and even slept with them that night!  We spent a good part of the morning and early afternoon at my parents with all of my siblings and Emmett's cousins. 

 
As soon as everyone got there my mom wanted a picture (while everyone was still happy!)  (Turned out pretty good considering the amount of people.)

We relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening with Brent's mom and stepdad.  It was a great way to end the day.

We had a wonderful Christmas season this year.  Hope you all did too!