2008 in Revue (okay, not really)

First, before I begin on whatever it is that thinks it needs to leak from my mind, let me wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope 2009 brings us all even more blessings than 2008.

Here are some of the blessings brought to us in 2008:

We moved to Montana Dec 29, 2007. Okay, that happened in 2007, but we were sick for the first few weeks we were here, so life didn't really begin in Montana until 2008. We lived with Mom and Dad and had a fun time getting the girls back in public school. I had homeschooled them the beginning of the schoolyear because of the substandard public school system we lived within in Colorado. Josh also started his new job right after New Years and has made some great friends that we absolutely love.

Februrary 23. 2008. Emma lost her first tooth. This was a big deal because it was like realizing that our oldest baby wasn't such a baby anymore. Not only was she in 1st grade with real, actual homework, but she was losing that baby look. Emma has continued to blossom into an incredibly beautiful young lady.

March 23, 2008. Easter Sunday. The kids loved being able to have their Easter egg hunts and dressing in their pretty new outfits for church.

April 2008. This month was filled with birthdays and change. Mom and Dad bought a new house and we moved right along with them. Luckily, the new house was about seven houses away from the old house, so it wasn't too hard to move everything. Unluckily, Josh was working a lot during the week we tried to move so I was trying to be as helpful as possible by moving all I could by myself while trying to care for our three children. I moved most of the dressers and the kids' beds by myself. The mattresses were tricky. I didn't want them to drag on the ground, but they were a bit awkward to just heft, so I took inspiration from Josh's mission stories of South African women and balanced the mattresses on my head (one at a time, of course) and carried them to and from the truck and then assembled the beds back together before the end of the afternoon. I'm going to say I don't want to brag, but of course I do. I don't want to brag, but I had begun to lose quite a bit of weight by that time and I was kicking butt in my exercising. Every other day I did circuit training which included a total of about 80 push-ups. On the opposite days I did my cardio, which included 200 crunches. I was totally ready to use my newly trained muscles to move our stuff. Anyway, we also had birthdays galore. Emma's 7th birthday was on the 12th, Grampa's 80th birthday was on the 23rd, and Mom's birthday was on the 26th. We had a big party for Grampa which included his brother and sister-in-law who came up from Mississippi, my aunt from Idaho, and my cousins who were finishing up their semesters at school. For Emma's birthday we went to the circus. The kids thought it was really cool, especially when the elephant pooped during the grand finale.

May 2008. Josh and I celebrated our 9th anniversary by going to Helena for a day out. Abby turned 6 on the 21st. She got a bright pink cowgirl hat to match the bright pink cowgirl boots she had gotten the previous Christmas. We found out we were finally pregnant after two years of wishing, praying, crying, and negative tests. We also found the house we wanted to buy and made an offer that was somehow accepted. We began to prepare to live on our own. Peter got home from his mission in Equador and we loved hearing his stories, seeing his souveniers, and just having him home.

June 2008. Pete's birthday was the 6th. Thirteen days later he and Genica got married. (12 days after his birthday he told us they were getting married the following day, so we spent less than 24 hours preparing for the wedding.) Now Mom and Dad were sharing their (thankfully) bigger home with Josh and me, our three children, Peter and Genica, and Lori and her boys came to visit at the beginning of the month. It was a houseful, just to say the least. The kids and I made a trip down to Colorado for Mandy's (Josh's sister) wedding. Since she and Patrick had already been legally married at the courthouse, they opted for a more formal vow-exchange ceremony. They wanted Josh to officiate, since they didn't need a legal officiator, but he couldn't get the time off work, so I was then asked to officiate. That was an honor. We went down and met up with Josh's dad and his wife Karen. They graciously allowed us to stay with them, and we had so much fun getting to know Karen better. We went to the wedding on the 28th and Matt's 4th birthday was the 29th. We went to the Pueblo Zoo where we met up with my sister Tara and her family and my brother JC and his wife Kelsey. We had a lot of fun with them and then met up with Josh's mom and brother Justin. It was so nice to see so many of our family in such a short trip. After the zoo we had a birthday party for Matt at Dad and Karen's house. We had to leave the next day, but loved the visit. While we were gone, Josh signed for our new house. Tara and Jabon drove up to Montana with us and stayed to visit for a week or so.

July 2008. After the 4th of July we finally moved into our new house. I kept waiting for someone to tell us to get out of their house. But, it's ours and we love it.

August 2008. We began to prepare for school to start. The girls were going to a new school since our new house is across the river from Mom and Dad's house. I was beginning to show a bit with the pregnancy and Matt would often stuff his blanky up his shirt so he could be pregnant too.

September 2008. Matt began preschool. But first we had to teach him that some words are not acceptable to say (like "dammit") in front of your LDS preschool teacher. Okay, they're not appropriate for him to say ever, but the day he said it in front of his new teacher I about died of embarrassment. He didnt' learn that word from Josh or me! I swear! My birthday was the 16th and that's about when I started this blog. So, to keep this long story short (too late), I'll let you read about that yourself. Just scroll down to the Blog Archive on the right.

October 2008. Josh's birthday on the 9th. Halloween--see the Blog Archive for pictures.

November 2008. Dad's birthday on the 23rd. Lori's visit over Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Again, go to the Archive if you want more details.

December 2008. Our precious Millie arrives. Here's a link the hospital created for her birth announcement. Our Christmas was fun. New Years is going to be a bit of a bummer since Josh's vacation time is interrupted by a mandatory stretch of shifts covering New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (tonight and tomorrow). I'm sure he'll be plenty busy around 2am until his shift ends at 7am. I'm just fine with staying home tonight. I still need some of the good medication a couple times a day. I seem to be healing fine, but major surgery hurts for a while afterwards. Not so fun. I'm so glad Josh is such a good nurse, though. He was able to take the staples out for me so I could avoid an additional trip to the doctor. And, he's just such a great man. Have I mentioned how much I love him?

So, that was our year, how was yours? Any great memories that stick out? I think Millie is our greatest memory by far, but it's so incredible to relive so many of the blessings we've received this year.