A year in review

It is New Year's Eve. I am sitting in my favorite striped chair adding things to my online shopping bag at J. Crew, listening to my boys play Wipeout on the Wii. They are very loud. If you listened hard enough you could hear them too. And then it occurred to me, it is the last day of the year. 2010 will be no longer. And I could not let it go by without saying one last farewell. So here it is.

Farewell 2010, there are things that I loved and things I did not. The thing I loved the very most was the birth of our sweet babe. He will be one soon. This entire year has been full of his firsts. First breath, first smile, first teeth, first crawl, all of the wonder that first year holds. And it has been a pure joy to go through it with him. I have enjoyed him more than I can say. I have loved learning how to be a momma to 4. It seemed very hard at the beginning. And now it seems normal, a good kind of normal. I love, love, loved Jeffrey's baptism and Brooks' blessing. The whole experience was beautiful. Watching those two boys dressed in white, it was one of those memories that will be there always. I did not love Jeff's dad dying. It was very sad. Sad for me to watch my Jeff be so sad. Sad for me to watch Jane try to find a new life now that he is gone. And I miss him too. More than I knew I would. But it did make me realize some things. And that is good. I realize that I need to take advantage of now because it may not always be here tomorrow. That is a good lesson to learn. And to relearn. I did love my friends this year. My church friends and my old friends and my friends up the street. All of them. One of my best friends moved far away. She was my go to girl. The one that knew me and all of my stuff. I was so sad to lose her. And the best part is that I have not. We message, we talk, we laugh, we spill our guts. Still. But I do miss her. I have 2 friends I go to lunch with all the time. I love them. They always make me feel like I am kind of awesome. And I know that they are. Everyone needs those kind of friends. I also loved my mom and dad being here this summer. We biked over to their house every morning on our way around the lake. They watched Brooks while I took the big kids to the pool. We worked on projects around the house. It was so much fun. I love them. I loved our whole summer. I loved Paige starting pre-school and Owen starting Kindergarten. He was so ready, more ready than I was. I wasn't ready to let him go, to lose that part of him. But I didn't. He still loves me. Every night when he goes to bed our routine goes like this. "I love you O." "Love you more," he says. "Love you most," I say. "Don't think that's possible," he says. How sweet is that? What else about this year? I loved teaching this fall. It was the best class I have ever had. My students were awesome. I was crazy busy, but I made it through and I loved being back in Provo. And now I can teach another class in Salt Lake and all my problems have magically disappeared. I loved Halloween too. I always love Halloween. This one just seemed extra good. And our costumes were awesome. And then there is Jeff. I learned a lot about him this year. We have been married for 11 years. That seems like such a long time. And still there are things to learn. Good things. The way he handled this year was so amazing. I love him. And he makes me laugh. Still. And that seems like a good place to end. Farewell 2010. It was a good year. A very good year.