The New Year

This new year certainly started with a bang.  We had Gretchen all new and beautiful and our entire family was trying get over and avoid all these horrible bugs going around.  Anyway thank the heavens (literally)  that Gretchen is still doing just great!  She never got sick at all.  And she is getting so big and chunky.  The most beautiful thing of all the changes is really having a fresh perspective on everything.  That is why my new years resolution is to enjoy more.  Having Gretchen just smacked me with the realization that all the little junk I worry about is pretty much that.  I feel so grateful for our little family, I really want to enjoy it! Anyway I have been thinking about that and some other things that we would in general like to be better at and we came up with a family theme for 2013.  It is:

        "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing;      

and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house 

of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, 

a house of glory, a house of order, 

a house of God"
-Doctrine and Covenants 88:119

First of all organize yourselves to me encompassed my desire to organize and de-clutter our house.  We have been so focused on other stuff I just want it in order which I feel will further our goal to enjoy things more because I won't have to worry about cleaning so much and looking for stuff. It is also the cheapest way to work on the house this year:) This also encompasses our desire to get our finances in a better order. Second, Aaron and I have been thinking that we need to be more worried/focused about/on spiritual stuff and less worried/focused about/on you know, all the other stuff that we are thinking about 24/7.  I think the scripture adequately describes how we would like to be in order to achieve that, and I am pretty excited about that.  The third and last part is that we want to have a house of learning.  Lately we have been reading about or noticing people who have done so much to educate themselves and we want to focus more on enlightening ourselves and not just entertaining ourselves and there may be other "learning" developments as well.

So we are already well into January and working on these goals has already brought so much happiness.  I think happiness is also good at helping me to enjoy things more:) I don't think that I have enjoyed a new years resolution so much! PS I love the idea of a theme, it is more encouraging and helps me to focus on overall achievement rather than my daily failings. 

So that's our theme...

Besides that we have been enjoying taking care of little Gretchen and she and Julian have been so cute.  On her first week home, I looked at her and gave her a big smile and she smiled back! I did it again and so did she.  That is one of the things I love about this kid.  She is attentive and fun (when she is awake).  She snorts a ton a makes so many funny noises and expressions.  She has a lot of personality! She also is such a little wiggler.  I was leaning back burping her and she wiggled all the way down.  She loves to kick.  Brings back a lot of memories of pregnancy except for that it doesn't hurt now.  Julian has been doing great with her too.  I put Gretchen in the bouncer and he put her blanket on her and then turned on the bouncer for her.  He also loves to turn on the bouncer and lounge in it while he swings his feet trying to get some air.  He is so funny.  He has been doing better at trying to say some words and mimicking us more so that is encouraging.

He loves to try to touch Gretchen all the time and calls her "mama."  He refuses to call her baby.  But he is really sweet to her and tries to give her lots of kisses on her soft hair and cute face.