Almost a NEW YEAR...

After Christmas there is always this huge let down for me. All the glitz and glamour of the holiday season are over and everyone is so quick to take down decorations and trees ( like seriously the day after!!) and return to the normal mundane day to day routines. It makes me depressed. All I can think about is the freezing, bleak, January that awaits me. So this week I have been trying to snap out of it and have been deep cleaning areas of the house to try and lift my spirits and keep my brain busy and all the while doing that I have been stuffing my face with loads and loads of chocolate!! I am out of control. A light shone in my tunnel when Megan Shaw called and asked me to run a relay race with her and the other sisters in St. George at the beginning of March. Heck ya I will! Gives me motivation to run and not just to run but for a purpose. It made me really happy and Megan may have just saved my winter.

Today is New Year's Eve and it has been a productive day. I woke up and cleaned the house and then went running (it was just too windy and cold this morning). We all went to Home Depot to get wood and materials to rebuild the bench we had had made for our new kitchen table. I really hated the way the bench turned out, in every aspect, the color, the grain of wood, the style, the legs. So I convinced TJ to take it apart and rebuild it the way I wanted it and he did a great job (even though he was convinced he couldn't). For dinner we went to the same Chinese hole in the wall restaurant that we always go to on New Year's Eve (not really sure how this tradition started) but we all love it and there is never a wait and it's quaint and quiet. We played the game "Don't Eat Pete!" for the first time (I think it is a Utah game) and it was hilarious and I'm sure the kids will want to play it everyday!! TJ just home with a movie from Red Box and that is how we will end the night. I know, we are so crazy! And I know for sure I will be sound asleep before midnight...like every year. No matter.

As I sit here and think about this past year I think it was such a great one. Lots of changes and accomplished goals and growth for our family. TJ got a new job and it has done wonders for our family and I love it so much. I have proved to myself that I can do things I never thought I could ever do AKA run a marathon. We saw a lot of our family this year even though we had no family reunions planned. Tallie is doing great in kindergarten and is finally starting to grasp the whole reading concept. Chloe is in preschool and coming out of her shell and just says the most random hilarious things that seriously make my day. Lexi is potty trained and letting her full personality shine. She is talking a lot and will pretty much say any word you tell her to, correctly. We have done a lot of projects around the house and yard and hopefully will add a finished basement to the list in 2012.

A few facts about 2011:

Obama is President of the United States, President Thomas S. Monson is the President of the Church, gas is $2.95, Justin Bieber is the favorite in our house, 10 year anniversary of September 11, Harry Potter and the Twilight Saga were big hits at the box office, the iPhone 4 is HUGE, books are going out of style thanks to the Kindle Fire, Steve Jobs died, Twitter and Facebook have taken over the world, I still have my blog (obviously), X Factor is our favorite show, huge tsunami in Japan, Provo Tabernacle burned down and announced to be restored to a temple, Osama Bin Laden was killed, we planted our very first garden and Bob and Mona are going on a mission to Hawaii, and "Good Luck Charlie" is the girls favorite TV show (mine too).