Increase

I'm happy to say that I'm now living in 2013.

So happy new year!

It's going to be a good one I can tell because something I've been longing to hear come out of Chandler's mouth really did come out.

"Mom, I need to go poop."

I was in complete disbelief as I lead him into the bathroom, sat him down, and was in the presence of a miracle I thought would never happen.

I mean it was last January that we were here:

Back when I used to babysit Chan's cute little friend Sonny.

But despite the comfy cozy accommodations...

...and the after-school-cheerleaders/fellow-pbskids viewers: (lovin' Hallie's face)

 #2 just had to wait until the following January.

I was then faced with keeping the promises I'd made to him over the course of one desperate year.  And if you think a three year old will let you forget things like that, guess again.

We went bowling:

-He also got chocolate doughnuts and renewed time with an old race car. 

I got....a new lease on life.

Hallie got a private sewing lesson from her grandma Firmage one morning, and came home proud as a peacock to show us this:

Rachel is literally one step away from walking ;) but has no problem ridding every reachable shelf clean of all of its reachable contents.

She's a speedy crawler too.

And boy do we ever love her.

Hallie will often say, "mom I just love having a baby in the house!"

She's actually our first baby ever to be just fine and content to sit and snuggle with Elon.  In fact every part of her squishy little body comes to a flailing wiggle every time he enters the room. 

And I don't think he minds.

If only one other thing could be different from her siblings, and that is an earsplitting screech that makes our eardrums twist.  They all have this deeply embedded.  And I don't think I could ever earn the empathy of anyone who hasn't really heard it.  So hear it is...our dinner time music.

Go ahead and hit play about 39 times during your next meal :)

It's a wonder that we can all still hear around here, and I really wish I were joking.

Rachel has also taken the Johnny-Jump-Up to a whole new level, watch this:

Alright, so I quit making New Years resolutions a while ago until my sister told me that a friend of hers picks one word to aspire to every year.  And since her husband happens to be in the service and spends long segments of time overseas, her word for this year is "brave".  Kim picked "patience" for her word.  I thought that was just about the niftiest way to improve over the course of the year.  I mean whose going to forget their special word?  Heck, you don't even have to right it down!

Mine was hard to think up.  I thought of words like "learn", "teach", "lift" - all good words but nothing was like "BAM, that's it!"  That was until my friend JaNeal was saying the closing prayer at the end of church, and asked the Lord to help us all increase in our knowledge and understanding...the rest gets hazy and I'm not even sure if the first part is quite accurate, but what I do know, is that the word "increase" sent a lightening bolt straight into the part of my brain where I had stored the brainstorm of goal-word prospects.

Increase.

That's what it is.  I want to increase my knowledge, my abilities, my faith, my gratitude, and my love.

I've been very blessed to know and understand that if one is not moving forward, they are moving backward.  There is no stagnancy in this journey through life.  Therefore, if there is no increase, there will be decrease.

I want increase.

And I better get moving because the only thing that has increased since the ball dropped is my waistline :/