My Little Piece of Heaven

Our Year in Review

Okay so I've been meaning to start a blog all year long and I'm running out of time, so here it goes. Our family had a pretty good year overall I think. Of course at the beginning of the year our girls both had RSV and pneumonia for the second year in a row and poor little Katie had to be hospitalized. Keeping oxygen on a feisty one-year-old is not an easy task! But throughout the rest of the year we have all been pretty healthy. I've got to say it's pretty nice having a photographer for a dad so we can get all of our pictures done for free. I think they turned out pretty well this year. This is dad's little buddy, Brandon. He turned five this year but unfortunately his birthday was too late in the year to be able to start kindergarten. So he's stuck in preschool but he loves his friends and teacher there. His teacher says he doesn't let her get a chance to talk, but he got his mouth from his dad so he can't help that. He loves to write and is learning to read. He is always drawing pictures and that's the only way we can get him to sit still through church. He wants to be just like his dad in every way. He likes the same things, says the same things, has the same temper, and wants a motorcycle and gun and can't understand why I won't let him have them when he is five years old. Of course his dad can't understand why I won't let him have a motorcycle yet either. His new saying is "I love you all the way up to Jesus." I'm not sure where he picked that one up. This is our little Emily but we call her Emmy. She turned three this year. She loves being a big sister to Katie and she loves to play with her twin three-year-old cousins, Madeline and Marissa. She is such a girly girl and I love it! She loves pink and playing dress up and loves to play princesses. And of course she loves Barbies and Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Ponies. She has such a tender little heart. You can make her cry just by giving her a cross look; you don't even have to scold her. She is definitely a mommy's little sunshine. She always wants everybody to be happy. She loves to sing and walks around singing all the time. Her favorite is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and we have to sing it every night before bed. And this is our little Katelyn. She is absolutely hilarious. The other morning she came into my room at 2:00, which she has been doing a lot lately, so I thought that maybe if I didn't look at her she would go back to bed. Of course that has never worked before but you have to hope, right? But then suddenly I heard a "Ta Da! Look mom, a pretty princess." So I look at her and she is dressed up as a princess including the crown and shoes. She was so darn cute it was hard to be mad at her for waking me up. She loves to be the center of attention but she is also a lot more stubborn than her sister. She has more of the Walpole attitude I think. So that's the whole clan I guess. I'm still a part-owner of a medical transcription company and also doing subcontract work for another online transcription company called Ubiqus. They do a lot of medical research and conferences and that kind of thing. It has really been very educational to work with them. Of course working two different jobs at home and raising my three kids (well four kids if I can count Douglas) and doing all the housework is keeping me insanely busy. But I think busy is good. The only problem with working at home is your kids need a lot of attention and it can take some late nights to get things done sometimes. But you just do what you've got to do to. Although I have been trying to find more time to bake goodies lately because it's a good time of year for that. Baking goodies is my specialty after all. Santa of course has been very busy getting everything ready for Christmas, well actually Mrs. Claus has been. Santa himself isn't much of a shopper. He likes to look at stuff but hates to buy it so Mrs. Claus does all the shopping. But that works out great because then she gets a break from the kids for a couple of hours. That doesn't happen very often. Luckily we have everything for the little kiddos already and we just have a few things left to get for other people. Emily wanted the Chou Chou baby doll that grows teeth over and over again and it was almost impossible to find but I finally found one online. Almost everyone was out of them online and all the stores in our area have been out of them. Some people on eBay were selling them for $100! I couldn't believe it. I finally found on on Amazon for $35 and had free shipping. Doesn't get much better than that. Luckily all the other presents were much easier to find. We're excited for Christmas this year. It's great when you get to play Santa Claus. Well I suppose that is all that is going on for us right now. We'll be married for seven years in March and it doesn't seem like it has been that long. I guess time flies when you are having fun! We hope everyone has a great Christmas!