Uncle Sam Visits
One of the highlights of our recent holidays was having my younger brother Sam come visit. He is a senior in college and needed a place to stay other than his off-campus apartment. Since my parents are living in South America, we’re becoming the designated home away from home for the family. So we were happy to have him come. Plus, he’s fun, and Nathan, Emily, and Joshua like playing with him. He spent a few days up in Maryland and Virginia visiting other family the week before Christmas and then came back late on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, the kids were really excited that Santa had filled a stocking for Uncle Sam and had even brought him a present. Uncle Sam slept a lot while he was here – he is a college student after all. And he’s an engineering major in his last year. Just listening to
The Big Resolution
For 2012, I have two smaller resolutions and one larger resolution. My smaller resolutions are to be more healthy and to manage my time better. These are all well and good, but they aren’t going to happen without my last, biggest resolution – to get more sleep. There was a time, back in college, when four hours of sleep a night was sufficient. Sure, I took a good nap every afternoon, but I was completely functional going to bed after two every night and still getting up for classes the next morning. I once went four days on about six hours of sleep. And then, I came down with mononucleosis two weeks before our wedding. When I finally got over the exhaustion of that, kids came along. So four hours of sleep a night is no longer enough. Double that is hardly enough some nights now. Now, I need a
Happy New Year!
With a new year, come New Year’s Resolutions! It can be a great time to look over the past year, evaluate what went well and what didn’t, and look to make improvements for the upcoming year. This past year was an amazingly busy one around the Reese household, what with buying our first home, moving, visiting family, getting settled in our home, church responsibilities, and those three little monkeys running around. This past year just makes me tired thinking about it. But, we also accomplished a lot, and I’m looking forward to another productive year. Which leads perfectly into my first resolution for 2012 – better time management. While a lot did get done this year, I also wasted an amazing amount of time. If I spent half the time sewing that I did looking at sewing blogs and quilts in my Google Reader, I could have nearly doubled my
New Years Eve Party (Kiddy Style)
I don’t think that I have ever celebrated New Years Eve exactly the same two years in a row. During my college years, I’m sure that I was at a big party for the celebration (that time frame is a blur so I can’t be certain). Then, I got married and calmed way down. Our party nights turned into game nights, except the year we were in Vegas which was a once in a lifetime experience (meaning I don’t think we will ever do that again). A few years later, we had Braylin and calmed down a little more. This year, Ryan had already left to go back to NC so it was just going to be B and myself for the New Years festivities. My sister had plans so I offered to keep my nephews for the night. It was unseasonably warm even for Florida so we played outside
Mom the housekeeper, Dad the babysitter.
My family and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of this holiday season. You can tell because by the end of it, my house was a disaster. That last week in December really did me in with all the remnants of wrapping paper, gift boxes, new toys and so much other STUFF. Somewhere along the way the laundry piled up to ungodly highs and all I could think about was getting my house back to clean and organized for the New Year. New Years Day, Kevin and I got up with the girls, had our coffee and breakfast, then I got to work and Kevin and the girls got to playing. I tackled each room, starting with my closet (it was in the worst shape since that’s where all the presents were hidden) and I diligently purged our house of all things Christmas. The girls spent the entire day playing with
Did Santa Spoil Her?
I don’t know about you, but the most popular question we have been asked lately is, “Did Santa spoil her?” Our answer, he most certainly did. As I mentioned in my last post, we are in Florida and this is where we spent Christmas. Being that we have family all over the states, gifts poured in for Braylin from far and wide. Ryan and I decided that we would wake up a little early on Christmas morning and let Braylin open her gifts that had come in the mail. That way we would be ready to open gifts with her cousins when they arrived. Braylin was so funny when she opened her presents; every time she ripped a piece of paper, she had to throw it away before she could finish unwrapping the gift. When she finally finished opening all of her presents, it looked like a small children’s store
