New Year's Propositions.

We were driving home from the New Year's party the other night and I was beyond loopy. I was singing Miley Cyrus' Party In The USA, only my version was "Party in the K-I-A." It was out of control. So it wasn't terribly surprising when I said, "So Andrew, do you have any New Year's reso...propsitions?" Andrew kindly replied, "I'm not even going to answer that question, you dork."

And that was how 2012 began.

2011 was fantastic. What didn't happen in 2011?!? We welcomed Claire Faustina, who may in fact be the cutest baby on record, we moved into our wonderful dream house, we took the craziest family vacation ever, made mutiple zoo trips, hosted numerous dinners and parties, lauged until we cried, cried until we laughed and prayed a whole bunch.

Hm. I was going to give you a link of my "2011 Happy New Year" post, but there really isn't one. Because we failed majorly on that one. I'd love to do a retrospective picture post like so many of my blogging peers, but that would require digging out the external drive to get pics from the first half of the year. Yuck. So let's do this. Next year, I'm gonna do that. Meet me back here in 364 days.

So, plans for 2012? Well...nothing, really. We have a trip to Maryland planned, and we're really hopiing to get a few things done on the house. I'm not sure if Andrew and I are agreed on just what we're going to be doing, as we have a huge list of tasks that ranges from super cheap to super pricey, and we have other things that we would like to use our money for right now, as well. I think we'd most like to get the bathroom done and to replace the doors and windows on the south side of the house. If we can do that, we'll be satisfied for this year. We have lots of "not on the list" projects, which have their own little list. THE LIST is for pricey projects. The Un-List is for projects that cost $100 or less and are things we can do without worrying about permits, contractors and big expenses.

Let's see...another thing that I'm working on this year is my stress level. It turns out that my health isn't just tied to my stress level, but it completely hinges on my mental state lately. With my colitis, the degree of severity of my colitis is tired directly to how stressed out I am. I've noticed several times now that my colitis flares the second I take on too much or am in a situation that I'm just not comfortable with. This freaked me out at first, but I found very quickly that just identifying the stressor can really help with the physical symptoms, which is good news for the coming year. So, we're keeping an eye on the colitis and working hard to lay low and avoid taking on too much at once.

The only other thing we really have planned for this year is Lucy's high school graduation! Whee! Okay, no. In all seriousness, we're started kindergarten and we really hope to see her reading by the end of the year. She's a smart cookie, so we're pretty confident. We are just so, so, so excited about this part of our journey. We're starting to gear up around here and get organized. I haven't ordered a curriculum yet, because the end of 2011 just sort of ran away with us. For right now, we're working on her second Explode the Code book and trying to get a little more disciplined!

Okay, I need to get this posted before I hear a kid crying. My minutes are numbered...Happy New Year, y'all! More later!