Happy New Year!

It's kind of hard to believe that today is the last day of 2008. A few days ago, Keith and I had a discussion about what we thought the world would be like once we hit the 2000 year mark. I wonder why everyone thought the world would be such a different place? Keith and I grew up in different parts of the country, in different environments, yet both of our predictions for our planet by 2000 were very similar. Think Jetsons combined with Independence Day and Minority Report. Why did we both assume we would be driving hovercrafts and have jet packs strapped to our back? And while there have been a lot of technological advances in the past 20 years, we still aren't anywhere close to living in buildings that are hundreds of thousands of feet up in the air like the Jetsons did. I wonder, if the world were to be around long enough, would we ever reach the point where we were living like some of these futuristic movies and shows? Of course I now would say that definitely by the year 3000 that would be the case, but I'm sure whatever I might predict for that era would be far from the reality.

I'm not sure how I got off track there. I planned to post my New Year's Resolutions, or atleast some semblance of them. I'm a big list maker and I usually can follow through with my lists, but resolutions are a completely different thing. I've rarely followed through with them, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

1. After the baby is born, I want to get on a good exercise routine. Hopefully I can lose some weight by doing that along with eating healthy. Watching "The Biggest Loser" this season has given me motivation. Now I just need to get a personal trainer and a personal chef and I'm all set.
2. I want to do better about planning out our meals for the week so that I won't continue to get in a rut of fixing the same things all the time or eating less healthy than we should be.
3. I want to have more of an established house cleaning routine so that it doesn't get down to a day where I'm just fed up with the house and end up cleaning the entire day just to set things straight and I'm exhausted and worn out by the time I'm done.

I think I'm just going to keep it to 3 things, maybe I'll be more apt to follow through. I know there's something major missing from this list and that is the resolution to either read the Bible more consistently, pray more, have a consistent quiet time, etc. I definitely need to do all these things too, but like I said above, I don't usually do a good job of sticking with my resolutions whereas these are more important things that I really do want to accomplish, so I'm going to leave them off my resolutions list, but just know that they are areas that I'm constantly working on, New Year or not.

A brief look back on 2008 shows an average year in the life of our family. Nothing super exciting or life changing occurred. Obviously I did get pregnant and that is exciting and most definitely life changing. We also bought a new TV and all the accessories to go with it after having gone 6 years with a 19 inch TV from the 80's. That was pretty big for us. I feel like the biggest changes have been with Garrett himself. The jump from a 2 year old to a 3 year old is pretty big. I was looking back on blogs that I posted around this time last year and I can't believe how far we've come. He's now potty trained, sleeps in a regular bed, and talks up a storm. It's hard to comprehend how much he's changed in a short period of time. Especially when we see him every day, the changes aren't as significant to us.

Obviously looking ahead to 2009, we will have a less than typical year. Newborn babies tend to do that. The first half of the year will be preparing ourselves and our house for a new addition and the second half of the year will be spent adjusting the new baby to our life and schedule. I'm really hoping for an easy baby this time. They can take after Garrett in the sleep department because he was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, but everything else could be a little different and it would be ok with me. I feel like I'm on the cusp of something new. Up until now I've been in the baby mode. Not necessarily having baby fever, but knowing that I was going to be enduring the newborn stage once more. But after this we're done having babies, so I feel as if, as this baby grows, we will be slowly shifting from the baby mindset to a family mindset. Really establishing household routines and family traditions that will stick with us until our kids are in college. Not that we haven't already been doing all of this for the past 3 years with Garrett, but I feel like everything will be more firmly cemented this go around.

OK, so now I feel like I'm babbling. I really should get off here and do some house cleaning. Here's hoping I might even feel like taking down the Christmas tree and decorations.

Happy New Year's to you and your family! If 2008 was a great year for you, then I hope 2009 will be the same. If 2008 was a tough year, then here's hoping that 2009 will be all you're wanting and more.