woosh - goodbye 2009-hello 2010

2009 was a good year. My kids are growing and learning everyday. In 2009, Matthew started to learn the trumpet, Joel became reader, Carolyn became a cook and Anna started talking up a storm/became potty trained/is in a big girl bed! Lots of change in 2009....LOTS of living. We moved into an apartment as the year started and before the year was over we moved out of the apartment and the Indiana house and into our new home! Whew!

Ken burned all our photos from our old camera onto a disk. I went online and ordered prints of all the pictures we have taken to date (I wasn't too far behind on this - thank goodness, because it still took hours). Nothing like reviewing several months of pictures to help you relive the year.

Many joys of 2009:

My family:

My friends: Keeping in touch with the old via the phone/internet and postal system. Visits from even older friends who live in the midwest. Making new friends at my church and in my neighborhood

My gardening: (I will be honest, it was a bit overwhelming at the peak of tomato season and I was glad in the fall to be done. Of course now even my frozen and canned produce is gone and I am starting to think about next year!):

A return of an old hobby - quilting:

BTW, this is the doll-quilt I made for Carolyn's new doll. I had sewn many of these little squares together at different periods of time. I had even done some in Newburgh. I am using all my scraps for old projects to make a lap quilt for these cold days, but took out a few to make this sweet little thing. (I had intended to give Carolyn an Eye-Spy doll-quilt, but she saw that one before Christmas, so that will go to someone else....my fault for leaving it out, I thought she was upstairs for the night, but she came down to get a book.)

this is the back

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We started the new year with a day off! We did the obligatory load of dishes and laundry so as not to be overcome, but I didn't try to do my paid employment or organize my counters etc. It was great. As I mentioned, I ordered all of our pictures. Additionally I worked a bit on Carolyn's quilt and a lap quilt I started for my God-daughter niece. I am honored to be her Confirmation sponsor this spring and thought this would be a good gift.



It was nice to end the first day of the new year at a neighbor's home. They invited the neighborhood for a get together and it was SOOO nice to meet a few of the neighbors I have only seen in passing and to chat with the others that we see MUCH less of this time of year. We really lucked out with this neighborhood. I LOVE it.



Although I dearly love my "Word of the year" from 2009 - balance, I have decided to jump on the band wagon and use a new phrase for this year!



My new phrase even has an acronym: WIP - work in progress. I am definitely a work in progress and if you look around my house you can tell I always have about 10 WIPs going on. More about 2010 later....the first day of the new year is almost over and I am about to turn into a pumpkin.