2010

So I've been a terrible slacker with this whole blogging thing, but I really do want to get better about updating it more often!

It's been over a year since my last post, and much has happened since then.

Ayshia had started 4th grade and I was supposed to return to work, at her school, from my maternity leave around Thanksgiving. My step-mom was to watch Amelia when I went back, but mid-September brought all my plans to a halt when she was involved in a serious horse riding accident. Thankfully, she has since healed completely but because of this, my life has taken a very different road than as planned.

I loved my job but was unable to return after my maternity leave was up, and Ayshia-who had switched schools to attend the one I worked at-wasn't doing as well as she should have so we decided that I should home school her, beginning after winter break. Two days before we were scheduled to start, on January 2nd, my mom passed away in a tragic accident. The week following her death was probably the most difficult week of my life. Even looking back, after ten months, it seemed like I was sucked into a huge, black hole for a while, and the only reason I escaped was because I have the most amazing brothers and sisters in the world...

We eventually regained some normalcy, and Ayshia did really well with homeschooling. I was really thankful we had so much time together during that time. She was really close to my mom and her death really hit her hard and I was glad I didn't have to send her off to school right away. It was a struggle for me though, trying to teach her and take care of Amelia who was so incredibly demanding, on top of all of the housework. Through it all, we did have fun though, taking lots of field trips and even a road trip to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon!

She finished out 4th grade while homeschooling, and had a fun summer of tennis and gymnastics and swimming. Over the summer we decided to try the neighborhood school for 5th grade (5th! That's when I know I'm getting old!) and she's found some great friends and is really thriving there now. We love being able to just take a stroll to school every morning instead of fighting traffic all the way across town.

Amelia has grown and learned a lot too!

She's gone from holding her head up, to rolling over, to sitting up, to crawling her army crawl, to really crawling, and finally up to standing and taking a few cautious steps to fully walking now at 16 months. Every milestone was so exciting and it was just so amazing watching her try so hard to figure things out! She is such an incredible addition to our family and she has brought so much joy to our world!

The rest of the year has been fun with many trips to Iowa to see Scott's family, Mexico twice to see Hannah and Reid, and Santa Fe for a wedding. It's been quite a crazy year and I'm looking forward to a-hopefully!-quiet and peaceful rest of the year.