A year in review*

I think I have had a pretty productive year, maybe not on the blog, since this is my lowest amount of posts in a year! Which is pretty sad, considering the year I started this was when Gwen was born in 2006 and in 6 months I had 20 more posts than for the year than this year! Wow! I also looked back at how the year started for us and I found this post! The pictures and post probably sum everything up from the beginning of the year. I did get out and start meeting people, I think I have made friends, I am tentative to say that still, I don't know why, but I am. I did finally get Gwen's paperwork in to the preschool! She loves it, I love it, Eric loves it, and Nate loves it. The kids look so young in that picture, don't they? They are so sweet and troublesome, but if it wasn't for them I probably wouldn't have gotten out and met people!
I think I am doing much better at the end of this year. I am finally no longer controlled by the depression that has plagued me for 4 years. I am able to sit and play with my children, today we played playdoh for a while. It was fun! I am better able to tolerate my children's personalities quirks without raising my voice, a huge step for me. I still occasionally raise my voice, but on rare occasion, yay me! I certainly didn't want to be that kind of parent. I am still no perfect Mother, but I am improving and hope to continue to improve next year. I don't want to always say no to my kids, I feel like I say that a lot, and I am not talking about the don't do that things, I am talking about the stuff they want to do. We need to spend more time doing what they want to do, so I need to budget my time better, so we have more time do do fun stuff. For example, sometimes they will ask to go outside right before I have to start dinner, so I need to find the time to do that earlier. Of course sometimes I am being lazy and don't want to go outside in the rain, but I will work on saying yes more, within reason.
I think overall I am in a better place this year, which means everyone in the family is happier this year. Sure, it is still a struggle to live the lifestyle we live, but I have found a way to be more at peace with it.
I feel like I have had lots of introspective kind of years and I am ready to no longer consider who I am what I want to be. Hopefully having friends means I won't have time to sit here and consider anymore. But who knows what this year will be for us, we are as ready as we can be for this year! We hope you who read this have a great 2011!

*So I realize this isn't much of a year in review, but this is all I've got for you today...I had great plans to do a year in review when I started, but as I started to blog I apparently ran out of steam! I have made some resolutions for next year, but I will be not be discussing them now. Hopefully I will be a better blogger next year.