The End of the Year, the End of the Decade

For the last two years, on December 31st, I have written in a family journal about our year. Our ages, our visitors, our trips, the kids' teachers' names, their activities, our jobs, our cars, our favorite restaurants and the like. I'll do it again tonight. And everyone will sign their name to our little family history.

So, I wasn't going to recap the year here - but then I saw all the other blogs doing it. And recapping the decade while they were at it. So, of course, I couldn't resist.

2009 was, well, interesting. I wouldn't call it great. Parts of it really sucked. But I think, when we look back at it in a year or two, we might identify it as the start of good times. I hope so at least.

The year:

* J's company shut the doors and he took about four months off of work. Which means he was home with us all day, every day for four months. And we're still married. Win!
* He started with a brand spankin' new company at the end of July in a huge leap of faith. Luckily, I share the faith but it has been hard, financially and otherwise. He's back to working very long hours.
* We celebrated 10 years of marriage in October. Took a long weekend to San Francisco to celebrate.
* Continued freelance writing (best year yet)
* Hit the tipping point on the KC Kids Fun site, great traffic, great advertiser response
* Launched a new business doing social media marketing for local businesses and am overwhelmed by the immediate response and work
* Got the little guys started in two days of Mothers' Day Out and reclaimed a little bit of my adult life and sanity
* Learned a lot about pediatric psych and social development issues (wish I didn't have to but you gotta do what you gotta do...)
* Spent a night in the hospital watching over my sick child (just one night, first ever and it was an asthma attack that calmed down fairly quickly - made me so, so thankful for the continued good health of all four of my babies)
* Planned and attended my 20-year high school reunion (Holy crap.)

The decade:
* Rang in the new decade with my new husband
* Got pregnant
* Had (very early) miscarriage
* Switched law firms
* Moved from first house to second house
* Got pregnant again and gave birth to a 10 lb, 4 oz baby boy
* Got pregnant again (whoops!)and gave birth to a more normal-sized baby girl
* Became partner in my law firm
* Paid off my student loans (all $85k of them. Christ.)
* Decided to quit my job as partner in my law firm to hang out with my kids
* Got pregnant again
* Found out it was twins
* Moved from second house to third house
* Gave birth to an 8 lb baby boy and an almost 6 lb baby boy on the same day
* Started freelance writing
* Started KCKidsFun with a friend
* Started K2Media with the same friend
* Stood by husband as he weathered two job changes and a horrible economy
* Watched my husband fulfill a lifelong dream of playing in a band and being adored by fans (and they are adorable - www.facebook.com/rockshowkc)
* Witnessed my children morph from little beans on a sonogram to lumps of cuteness to amazingly smart, funny, sanity-challenging, non-stop-talking, piano-playing, joke-telling, athletic (some more so than others), beautiful people

At the risk of sounding a bit melodramatic and of jinxing my good fortune, I thank God and everyone in my life for these blessings.

Happy New Year everyone!