New Year Resolutions

Last year I made just one new year resolution. I've made lots of resolutions in the past with it all fizzing out by the end of January so last year I decided to take just one baby step. I'm proud to report that in 2009 I accomplished my resolution roughly 90% of the time and have now formed a new habit - I now make my bed almost 95% of the time!

So, this year is a little different. I wanted originally to just do one resolution again something that I know I can accomplish, but with a new house and kids getting older I am forcing myself to do more and here's my new list.

1. Make the girls beds everyday
2. Keep my house clean one day at a time (we've worked out a system and it's working so far)
3. Enroll Lily in a ballet class
4. Go to the zoo at least once a month (Luke's parents got us annual zoo passes for the family for Christmas)
5. Do something preschool-ish with Lily at least 45 minutes a day during the week
6. Exercise twice a week (And hey, working in my yard counts!)
7. Attend the temple once a month
8. Go on a date with my husband once a month besides the temple trip
9. Pick up my flute once a month (I was going to say once a week, but lets face it, not going to happen)
10. And... I can't quite make it to 10 so that's that! (Sorry, becoming a better blogger isn't going to make the list )

I've often found that when you tell people you're going to do something there's more motivation to do it. So here I go and wish me luck! I wish all of you a wonderful 2010 year!

Our New Home

Luke and I found this house in the middle of October. When we went to look at it the first time, the seller was at home and he came out and in a very strong Russian accent said, "What do you want?!" Our Realtor looked slightly taken aback, but introduced himself and us and asked him if we could see the house. The seller then said, "You want to see the house? Fine, come in." So, a little awkward, and in we went. Luke recognized the accent and immediately asked the man if he spoke Russian in Russian. And off they went. The man's cold, hard voice melted and he gave Luke a personal full tour of the house. It took an hour and a half.
There's a lot more to it than meets the eye. Of course the Yard is huge and fantastic, but the seller has 4 fruit trees lining one side of the house, a strawberry patch, blue berry bushes, raspberry bushes, grapes, and another berry bush that Luke didn't know the translation to. There are HUGE garden areas that I'm so excited about! The house itself has 4 beds and 2.5 bath. We closed on Friday Nov 22 and went and took a look at what was left in the house since the man had told us they'd be leaving things. They left us their formal dining set, a really nice coffee table, some curtains, some paintings, fully decorated bathrooms with baskets, etc., 2 extra party fridges in the garage, seeds that they plant in the yard, ALL their yard tools - lawn mower, weed eater, planters, rakes, axes, saws, everything you can possiblythink of to upkeep the yard. They left us a computer that's not half bad, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on.
The sellers were some of the sweetest, nicest people I have ever met. They were also extremely clean and meticulous about everything so the house is in fantastic condition. They were older - grandparents age and they even left little stuffed animals for our girls that they absolutely adored (which really helped in the whole buying/negotiations process.)
So here it is! Our new home for years to come. There's a LOT of parking so we'll be having a house warming party sometime in the near future! In all our haste we didn't get a picture of our incredible guest bathroom, so you will just have to come see it. Lets just say that there's a $5K bath/spa/sauna chamber in there that has neon blue lights, built in MP3 player, and you can even patch your phone into it. Thanks to all who helped and supported in making this happen for us. We feel incredibly blessed and are very humbled and grateful for this new WONDERFUL blessing.

A Child's Prayer

We've been teaching Lily how to say prayer for almost a year now. Mostly she says the prayers over the meals and they are very simple and always the same. Lately something has clicked and she has started praying for different things during our meal prayers. It started when we all had the flu and she started praying for us to feel better. Then she started praying that Lily and Arya will have good sleep. :) (Can you tell what Luke and I pray for all the time?) This morning's went like this:

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank thee for the food, please bless the food, please bless that Santa will bring Lily presents, bless that Santa will bring Arya presents, bless that Santa will bring Mommy presents, and bless that Santa will bring daddy presents, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

It's amazing how children connect things sometimes! It brought a smile to my face as I said AMEN!