A Fresh Start

It is 3 am in the wee hours of a late December morning, and if things go the way I hope they will, then this will be the first post I've written in real time in over a year!!

Although I have some minor excuses, I am not completely certain of why I stopped writing last year- but I am very certain that it is something that I have missed very much.  If you scroll back a few posts, you can see that I have tried to slowly catch up, but there are just too many things that I wish that I could say about all the fun, hard, hilarious and ridiculous things that have brought us to where we are today. Although it physically pains me to just skip over them, we are on the cusp of a Next Great Chapter and I have come to the conclusion that it would be worth it to just let it go and start off with where we are now.

For the last few years, I have splurged on an end-of-the-year-deal and had a book printed from one year of my blog. "2011" just arrived last week and with every page I turned, I thought the same 4 things:

1) Aww, my kids were SO cute!!

2) I toooootally forgot about that!

3) Wow, I am so glad I took the time to write about this.

4) I really need to start blogging again.

So there was that.

Another thing that stood out to me was the difference in the posts that were written in "real time" versus the posts that I've written more recently that were put together weeks or even months after the fact just to document something that had already happened. There was a lifelessness about them that was neither satisfying to write or to read and made catching up on my blog feel like a chore.

2011 was the year that started off with the joy of our second baby quickly followed by the painful experience of Sean losing his dream job and our struggle to navigate a way through it all. I wrote to process my fears and disappointments as well as to help me focus on the good. And I wrote because I knew that even though it was impossible to see how at the time, I knew that it couldn't go on like this forever and that one day, for better or for worse, it would eventually make it's way to our past and I wanted to make sure that I never forgot what we experienced, how we were challenged and how God was at work all along the way.

So...in the name of accurate documentation and a desire to tell the story of our family as it unfolds, I am just going to pick up where we are and give regular blogging another shot for 2018. Not sure how or why I think this will be possible now, but I am determined to give it a try.

Maybe someday I will go back and fill in all the gaps, but in the likely case that I never do, here is the bullet point version of the last 12 months:

December 2016: Bought our first home, moved out of Davis (after 17 years!!) and began to build a new life 8 miles (and a completely different culture) away in Woodland. So grateful for God's grace and Sean's hard work that made all this possible. We love his job, but we love him coming home to us even more!

January 2017: Rain, rain, rain.  And pink eye. And a broken water line. And backed up sewage.  But totally loving our new home and the neighbors who came with it :)

February: Lots of time spent in the car driving to schools and friends in Davis and soccer and piano in Woodland. Continued the adventure of homeschooling with Oliver, including ninja warrior classes, a field trip to the Academy of Sciences. Got some chickens to go with our new coop: Alice and Kaia (in honor of some of our favorite relatives) Life is busy!

March 2017: Said goodbye to winter with a trip to the snow and a lot more time outside.  Spring cannot be that far behind! 

April 2017: In awe of our garden in the spring- new life is everywhere!! Adopted 3 day-old chicks to add to our brood.

May 2017: Our first baby turned 8 and we got the exciting news that our 4th baby is on it's way!! Rec Pool is open for the season and swimming becomes our favorite way to spend an afternoon... again.

June 2017: Daddy runs in the Tough Mudder to celebrate his 37th birthday!  End of the school year craziness plus VBC plus terrible all-day-morning sickness.  Squeezed in a beautiful weekend in Tahoe including a fun hike to Eagle Lake with our adventurous kids (but lost all the pics!)

July 2017:  I am an Auntie again!! Welcome to the world Baby Benjamin Daniel Burtt- your family loves you SO much! Exciting season of Flag Football for both the boys and I turned 37 (!!) Hot, hot, hot...and very thankful for our new house with AC and a whole house fan!

August 2017: Summer and I began homeschool TK and the boys started 1st and 3rd grade at our neighborhood school- doesn't feel like a good fit, but they go with a good attitude anyways.  Super glad they have each other. Lots of tears and prayers. Being new is (very) hard for us all! Thankfully, baby is 20 weeks and I am finally starting to feel like myself again.

September 2017: 2 spots open up at our first choice school so we get to be new again, but this time at an amazing school that feels just right. Transition is hard, but we eek through it together. Said goodbye with a final swim at the Rec Pool before it closes (indefinitely) for renovations. Fall soccer begins, boys are so happy together at school, home schooling with Summer is a total joy... and Apple Hill is open for the season. Yum.

October 2017: Glorious fall afternoons at soccer practice, cooler weather, and a special trip with Elliott (first airplane ride!) to Pennsylvania to visit my beloved grandma and cousins.  And a particularly fun Halloween.

November 2017:  Celebrated 10 years of marriage to my dear husband.  Friends threw an amazing baby shower for me- so humbling and wonderful. Sean and I began to pull out baby stuff we haven't seen in 5 years from the garage- still can't believe we get to do all this again!! My Summer Sunshine Girl turned 5. Multiple Thanksgivings.  So, so much to be grateful for.

December 2017: Spent most of the month reflecting on the crazy fact that we have spent our first full year in our new home.  It took longer than I thought it would, but now we've cooked enough meals, celebrated enough birthdays (including Elliott's 7th this month!), knicked enough walls, weathered enough storms, rearranged enough furniture, raked enough leaves and hosted enough gatherings of friends and family that it is really beginning to feel like our home. Kept up our traditions of cookie decorating with Ava, a day trip to San Francisco and ringing the Salvation Army bell, and added some new ones including a Holleman Ladies trip to see the Nutcracker, and the Woodland Christmas Parade. Unfortunately, just this past week our car was stolen from our driveway while we slept and my (otherwise very healthy) 97 year old grandma suffered a heart attack later that same day. We are all extremely grateful that she is doing okay and is recovering back at home with my parents, but it is sad and scary to be reminded of her mortality. Not that they are on the same level in any way, but both of these incidents helped Sean and I to keep things in correct perspective at a time of year when they tend to not be, and gave us many opportunities to have meaningful discussions with our kids about life and what is most important. 

And that brings us to the end of the year which means that I am as caught up as I will ever be and ready to write my way through 

a new year,

in our new house, 

with our new baby

...who is due to arrive any day now. 

Stay tuned!!