As I sit here New Years Day I realize that I have not been good about keeping up this blog. So in true January 1st spirit, I want to update in a positive and optimistic-about-the-new-year sort of way.
As a preface, I want to address reality for a moment. Let's face it, parenting is hard. Our library frequently has parenting books on hold for me (and for John). It seems that kids are hardwired to do exactly the opposite of everything we say, but we certainly don't want to be telling them to do all the wrong things. There are so many evenings when I think I need a frontal lobotomy, or at least a bottle in front of me. :) Every day it becomes more clear why there are so many parenting books out there for us to check out: there just aren't any easy answers. Yes, we all love our children an immeasurable amount but how do we convert that love into good parenting? I guess that will perpetually be at the root of every challenge.
But back to being positive... While I certainly don't want to ignore our parenting challenges, I want to focus on the positive for purposes of this blog (or at least for the new year post!). This year brought a lot of happy memories for us. We spent a lot of time with our family despite the fact that we are scattered along the east coast (Buffalo counts as east coast, right?!). This included lots of visits from family and trips we took to go visit them. Riley absolutely loves seeing her out of town "friends."
Brenna was born on August 2, which makes her almost 5 months old already. She is such a wonderfully happy and sweet baby; she smiles so much and has recently started laughing a lot. She can roll over from her belly to her back and is almost sitting up on her own. We are hoping that the new year will bring some longer sleep intervals overnight.
Riley has changed so much in the last year it's incredible. She makes us laugh (and makes Brenna laugh!) all the time. She really loves Brenna and is very sweet with her. She likes to do impressions, reenact scenes from her favorite movies and shows, and find new and interesting ways to sing the word "no." At some point in the middle of the year we realized that she can read and she really seems to love it. Her favorites are Pinkalicious and pretty much any Dr. Seuss book. She also loves to color, draw, and give check-ups with her doctor's bag as "Dr. Riley." As for other activities, she still loves dance and more recently seems to want to swim and ice skate. She really seems to like everything we sign her up for, which makes it hard to decide what to do. The only thing she didn't really like that much was soccer! She talked about it as if she liked it, but when it came to going out on the field to play in the cold weather, she was frequently unhappy and just wanted to play on the playground. She still talks about it, though, and we will most likely try again this spring.
I hope that is a good enough update on the girls right now. I also hope to have the time to update more often this year. Wait, I'm being optimistic, I AM going to update more often! As I reflect on last year, I can't help but think of how blessed we are to have these amazing girls and amazing family and friends.
Lastly, you know I couldn't blab this long without a picture or video so here is a quick video taken recently that I think is cute. Riley was reciting The Night Before Christmas (I think it actually was the night before Christmas, too) and Brenna was laughing so we turned on the camera.
HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone reading this! I wish you all the best in 2012!!
