7 Quick Takes--Highlights of 2010

2010 has been a great year!

~~1~~
Birthdays. Mary Clare turned 7 and celebrated with a fashion show, Ellie turned 5 and got to visit the American Girl store, We welcomed our sweet Thomas William, and Steven Joseph turned 3! Of course Daddy and Mommy had birthdays too! We got to celebrate birthdays, Communions, and other fun events with family and friends. Hopefully 2011 will have just as fun celebrations!

~~2~~

Technology. I am now an iPhone addict and am also happy with my Nikon DSLR camera (now that it's fixed!). Hopefully I'll learn to use the camera even more this year!

~~3~~

Travel. We were blessed with the ability to travel to visit my brother and family in California this summer. What a gift! We also went to New Braunfels with my parents, and had the weekend trip to Dallas for Ellie's birthday. Mother's Day at the beach was also a highlight! We don't have any big travel plans for 2011, but hopefully we'll spend a little more time at the beach this summer!

~~4~~

Talent. The girls continue to excel at ballet and also enjoyed swim team. We got a piano this year and they've enjoyed learning to play a little. Hopefully we'll be able to have them take some kind of piano lessons this year, if only just for the summer when they're out of ballet. Steven had some fun fishing and hunting outings, and I did a bit of sewing and crafting and wrote a few published articles...aside from our biggest talents of taking care of 4 children!

~~5~~
Homeschooling. We almost finished our Alphabet Path program last year, but since I had such a difficult pregnancy this time, we really scaled back and then decided to go with Mother of Divine Grace for Mary Clare's curriculum this year. That's been going well overall, and Ellie is enjoying a laid-back Kindergarten year! A big goal this spring is to get through our lesson plans by early May, and start the new school year during the summer again, to give us some flexibility in taking more breaks throughout the year.

~~6~~

House. I feel like I'm starting to get a grip on the house. This is partly because I've had the on-and-off help of our housekeeper Maria. She definitely helped me survive the pregnant summer! Now she's only coming every other month or so. She came this Monday and I felt the exact sentiment of Suzanne from Blessed Among Men. It's such a blessing to have some help with the house! I also had the help of Bop-Bop (Steven's dad) a few weeks this year, and have purged enough to make things seem manageable. I'm also getting closer to finishing my Mom Cave! Winning that contest was definitely a highlight and finishing the room should be one of my first accomplishments of 2011!

I took some photos the other night to remind me of how great it feels to have a clean house...




The playroom isn't fully clean, but it's starting to get more organized...



~~7~~
Faith. In our family's spiritual life, we've welcomed Thomas William into the church, as well as our godson Santiago. Mary Clare had her First Confession and prepares for her First Communion, which our niece Emily celebrated in the spring. We did some special activities for feast days and church seasons. I hope we can work on family prayer a little more this year, attend daily mass more often, and work on our individual prayer lives. We're also in the midst of possibly changing parishes, so I pray this will aid in our spiritual life as well!

~~~~~

Okay, that took me way too long, and I must get to sleep. I hope that everyone has a wonderful New Year's celebration and that 2011 brings you all the blessings and joy that you hope for!

Read more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!