Exhaustion.

The Advent/Christmas season is physically exhausting, and we seem to get sick around this time every year. I've got a cold and am barely able to do basic things around the house. Add to that the fact that Steven has to work tomorrow, will be traveling all next week, and we have to start back to homeschooling on Monday, and I'm in a bit of a panic! Oh, and we also have a big girl turning TWELVE tomorrow! The holiday birthdays are so hard! Poor thing may end up baking her own cake, and I'm not quite sure when we will have an official celebration.

We ventured out to a fabulous New Year's Eve party last night, and I hesitated about going, but I was feeling much better (until about halfway through the party), and we just had a couple kids with slight sniffles.  Even more than having this head cold, I just started to feel so exhausted, and it was reminiscent of Christmas night when I just had to GET HOME NOW! I guess I'm getting old and I've got a baby who gets cranky late at night (really?), and the 1-2am bed times for so many days are just starting to hit me!  Not to mention, it's been so cold and wet! I am very much ready for the summer sunshine.

So one of my goals in 2015 will be to work on my 11pm bedtime again. I'm not going to make it tonight, but hopefully I'll crash by midnight and can have a good sleep without random 1-2 hour wake-ups! I do have something really great to look forward to tomorrow, besides my big girl's birthday, and that's the fact that MY MARIA is coming back! You may remember me blogging about my favorite housekeeper ever, and she was one of the things that I was most looking forward to about moving back here. Now that OUR HOUSE FINALLY SOLD ON MONDAY, and we no longer have to pay two mortgages, we can have her come and clean again! So I think tomorrow night my attitude will be much more positive because my house is going to look AMAZING.

So I'll end this little stream of consciousness here and head to bed while the Sudafed is working. I want to share about our Nutcracker night, some favorite Christmas gifts, our first house/yard project, as well as reflect on some goals and hopes for 2015. I'm going to try to do a little more blogging and writing in this new year, and hopefully I'll have lots of things to share about house renovations! I'm also working hard on my photography and editing skills, so I'll add today's best photo of my two boys reading Richard Scarry this evening.  Aren't they sweet? (Steven Joseph ran away right after I snapped it!)