First 'REAL' Post of 2013

Gosh, its nearly the end of January and I haven't been on here. I must say I find the 'net' is my last thing these days with all the things I have going on. The moment we finished Christmas vacation, er even before that, the emails were flooding in for booking orders. January has been pretty full, I do have a few moments while I wait for the 80 monkey cookies are drying, haha.

Its a new year! Wow, we had an amazing 2012, we moved into our home, and I can't believe it will almost be a year since we did. Every time we come home we fall more in love with it. It truly was our answer to prayer and we are thankful everyday for it. Over the holidays we finally had our open house, and got to share our place with friends and family. We also got a new car and said goodbye to the volvo, we love our Kia!

The circle of life continues too, we sadly were shocked with the sudden passing of Ken's aunt Ginny. We are still processing the loss and it comes and goes in waves. We were sad not to be close enough to attend the funeral that happened just this past weekend. However with death comes life, and a huge baby boom with lots of my friends but the most exciting is that I will be an 'Auntie' again this coming summer!!! The kids are so in love with their cousin that to have another one is fantastic! Eek!

With the new year we are looking ahead to some firsts, coming up in April is Ariel's first dance competition! She is very excited and the costumes they are getting are so amazing! They will be doing 3 competitions and now I am officially ready as a 'Dance Mom', haha. Although I am sure I won't be the same drama force like the tv show, hee.

Another big first is this summer Ariel and I will be going to a concert together. We are going to see Taylor Swift and we finally told her the big secret last week. She is SOOOO excited and what she doesn't know yet is her friend from school and her mom is also going. We are going to take the girls to dinner and then the concert, so much fun!!!

Ariel has been continuing with her swimming after school and is in swim kids 4 currently and doing well. This spring break Xander will be starting his own lessons in turtle, so we will see how that goes.

We got back to Sparks last week and have lots of fun things planned. Its hard to believe she finishes this year and we look to see if Brownies will work for us next year. I hope so, but we will see what happens.

In Xander news, the winter break proved to be a huge time of growth of our little man. He has gone back to school as happy as a clam. They are learning about bears and numbers right now and he is in his glory. Love dropping him off and picking him up with him having a smile on his face. December had been rough and I am so thankful to see he is over that 'bump' in the road. He also started his first extra curricular activity with gymnastics! He loves it and I so happy to have finally found something that he can use some of that energy up in. His buddy from school is in the same class so that is fun too.

While shopping on Monday up in South Surrey we hit the Gap Kids outlet store and he found a Superman shirt with an attachable cape... to say he is in heaven is an understatement.

We are starting to get the ball rolling on the upcoming Imagine That Summer Arts camp. It will be our 4th year, which is crazy but we are finding each year gets easier to organize and have people commit to teaching.

I have been on a huge cleaning and purging phase lately. I think with knowing that we will have been here a year that its a good indication of what we don't use and what we do. Either way, feels good. Also on a huge purge on my eating habits. Watching more closely what I eat, and making smarter choices, lost 15lb and counting so far, and feel good about that. Made some goals for summer, so we will see how it goes.

We are scheduled for interviews for our Nexus cards in June, and eager to make border travel that much easier. Plus the kids are free, bonus! It will be a help for Ken too when traveling for work. Speaking of travel, he has lots of things in the planning stages, the biggest one being Australia and New Zealand. Very cool!!!

Speaking of travel we made the hard decision to hold off on Disneyland for another year. We learned of the size requirements for the 'Cars Land' rides and our sweet boy wouldn't be tall enough, even by fall. So we are tentatively planning for the year Xander starts kindergarten. I was really wanting to go and see my friends too, but an extra year will make our trip that much better with their ages.

Our new pastor started last week!!! We are so excited and blessed to have him join our church family. I will be meeting with him later today about the Children's Ministry. Very excited for the new phase of our church.

Well, I think I just about covered everything happening, I will try and keep this updated more... promise :)