I'm still here....

...Just very busy lately. I realize it's been months since my last entry and am hoping to once again start blogging somewhat more regularly. With three little ones it's hard to find time to sit down and organize my thoughts.

Here is a quick review of what we've been up to:

After Keira's arrival on Oct 28th we spent the next couple of weeks adjusting to having a newborn again and getting her to sleep a decent stretch of time at night. She caught on really quickly which we were all thankful for.

In November we took a road trip to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his wife. The kids did great in the car and we all had a very fun time with them. (for those of you with Facebook accounts you can see some pictures and videos of our time).

After getting home we started gearing up for the Christmas season and Ethan's birthday. We planned to have a birthday party for him the Saturday after his birthday. As with so many things in life, God had other plans and we received an ice storm instead. We lost power and decided we needed to find another place to stay that had heat. My older brother and his wife graciously opened their home to not only our family but also my sister and her family. Ethan was able to still enjoy seeing and playing with his cousins and I brought the cupcakes and cheesecake we were going to have at his party for everyone to enjoy. It wasn't "as planned" but was still a nice time and a lot of fun for the kids. We were very happy though to only have to be away from home for two nights. We came home and over the next couple of weeks my husband worked diligently to get as much done on our kitchen remodeling project as possible before Christmas. Thanks in part to the help of a friend we were able to have most of the cabinets installed before Christmas day.

We hosted my whole family for Christmas day. It was once again a lot of fun to have all 9 cousins together and to also have my brother and his wife up from Pennsylvania. We had a great day visiting.

So far January has been a month of getting back into a routine after the holidays and finishing up the kitchen remodel. It's been very nice to have a working sink again and I'm very grateful for all the hard work my husband put into the project and how much better the kitchen functions now, compared to how it was. Just as we think things will slow down they seem to get busy again. We have several birthday parties to attend and also have been working to get back to our usual level of involvement at church.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying the start to 2009. I have a few blog posts rolling around in my head that I hope to get posted over the next week or so. One is to show some crocheting that I've been doing and another to tell about a great book I'm reading and studying.