We've experienced a lot of changes and have grown a lot. We started the year off with a bang named Rachel. She joined our family mid January and has been keeping us on our toes ever since. After about three months we found that she had an intolerance to dairy, soy, nuts and chocolate. This lead to a very large alteration in our diet since I had to largely avoid eating the list of items. We adjusted and through much exploration and trying new recipes, actually started eating a lot healthier and have enjoyed those benefits.
Ryan did an internship at a consulting firm in Indianapolis.
We rented a community garden plot and canned over 150 jars of peaches, peach and apple pie filling, spaghetti sauce, dry beans, apple sauce, salsa, peach syrup, green beans, and vegetable stew. Plus we made a bunch of freezer jam. While that makes it sound like we had an amazing garden, a lot of the things we canned actually came from orchards or the farmers market. We're still working on the gardening thing.
Lauren is potty trained! This is most definitely her greatest accomplishment this year. While we still aren't 100% at night, she has been dry the last 6 out 7 nights, which is a pretty big deal.
Ryan is soon going to starting his last semester of grad school! Yay! and now we just need a job :) Let the application and interview process begin!
I was looking back at a post that I made at the beginning of the year where I typed out a few goals and here is how I did.
Goals:
1) Get both girls in cloth diapers. Check. And another bonus for getting Lauren in and out of them.
2) Eat / Cook Healthier for myself and family. The whole non-dairy thing turned from a trial to a blessing in this respect. We made some good progress the past 9 months and now as Rachel is approaching the point of being completely weened I get to make some choices as to how we can continue and do better. Before we do that however I am going to get some chocolate ice cream and a pizza (it has still been a long 9 months).
3) Exercise on a regular basis. This basically didn't happen at all and is at the top of my list for this next year. Enough said.
Overall I think it has been a great year and we are really looking forward to this next year as it will hold a lot of big and exciting changes for our family.
Ryan did an internship at a consulting firm in Indianapolis.
We rented a community garden plot and canned over 150 jars of peaches, peach and apple pie filling, spaghetti sauce, dry beans, apple sauce, salsa, peach syrup, green beans, and vegetable stew. Plus we made a bunch of freezer jam. While that makes it sound like we had an amazing garden, a lot of the things we canned actually came from orchards or the farmers market. We're still working on the gardening thing.
Lauren is potty trained! This is most definitely her greatest accomplishment this year. While we still aren't 100% at night, she has been dry the last 6 out 7 nights, which is a pretty big deal.
Ryan is soon going to starting his last semester of grad school! Yay! and now we just need a job :) Let the application and interview process begin!
I was looking back at a post that I made at the beginning of the year where I typed out a few goals and here is how I did.
Goals:
1) Get both girls in cloth diapers. Check. And another bonus for getting Lauren in and out of them.
2) Eat / Cook Healthier for myself and family. The whole non-dairy thing turned from a trial to a blessing in this respect. We made some good progress the past 9 months and now as Rachel is approaching the point of being completely weened I get to make some choices as to how we can continue and do better. Before we do that however I am going to get some chocolate ice cream and a pizza (it has still been a long 9 months).
3) Exercise on a regular basis. This basically didn't happen at all and is at the top of my list for this next year. Enough said.
Overall I think it has been a great year and we are really looking forward to this next year as it will hold a lot of big and exciting changes for our family.
