Happy New Year

Happy New Year! 2012 is sure to be rich with growth if it was anything like 2011!

Here's the last of 2011....pictured above is promise and me getting ready to blow out the candles on my birthday cake the day after Christmas....no, I am not turning 2 years old, but I did have two candles....notice that one of the candles is the number 3. I am 31. Just so there's no confusion. :)
Promise and daddy made that cake for me. And thanks to my dear friends, Arnica and Liv, I even got 3 princesses and two dwarves on my cake. :)
Yes, Promise and daddy were very careful to measure everything perfectly...and the cake was magnificent! While they made the cake, I took down all the Christmas cheer from our house....yes, the Bedford Falls cityscape was demolished and put into boxes.....the garland removed, the Christmas tree de-christmassed. Got it done in one day! WAHOO!
Christmas day yielded a grand and wild party with all the Stewart cousins pictured above. :) Micah, Hope, baby Grace, Toby, Promise, Lila and Justice played so very well together and the noise level was deafening....just the way we like it. Promise got very special pjs from Grandmastina and other precious treasures...

Toby and Promise got new slippers on Christmas Eve....they NEVER take them off....Promise is convinced they are "ballet slippers" and claims that they make her dance. :)
Just before Christmas, we got a surprise visit from Promise and Toby's favorite person in the world!....TEAGAN, babysitter-extraordinaire. She and her boyfriend, Leighton, came over for some pre-Christmas festivities....it was so much fun!
And the Monday before Christmas yielded a very precious gift....Tim's best friend, Paso, and my friend, Laurenn, and their son, Zeke, welcomed a beautiful baby girl into their lives...Amelia was born perfectly and beautifully into her daddy's waiting hands (and midwife) on the morning of the 19th. Laurenn's labor was amazing and though very difficult, Laurenn was a champ and after having a cesarian section with her first child, had many prayers answered with this normal vaginal delivery. She was a labor QUEEN!

And all the more special....I got to be her doula. :) This was my first birth since being back from the Philippines and I was so honored to be a part of it.....so grateful to take part in Laurenn and Paso's joy and thrilled to be in a birth room again.

But I was also reminded as to why I am not a practicing midwife right now! Being on-call is tough when you have two toddlers dependent on you and a hubby that work 6 days a week for 12 hours a day! And 36 hours without sleep is just not right in my world. And the muscle and back pain! I had forgotten about THAT! Sigh....perhaps midwifery is still supposed to be on the back burner for a few more years.

My parents made a surprise visit to us for New Years...Promise went ballistic and Toby was in utter shock. We had a wonderful meal together and then Toby and woke up the next morning with strep throat and the flu. So my parents became nurses for two days as they took trips to Walmart for meds and Promise out for lunch to give Toby and me some much-needed rest. They took off Sunday morning, much to our disappointment....perhaps another trip is due in the near future.

Tim is loving his job and working hard...Promise is lovely....Toby is just now getting a bit better from his awful flu/strep virus and I am seeking.

May 2012 be full of transformation from the inside out.

Be blessed.