it's a new year

Ethan and I had a wonderful Christmas home visiting family. It's always nice to be with family, especially on the holidays. We were overwhelmed by all the gifts we received for little Ryleigh and she isn't even here yet! She is such a loved little, baby girl already and so many people are so excited about her arrival in this New Year---2010 is going to be one great year!

Some of our favorite Christmas memories this year are:
1) waking up on December 7th and deciding that we were going to get a Christmas tree--can you even do Christmas without a tree?
2) decorating our tree with Charlie Brown, warm cookies and hot cocoa
3) our traditional Christmas breakfast cooked by Ethan every Christmas Eve morning
4) catching a tailwind that helped our flight be an hour shorter than it should have been
5) seeing Ethan's face when he got A Muppet's Christmas Carol (Brandy)
6) calling LeAnne a liar while the girls were playing Clue: The Office Edition (Brandy)
7) space blanket--enough said
8) fireworks with Haleigh Baby
9) sleepover at Dusty & Kevin's---Ghost Hunters and Killer Bunnies ("do you feel that? it's getting colder")
10) letting family feel Ryleigh move
11) knowing that Cody is good with a knife
12) tennis with Rivers & Caelan (Ethan)
13) "there is not a normal person in this place" -Ethan
14) "that's okay" -Nana Walker
15) watching family play the Wii
16) realizing that Santa gets to come to our house next Christmas!
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When we got home from Georgia for Christmas, we hit the ground running! We have the month of January to pack for the move, plan for the move, find a job, and prepare even more for little Ryleigh's arrival. We started with taking down our Christmas tree and all of our decorations. I had accomplished a good days worth of packing when I got sick with an awful chest cold---again! Needless to say, our packing was put on hold for the remainder of the week and we have definitely got some catching up to do. Our family doctor said that due to my weakened immune system because of the pregnancy and the two colds back to back that I have developed asthma in the pregnancy. He also said that it is likely that I will get asthma now every time that I am pregnant---but I am praying against this now! He encouraged me to rest so that I could get better for this sweet girl and continue to prepare for our move.

We have a busy three weeks ahead of us but we are encouraged that everything is going to get done. We have great friends and great students that have offered to help and just want to spend time with us before the move. It's going to be a good, yet busy month!

We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying your 2010!

love,
Brandy