Happy New Years!

Here it is, New Years Eve, I'm sitting on the couch, watching TV,  eating chocolates and reflecting on the past year.  I'm pretty good at multi-tasking.  

It has been an incredible year for us.  Elizabeth was only a new edition at the start of 2010.  She has turned into quite the little sweetheart (It took about 7 months for her to start the process of turning into this sweetie).  She is very smart.  She has always been incredible at communication....aka, she has always cried a lot.  I started teaching her a little sign language a few months ago and it helps out so much.  She signs eat, all done, milk, more, nap and says mama, dada, nigh nigh, all done, and more (I think that's it....?).  She is very stubborn and refuses to walk, but we are looking forward to that day when she decides to take more than one step.  She definitely has me wrapped around her little fingers and has finally started to warm herself into the role of daddy's little girl.  

Stevie has been growing into quite a little boy this year.  Although, it has been quite tough (for Steve and I!).  I would say at the beginning of the year he listened about 10% of the time and now it's more like 70% of the time, so there has been huge improvement.  He has learned some bad habits from his sister, like whining....all the time.  But he is still such a lovable boy.  He gives the best hugs and he loves to cuddle when he gets put to bed at night.  He is also very smart and I'm looking forward to getting time (hopefully soon) to sit down and teach him to read.  

At the very beginning of the year, Steve was working in the warehouse at Tandy Leather Factory and was asked if he was interested in management training.  He had some reservations, if he accepted we would most definitely have to move, but decided to give it a whirl.  Woohoo, a career without school!  How lucky is he?  He started training in February (I think) and at the very end of May they told him where he would be going, if he accepted. (If he declined he'd have one other choice or he'd be out of a job.)  So where would we be going.....Chicago.  When Steve called me to let me know, he didn't sound too excited.  I felt good about it, (we'd been praying hard) the first thought was "Yeah!  Good pizza!".  Needless to say he accepted and we had 3 weeks to put the house up for sale, pack up and move to Illinois.

Gees.....this is longer than I was expecting!

Well, we listed the house, had a contract on it within a week and closed on it about 3 weeks later.  We rented a 2 bedroom apartment in Crystal Lake, IL, in hopes to find something bigger when we got up there to look around.  Crystal Lake is a beautiful town and we enjoyed it very much.  Steve's store is in Elgin, so we ultimately decided to pick a house in Elgin.

     We found the perfect house in Elgin, which we are currently in the process of painting.  We are looking forward to the day that it is done and we can just relax!  We also can't wait to show it off to friends and family (so come visit!).

Steve is doing awesome in his management position. He has completely turned the store around  and his bosses are very pleased with him.  I'm so proud of him!

Ok, I'm going to stop now because, well, I'm tired.  Love to all :)