Its a New Year. Wow I can hardly believe that 2005 has come and gone. Its seems like it all happened in a blink of an eye.

I am truly looking forward to the New Year. I have been making great efforts to change myself and my life, and I truly hope that in the coming year I can become the person I long to be. The person that I am truly meant to be. I long to find the contentment and self control that I know the Lord wants of me.  To make the changes needed in our family and home life to achieve what is suppose to be.

This year I plan to continue to work on controlling my anger, and displaying better self control for my children. I want to work on showing my DH and my children how thankful I am for them in my life, and how much I appreciate them. I want to work on showing the Lord how thankful I am for all that he has done for me and blessed me with. I have never been good at showing gratitude in any form, this year I want to change that. 

I have finally finished reading every bit of information on the Raising Godly Tomatoes site and I have started to read it to DH. I really want us to be a united front on the parenting issues. We both know we need to change the current way, there are so many little things we really want to change.

I'm also starting to wonder if we may be expecting a blessing. I had a, well not sure what it was, the dr says chemical pregnancy, but the medical description of a chemical pregnancy does not match what I experienced, but anyway, its been 34 days since I lost the last blessing, and so far that monthly visitor has not returned. And then yesterday I had heartburn, there are only 5 periods of time in my life I have ever had heartburn, and all 5 of them I was pregnant. I will most likely get a test later in the week when I go to do the shopping. But I am comfortable that the Lords will will be done in any case.

Well the children are in bed, DH is sleeping, and I guess I should go do the same. The youngest has been working on a new tooth and waking up every couple hours at night crying. So needless to say I've been pretty tired, and staying up till 1am to ring in the New Year didn't help.

Hope everyone had a WONDERFUL New Year and I wish you all a year full of all the great things the Lord has in store for you. May we all find peace, contentment, and the gift of self-control.

Theresa

I had the worst dream last night. In my dream I woke up and realized it was midnight on Christmas Day and I had not wrapped a single present. Now because of limited space all of our gifts are being safely kept in the back garage that is converted into an apartment and rented out to a guy DH used to work with that fell on some bad luck. Well in my dream I was banging on the door for him to open up so I could get in and wrap all the presents that would be needed in just a few hours for that Christmas morning wake up, and he wasn't home! I woke up from this dream in a panic, it took me a few seconds to realize it was only a dream and I had a few more days to get things done. Can you tell I have tons to do and very little time to get it done? We still have to finish cleaning the house. Declutter the playroom before the big day. We are keeping it small this year, please don't flame our small, but last year between the 3 kids there were over 80 new toys that they got for xmas. My My mother has the same shopping problem I do. So this year I have it down to 3 gifts each child from my parents, 3 gifts each child from us, and then 3 gifts each child from Santa and 3 big group gifts.  So that's only 30 things I have to find space for. OK go ahead and flame, that sounds so horrible. And then I wonder why my kids have no respect for anything they are given. On top of all that it doesn't include anything they will be getting from all of our friends. Most of our friends are single guys that DH grew up with so our 3 little girls have all their 'uncles' wrapped around their little fingers.  

I am hoping to get the laundry finished between today and tomorrow. With being out shopping and all the decorating its been put on the back burner and sort of piled up. But I want to have it all done and I want to be packed for Vegas by Friday. That way the weekend can be totally Christmas and then everything will just need to be thrown in the car on Monday and we can head out. Wishfull thinking I know.

I also need to crisis clean the dining room and my desk area. They are totally trashed. The table is buried under piles of papers, junk mail, and boxes from the village and other assorted decorations. And my desk, well lets just say its a paper avalanche waiting to happen.

Hopefully I can get DH to take the car in tomorrow for its oil change, if I have to do that it will cut out half my day of getting other things done. I really want to have enough stuff done by Thursday night that we can bake cookies. 

I have been doing a bit better with my temper. I was reading at the RGT message board and read a post about taking it 1 hour at a time. Try to be joyful and control your temper for 1 hour, if you do it great, if not, try again the next hour and go from there. once you can do it for an hour, try for 2, and so on. Right now I'm shooting for 30 minutes. Its going pretty well, although we have a newly turned 3 yr old that is REALLY testing lately. She has a horrible attitude, everything you tell her she says "no" or tells us how angry she is at us, I swear she is the angriest little girl in the whole world.  I keep telling her that what she's doing is not ok and that she needs to do what she is asked with a happy heart and a smile on her face, but its not getting through to her, and until I have myself under control I have been avoiding spanking the kids.

Well I better go reboot the laundry and start to get to work on the dining room table. So much to do and SO little time.

Theresa

The title pretty much says it all. Last night we went to dinner at my parents house and the 2 oldest kids had a sleepover with Nana and Papa.  The poor baby was so lonely all day that I really didn't get much done. She missed her sisters so much. Its very rare for them to not be together. And if the youngest would start to sleep through the night and not require mommy for nursing she would be able to stay with her sisters too, but no such luck yet. Although DH and I would love to have a night out.

So since they spent the night at my parents we are getting ready to go pick them up and go out to dinner with my parents tonight. Last night we had a Fish Fry with the fish my dad got in WI over the summer.

I have so much to get done. Its going to be a busy week of finishing the Christmas shopping and getting the house picked up. Plus having everything ready to leave for Vegas the day after Christmas. On top of all of this I think I need to contact my OBGYN, since the 'chemical pregnancy' last month things just don't seem right. I was just in last week and she said everything seems fine and did the annual well woman exam, but I know my body and something seems off.  Its always something I guess. Thankfully 3yr old dd seems to be on the mend from the horrible cold she has had for over 2 weeks. And praise the Lord she is the only one that seems to have gotten it that bad. the 5yr old is completely better and the 1yr old just has a runny nose. Some fingers crossed that everyone manages to stay healthy for Christmas and our trip.

Well I should bring this to a close. I didn't get to post yesterday with having gone to my parents and not getting home till late. And if I didn't post now before we left I would never get to post tonight either. Not that's there is much to report. But anyway.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

Theresa 

I am not even sure if other people will ever read this but here goes anyway. If nothing else hopefully I can use this as a sort of therapy to help me through my current struggle with anger, frustration, and the huge amount of guilt I feel for my behavior towards and around my children.

The last few days the whole house as been turned upside down. DH is between jobs so he decided to just take time off until the next feature starts in Jan.  In some ways it is close to having another child in the house. But at the same time it melts my heart to watch him spending time with his girls. They have been playing video games together, playing cars all over the living room floor and just having a great time together. Something that they normally don't get to do. Usually because daddy is always working.

I have pretty much put school on hold for now. Between DH being home and all the other demons in my life that I am trying to tackle I just feel its better this way.

Everyone is getting excited about the holidays. They can't wait for Christmas morning. Today the 3yr old told DH one of his presents, she said "but daddy its a surprise so you can't tell." I couldn't stop laughing, it was so cute. But we then had a long talk about how if its a surprise for someone that means you don't tell that person.

I am about to get into major cleaning mode. My parents will be coming here for Christmas dinner. We usually go to their house, but because we are leaving the day after Christmas to go to Vegas for DHs birthday I felt it would be easier to have everyone here.  My mother suffers from OCD although she will never admit that. But she can't stand my house. She can never come over and not clean something in it. There is always something that doesn't meet her standards, wither it be the way the towels are in the closet or how I have the plates stacked in the cupboard. Its very upsetting sometimes to always feel like such a failure when it comes to caring for my home. But that is one of those demons I am going to be working on. I long for the day my mother can come over to my house and just sit and relax and not feel the need to clean something in it. Oh heck, I can dream can't I?

Well I better bring this to a close. DH is playing a video game with the kids that he rented, and I need to jump in the shower so we can head out to dinner. We are taking the kids into Hollywood to have pizza at a friends restaurant and then to go see some of the lights at the LA Zoo. The Department of Water and Power puts together a really nice drive through light display there.

Theresa