As always Norah continues to amaze us with her understanding of letters, shapes and colors. She recognizes triangles, circles, squares, and octagons. In letters she knows S, R, and O, and while playing a matching game on her princess computer, demonstrated a knowledge of upper case letters and their matching lower case letters. She has also become quite the little artist lately, covering every blank piece of paper with pictures of monsters and portraits. Her attention to detail is both exciting and entertaining as she adds eyebrows, mustaches, and hair to anything and everything! Her love of reading remains strong as she can be found in her room, on her bed, or in a chair curled up with a book. She still loves to watch shows on the television, but we try to limit the daily consumption.
She has also become quite the little lady, always decked out in dresses and jewelry. Ironically she refuses to wear the jewelry further than the car on any outing, and generally stuffs it all into her purse. Some of our favorite phrases of hers right now are using "really" to describe anything and everything. For example, she might say "I like the really, really, really dress!" We have tried explaining the correct usage to her, but to no avail. We know she'll eventually grow out of it, so we aren't trying too hard....it's really, really, really cute. Her other favorite phrase is to say, "Yes My Highness!" when answering a question. Over the last year we have watched our baby girl grow more and more into a little girl, who is already declaring herself ready for school while donning a backpack. While we are not quite ready for that, we are excited by her growth and learning over the last year.Norah's abilities to think, express herself and create are continually improving. She uses her toys and random household items in creative and non-traditional ways, arranging items in artistic layouts for your amusement. One of her favorite still life subjects includes carefully laid out table settings with plates meticulously arranged covered in an amalgamation of toy strawberries and costume jewelry, often refered to as "pasta." Her vocabulary and language skills are very strong as well, allowing her to remember and repeat lengthy stories or create a complex original story often bending time and space. She often gently places a hand on the side of her parent's face and tells them about how she held them when they were babies and rocked them to sleep as they cried "Waaa-waaa." She is completely unswayed by any silly adult reasoning stating that she was not yet born when we were babies. Her main concern is to let you know that she loves you and cares for you when you're sad or hurt, as you do for her. She is a very kind and loving little girl.
Justin ends the year with his love of both trucks and tools unshaken. He can look through his books of trucks and correctly name off each one. He recognizes them when we are out and is quick to point to and name them. He also has no problem correcting his parents when we call a vehicle by an incorrect name. Don't call a skid-steer by the "Bobcat" brand name! He knows all his tools and is happiest when he can get his tools out and help Daddy fix something around the house. "I gotta fix something!" is a common statement from him (Justin not Jeff).
Justin's favorite "dress up" character continues to be "The Bad Guy" which confuses the rest of his family as he is always afraid of the "bad guys" in any film or book. He is often found running around the house in his pirate costume from Halloween yelling "Aarrgh mateys" and brandishing his sword as he chases Norah through the house. He recently started to branch out from his "bad guy" character to be "a Bass Guitar." We assume he means bass guitar player, although we really don't even know the origin of his bass obsession over regular guitar or how he even knows about it. He rocks out to music with his bass guitar and his hair spiked up, which is quite a sight.
For Jeff, 2010 marked a year of venturing from his comfort zone. Work has provided him the opportunity to work on project types and assignments he has not done previously. He enjoys the opportunity to learn and is excited about what lies ahead in the coming year. He also agreed to assist me teaching Sunday School for three year old children every other Sunday. It's proven to be quite a challenge as he had to learn how to work with many different types of personalities, and several at once. The class can be as big as 12 children and while it's only an hour, it has the potential to be exhausting and challenging. He is happiest when he discovers a positive way to prevent or stop a child's negative behavior and engage them in class participation.
For the fifth consecutive year Monday nights are devoted to Disciple Bible study. While he is sad that there is only one remaining year after this one, he is excitedly considering facilitating a class someday. Jeff also spent 2010 preparing to run in his second marathon race. He is disappointed with his finish time of 4:08:42 as his goal was to finish under 4 hours, however the rest of the family is incredibly proud of him and will be happy to cheer him on in 2011.2010 for Heather was a year marked by pushing beyond the limits she thought capable. She completed her first half marathon in November, then ran another one in December beating her personal record by 12 minutes. For someone who wasn't able to run more than a mile at a time on pavement this was a huge step and she plans on spending 2011 trying to prepare for a full marathon. As we were not able to donate to the church monetarily as much as we would like, she took on as many volunteering opportunities as our schedule allowed. She also taught Sunday school, filled supplies every few weeks for the Sunday school classes and helped out during the summer (with her sister) with Vacation Bible School. Monday nights were spent with Jeff and her brother Patrick at Disciple Bible Study and it's always a joy to participate.
She really branched out when she offered to facilitate a short term Bible study at the beginning of September. Having only attended them previously, this was definitely out of her comfort zone, but it meant a lot to her. She has learned so much, not only from the material but from the other participants. She was sad as it came to an end right before Christmas, but excited that the group wanted to continue with yet another study, which will start up in January. She continues to work part time, nights and weekends, making for a very full schedule, but she enjoys her job and her co-workers.
2010 was supposed to be the year that we would finally become debt free, but a slew of unexpected expenses from vet bills, a required house painting (per the city), and a new fridge slowed us down considerably. However we are excited by our progress, and anticipate making our last payment sometime in the beginning of 2011. We were also saddened by the loss of our dog May, as complications from diabetes took her from us. We mourned a greater loss, as Heather's Aunt Paula was taken by breast cancer. This year we have happily celebrated weddings, pregnancies and births of both family and friends. We were given the opportunity to go on vacation and enjoyed the quiet afternoons as a family that found us all at home.
Happy New Year!
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