Being the boring parents of three that we are, John and I decided to invite a few of our university friends over for New Years Eve celebrations. We had planned on spending the evening with Coby, Carrie and Ronan and I waffled on inviting our other friends. My main sticking point was that I had no intentions of being awake as the clock struck midnight. Finally I just sent out an invite and with brutal honesty told our friends they had to be out of our house at 10pm so I could go to bed. Surprisingly people came and those that didn’t were either out of  town or suffering from pink eye.

We had a nice and relaxing evening. At some random time just before 8pm we put on a fake New Years for the kids. They all thought it was fun.

I have written a few of these New Years posts. Every year I go back and look at my resolutions for the year before. This time last year has some good reading as we were exactly one week away from Claire’s arrival. There wasn’t any snow on the ground, I was getting anxious and I was starting to wonder how we were going to manage a baby with 2.5 year olds. It was the calm before the storm that didn’t turn out to be that bad.

And I actually did quite well on the resolutions part. I did breastfeed Claire, I did buy a treadmill (and ran my first 5km), I did start to take better care of myself and take the time to enjoy my children more.

We are very lucky in that again this year we have a lot to be thankful for. Last night, after I kicked all our friends out, John and I had a quick year in review. The highlights from the year  - Claire, my section recovery, John going back to Deloitte,the second car which gave me some freedom, preschool, Drew and Jen getting engaged,toilet training and the end of the afternoon nap come to mind. John’s addition of his TV made me laugh.

You just have to look at Claire to see how much can change in a year. She has gone from a tiny baby to a fully functional member of our family. Sometimes it just floors me that we are a family of 5 and other times I can’t remember a time where she wasn’t around. Leah and Emma turned 3 this year and became big sisters. They are growing up by the day and I am getting more and more paranoid about losing my digital memories of all three of them.

2008 is shaping up to be another exciting year. Leah and Emma will start school in September and Claire will learn to walk, talk and, if we’re lucky, sleep through the night. Hey, I can officially say I didn’t sleep for 8 consecutive hours in 2007!

My resolutions for this coming year are both new and old. Here they are in no particular order:
-Exercise, eat right. 2008 will be the year of no excuses
-I will take time to enjoy the things I used to enjoy before I got sidetracked by being a mom.
-go on a vacation with John
-I will stop using tired and really tired as reasons for not doing stuff
-I will take my children to Centre Island on a day where it is operational.
-I will be a better cook
-I will try and be upbeat when I put my girls on a bus and send them off into the unknown.
 

Wishing you all a happy and most of all healthy 2008.