Neither Dead Nor Pining

Honestly. Not sure what the issue is with keeping up with things here - though I suspect a good deal of it might be to do with the fact that life is, simply put, really rather good and happy and, well, relatively normal. So there's not so much to say.

That said, we've had a reasonably auspicious start to the New Year around these parts. We always rush to get the decorations down the weekend after Christmas so that we can, in turn, decorate for the elder boy's birthday. I know this means we're taking things down before Epiphany, and on the one hand I'd love to leave them up a tad longer. On the other hand, we've had them up since the day after Thanksgiving and I really am rather happy to have them away and get the house back to some semblance of order.

The elder boy is now 5. I can't fathom that he's really that old (not that it's old in the overall scheme of things, but when you never really thought you'd end up with a child, to suddenly have one and then have him turn 5. Well, it's startling and I wonder where the time has gone.) We had a little at-home party of 8 children (including him). It was fun. Semi-Lego themed, but mostly free play with a few games thrown in for good measure. They came, they played, they ate cake, I shooed them out the door. We opened gifts afterward and I took a photo of him holding the gift after opening it. These will be mailed as thank you cards this week. (I'm a week behind my self-imposed schedule on that, but what can you do?)

Tuesday (the 8th) my book was released out into the wild. I'm going to go with surreal and leave it at that. It's a Christian contemporary romance and if you want more info, drop me a line and I'll send you a link. (One of these days I should probably give up my claim to semi-anonymity here but, well, for now I'm leaving things as is.)

All the regular activities (AWANA, swimming, etc.) have resumed and we're gradually getting back into our routine. This would be somewhat easier if the younger boy wasn't in the throes of teething (meaning he spends a good deal of many nights screeching in pain no matter what we do or administer. All that will calm him, and that not all the time, is holding and walking. No rocking. No driving. Certainly not laying down with him. You must stand. And walk.)

Last week we had two birthday parties to attend (friends of the elder boy) - both were delightful chances for me to catch up with parents who I don't get to see nearly as often as I might like.

And that, as they say, is that. I'll do my best to post again before February is upon us!