Alot has happened in the past year....

I rarely get to sit and listen to a quiet house, I take that back, I can only hear it when I wake up before 99% of you to get ready for work. But that doesn't count because I don't actually get to sit and listen to it. One thing I miss most is the time to reflect upon everything and get realigned...instead of blazing forward full speed ahead, only to turn around and see all that Ive run over. Ahh, quiet house Ive missed you.

Its been a year since my last blog, which is funny because the title of my last one was exclaiming about 2 months LOL. But its not like I haven't had good reason to be busy, alot of life changes that have taken priority of every minute of my day, even those minutes that could be spent on me.

One life altering experience is finding out your 3 year old niece has brain cancer. I can still recall how eerie it was being the only Kennedy in church while everyone else was at the hospital. Watching the story unfold as my sister in law updates via blogs and pictures was tough, and being pregnant and not being able to be there was worse. Ive always been the type to "go" when someone needed me, no questions asked. It was so hard to "stay" when everything in me wanted to go. It was a blessing to just see the outpouring of love for this little girl on facebook and how our church family banded together so intimately to pray them through was a direct demonstration of what we are called to do. How thankful I am for my church!

In November we received an answer to our prayer whether or not to homeschool our oldest son Daniel. Its amazing to see him grow beyond where he was at in public school but it is challenging. Having him here after Brooklyn arrived was a blessing, the way he jumped in to cater to Isaac was heartwarming.

The arrival of Brooklyn was such the opposite of Isaac's (except I went into labor with both of them on a Friday night). I hope Payton will remember playing Monopoly with me while in labor, as I was not sure if they were "real" contractions because they were nothing like what you see on tv. I can still see the expression on his face when he saw me breathing through the tough contractions like "what are you doing?" He was very helpful at getting my piece around the far side of the board I couldn't reach.

It all happened so fast, Brooklyn beat both of Daniels parents (who only live 15 minutes away) and the anestesiologist to the room. I don't remember the pain, but I'll never forget how I felt when they said I was at 9cm already. I was not ready for natural childbirth, nor did I freshen up on it beforehand. I had it all planned out, but she had a different one.

1 in 100 babies get something called "pneumothorax", which is basically air outside the lung. One of her alveoli collapsed and cause air in the pleural space, so she got to spend the next several days in the NICU. It was weird coming home with no baby, and sitting down at the table with no belly. Thankfully she came home two days later with her big brother Daniel escorting her out.

In March the decision was made to begin homeschooling Payton as well. One of the greatest moments happened when he got into a disagreement with one of the neighbor kids about something he learned in his homeschool text. He got so mad at how he was treated and came home about to cry! Then he calmed himself down, grabbed his book, and backed up his words with the text he learned it from. He came home so proud, and I sat there thankful that he's "getting it".

All the Allsmillers came down in June for a week of fun, its so hard to be apart from my sister at this phase of our lives. Thankfully Apple created just the thing to help us watch our kids grow up instead of see it through pictures, now only if I can get my upgrade already that would be great!

Oh, I cannot leave out how much our marriage has matured and strengthened over the past year. Although we are both far from perfect, we are settling into prioritizing our lives the way the Lord commands us to, and we are seeing the harvest already.

So now that you are up to speed, Im going to finish listening to nothing and go snuggle next to my husband, thankful for every single minute Ive missed blogging about.....