All You Need Is Love

I love holiday card time. I love receiving real mail with good tidings from friends near and far. I love seeing family photos that track the yearly march onward and reading about accomplishments and other goings on. Holiday cards weren't really my thing until I had kids. But now they are. I guess that's what maturity and motherhood will do.

Although it's hard to believe that the year is nearly complete, here we are. What a lovely year it was. Here are some highlights:

Lila turned three in September. She is most certainly no longer a baby. She rid herself diapers (during the day anyway) and transitioned to a big girl bed. She is a little person through and through and has the most wonderful of personalities - feisty and loving and stubborn and happy. She also moved into the intermediate room at daycare - where almost all of the kids are older than her. But she loves it all the same. This year, at Thanksgiving, she said she was thankful for flip flops. It's appropriate because she loves flip flops more than just about anything. Except maybe her brother. She really loves him.

Speaking of Benny (how's that for a transition?), he's doing pretty swell too. Although he would never admit it when his friends are around, he loves his sister. They enjoy playing with each other. While fights happen, they are few and far between. He's in first grade (first grade?!?) at our local neighborhood school. He likes his teacher and seems to make more friends every passing week, which makes sense because he's a friendly and fun-loving kind of guy. This semester he's taking after school art and Spanish classes in addition to swim classes. In January, he'll start ski school. Oh, and he's reading pretty well, which makes his bibliophile mama pretty happy.

Nate and I continue to be in awe of these two little creatures - although there are the rare exceptions of evenings when we need a stiff drink after the monsters go to bed. They are ours and they are amazing.

Nate celebrated one year at his new job this summer. It's challenging and busy, but he (mostly) likes it. He occasionally plays in a local band and is serving as the president of the board at Lila's preschool. Never a dull moment.

I've been keeping busy too. Struckman Consulting is thriving now. I'll (hopefully) provide an update for that in a future post. I won't be teaching at the University of Denver this year, which is disappointing, but it's just as well. I've signed three new clients in the past three months. I'd be hard-pressed to find time to plan and teach a class any time in the near future. I've been riding my bike (nearly) everyday for the past year. It's been a great experiment/adventure and I don't see myself changing any new habits.

It's strange to reflect on an entire year in a few short paragraphs, but it's a good reminder that time does indeed march on. I'm very excited to see what 2014 has in store!