Oh, what a year!

On this, the last day of 2009, I would love to write something meaningful to celebrate such an eventful year in our lives. Our family celebrated milestones, said good-bye to loved ones, welcomed a new life, faced challenges and made it through big changes.

But I'm a little too sleep-deprived to come up with the words to properly pay tribute to such an amazing year. So, instead, I'm joining other bloggers in wrapping up the year bloggy-style.


Here, I give you, the first line of every post of every month from 2009. I was surprised at how well this really did re-cap the whole year.

JANUARY

True confession. I'm waking up this morning on Jan. 1 with no New Year's Resolution. This is actually often the case with me.

I would learn later that there was a reason I didn't set any goals for 2009. I would find out in a few months that all things "Emily" would be set aside, and I would be called upon to take on some roles I would not have considered on my own.


FEBRUARY

Oh my, oh my... We are having the most incredible vacation in the history of our family. I wanted to give a quick update and share some photos.


The highlight of February was our vacation to Acapulco for the Discovery Toys incentive trip. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was a trip we won't soon forget. It also was significant for me because this would be the first time in the last five years I made the choice not to set a goal to earn the incentive trip, making our past trip that much more special.

While we were in Mexico, we also lost my Grandma Dot, who had been a very special influence in my life.

MARCH

You might be wondering why I've been writing posts lately about opossums. Then again, maybe it didn't even seem odd to you, which is a really scary thought.


March marked one of my hilarious encounters with wildlife when THE opossum moved into our garage. Oh, what fun I had blogging about that guy. It even brought out the poet in me.

I also kicked off my own 40 Days of 40 countdown to my milestone birthday and unleashed my inner rock star.

APRIL

OK. I think I'm starting to understand. Seriously. It's all starting to make sense.

How could I recap the year without mentioning all of my posts about my favorite TV show, Lost? This was one in which I had reached the height of confusion about what was actually happening last season.

MAY

About five weeks ago, my friend, Julie, invited our family over for a cook-out. Julie is a busy woman, so I really didn't think anything of the fact that we had to make our dinner plans so far in advance.

I celebrated my 40th birthday in April with more celebrations than any one person should be allowed to have for herself. And then my girlfriends topped it all off by surprising me with this one the first weekend in May. I am blessed!

I also got serious in May, blogging about the topics of autism and allergies.

JUNE

Have you ever had a time in your life during which everything seemed to be falling apart?

And then there was June, the month in which I revealed what had really been on my mind the past few months. I was pregnant. We were going to home school. And I started blogging about my advanced maternal age.

JULY

A few days ago, I mentioned that my husband and I were planning to get away for a few days without our kids.

July was the month of vacations. CapableDad and I visited the Smokies without kids. We camped. And we joined four generations of family for a get-away that I wrote about in August.

Oh, and we also found out we were having a GIRL!

AUGUST

We are home from our little get-away with family.


Our high-flying family really got into the swing of things on that trip.

SEPTEMBER

Monday was our first day of school at home! The day went better than I expected...


And then we got down to business in September. We started our journey of doing school at home.

OCTOBER

Despite the fact I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, I still found myself running around like a crazy woman at 9:15, shouting, "Has ANYONE seen my Hannah Montana wig?!?"


By October, the third trimester of pregnancy was taking a toll on my body... and my brain. In this post, I wrote about how I was starting to go a little crazy trying to keep everything straight.

NOVEMBER

Judging from all of the cards and letters I have been receiving, you all have been dying to know what ever happened to my UNBELIEVABLE Seven Day Meal Plan That Never Changes.

We celebrated a Golden Birthday in November, and our anniversary. But the first post of the month happened to be one about my never-ending quest to answer that age-old question: "What's for dinner?"

DECEMBER

Introducing... The one... the only... the cutie pie, the perfectly sweet baby...
Jayda Grace
7 lbs, 2 ounces
20 inches
Born TUESDAY, Dec. 1 at 8:40 p.m.


Awww... And of course, the highlight of our year happened on Dec. 1 when we welcomed this sweet gift to our family.


I'm a little exhausted just reading about all of the events of 2009. I'm ready for a fresh start and optimistic about all that 2010 will bring.

Happy New Year, everyone!

** Head over to Musings of a Housewife to find out what 2009 was like for other bloggers. **

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