Bring on 2016!!

Another year is here! I'm really not sure where 2015 went...no wait, I do know where it went...it went into a new house and all the busy-ness that comes with that! Really, the year disappeared. But this year I'm determined to follow my mantra of late...stay. No more disappearing. Just stay. Don't look around the room and see what needs to be done, stay. Don't think about that long list of to do's, stay. Don't plan what you're going to say next, listen, stay. It's a bit like be present, be in the moment, which I've had as my mantra in years past, too, except that's too many words really; I want to take it a step further and simply say to myself, when I feel the wandering in my brain: stay. Maybe that will make the year stay, too? It's gonna be a good year- we have so much to be thankful for, so much to celebrate, so many big moments to stay in. Let's not say the year disappeared next New Year's, let's be able to say we held on tight, we did what actually mattered each and every day, we stayed.

So. New Year's Eve. We rang in the New Year rather bleakly around here...fighting the stomach bug, which I think I mentioned. We did get out to the Museum of Science & Industry on New Year's Eve Day as last posted and we did indeed celebrate that night with pizza muffins for dinner and sparkling berry juice. That's about as festive as we got for the night. No poppers, no balloons, no fancy dessert- I felt bad for my family, but it was just such a week. (And we missed our friends out in Portland terribly, that didn't help me feel any more festive. They celebrated New Year's Eve with us last year, our last hurrah with them before they moved days later.) Annabel wanted nothing to do with the sparkling juice. Daniel tried it, though, which surprised me; I loved his innocent little face as he held the glass we put it in, but then, check out that "yuck!" face below- it's the bubbles that get my kids every time. They won't go near carbonated drinks. I'm not complaining, I'm actually glad- it's better for them not to! Anyway, it was still fun to try the juice out with the kids! And I actually liked this sparkling juice, I don't like many, but this, this was a winner in my book!

Then 2016 started off with donuts for breakfast, at Annabel's request. Yes, that would be the girl most recently hit with the stomach flu, but she made exceptions in her limited flu-y diet for sweets...never one to pass those up, eyes bigger than her stomach and all...although she did only eat like two bites. Just as well. Still, the rest of us were feeling fairly human and ate our fair share. The rest of the day passed in a blur of fun with cousins, decluttering, playing, and just general resting up. Hello 2016. We know how to party it up don't we?! I think I even struggled to stay up til midnight that night, and for me, that's unusual, night owl that I am. Oh well. There's always next year, but first, we're gonna take this year nice and slow. No disappearing.

Then, today (talk about slow, we're 6 days into 2016 already), Annabel and I headed to a local pop-up calendar store to get her a new wall calendar (after much deliberation, oh the choices!, she picked a My Little Pony calendar- she's quite happy!). I also picked up a coloring page-a-day calendar for me which we promptly came home and started since we had 6 days to catch up on. It was so fun! I have a feeling though that this will be more the kids' calendar than mine...

Cutest story ever- Annabel was so excited to show Daddy our new calendars when we got home. When she showed him mine (the page-a-day one), she explained "Daddy, this is an advent calendar. But not for Christmas. It's for every day of your LIFE!"

And you know what- "advent" can also be defined as the arrival of a notable event (it's not just for Christmas, in other words)...but maybe the notable can happen every day of your life, maybe every day's arrival and very being should be notable and noted...life shouldn't slip by unnoticed, let's make each day, each moment count in 2016. Stay and take note. These are the days. (Have I lost it yet?) (This one is 10,000 Maniacs, by the way...some good lines.) Ooh- again- These are the days. (Van Morrison- yep, more gems.) Even Keith Urban had it down- These are the days. Got it? Got it. I may need to add these songs to my new Fire tablet (Ben is trying to get me to move forward with the times- I do like it so far...it's handy and fun. And I totally did buy that one song- I Was Here- that I always said I'd buy the first time I had MP3 player capability!) Okay, enough waxing poetic; go, be, have a Happy 2016.