2018!

Well.  This year didn't go quite as I had planned but only in the best possible way.  We had two pretty big life changes this year - getting a surprise Sam and then Luke starting kindergarten.  I cried a lot more about one than the other (the latter, somehow) but both changed our lives and our days.

Getting Sam and all the delight and love he's brought to our lives has been the best part of the year.  The best kind of surprise.  That day when we went from not knowing about him to being legally responsible and meeting him within 5 hours...probably the craziest day of my life.  I remember thinking while we were running around in the middle of it "People are going to be SHOCKED when we tell them about this" and being in shock most of the day, for weeks myself.  It was a tough adjustment, adding a baby out of nowhere to our lives.  We got him on March 4th and I remember very little about the rest of the month besides being tired and utterly delighted that we finally had the baby we had been waiting almost 4 years for.  He completely changed our lives.

Other things happened besides getting a baby, Luke turned 5, we took both sets of parents (all 4 of the boys' grandparents) to New York City with us in May, a trip that was largely booked and paid for when we got Sam 11 weeks earlier.  We were watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this year and I looked at Matt and said "We were in New York this year but I really don't remember much of it."  Between still being in a new baby fog, making sure we didn't lose any of our 8 person group, and fighting rain...it's not that the trip wasn't memorable but I was pretty stressed for weeks leading up to it.  And new baby memories kinda trump New York memories.  (That just means we need to go again soon, right Matt?????)

We spent time at the lake this summer, trying to fix our pontoon* and taking turns taking Luke out on the jet ski.  I realize now how nice of an age Sam was for his first lake summer.  This "crawling and trying to eat everything" stage would be much harder than his "I just eat, sleep and poop" stage he was at most of the summer.  Next summer should be fun with him there, we are all (besides Sam who doesn't know what he's in for) looking forward to full family jet ski rides again.

(*That is Matt and his brother trying to fix the pontoon, my sister-in-law and I were usually keeping an eye on kids and maybe having a drink, this arrangement worked out well for us.)

Then Luke started kindergarten in August.  That was a big adjustment.  I still miss the mornings we didn't have to leave the house in the dark and cold and didn't have to plan naps around school pick-up but overall it's been a pretty good transition.  Luke LOVES school even if he doesn't like waking up (getting him to GO TO SLEEP early is still a struggle).  He is a very social kid and he's made a bunch of new friends.  It's strange how quick he seemed to grow up once he started school but I also miss being with him pretty much all the time and having a lot more control over his life (his vocabulary has expanded and not always in good ways).  It's also been really nice to have one-on-one time with Sam while Luke is at school and a relief that I am no longer solely in charge of Luke's education (after one year of trying to homeschool preschool, I get why most parents outsource that.  Check in in a few years to see what we decide to do with Sam!)

We went to Las Vegas in the fall which was a lot of fun but probably not typical "Vegas fun".  Taking two kids along kinda changes things.  The weather was fantastic and it was a nice family getaway in the middle of fall.  I was less stressed leading up to Vegas than New York but flying with a baby** (and a horrible cold) was not my favorite.  But still glad we did the trip.

(**More flying with formula and his gear, Sam really did great on the flights.)

And then time marched right on through to the holidays!  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.  It's so exciting to have TWO boys to celebrate with this year even if one seems mostly interested in eating the tree and all the ornaments (WHY?!?!) and the other keeps trying to convince us Santa is real.***  There is a reason the bottom foot of our tree is pretty bare right now.  But, keeping ornaments and tree parts out of the baby's mouth is a small hassle compared with how excited we are that he's here to celebrate with us.

(***But not so much so that he is willing to bet all his presents on it, I keep offering to take away everything we've bought for him under the tree and if Santa is real, Santa will bring him presents on Christmas morning...Luke changes his mind back to "Santa is pretend" pretty quick then.)

The only picture of me running I have from the whole year.  I look incredibly pasty white.

Life is a lot different than it was a year ago.  We have double the kids and our days revolve around school runs.  I've read fewer books this year, blogged less, run much less, and we've taken on much fewer home projects.  Life feels and looks so much different than it did when I wrote this post last year but I can't feel anything but incredibly blessed and lucky with how 2018 went.  It was far from perfect at many times but it was still good.  I'm fairly confident that 2019 won't bring a baby for us and it's nice to not be expecting the unexpected for the first time in years (but then, from the way we were SHOCKED with Sam, it was like we weren't expecting a baby last year either).

"Our" biggest home project this year was making a playhouse for Luke in the backyard.  It took a lot of time and is not yet done.  I did zero percent of the work, other than giving design input a few times.

I am a pretty hardcore planner (Matt requested off his summer 2019 vacation days in August of 2018, because I had most of next summer planned out before this one was over) but the best parts of my life have been the things I couldn't and wouldn't have planned - meeting Matt and doing a long distance relationship for years but then getting to marry him, the adoption process and waits for both boys but then getting them in the end.  As much as I like to be in control, God is showing me time and time again that I am not and that His ways are better than my ways.  I don't have the life I would have picked for myself 15ish years ago but I happen to love the one I got.  I can't look back at this past year and be anything but delighted with how it turned out for the 4 of us.  God is good.

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