Happy New Year's Eve!

Wow...I can't believe that I haven't posted in several days.  I went back to work this week and almost every night, we've had something going on.  Despite our busy-ness, we were busy together as a family which is nice for a change.  Therefore, I opted to take a super quick bloggy break.

Something I also can't believe is that we are bidding 2010 goodbye already.  I looked back at my blogs over the past year and here's a highlight of the year for the Taylor family:

January - Date nights, snow and experiencing God healing deep wounds in my life.

February - A new nephew was born!

March - Jenna becomes a Christian and God told me in no uncertain terms I was to go to South Africa.

April - I took part in a couponing panel for a group of advertisers.

May - Jenna was baptized and of course, the Nashville floods

June - I lost my brother Danny

July - Decided we wanted to adopt and started researching agencies

August - Vacation and officially accepted into the China adoption program at AWAA

September - Left for South Africa, but immediately before that, I lost my brother David.

October - Survived re-entry from South Africa

November - iPad giveaway announced and we sent in our USCIS application

December - Received our USCIS appointment cards, drew and iPad winner and named our new daughter...KYLIE!

As you can see, it was an evenful year.  It was the 2nd year in the last 3 that I lost 2 loved ones.  The whole year Steve looked for a job and by the end of the year, he had started online classes.  But when I look back over the year, I feel like the year was just dripping with God's provision for my family.  I would love to do a post on all the ways He has blessed us over 2010, but there wouldn't be room for it all.  And if I'm being honest with myself, this year, ironically enough, I have probably spent more time being mad at God, doubting Him and just in general, flat out not talking to Him.  And yet He has continued to show up in our lives over and over again.  Isn't that the way with parents though?  Those of you with teenagers especially know...no matter how hateful they are to you and how long it is between times that they do more than grunt at you or ask you for things, you still love them unconditionally and provide for their every need.  Because that's what parents do.  That's what LOVE is.  Thank God, He is One that pursues.

Looking back, I had really only two goals for this year other than taking each day as it came (which by the end of 2009, would have been an accomplishment) and that was to participate in a 5k and blog more.  I fulfilled my 5k duty, no thanks to my laziness, but to my boss who basically pushed me into the car to the race.  As for blogging, well, I felt like I did better with that, but when I look back, I will have published 133 posts in 2010, 158 in 2009 and 161 in 2008.  Even though I felt like I did better, clearly I did NOT.  I tell ya, something happened in 2010 and I just couldn't seem to find my groove at home, work or anything that used to bring me comfort through its routine.

But enough about what I didn't do and a little about what I'm going to do in 2011.  I don't do resolutions because that seems to be jinxing myself to fail!  I just make a list of things I'd like to change in my life.  Which, I realize are really the same as resolutions, I'm just not calling them that, but this is MY blog and that's how I roll.  :)

For 2011:

1.  Get back to being friends with God.  I say it that way because I have a couple of friends that I talk to about things way more than I do God.  And they are my bestest friends.  Why should the God of the Universe and the One who has blessed me abundantly more than I could ask or imagine be any different?  Any less special to me?  I want to change that.  I'm not going to define what that will look like because it's more of a personal change, but in general, that's what I desire.

2.  Get my groove back.  I thrive on routine, organization, lists etc.  I feel like 2010 found me floundering all over the place.  I want to find the comfort in routine again.

3.  Get caught up on some of my scrapbooking projects.  I want to be more intentional about it.  Scrapbooking 2 long weekends out of the year at a retreat is no longer cutting it.  I have to get back to my once a month scrapbooking if I'm going to keep up.

4.  Read more.  In 2009 I read upwards of 40 books.  That's a stinkin' lot of reading.  But I burned out.  And pretty much ignored my family a lot.  So in 2010, I read a whopping 12 books.  Which obviously is one a month and that's not bad, but still...UGH.  I need to find that happy medium.

5.  Continue to pay it forward where I can.  So many of God's blessings for us this year have been financial and through the generosity of others.  You have never experienced a humbling experience until you have watched 200+ people (many of them complete strangers) buy iPad tickets or t-shirts to help fund your adoption.  Or have received numerous gift cards in the mail sent by anonymous friends when times were hard.  Our lives have been changed this year and it's certainly been a work in progress.  And we'll never be able to repay everyone, so instead, we want to pay it forward.  I hope 2011 brings Steve a job to allow us to do more in this area.

And that's it.  Right now, I'm about to make a list of things I need to do in this last-for-a-long-time long holiday weekend.  Because you know how I love my lists!

Happy New Year's Eve!