2014-A Year End Review

Good morning everyone. It's been a busy week. Holidays are just about coming to an end with New Years a few days away. Christmas Eve, Jill and I hosted dinner at our house. We decided to skip the traditional meal of turkey and sides and decided "to hell with it, let's get creative" and made a cornucopia of different items and everything was delicious. Jill really outdid herself. Next year if we do it again, we'll cut back on the excessive amount of food. Thank you Pintrest for sparking the creative juices in my culitary creative wifey. All the kids enjoyed the presents. Everything Mia opened, she really loved. All the excitement got her pretty worn out and we got her into bed at a mostly reasonable time. For the first time since she's been born, Jill and I put the presents under the tree together, and set up the food for Santa. She wanted to leave a cupcake with a ton of iced sugar she put on it earlier in the day and organic chocolate milk. Blah. Hahaha. She had a great Christmas morning opening everything, and give Jill and I our "gifts" she picked out for us. Later, we packed up and headed down to Illinois.

It was a pretty good drive down to Jill's family's house. For a short while, she'd pull the "ughhhhh this is taking SO long" but mostly, she did well. She opened all of the gifts Jill's family got and played with everything. For a few days, she practiced and practiced shooting her Merida bow and arrow (from Brave) It's hard, the coordination it takes to do it, but she's getting better. The next time I see her, she actually may be way better at it. Other then that, we just simply enjoyed the off-work time. I got up early on Boxing Day to watch Chelsea FC play. Great game. Great goals. Glad we could get the victory after the holiday.

Saturday, I drove back to Wisconsin. It was pretty hard leaving because Mia kept telling me while holding me tight "Don't let go of my hand Daddy. Please don't". As heartbreaking as that was, I had to split because I had work on Sunday. When I got home, I turned on the Pens/Caps game. I shouldn't have. 3-0 loss was terrible. Sunday, I got up early and watched the Chelsea vs Southhampton game. Not the best game, but the draw will have to do. The refs seemed to be making all the wrong calls at times. Next game is on New Years Day (that I'll actually get to watch in NBC in real time) Usually when I watch the game online, it's about 5 minutes off and starts and stops often. I was quite sad to miss two very awesome indoor soccer opportunities yesterday and today. Yesterday, they had a small tournament from 4-7 and today, they have an early afternoon game. Ughh.

Okay, time for the annual Year End Review. A lot of things happened this year, so let's look at the positives first. Mia, has truly developed into this smart little person. She FINALLY became potty trained. It took a lot of work and different techniques, but she eventually decided for herself to become potty trained. She can count to 20, knows the majority of the letters when written in front of her, and can write her own name out. She started school this year, which was awesome. Smarty Pants Learning Center 3k has developed her into being more social with kids and making new friends. She loves her teacher and always looks forward to telling me about her day after school. (most of the time). She sings ALL the time now. When she's playing with her dolls, sitting on the potty, or just playing in the bathtub, she's singing SOMETHING and it's adorable. Jill started an Etsy store Colorful Noise (the name seems familiar) where she was making jewery pieces from Mia's art and selling them. They looked awesome and we'll see if next year she'll do more. We took a trip to both Florida and Indiana this year. Both were enjoyable. Mia loved the ocean in Florida and hanging out with her friend Caleb in Indy. I got to go to a concert this year. My sister and I saw Tegan and Sara at Summerfest. I was torn between seeing The Lawrence Arms in Madison or T&S in Milwaukee. Ended up seeing Tegan and Sara. The wait was insane, but worth it. Still wish I would have seen TLA. In the Fall, I got to play a game of pick up at Brookfield Indoor. It was a lot of fun. No goals, but a few assists made me happy.

Now for some negatives (unfortunately). She's developed the attitude most kids get at this age. (hence why we call her a threenager) and is feisty about eating and what she doesn't want to eat. I swear, its like a hostage negotiation, but we're working on it, and haven't given up. Jill unfortunately lost her Grandma this year. She was a fun-spirited woman who always treated me like one of her own grand kids. Mia really liked her too.  Remi got to visit the vet emergency room twice this year. One injury while hiking (when he broke his toenail) and then recently, he got into a box of raisins.

Okay, let's look at the goals from last year and see how I did.
Another series of great photographs-Not quite. I need to brainstorm still and think of something truly awesome to do.
if the weather cooperates, make a snow-Minion- The weather didn't. Didn't have the best "snow-Minion" making weather sadly. And this winter has been peculiar since we haven't had snow since November.
Draw a portrait of a Chelsea player-DONE! My Didier Drogba picture turned out alright. I'm planning on doing another picture very soon.
Work on my endurance/get in better shape- It's a work in progress. I've been running more with Remi, and a few times, I've been able to get to the park to work on free kicks and overall, just running across the field.

2015 Goals
Create more art.
Continue working on getting in better shape.

That's it. I want these goals to be my focus all year. In 2015, we've got a trip in the spring to Florida, but this time, we'll be going to Disney for a day. Mia will be starting 4k in the Fall as well. Thanks for keeping up with the happenings in my life. See you next year!