A New Year Begins

Now that we have officially been in Utah for two months I'm trying to get all caught up blogging.  It's going to take a while I think.

We rang in the New Year in our usual fashion but this time we were lucky to have my sister Shannon and her family visiting and we also had the Van Shaar family over for games.  It was a really fun night.  We started with a little dinner warm up with Shannon and family and then had our traditional Brunson New Years Eve dance party.  Super fun with our Gross cousins in on the dance festivities.

Later we brought out the traditional appetizers and shared those through the night.  My pictures are all out of order...so too bad.

These are just some fun ones of Nora because she can eat so well with her utensils.  It's cute.

Yeah for cousins.  These girls just love hanging with Nora so much!  And Nora loves them.

The boys also really like having their older cousin Jeremiah to play with.  Or snuggle on the princess couch...whatever.

Hannah and Nora had matching PJs.  Adorable.

And then a few days later it was cleaning time and who can resist the chance to vacuum?  Not Nora.

But mostly I just think she's so cute in this outfit that I had to pause and take pictures.  Especially when she is "reading."  I love toddlers exploring books.

The many faces of Ben.  Or at least the few he'd let me capture on camera.  The boys are less willing subjects for sure.

And one of Isaac with his very "unnatural" smile.  So funny.

Back to New Years day and church with cousins.  Katie with her mouth open smile is so cute to me too.  When did these girls get so big?

Happy New Year....way way late!  I've been trying to work on my New Years resolution of "parenting with perspective."  I'm trying to see my children's potential and to view them the way God does.  So often I get stuck in thinking they are ALWAYS going to have these very normal, child appropriate, but difficult behaviors.  And so I try and correct and correct and correct when really I probably just need to remember they will grow out of half of the things they do and that it doesn't define their potential.  They won't be hoodlums just because I can't get them to listen all the time right now.  They are just little.  And that's okay.

I hope I can keep working hard on that resolution and remind myself of it often.