I’m waiting for my flight for a business trip and challenging myself to not cry.

5 years ago, I traveled almost every week, it was sorta fun, but I rapidly decided I wasn’t a road warrior and wanted to settle down and add to my little family.  It’s been more than 6 years since I traveled for work.  After leaving my very capable Superhero husband with my two precious babies after lunch today, I cried almost the entire way to the airport.  Truth is I’m conflicted.  As a mom of two very small children, I’m excited to have two nights away (that was a confession), but as soon as I pulled away in my car with my backpack and luggage for the trip my heart felt sad.

Here’s to looking at the brighter side of life.  For the next two days, I won’t have to make sure anyone goes “potty” before we get in the car or worry about a “diaper explosion” while out somewhere.

Truth I really am glad I have both those regular-life events in my life the majority of the time.

Today was a big day for the Brown girls. It was hair cut day!  Thanks to Mark Hartman at Cognito Salon in Nashville (who normally doesn’t cut little bits hair) for helping us feel like rock stars.

This was Lizzy Lou’s first hair cut and Bug’s first hair cut in a very long time.  Both ended up awesome.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Inspired by my sister’s 2011 blog post (mayorofthebux.com), here’s my 2011 recap:

• January – Must have been a busy month, didn’t blog Did plan to read 15 books this month throughout the year. That would be reading my monthly book club book, plus 3 more books for the year. Celebrated Super’s birthday and our wedding anniversary.
• February – Only posted one blog post – but it’s a super cute picture (go find it, I’ll wait).
• March – Almost the same for March….pictures are even cuter than February. You don’t know this from the blog, but I started reading through the Bible this month, March 21st. Embarrassed to say that I’ve never done that, read through the entire Bible. As of today, I’m 77.8% complete. Thanks to the YouVersion Android app, I’ve been able to stick with reading my daily plan – actually, I’ve been listening to it on the way to work. March also was Bug’s birthday, we had a princess themed party (small just family) and she LOVED wearing her princess costume.
• April – No posts in April. You’d think I was busy or something this past year.
• May – May I started back posting some…my favorite post was about Lizzie Lou eating the coupons at Kroger.
• June – June was big. We went to the beach and it was amazing. We also took Lizzie Lou to the allergist, which didn’t yield great results (we got those later in the year). The beach trip was one of the items on my dream list and this trip did not disappoint. We also went to the lake.
• July – July is a big month – it’s the annual Mt. LeConte trip and this one was the best yet. For one, both my sisters were there. Great trip. I also received a print that I’ve searched for on line for several years. The print is now hanging up in my office.
• August – Lizzie Lou turned 1 this month. We also had some challenges with Bug and her bladder, thankfully we’re much better now. Went to Cheekwood (another items off my dream list) and Bug got her first set of stitches.
• September – Two life changing things happened this month (one horrible thing, my car was broken into, but we won’t talk about that much). First, I ran a 1/2 marathon. I still can’t believe it. What was even more exciting was that my sweet Dad had shirts made for the event and my sister surprised me at the start line. Second life changing event that happened this month was I changed jobs, back to a place where I feel at home and fit best. This month I also vowed to not run on “low fuel” – I’ve almost succeeded.
• October – We went camping this month and decided that we’d be buying another camper. Girls had such a great time. Had an amazing Halloween (princess and cupcake costumes for the girls). Went to the pumpkin patch, first time and it will definitely be a yearly event.  Stopped running this month, decided I was never going to run again….picked it back up in November.
• November – One of my favorite “mom moments” happened this month, I got a paper from daycare from BUg on how to cook a turkey, go check it out, it will make you laugh.
• December – We had an amazing December. Reindeer Farm, ICE!, Dance recital, Christmas and just being together.

If you made it here. You’re either my sister or my parent. Thanks for staying to the end! BTW – I did achieve my goal to read 15 books, I actually read 26 (details on Goodreads, if you’re interested).

Santa brought Bug a tractor, yes a tractor. Please don’t ask her to sing the tractor song, because she will and it’s very loud.

Santa brought Lizzie Lou a play house.

The girls have had a large time. The parents are thankful for the time together.

Bug has been taking clogging lessons for a while. This replaced the painful (for her and everyone else involved) ballet lessons.

Today was her recital. It was epic.

In the group picture she’s the smallest one, last one on the right. Her little troupe danced to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in their pajamas.

Thankful we got the max number of tickets available, 10 and could have used more! Her Aunt Dani-e-yell brought her flowers!

It was wonderful, but I was a nervous wreck! She however was not and danced beautifully!

Random.

Lizzy Lou loves forks and spoons. They are her new happy.

Merry Christmas.  We may not have our tree up yet or wrapped any presents, but our hearts are filled with the spirit of Christmas. I am giddy with the thought of how much fun Christmas is going to be this year.

Are you excited about Christmas? Are you going to ICE?

Trying to remember that every day is a day to be thankful, thankful for these people in my life. Every day is an opportunity, one that shouldn’t be wasted.  I read an awesome article this morning that reminded me that there are thousands who would love to have my lot in life….that was sobering, thinking that there were thousands who would like to trade places with me.  I’m not going to waste this opportunity.