Time For An Update

Time has flown since I last posted.  We celebrated a wonderful Christmas season with family and rang in the New Year with friends.

We spent a good portion of Christmas Eve day with Greg's family opening up gifts and stockings.  With seven grandchildren and ten adults it can take quite a bit of time to get through it all!  Here are some pictures of the fun we had:

Christmas Eve night we spent at home, read books and put out cookies and milk for Santa.

Christmas Day we went to church, then came home for a quick lunch and my parents came over to open gifts.  That evening, we went to my extended family's for dinner.

 Boxing Day we had family pictures taken with the van Leeuwen side of the family, celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday and had yet another family gathering that evening.

And finally, a few other shots from the month of December:

Little Jackson Zachary made his appearance!

The end of this month sees me returning to work and starting a new position.  I am moving from the external reporting side of things at my company and embarking on a new role that involves internal reporting.  My entire career has involved preparing reports and financial statements for outside parties.  I have proven to myself that I can do this type of work and it is time to branch out and create a more well-rounded resume.  I have accepted the position of Manager Promotional Pricing and Rebate Recovery.  In a nutshell, I will be responsible for the collection and recording of almost $30million dollars a year of revenue.  I have been charged with learning this new role and then improving it by creating new processes and systems to bring it into the new millennium.  Big job but a great resume boost.  Greg will be taking on the challenge of staying home with the girls for the last three weeks of my paternity leave.  It's going to be a great opportunity for both him and the girls to be able to spend some quality time together and I think it might even give both of us some appreciation for what it is like to be in the others shoes!

First Snow!

It finally happened - winter has arrived.  I must admit that at the moment, I am enjoying the look of crisp, white snow and the crunching sound underfoot as we walk.  In a few months I may have changed my tune but for now, this is nice.

Christmas preparations are in full swing - shopping, baking and lots more happening daily.  I think this weekend will be the time to set up the Christmas tree - the girls love decorating it and they have been asking for a while now to set it up.

The girls made their first snowman of the year - I stayed inside where it was warm and took a few photos from the dining room window!

Halloween, Birthdays And More

Finally a bit of quiet time after all three girls are in bed to be able to reflect and update our blog.  So much has happened in such a few short weeks that I feel like far more time has passed.  So many things to think about and so many activities keeping us busy as we enter into our winter season.

Peyton is fast approaching the nine month mark and as time marches on, my return to work continues to inch closer.  I am looking forward to getting back into a new routine, stretching my mind again and allowing the professional woman that is hiding inside of me back out into the world.  I am enjoying my time at home very much and I think after three maternity leaves that I have finally mastered a balance between the work that must be done at home and the joy of being able to have fun with the kids.  I also long to use the education that I worked so hard to achieve in a productive way.  This past week has challenged me as a new career opportunity was presented to me and I had some decisions to make with regards to that.  Most of the details have been ironed out with a few more still to be worked through.  More on this climb up the corporate ladder to come once this new assignment becomes public knowledge.

Along with my impending return to work is the issue of who is going to look after our children while I am away from the house.  Tough decision to make and one that I have learned must be turned over to God.  For the past few weeks, I have been searching, calling, interviewing and rejecting potential sitter after sitter and feeling very frustrated with the entire process.  Finally, last week I met her.  She was warm, loving and friendly.  She was reasonable and caring.  Danica and Peyton took to her right away - and so did I.  Her situation is not ideal - she only works Monday through Thursdays and is taking the entire summer off this year.  But, with my dad offering to watch the kids every Friday and with one of our teenage babysitters looking for summer employment, it seems that God has provided everyone that we need to fill those voids.

I feel blessed this evening as all of the worries of the past few weeks have seem to have resolved themselves with some hard work on our part.  And now for the good stuff - updated pictures of the three most important things in our life:

Peyton was not enjoying the leaves.

Our kitten.

Who needs to be a princess when you can be a policewoman or an astronaut??

Peyton checking out her goods at the end of the night.

The final haul of the evening.

Happy 6th birthday Emily!!!

Peyton's first taste of icing - it was a hit!

Glow bowling with 10 six year olds and one four year old little sister...

I have a video of Emily playing in her first ringette game that I will hopefully get up on the blog soon.  It's proving to be a bit of a challenge to download it off of our video camera for some reason tonight so that project will be left for another day.

I took a bit of a tumble this past Friday after slipping on Danica's blanket on our hardwood floors.  I hurt one of my knees and the doctor thinks that I have done some damage to my PCL.  My knee is braced and I need to head off and ice it for a while before heading to bed.  More pictures to come as we begin to prepare for the Christmas season - it finally feels like winter today as we received our first round of snow!