And the Award Goes To...

My Christmas cards never made it past the first few layers in Photoshop. My master bedroom has been half-painted and we've been living in the spare room since November. I have half torn down, ugly, black curtains hanging in my dining room and all the supplies to put up new ones...since...you guessed it...November. My blog has been sitting empty, sad and neglected for months now. I would call myself an aspiring optimist, except I can't get past everything that looks so bad. ;) I'm always seeing everything half full, half done and half-...well, you know. My husband keeps saying, "It's all good, babe!" My mom is a pro at saying, "...but look what you DID get done!" I'm a work in progress. 2009 flew by with lots of big events for this little family of ours. Many of them...okay...most of them...going undocumented. Well, somebody deserves an award for all that we DID accomplish this year. Drum roll....




Going to the child who knows best how to enjoy a snack and movie (and completely ignores the cries of parents who don't want their couch cushions smushed) is the award for...





Going to the family who gave us a great, big surprise and some seriously needed Sunday dinners is the prize for...


My baby sister and her family came to live near us and we couldn't be happier about it.




To the dog who sleeps with a wiggly child, who allows pulling and tugging and some serious loving goes the award of...


Are those some serious worried eyes, or what? The girls do this far too often, I'm afraid to say. Dressing Jedda up in some getup or another. This day she was super-dog.




Who knew that a 5 year old girl could become so obsessed with dinosaurs of all things? This child amazes me at the knowledge she acquires. She's all Nate when it comes to sitting and watching documentaries for hours on end and quoting weird animal facts. To the child who makes dinosaurs look like some serious fun goes the award for...





Kenzie's baptism day was one I'll never forget. Family came, we celebrated, we played, we were together. I think that Nate would agree that this day wins the prize for the year as...





For all those moments where I make you all stand still, smile big and look pretty...this is all I get for it... The prize for...





To the most beautiful 8 year old that I've ever seen, who so happily posed and posed and posed some more for pictures on her baptism day goes the prize of...





To the man who goes along with life as it comes, hardly complaining, always looking forward and up, who only ever needs a few minutes out by the water to lift his spirits for weeks at a time goes the prize of...





To the sweet girl who totally pulls off this haircut and who will never let me choose another haircut for her again (she's BIG now, y'all!) goes the prize for...





This week wins hands down. A trip to the coast, a 2 bedroom condo, grandparents along for the ride. This week definitely wins...





Because I just wouldn't be "real" if I didn't include these little "tidbits" of our lives. This child will always win a fight of wills, always. For giving us moments that are full of joy and full of lots of "other" stuff goes the prize of...


For those of you wondering... Kenzie LOVES the beach, more than anything else. It's the one place we see her let loose, quit worrying and just shine. On the second day of our trip Nate and Natalie were catching those teeny-tiny krill fish in buckets and they showed Kenzie. Kenzie realized that millions of those little, live things were floating everywhere in the water. All of the sudden this wonderful, safe haven became another HUGE fear for her to worry over. This is Dad trying to "make" her see that she's not going to die if she touches the water. Guess what? It didn't work. Instead it took Kenzie deciding in her own good time that she would be okay if she went in the water. Typical Kenzie.




And while we're on "typical" moments in our family, we should talk a little about our many attempts at normalcy and fun. This trip would be one of them. Nate and I spent many hiking trips getting to know each other our first year of dating. He loves the outdoors and I do too, I just have the whole anxiety issues that prevent me from enjoying it to the fullest. When you're on that dating high, though, even anxiety couldn't keep me from going on those trips with him. We, of course, want to pass this love of the outdoors on to our children and have tried (multiple times) to give them some enjoyable experiences hiking and camping and boating, etc. Unfortunately, I have passed on my anxious traits to our children and Kenzie brings it all to a new level. Every trip we've gone on has stories that would either make you fall on the floor laughing or shake your head and start crying. Then, I cried...now, I try to laugh. This trip to Horsetail Falls and Multnomah Falls in the Columbia Gorge gets the award for most "typical" Trimble family outing. The pictures are pretty, you get that feeling that we're a family that plays together and has fun when you look at it. That's what we're going for, but only we get to look back on the "real" memories and just shake our heads. Sobbing in the car because shoes don't fit right, screaming on the banks of streams about getting wet or having a fish touch your feet, stomping feet and falling on the ground in defeat because the trail is too steep or too hard to go on, having hysterical panic attacks over mosquitoes (and when I say hysterical, I *mean* it), yelling at us about how boring this all is and why couldn't we have just gone to McDonalds and gotten a happy meal instead. Good times...good times... You'll notice in the picture, if you look close (don't look too close at me!) that Kenzie is giving you a half-smile. She was mad at us about something. Natalie won't even look at the picture, she's mad, as well. This was at the end of the trip and we were headed to the car. We had to make some attempt at recording our history...





At the beginning of Summer our plan was not to sell our house this year. We were going to just enjoy our time together and not stress over trying to buy and sell and move. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned. I had been watching the market so closely for over a year, we knew what kind of house we wanted, what area we wanted to live in, and how much we could afford. When the right house came on the market for a good price, we made an offer and suddenly found ourselves in a contingency to sell our own house within 60 days. The stress was on! I painted and organized and cleaned and packed up and stored and staged our house. Within a week I had it ready to put on the market. I built a website and stuck a sign in the yard and we were off and running. I thought I was going to be sick from the stress this gave me. It turns out that I worried more than I needed to (so typical). The house sold within five days. We showed it seven times and received six offers. We got full asking price and made a deal with a great LDS couple who were more than ready to move in. I seriously couldn't have asked for a better ending. People said we asked too little, but a couple thousand below the other comparable houses got people in the door and the house off the market fast. Well worth not even having to dicker over the details. I wouldn't do it any other way. So the prize for most stressful event definitely goes to having to sell the house...even if it turned out less stressful than I originally had anticipated. I should learn a lesson from this, huh?





Of course, it's always bittersweet to leave one home behind and move on to another. This being our first home, was one with all our blood, sweat and tears poured into it. Many, many regrets and mistakes and joys and experiences later, we said goodbye. It turns out it isn't all hard to say goodbye to. The winner of this prized goodbye would have to be the backyard (although the kids were pretty upset about it this winter when the snows came and we didn't have a hill to sled down)...

We poured ourselves (and way too much money) into getting this yard done. Who knew that having a big ol' hill would be so hard? Mowing was fun, just ask Nate. Having a flat yard now is well-appreciated, although we do miss that view.




And of course, with goodbyes there are always new hello's. And this would be our most exciting one of the year. Moving into our new home... With more work and painting to be done I wonder sometimes what I was thinking, but with twice the square footage, room for guests to come visit, and tons of storage space, I can't really complain.





Of course, during all the midst of this stress and exciting events, there are always those days that stand out amongst the others. This day was one of the bad ones...


My pretty car got smashed, but there are many bright sides to be seen. The girls weren't in the car when it happened, it was just Nate and I. Nobody was badly injured, just some sore muscles and aching backs. Our car was able to be fixed and everything was covered and quickly taken care of (thanks to some super-good insurance coverage - that's just for you, Russ!). Overall, a bad day that could have been so much worse.




And on to the winner of the most bittersweet day...


My baby girl starts Kindergarten. Thank goodness it's only half day and I still get her home part of the time, but it was so bittersweet to walk away from her that first day and pick her up with her big sister after school. Where did the time go?




Fall just wouldn't be complete without a trip to the local Pumpkin Patch. Those places are getting more and more expensive every year! We actually made three trips this past year. One with the Kindergarten class, one with the grandparents and one with the Reeds. I had pumpkins spilling off our front porch. This one definitely takes the prize for...






Halloween was so much fun with family here to share our time with. I had to breathe a sigh of relief when they asked to be a puppy (Kenzie) and a cat again (Natalie). The puppy costume took a bit of sewing on my part (which I prefer not to do...I can't seem to keep my fingers from getting sewed over every time I try to use that machine!), but it turned out adorable. These Halloween costumes certainly take the prize for...






We had such a great Thanksgiving. For the first time ever, we had enough room in our place to house my parents when they came and have our own big Thanksgiving feast. The food was amazing, if I do say so myself. The deep-fried Butterball Turkey was totally prize-worthy...






As much as I like to think I make a good effort at trying to get some exercise in each week, I have to say that the dog won the prize this time...






You'd think this prize came to be because my sweet girls and I are making Christmas sugar cookies together in the warmth of my new kitchen, while Christmas carols are singing in the background, but no... This one was chosen solely for the fact that I not only let them make cookies with me, but that I bit back my "control-freak" nature and let them decorate them all by themselves. They were hideous and malformed and covered in way too many sprinkles and candies, but the girls had fun and I get to say I didn't yell at them once to "do it this way!" or "Wait! That's too much!" A worthy picture to win the...






We're finally nearing the end of this award ceremony. 2009 wouldn't be complete, though, if I didn't have proof that we *tried* to be good parents. Really, we did! The girls moaned and whined and cried and yelled about going sledding every time a single flake hit the ground. We bought snow boots and snow pants and made big plans to go up to the mountains and cut down our own Christmas tree. Then we remembered that this was OUR family we were talking about and how that trip would NEVER go as imagined or hoped, so we bought a tree at Fred Meyers (even that trip was more pain and agony than I care to revisit) and we took the kids to the nearest hill (the church baseball field) and let them sled to their hearts content. Mission accomplished, no long car rides, no trekking through loads of cold snow with whiny, anxious children...I say we did good. What do you think?






And now for my final prize picture of the year... This one is big, people. Like, really, really BIG. If you know us at all, this was an accomplishment of no small means. And I get to take most of the credit for it, as well. No thanks to Nate for helping this job get done...


Yup, you see right. It's my garage...with BOTH cars parked in it!!!! Seriously HUGE, people. HUGE. I get giddy, little butterflies every time I drive up to park in it. Still.




And there you go, more than you wanted to read in one sitting. But it wouldn't be *my* blog if it wasn't verging on a small novel. I don't believe in doing it small. At least I can actually press "publish post" this time and not walk away defeated. And now you know just a tiny bit more about our year. I say *this* deserves an award in itself, right? Right.