Well last New Year's Eve, as I was writing out my super-fun and wildly ambitious set of New Year's Resolutions, I had no idea that I would find out on the very following morning I would find out that our precious little Shiloh was on his way!

Well, as you can see from my list of 2010 Resolutions below, the year we ended up having (one filled with hospital stays, bedrest and adjusting to the chaos of life with 4 kids) precluded the fulfillment of some of these goals. Here's my list from last year with notes for the ones I actually fulfilled!
2010 New Year's Resolutions!
1. Learn a yummy new recipe and make it for dinner guests ***Received amazing chicken enchiladas from Christina Lane as part of the food tree my friend Allison set up after Shiloh was born. I have since made it for several dinner guessed and passed along the food tree joy to our friend Rachel when she had her baby!***2. Write a poem and submit it to a literary magazine
3. Paint a lovely picture to hang in the house
4. Photograph my Mom & Dad
5. Learn to knit
6. Take a random road trip to somewhere I've never been before ***Jason and I took an awesome-tastic trip to New Orleans and up the Gulf Coast last spring. It was such a refreshing break, and I loved getting to see the Big Easy in person!!***7. Let Autumn teach me to do a
scorpion8. Send a cheerful letter to someone who isn't expecting it
9. Stand up for myself on one occasion when I might have otherwise let someone make me feel bad ***Oh, I accomplished this one alright. : ) Perhaps a bit too much, but I definitely graduated from my doormat status with certain overbearing individuals who shall remain nameless!!***10. Organize a girls' shoot day with my fabulous female photog friends
11. Read a good book that makes my heart happy and share it with someone ***I read several Karen Kingsbury series and shared a couple of them with my mom... Speaking of which, Jen, I need to get those back to you! Also, I passed The Rules along to my previously mentioned friend Allison. Single girls across the land, read it!! : )***12. Find an item at a junk store and fix it up to put somewhere in the house***Well, it wasn't for the house, but we did this with several awesome pieces for the Studio, so I'm going to count it!***13. Submit a photograph to
Time Magazine14. Plant some flowers outside and try not to kill them ***Well, I at least got the planting part right, but I did, in fact, manage to kill all of them!***15. Learn a new song on the piano
16. Redecorate our bedroom for less than $500 ***Well, I'll count this one as done since after the move we repainted and converted the nook in our new room into a beautiful little nursery area for Shiloh. Close enough, right?***17. Write a letter to the editor
18. Get the ghetto van painted
19. Take the kids hiking in a new place ***We hiked out at Lake Fort Smith (new!) and several times at Devil's Den (not new), as well as at Little Missouri Falls and maybe once or twice up on Rich Mountain. Not bad considering everything else that went on this year!***20. Buy an outfit I wouldn't normally wear and wear it out on a date ***I'm going to let the Lady Gaga party count for this one. It was definitely an outfit I wouldn't normally wear!! : )***21. Learn a few phrases of conversational Spanish that don't involve
cucumbers22. Do at least one thing a month that makes me happy! : ) ***This one was for sure accomplished... It was a great year!!***We also ended up doing a bunch of really cool stuff that wasn't on the list. In 2010:
1. We opened a Studio just off Dickson Street
2. We completed our family with a precious baby boy
3. We moved to a new house that is absolutely perfect for our family
4. We had many adventurous mini-weekends to places like
Eureka Springs,
Branson,
Chicago,
Hot Springs,
Tulsa and
Dallas5. We paid off a lot of our
debt (yay!!)
6. We learned that
Jamie is going to give us a little niece in April. (double yay!!!)
7. Jason was interviewed on NPR about a photo series he did with Philip Thomas in Picher, Okla.
8. We figured out that the kids are
rock-star snowboarders!
9. We photographed 41
weddings, numerous
magazine covers and spreads and countless
portrait sessions.
10. And to top it all off, we had a blast doing it!! : )
All in all, I would say 2010 was a pretty great year. Despite its various trials, rough spots and adjustments, we survived. No, we more than survived... We rocked it out! Now for 2011...
My New Year's Resolutions this year are short and sweet. For those of you who may not know this (I'll spare you the gory details either way), for 3 and a half of the last 5 years, I was terrorized by a certain unscrupulous person who shall remain nameless. Like I said, I'll spare you the details, but it was bad. Really really bad.
Thank the Lord (and I don't mean this in an offhand way, I actually mean that I truly thank God), this person is completely and totally out of our lives now. And now that I have had a little bit of a chance to recover from the madness, I plan to spend 2011 facing down the demons in my head that the fear and uncertainty this person created for our family left behind. This will be a year of joy, a year of recovery, a year of peace and a year of triumph. Because despite all the insanity this person put us through, we are still here, still standing, still happy and stronger than ever before. They say living well is the best revenge, and if this is the case, I would say we are doing that job pretty nicely! : ) But more than revenge, I want joy and peace. So that brings us to my 2011 list. Like I said, it is short and sweet.
1. Start a book about what we went through (I don't have to finish it... Just starting it would be enough to make me happy!)
2. Live consciously.
3. Be filled with joy, and overflow that joy to others at every chance I get.
I think if I can do all that, it will be a pretty good year! I also plan to end my Holiday Sabbatical from my Body after Baby mission and get my butt back in the gym, and hopefully also attend to some of the fun things that went undone on last year's list, but mostly I just want our family to have a year of happiness and peace. I think we deserve it, and I know it will happen.

So Happy New Year everybody! Here's to 2011 being the best year yet!!