New Year's Resolutions

Woo! It's been awhile since I last posted. Needless to say, the holidays are probably the busiest days of my year. Since I last posted, Paul came into town, Danny, Jieun & Abby came into town, I had the busiest day of my entire life, we all went to a Rockets game with three babies, Christmas came and went, the Chais left, we went to the youth retreat for a couple of days, Ellie got rotavirus and puked in Doreen's hands, Matthew got rotavirus and puked all over me (three times), we celebrated New Year's, I got rotavirus but didn't puke, Peter got rotavirus and puked violently, we apparently spread rotavirus to the entire Oh family and Matthew's nursery class at church, and now Paul is leaving tomorrow. And we're all better. Except maybe Paul. We're still waiting on that one.

I always make new year's resolutions. I never keep them past... probably February or so, but I like the idea of a fresh start, a new year, new beginnings. Anyway, here are my resolutions for this year, so people can keep me accountable.

#1 - Pray for Ellie and Matthew each morning before we start the day. (Already broken. I forgot today. Will try to restart tomorrow.)
#2 - Be more affectionate to Peter. I always thought we were fairly affectionate, but a month or so ago, Ginny said she'd never seen us showing affection. For some reason, that really bothered me.
#3 - Invest in someone's life outside of my family. Still not sure where that one's going, but I think God will show me the way.
#4 - Be more grateful in general.

OK, the last one is a little vague. I think I take too much for granted, though, so I'm going to make a pointed effort to recognize and acknowledge my blessings. One thing I've been grateful for since the holidays is having good siblings-in-law. Really, the mix of the 5 of us is pretty ideal. Paul and Danny were already friends before Peter and I even dated. I'm certain Jieun and I would've been good friends growing up had we grown up together. All of us mesh very well. And now that it's been so long since we've all been together, there's definitely a high level of comfort among us all. It's nice. Here are some more specific examples:

Paul baby-sits. All the time. He may have spent more time alone with Matthew at this point than Peter has. And there are no qualms about diaper changes, even poo. He once did EVERY SINGLE available game on Sesame Street online with Ellie. It took almost two hours. Last night I complained to Peter that he hadn't had a conversation with me in awhile, and Paul knocks on the door unknowingly. Peter springs on him that Uncle Paul is going to read Ellie three books and put her to bed. Without flinching, he smiles and takes Ellie up, then even allows her to kick him repeatedly until she falls asleep. Good stuff.

Jieun puts in huge amounts of effort to communicate effectively with Peter. She over-enunciates, makes grand sweeping gestures, and moves her lips a lot when she talks to him. We were playing Karaoke Revolution one night after the kids were all sleeping. Since we couldn't turn the volume up loud enough for him to hear, Peter wasn't really playing. Jieun decided he should be included, so to level the playing field, they sang Take On Me on mute. I almost wet myself watching them try to find the right key and pitch. Anyway, whereas Danny and I were content singing ourselves, Jieun made a point to include my poor husband.

Yeah, so I'm grateful. I probably don't say it enough. It'll be interesting to see who Paul ends up adding to the mix. Pressure's on!

By the way, sorry to anyone else we gave rotavirus to. We didn't mean to. I think the count is up to 8 now. :(