New year, and the old one too

Its the new year: January 2009 to be exact.  Right now I am sitting at the new dining table in the new house, having a snack with the boys, one of which is new as well.

By new I mean they’ve arrived on the scene since last January, in 2008.  Needless to say there was quite a few big happenings in the past 12 months.

The past year started off with a bang, with the arrival of Ryan on Jan. 15th.  Ryan has changed a ton in the past 12 months, going from cute and bright eyed, to noisy and nearly walking.  Lots of changes for the newest member of the family.

For his brother Sean, the year has seen much more growth, not only in size, but in confidence, in his speech, and his socialization.  He still is behind his peers on using words, but we are seeing improvements almost daily, and we hope to have him talking and expressing himself even better in 2009 (that and potty trained.  *cross fingers*).

The other major change was the new house.  We couldn’t be happier with the house we moved into.  The decorating and furniture acquisition is still slow, but like a glacier, you don’t see dramatic changes right away, but significant progress gets made over the long haul.  We’ve hosted our first get together (for the Rose Bowl game – ugh, Penn State…) for our neighbors as a means to meeting them.  While we were a bit concerned that the house wasn’t in “show” state, it was fun and gives us encouragement for the next get together later this month (the annual “Red Dwarf Night”).

There were the other events of the year: Red Dwarf for the last time at the old house, another ManWeekend (rousing success), joys of dual children, a vacation with friends for a glimpse into OTHER parenting, and joining the Harrisburg Choral Society board.  But the new son and the new house were the two major events of the year.

What does 2009 hold?  We hope to see even more from the boys; for Sean, more talking and independence, and for Ryan, more walking and talking.  We hope our old house will finally be sold (while still facing the current economic turmoil) so we can begin work on getting the new house into the shape we’d like it (especially getting the downstairs rec room completed).

Here’s hoping that your 2008 was grand, and your 2009 is even better!