i love my birthday.
i especially love spending it with my boys.

i used to share my birthday with my mummo before she passed away. here’s a picture of our first shared cake and the 66 candles that sat on top; one for me, 65 for her! denzel washington also celebrates his birthday with me. lucky me! or him!

my first birthday as a mama with my sweet bear.

as i enter 33 and 2012 i am hoping life will roll a little more easily and smoothly for myself and my family this year. i feel like we deserve a break from all of the turmoil that has been thrown in our faces in the past two years. i want to discover fantastic adventures with the kids, explore life through their eyes and travel this great land we call home. i would like to return to school and finish what i have started, sooner rather than later.

lion trying on my first pair of specs. he LOVED them!

perhaps with 33 i will discover the fountain of patience. although mothering has been easier this past month or so, i know i will be tested tremendously in the coming year. i want to be so much more than just a “good mother”, but fulfilling those expectations of myself are pretty much impossible. and not just patience with my kids, but more so with myself. 
i want to grow more as a person and find who i am again. i am so often only seen as a mother, but i am so much more. but i only have my self to blame for that, i have allowed the other parts of me to disappear under the exhaustion, the busyness and the oh-so predictable routine that has become my life. and not that those things are unpleasant, but they make it difficult to feel free, creative or curious.

********
we are heading up north to bring in the new year with some of our bestest friends! lots of good talkin’, good food and good booze! it looks like there will be snow, so the kids will be delighted to be able to go tobogganing and build snow people and the always popular lumilyhty!


HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!
see you on the other side.
xo