2009 was definitely a time of transitions for us! We celebrated the ‘poof’ of the new year by a candle light dinner of mini-foods, holding hands, giving thanks, looking ahead, and singing endless renditions of ‘Happy Birthday to You”.  Those of you who know me know that I like a little bit of excitement in my life… but I wouldn’t mind a quieter 2010!

Happy New Year Family and Friends.

Listed below are some of the biggest changes for us in 2009:

• Shiya can speak in sentences of four or more words and we finally know what he’s thinking!  He’s quite a character (as you can see below) so it’s been pretty fun to be able to talk to him!

• Emily and Ian got married in a beautiful, personal and touching ceremony.  Only Emily and Ian could pull off something so wonderful in a month.

• Shiya turned 2 and somehow between family and friends we had 15 people at the party!  Below Shiya and Ayrie are hugging their friend Anthony.

• Ayrie and Shiya started school at the University of Minnesota’s Child Care Center

• Nora started a doctoral program at the University of Minnesota.

• Ayrie started seeing Dr. Hartnick at one of Harvard’s hospitals in Boston and we have renewed hope.

• The boys have been able to really get to know a whole new part of their family (ian’s), especially monica and eryn as monica took loving care of them this summer and eryn can play zombie for hours on end.

• We moved into a new, beautiful home, created lovingly by Emily and Ian.

• We left our home of Chicago (the only one Ayrie and Shiya knew) for Minneapolis.

• Ayrie turned 3

• Ayrie and Shiya became friends