MamaBlogga

First off, I must begin today with a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Ryan. I won’t tell you how old he is, but I will say it’s his “golden birthday.” I envy anyone who can remember their (his/her, if you’re the grammar police) golden birthday, since I was two for mine.

Anyway. You’d think that choosing happiness would be easy. We all want to be happy, don’t we? And it would seem that realizing that being happy is a conscious choice and making that choice is the hardest part, wouldn’t it?

But it isn’t always. If it were, then everyone would be happy all the time, and obviously we’re not. The first five entries in the GWP highlight difficult times to be happy in and sometimes difficult decisions.

• Choosing Happiness from the Pit of Home Renovations by Kate Baggott
• How could I NOT by Janean
• Choosing Happiness At Home by Summer
• Cold Turkey for a Week by Lindsey
• Happiness, Now! by Mama Zen

And for some variety, I’m going to add a few posts that I’ve come across that seemed to fit in with the theme:

• Grace In Small Things 1 of 365 be Karen of MiscMum, which turned me on to:
• Grace in Small Things – Waging a battle against embitterment since 2008. The project is basically to list five small things that make you happy or make you think of grace each day.
• Fog by Lucy of An Ordinary Mom—an honest, deep look at how difficult it can be to make this choice.
• Why Comments Matter by Jane of What About Mom—parallels between blogging and motherhood, always good . Taking it to the next level, validation, even better .

Have you seen any posts around the blogosphere about choosing happiness?

This project has ended.

It’s been a really long time—a MamaBlogga Group Writing Project is way overdue. In honor of one of my resolutions this year, the theme for the January/February Group Writing Project is “Choosing happiness.”

As always, feel free to go in any direction that appeals to you. Even if you don’t choose to participate, you can encourage others to participate!

• Your post can take any form as long as it reflects this theme—this includes anything from serious to sarcastic, about your children, your future children, your pet, etc.
• You can participate with a blog post, a podcast, a video, a page on your website, etc., etc. If you don’t have a website, contact me and I’ll be happy to publish your entry here on MamaBlogga.
• Only NEW posts (i.e., posts have not been published prior to 27 January 2009) are eligible. Posts must be submitted through the submission form before Wednesday, 4 February 2009.

Why participate?
There are lots of reasons to participate! All entries that meet the guidelines will be listed and linked to here on MamaBlogga. This an opportunity for you to discover new blogs (and for others to discover yours!). Also, see how you can get the most out of the GWP.

And, of course, there is one more incentive: one lucky post author, drawn at random, will receive a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com (to be announced Thursday, 5 February 2009).

Finally, we’d appreciate it if you linked to this post or to the guidelines/submission form on your entry post so that others can learn about the project and participate.

Previous Group Writing Projects:

• May 2007: Dear Children
• June 2007: Three things I want my kids to . . .
• July 2007: Thanks, Mom
• September 2007: Motherhood is . . .
• October 2007: The best things about this age
• November 2007: I’m grateful for my child(ren) because . . .
• December 2007: The best time of the year
• January 2008: Me time
• March/April 2008: Savoring the season
• August 2008: The new normal

I can’t remember how long we’ve had this tradition, but every year, my mom would let us open one gift on Christmas Eve—and it was always pajamas (and virtually always flannel pajamas).

This year, Hayden and Rebecca got pajamas that match all their cousins’ (thanks Aunt Toria!). You can see Hayden’s beloved monkey pajamas with his bike on Christmas morning.

Keeping with the animal theme, my mom got us reindeer pajamas!

Here’s our happy family in front of my in-laws’ Christmas tree:

I especially like Rebecca’s “what up” expression.

But Rebecca seemed to like her PJs very much:

As promised, more photos from our Christmas celebrations!

Hayden and his gift from Santa: a bike!

Baby’s first Christmas (with Aunt Jess):

Hayden the reindeer:

Yes, we did celebrate Christmas—but with all the traveling and then the recovery, I haven’t had a chance to get around to posting any pictures from a very fun Christmas with my in-laws. But that’s changing today!

These are from our ward Christmas party:

Hayden saw that Santa was giving other children small bags of candy. So while we were in line, I asked Hayden what he was going to ask Santa for and he wisely chose “Nanee!”

Rebecca wasn’t too impressed with Santa.

But she’s Santa Baby!

(Before we get started: Heads up! GWP next week! Email me if you’d like a reminder!)

Boots are so in. So I know you’ll be terribly jealous when you see what I’ve recently added to my wardrobe. And let me tell you, it doesn’t just look hot—it’s custom fit, with a sole like walking on a cloud:

Yeah, so, that running a 5k in less than 2 months from now? :\ Possible stress fracture FTW. Hooray for going running five times before crippling myself.

(It’s possible that after recovery, assuming recovery takes as long as the doctor said it would, I’ll still have just enough time to finish training for a 5k in time to run the one I wanted to. And if not, there’s another one every few weeks. You know, if I don’t come close to breaking myself again.)