Happy New Year!

The last two months of 2008 have been challenging and busy. James got laid off from DLR group in the middle of November due to the economy that everyone is having to deal with. Luckily his skills are still needed by his old company, so he has done some contract work for them. Also luckily, his coworkers all liked him and some of them have passed on some other contract jobs to him. I have also been able to pick up extra hours at work, so for now we have not yet had to struggle to make ends meet. But January and February are very slow birth months, so not only will I probably not get extra hours, I may get canceled and not even get my normal hours. Hopefully a new job is on the horizon for James. The kids are doing fabulously in school. Juliana has started guitar lessons and has taken to it so easily. Charlie won a spelling bee at school and came in second place in another spelling bee the same day. We had a nice family Christmas even though I had to work part of Christmas Eve. It was a downscaled version of our usual Christmases, but it was wonderful to be together and to all be healthy. We really are blessed. I have a feeling 2009 will be the start of wonderful new things in our lives. Happy New Year to all our friends and family!