Happy New Year! 21 months old!

Happy New Year Everyone! Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. It is hard to believe we have said good bye to 2010 and are starting 2011! This has definitely been an exciting year of firsts for us! We celebrated Brody's 1st birthday, his first steps and his first words which have been the highlight of our year as parents. Brody also developed his personality this year, which is a very sweet, calm and loving little boy (and did I mention extremely handsome!?!). We have to attribute that to the fact that one of us is always with him all the time, and for that fact we are truly blessed. He continues to amaze us everyday and we can't wait to see what this new year brings.

2010 was Daddy's most successful year at his job thus far. He has been super busy bringing in new clients and new projects. In the matter of one day he landed two of his largest projects totaling well over $100,000. Over the past month he has brought in over $700,000 in new projects. We are so proud of him and all that he does that allows us the lifestyle we have. Most exciting for us is a huge project he is working on with Niabi Zoo that we will all be able to go see as a family in the Spring. Daddy is traveling this week in Houston, Texas and will be in Kansas City next week. With all the success comes more and more travel but we make it work!

Another exciting event in 2010 that has just been finalized in the past few months is Mommy's parents, Grandpa Mel and Grandma Diane, bought a restaurant in Port Byron, IL. As many of you know, Grandpa and Grandma own some land out on the river in Cordova, IL just across from Princeton Beach. We spend a lot of time out there in the summer and this year we will be taking Brody out as he is a little older now. Our parents came across this restaurant several years ago where you can cook your own meat (steaks, pork chops, chicken, etc) and it instantly became a favorite of theirs. We have been there as well and really enjoyed it too. The restaurant closed a few years back and Grandpa Mel decided to buy it. This has been a dream of his for years and we have to admit we are all excited as it gives us a neat place to go and eat whenever we want. We wish them the best of luck as they open in a few weeks and will give more details as the opening come closer.

Mommy has kept herself super busy this year as well. In addition to staying home with Brody, she also watches our two year old nephew Jackson during the week which chasing around a 2 year old and almost two year old is enough to keep anyone busy! She has also been working two or three days a week at her part time job.

When we talked about new things we wanted to do in the new year it was hard to come up with anything because things are going really well for us the way they are. Our sole focus is on Brody and spending all our time with him and doing fun things as a family which we will continue into this new year. We spent New Year's Eve at our family's new restaurant. Brody and Jackson had a lot of fun running around and playing in all this new space. Brody tried his first hot dog and loved it. We didn't make it til midnight but I don't think we have since the year before we got pregnant! :)

Brody has become quite the little "tool guy" with the two new tool benches and all the tools he got for Christmas. He will take his hammer to just about anything and try and "fix it". He has also really gotten into his cars, car wheelie garage and car spinner. If we ask him where his cars are he will go find one and take it to the garage or spinner and send it down the chute. Very cute to watch. His new words right now are "cheese, WOW, and woah." He is still very interested in reading and even though he has four shelves full of books on his book shelf (not to mention a few storage containers under our bed with holiday themed books), Mommy went and bought him a few new books this weekend. He will literally sit on our laps and read for hours on end. Makes us feel really good as parents as Mommy has read to him every day since before he was born. When he brings us a book we tell him to "park it" and he knows that means sit on our laps so he will turn around and sit down on one of us.

Once again we wish everyone a very Happy New Year and are excited to see what this year has in store for ourselves, our families and our friends. It is hard to believe but in just a little over two months Brody will be a two year old! We are going to begin potty training in the spring/early summer so that is a definite goal of ours this year. We will introduce it and once he really shows interest hopefully things will take off from there. We have heard that boys are much harder than girls so we will see. Luckily Mommy has a ton of patience! Best wishes everyone for a safe, healthy and happy 2011!!