A Thursday morning in January

The usual suspects.

I typically try to avoid writing blog posts that start with "ohmygosh, guys, I'm so sorry it's been so long since my last post", because let's be honest, that would be roughly every other post around these parts, but...

Ohmygosh, guys, I'm so sorry it's been so long since my last post!

These are my top three reasons for being a bad, bad blogger of late:

1. Time Between two young kids, school, karate and everything that needs to happen in a day, I've just found it tough to find the time and the head space to sit down, have something worthwhile to say and then say it (hopefully in a way that will be interesting to someone other than me and my immediate family). 
2. The Holidays Friend, I don't know about you, but the holiday season really took it out of me this year. Between hosting Thanksgiving and spending Christmas with family at a cabin (both of which were lovely and fun and exactly what we wanted to do!), I feel like I haven't had an extra ounce of energy to spare since about Halloween.Which, of course probably has something to do with reason number three:
3. I'm pregnant! Yup, we discovered in mid November that there is another little North baby on the way, and are all completely delighted. Maybe especially the kids, (which is saying something seeing as this little person is already as loved and wanted by his or her parents as anyone could hope to be) who have been doing happy dances and making plans since we told them. But as delightful and exciting as a new baby is, there are a lot of weeks and months of feeling sick and exhausted to slog through before we get to the fun part of actually meeting our tiny little human. Morning sickness is typically pretty tough for me (although not as bad as some ladies I know, who end up in the hospital or on bedrest because they can't keep anything down), and so I've been pretty useless since about Thanksgiving onwards. But we're getting close to the second trimester, so I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that I'll start feeling like a human being again soon.

Another change that has come about is that Gwen started preschool this week. I realize that this might not seem like the most earth shattering of events, but it does mean that I get just over two hours to myself twice a week when both kids are in school. This is momentous! It will only last until the end of May, and then not again until we ship our new little sproutlet off to preschool in about 3-4 years time, so I'm going to enjoy it while I can. In fact, I am enjoying it right at this very moment! And, I should add, so is Gwen, who instantly loved both preschool and her teacher with a fiery passion from the very moment she walked in the door. 

So, hopefully I'll be back next week! There's lots I want to tell you about, a few things I want to show you and one or two things I'd like to ask you about. But before all of that: how was your Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa*/Winter Solstice/Three Kings Day?

*If you celebrate Kwanzaa, you are hereby morally obligated to tell me all about it, because I've never met anyone who does, and I genuinely want to know.