School, bad preschool attitudes and pieces of veggies...

So, alot of things are changing in our life. First, I am going back to school! Matt and I took some time to pray and think and plan our life (as best we can!) and feel like the practical and blessed next step for our family is for me to resign my position at work and go back to school. I will be attending Capella University this spring to begin getting my Masters Degree in mental health counseling. Eventually I would like to work in family and marriage counseling, but we will see where God puts me. So exciting! The program is predominately online, meaning, my coursework will all be over the internet with on-site clinical hours as required. This is cool for a few reasons: 1- I get to be home with my girls until Kylie is in kindergarten and Madeline is old enough to go to pre-school, 2- my schedule can be super flexible, 3- I dont have to bother with the classroom setting, which can be distracting. My awesome friend Shannon is going back with me, so we can re-create our own classroom, study with one another and work together on projects. I think this is important because we ARE losing classmate and professor interaction in the traditional sense.

Other updates...Kylie is three now. This means she can yell at me, hit me and be overall hateful one second (simply because this is the right of a three year old, apparently) and quite lovely the next. Speaking of lovely moments, this morning I got back from the gym (TRYING- if I would just eat right- to lose 30 lbs!) and she said, "Mommy! You're home! I missed you and love you really much!" Very sweet.

Madeline will be one in less than 2 months! Holy cow, time flies! She sits and she lunges for toys, trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to get into a crawling position. She is a blast...she continues to be the SWEETEST baby EVER!!! She is just so lovely all-around. She can say Momma and Dadda and she tries to say "baby" and makes noises that sound like "I love you". Sweet! She hates eating vegetable baby food, but loves pieces of veggies. Whatever. :)

We are happy. Since I have my two-week-notice last week, I am stress free for the first time in a really long time. Not that my family and I weren't happy before, but the constant stress was really affecting my family negatively. I am happy now and I feel it in my home's atmosphere. Praise God for closing doors and opening others!