We are still here!!!

Well, it seems that only a little time has passed but it turns out I haven't posted anything in 4 months!!! Where have I been you might be asking, well I've been working! Shortly after my last post, in September, I interviewed and was offered a medical assisting job at Auburn Medical Clinic, which is where I had done my externship over the summer. I luckily kept in contact with an MA there and when she decided to leave and accept another position she told her Doc that I was still available and looking for a job and he instantly wanted me there to work for him! It seemed to take forever to apply for the job and interview, but in reality about 2 weeks later I was "interviewed", legally they HAD to ask me questions even though the Doc was already decided and actually didn't even want to sit in on other interviews because his mind was made up on me! I started all the training classes in early October but since they were so spread out I would work in the clinic some days then have a class here or there so finally in November I was finished with the courses and was able to get settled in my new position. The whole staff has been amazing and SO very helpful, I'm lucky that I went into this job already knowing the people so it made it a much easier transition. Being away from Han during the day has been pretty difficult, but now that I've been working for almost 4 months we have gotten into a great routine, and Nick has been so incredibly awesome- it wouldn't have been this easy without all his help too! Once I accepted the job Hannah also switched schools, which we were worried would be too many changes at once for her but she has adjusted like nothing ever happened! It's really nice that she is such a social butterfly and can get along with anyone. Her first school, La Petite, was wonderful to get her used to the idea of school slowly but it was about 20 minutes away from our house, which was no problem when I wasn't working but now that my days are about 5 hours too short, neither of us want to spend unnecessary time in the car and away from eachother so that's when we decided to move her to Childtime, which is literally 5 minutes away from home and on my way to work! Which is a double bonus! Another change that has occurred with all this was Nick getting his old job back at RCRC! He worked at SEIU for about 10 months and was completely miserable, but luckily he would still go to lunch with co-workers at RCRC and he told them that he would go back if certain things had changed- example: not reporting the manager he used to for reasons to long to go into here.... well then the president of the company asked Nick to lunch and lo and behold offered him his job back with more money and not reporting to the old manager! Um it was pretty much a no brainer, so he started back September 1!
Along with all these changes in September we were quickly planning a birthday party for our amazing 3, almost 4, year old! She had a total blast at her princess party, which also entailed a huge princess castle bounce house! Needless to say I barely saw my birthday girl the entire party, she and her friends were out of the bounce house only long enough to open presents and eat cake- then back in they would go! The whole party was a total success and our princess had the best time! All her friends and family were there showing the love to our little girl, it was so much fun!

The big gift she got this year for her birthday from mom, dad, and grandma and grandpa was a new play structure! But by the time we actually got it and dad and grandpa put it together the weather started turning cold so she hasn't been able to use it very much, but I know come Spring and Summer she will be out there all the time!

Shortly after the birthday celebration came the holiday time! Thanksgiving was great- we spent the first part of the day at Nick's family's house in Newcastle then went to my parents for the latter part of the day. The next weekend we had an ugly sweater holiday party which was a total success! It was awesome to see all our friends participating and showing up in the ugliest sweater they could find! Me and Gina ended up having the same sweater, so I guess that means we both have the same ugly taste! haha We had lots to eat and drink and it was great getting together with everyone before the craziness of the holidays!

A couple weekends after that was Hannah's holiday performance at her school! It was the cutest thing we had ever seen, all these 4 year olds singing their hearts out to Christmas songs!

Of course Han was the perfect preformer and made every hand gesture and new every word to the songs- we were so proud of our little starlet that night!

Then a very short week later was Christmas! Santa was very good to our kiddo this year, she got everything she asked for plus WAY more!! She was one happy, overwhelmed girl all day. In the morning we had our own little family Christmas, then around 10am all the grandparents came over for a yummy brunch and more presents!

Even mommy and daddy got something they really wanted :)

This year we told the grandparents to just focus on Hannah and let's not worry about getting eachother anything... well I guess that translated into spending ALL the money and Hannah and not saving any, which was I thought would be the idea in the first place! There were presents literally filling the living room and flowing down the hallway- all for Hannah!! She was in heaven!

After a nice relaxing New Year's Eve, with Nate, Leslie, Ari, and Jessica, lots of snacks and playing, it was time for our cruise! We have been thinking of going on a cruise for the last 6 months or so but weren't sure if it was going to work out or not since I had just started work, but I had accrued PTO and my work was super flexible so we were able to go on a nice 3 day cruise to Ensenada. All we did was eat, drink, gamble, nap, and relax- it was so nice to spend some quality time together since during the holiday's it's crazy busy and I feel like we don't even see eachother! Hannah stayed with my parents during our cruise, and she had her own vacation over there with Grammy and Great Grandpa in town, she had a blast!

Ok, SO I think I got us all up to speed on our life! I didn'tinclude too many pictures because 4 months of photos would have overloaded this post! I look forward to this new year and everything it will bring us! I look forward to family time, maybe a family vacation this summer, meeting all the new babies our friends are having, and who knows what else! My plan is to update the blog more often, we'll see if that will actually happen but I will try my best!

Question to those who also blog- how can I upload pics easier, and have them in the order I want when I upload. As of now I upload pics backwards of the order I want and then they will show up on my blog in order, but I don't want to do it that way, I want to be able to upload in order... does that make sense???