hi joe, rachel, kathleen, anna, steve, rori, syl, 3mum and various others who have taken the time to email and and see if all is well.

it is. thank you.

my 2010 was a wonderful year also.

the blogging died down because i began thinking that my life wasn't very interesting any more. i mean, not like the old days, when i am certain you were all riveted to know if i managed to find that delicate balance between getting carys to take another few milllilitres of milk before she would vomit up the aforementioned effort as well as all the other ml's previous to the slurp that broke the reflux's hack.

we seem to be in a groove.

i have to say, it is good. i give 40 a lot of credit, as well as God, friends, and me for having the wisdom to listen to both of them!

we had a brilliant Christmas. a LOT of my friends go to clubs for their Christmas Day lunch, and one year I would like to try it. can you imagine, NO dishes, and you just go, eat, laze around while the kids play for a few hours, and then go to someone's house and celebrate? i think it sounds divine. but this year, we had Christmas again at terri's, and it was as close to perfect as it gets.

1) we had friends – and history.

some new friends came to the dinner, and dale said to them, "welcome to our family Christmas." that nearly brought tears to my eyes, because since 2002, these people have been Christmas Day for me.

2) we had great food

cheese platters, cheese cake, ham, two vegetables and four desserts. What does that say to you? we do Christmas right!

3) we didn't leave a lot for the hostess to clear up.

that's a rule. and the men washed too! we didn't even have to ask. i went out to the balcony where they were and said, "any one of you want to wash up?" and they said, "um, okay…." and as Charles later joked, "none of us are fans of celibacy….what else were we going to say?" they did a pretty good job except for their habit (did you think we wouldn't notice?) of leaving pans to "soak for the moment".

4) we finished a 1000 piece puzzle.

how north american are we???

5) the kids put on a show for us! thank goodness songs have a time limit.

6) the kids contributed to the HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS cake.

i have been making this cake for years, and for the first few years, only Christopher and andrew would contribute. maybe tre. they're the oldest. and then, this year, all the kids had something to say. they wanted to share the present that Jesus had given them this year.

so, maybe it's my turn to share again as well.it may not be glam, but it's my life, they're my dim sum, the little pieces of my heart.

hope i can stick to the resolution, and thank you for sticking with me.