hopeful.

Have you ever just felt hopeful for your future?

For me a lot is going on to be excited about in a normally repetitive world.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mommy.  But it can get dull, especially on days where we don't leave the house.

First of all, it's almost summer.  A lot of my friends are coming back to Iowa from their colleges, and that is super exciting to me.  While I love my life, I am often sad that most of my friends have moved away, either because they go to college far away or they moved out of state.  I understand that my friends don't have to stay in Iowa because I settled down at a young age, but I wish I could see them more often.  The winter is especially dull with everybody gone.  So summer coming is very exciting.  Plus, my mom's pool is open.  Yesssss!

My sister isn't going back to Luther College next year and taking a semester (or two, haven't decided for sure) off.  I am so excited to be able to spend a lot of time with her.  She has a lot of life changes coming up and I am happy to help in any way possible.

It's been an interesting couple of years with my mom's cancer.  Ever since her major surgery in January she has been cancer free.  I am so happy that we can hopefully go without chemo treatments ever again!  It was quite a hassle.  Every time she had chemo she had to travel to Mayo in Rochester, MN.  It was annoying, but anything to get rid of the big C.

And obviously, I am looking forward to spending more time with my girls and the rest of my family.  There's not much more exciting to the mother of a new baby than watching her baby learn new things.  The first year of a child's life is so amazing, because they learn and grow so much.  In the last couple of days Parker has tried to mimic me talking.  I say, "Ah-gooooo!" and she works so hard to make a similarly sounding "word."  So stinking cute.  Those little milestones are what make parenting so wonderful.