I Love the Oughtie's

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday with their family. Now the presents are open. The cookies are eaten. And we're picking up and starting to put away and organize. But it's a time to get reflective too.

Now is the time to reminisce isn't it? Looking back on the first decade of the new millennium. The '00's.

Personally, it really has been the most life altering ten year time period.

Peter and I rang in 2000 with a fancy dinner in downtown Minneapolis talking of wedding plans and our future. At the time kids weren't in our plans or even on our radar. A wedding, trips to the mountains of Canada and the beaches of Mexico. That was on our radar.

Kids? Nah. We thought we were going to be the childless, freespirit couple who volunteered and traveled.

2001 the need to nurture kicked in. We brought home our furry first born, a golden retriever mix pup.

Later came a "Brady Bunch" house in the suburbs that we knocked around in for a bunch of years without a bunch.

We were happy but there was some intangible void in our life and it wasn't just our empty rooms.

By mid-decade the "should we have kids?" question started nagging us. We wondered if we truly didn't want to have kids would it even be a nagging question?

We decided to find out. And oh boy, find out we did!

Ben was born in 2006. Shortly after the Cribsheet blog was born. Who knew? The gal who a few years prior didn't want to have kids was now co-writing a parenting blog. Our uncertainty and fear about being parents was assuaged. We liked parenting so much we decided to make Ben a big brother. Vivian came along in 2007.

Now as we near the end of the decade we find ourselves piled up under fleece blankets on the sectional together with our two kids. It's not an exotic vacation or a fancy dinner out. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

We are exactly where we are supposed to be.

Onward, yes it is a time to look back but I am so looking forward to what the next years will bring.

I can't wait to see what the "Teens" (or will it be the Tweens until 2013?) decade has in store for our family.