The Downey Family: Halfway through 2010

I can't believe we're already in the middle of this year. I decided to go back and look at my goals for 2010 and to see what (if anything!) I've gotten accomplished from my list. Oh, and this is pretty long and really just for me so feel free to skip over. I did however add pictures of the girls in their bathing suits this weekend so there's something to look forward to at the end of this post.

Let's recap this!

2010 Goals

1. Curtains for my living room and dining room. I'm thinking Tiffany blue.

I went to the fabric store this weekend with my mother in law and picked out fabric for curtains for the living and dining room as well as fabric to recover our couch in the living room. I also picked out a really neat camel and cream zebra stripe fabric for a tufted ottoman for our living room. I plan on using it as a coffee table since our current one has lots of sharp edges and is pretty much a hazard to the babies. I can't wait to get all this done but I have a feeling it will be another month or two.

2. Summer beach vacation. I want us to rent a beach house with family and bring the girls.
We rented an amazing condo in Gulf Shores for a week in August. It's brand new, close to all the shopping and restaurants and has a great pool. My parents as well as Jeff and Jenny are coming with us and we're so excited. One minor flaw in the plan- BP had an oil spill. Heard of it? I have my fingers crossed that it will still all work out but we're pretty nervous to head down there if there are a lot of tar balls and oil fumes in the air. We have time though so again, fingers crossed. I really want to take the girls to the beach!
3. Fun weekend vacation with Devin. Maybe Mexico??? Mom, do you want to babysit?
Check and check. Hmm. Go figure that this is the only thing on my list that I can officially cross off. Thanks Gigi and Papa for babysitting!
4. Find a church for our family with a good nursery.
I'm embarrassed to say that this one still hasn't been accomplished. My neighbor introduced me to her church and I really, really liked the nursery but I'm not sure about the actual service. This is still an ongoing process that we haven't spent enough time working on.
5. Find a reliable babysitter that we can trust to keep the girls every once in awhile so Devin and I can go out to dinner occasionally. Not sure of the best way to do this but I plan on asking my neighbors who they use. They're moving soon so maybe we can just steal theirs!
We get to check this one off our list as well. We have a new babysitter named Allison that my neighbor recommended. She's so sweet and good with the girls, even though she doesn't really get to spend time with them since they're asleep when we go out. Her older sister is also a children's photographer and we're pretty sure we're going to use her to take the girls 10 month pictures. I really like her work.
6. Reconnect with friends. Now that the girls are getting a little easier, I would like to start seeing friends again. Maybe even having some dinner parties. The girls go to bed at 7pm so I'm hoping friends can come to us!
I'm very thankful that we've made some progress here as well. Catherine and Sean as well as Jen and Ben all came over Saturday night for dinner. It was so fun catching up. I wish we all got to see each other more. I've also been able to go out more with girlfriends the last couple of months after the girls go to bed. Our friends Doug and Amy Walker just had a baby girl as well and named her Landry. Well I've kind of stolen Amy and made her my new wine buddy while the Dads babysit the girls. Sure we miss having them around but it's just so nice to get out and it's so nice that I don't have to feel silly talking about babies all night because she can talk about hers as well. Times Ten is a local winery around the corner from us and it's pretty much my new favorite place.
7. Frame some of the newborn pictures we had taken of Kate and Lily when they were 1 month old. I'm going to start a "Kate and Lily" wall and can't wait to fill it up. (I'm a procrastinator when it comes to framing pictures. I didn't frame any of our wedding pictures until after Jeff and Jenny got married and we went to their house for Christmas and they already had their wedding pictures everywhere. I had no excuse!)
Well I did frame some small pictures and they look great. I also got large canvases made of their newborn pictures and I'm just not sure that I'm crazy about them. They just look awkward on the wall. Some people have suggested I frame the canvas so I'm going to try that. Frustrated about that one.