The kids first visit to Santa! 
The family got to visit daddy at the fire station Christmas Day 
The kids with their loot. They really cleaned up for their first Christmas!What an amazing year it has been in the Needham household! Filled with such an amazing mix of emotion and circumstance. A year with so much change, life disassembled and rearranged. Fatigue, stress, joy and elation all intertwined. What a wonderful way to experience life.
The year started with Amanda in an amount of physical discomfort I can't imagine, carrying two babies to week 36. I was unemployed, having been laid off from the airlines, and sleeping on the couch (because Amanda needed the whole bed). Then life became so much easier after we had the twins...HA! Mason with his acid reflux, and neither of them sleeping for more than a couple hours at a time. Amanda went back to work after a couple months and still breast fed through the night. Daddy was a full time nanny and full time student, along with the much needed help of the grandmas (We can't thank you guys enough).
Then in August, a HUGE break. I got a job with the Fire Department. This would turn out to be not without it's fair share of sacrifice though. The work days were long and exhausting and the weekends were filled with study groups. Amanda had to pick up the slack on the home front. Needless to say we were exhausted. But, along with this chaos came something amazing. And it came in the form of two smiling little faces in the morning. It came as screams of joy when daddy came home from work. It came as the sounds of giggles from the side by side cribs the babies were supposed to be going to sleep in. In one of the most trying times in our lives, the greatest things in our lives were born. We found ourselves torn between days of frustration and days of pure love and joy.
And now we've entered into a new reality. One that involves me being in a new job, with new challenges and experiences. One that involves a new schedule and new hoops to jump through. Amanda and I are having to redefine, once again, what we choose to define as normalcy. We couldn't be more happy venturing into our new life now. Setting it up as if decorating a new house.
It's been a wonderfully challenging year. I'd be lying if I said we were hoping to keep up the turmoil. We'd prefer a quiet 2010, but we'll take whatever life has to hand us.
God Bless everyone in the new year and remember to enjoy your everyday. Take the good and the bad for what it is, and remember that it's all part of a beautiful life.
The Needham Family
