52 Weeks of 2013 - Week 52

And just like that, another year is over! I wanted to end with a photograph of me and my kids...finish strong. I cannot even put into words what these children mean to me. For someone, who for so long, did not even know if she wanted to be a mother, who thought she would gladly forgo that chapter of life, sometimes I look around at where I am now and I could just cry at what I might have missed out on.

I am a better person for them. They bring me joy and laughter, they love me when I feel unworthy, they stop playing in the middle of a playground and without even grumbling, happily take photos with me, because they know it will bless me. I hope that one day they will look back on these moments that I have captured and that they will smile, that memories will come flooding back, that they will see all that we had.

These family relationships are what shape all their future relationships, I am so glad that love flows freely in our family, that this is a safe place to express emotions and feelings and although I know we will all change over time I hope we will always be close.

Some families just seem to grow apart and it saddens me, even within my own extended family to see how that can so easily happen. Distance, I know from my own experience, does not help, but family ties should be treasured and nurtured and sometimes it takes work and I know I will fight for that with my own children.

I hope that 2013 has been a year you can look back on and see growth. Maybe things went well for you, or it may have been a hard year, but either way we keep moving forward, pressing on. We are each responsible for our own actions and the things we say, or do not. If each day of the coming year we can make a difference, no matter how small, in another person's life, then by the end of next year we will have each had a positive impact on over 300 people. We have huge potential. Let's not waste it.

Happy New Year to each and every one of you, here's hoping for greater things in 2014!