Darling Baby Kay, it has been a frosty, bright day today as we get ready to put Christmas behind us and look to the New Year later this week. You have had a busy day - out to the golf store with Daddy, and grocery shopping with me - and have been in top form even when I have been trying to wipe your nose!

Today I have been starting to look forward to 2009. I am a strange fish sometimes - Daddy says it can summed up on the way I view the change of the year. Most people call it New Year's Eve, to represent a night before something happens, and new beginnings - whereas I have always called it Old Year's Night, suggesting looking backwards, and the end of something. This year I am making a conscious effort to call it New Year's Eve - as I am so looking forward to next year and all it may bring our little family. I have been batch cooking for you for the freezer - little Tommy Tippee cups of Neopolitana pasta - and I'll do the same every day this week. You are getting bored with my current offerings and we need to up the stakes as you start to realise that you can exercise your rights and refuse what you don't want to eat! You just turn your little face to the side and close your eyes as much as to say 'If I can't see it Mummy I don't have to eat it!' I have a raft of new recipes to try to tempt you, so hopefully we will hit on some good ones in there!

I have also prepared my 2009 diary, with the important dates ahead - a job I have always loved, and which is now even more poignant as I add your birthday, and all the other 2008 babies to it. I have a gorgeous recipe journal to start in 2009 - one of my new objectives (not resolutions!!) is to learn to bake and to use the economic downturn to focus on adding value to our family as a home-maker. I have found a gorgeous site (Mennonite Girls Can Cook) and I am all set to go with some beautiful recipes. Nanny is going to lend me her Kenwood Chef and we will be all set!

And I have cleared out my handbag of all the toot, old receipts, lip balms, old tissues, crumbs and rubbish. Daddy bought me a lovely new bag for Christmas and now I have one which will easily hold a Tippee cup, a few baby essentials, and not look like I am carting everything I own around with me!! We will look quite a stylish pair this year when we go to Jo Jingles!!

Before the end of the week I will have decided on my objectives for the coming year, but in the meantime I am enjoying looking forward and letting go of the things that hold me back. I read somewhere recently (and I wish I could remember where) that we should never let the odds stand in the way of us doing what we want to do, and believing we will succeed. And it is that thought that I will be carrying into 2009 for myself, and for you my darling Baby girl x x