Happy New Year!

It was a great holiday season for the Garlands! We enjoyed seeing family at five different Christmas celebrations. Many of you got the chance to hold Cayla, and we thank you for loving on her so well! Even the nieces and nephews did a great job with her, kissing her head and holding her gently. It was a very fun time for us and Cayla was a trooper as always. We are finding out that she just rolls with the punches. We often worry about things only to find that she makes it easy for us. Passing me around again, huh? Okay, okay. Taking me into the gym so you two can work out? No biggie. Putting this hat over my eyes again? (sigh) I guess. More time in Wal-Mart? I can make it work.

We got to hang out with my sister Brittany and her hubby John during break. We went to see "Triple Espresso" in Des Moines. It's a very funny show, and we all laughed a lot. Afterwards, we ate at Centro and enjoyed catching up with them. It was also the longest we've been away from Cayla yet--seven hours!!--at one time. I guess she was in the back of our minds because we kind of left in a hurry. I didn't realize just how quickly until Leah pointed out that we left before John had a chance to finish his drink. If you're reading, guys, we didn't mean to be rude! Thanks for the fun evening! And a big thanks to Lorraine and the Westras for watching our girl!

We spent New Year's Eve with good friends. Leah went to Kyle and Allison's, and Jerod went to Jake and Val's. Cayla and Leah joined me later at the Keegan house. Amazingly, Cayla was awake just in time to see the ball drop. Earlier in the evening, she had enjoyed meeting so many new people that she slept through her last feeding time. However, this led to the poor girl scarfing down her meal too fast later and spitting up on Mommy shortly before the end of 2008. 

New Year's Day arrived and Cayla let us sleep in a little before we geared up for the Iowa bowl game. Cayla was excited to wear her Hawkeye outfit! We wanted to catch her in a smile, so Jake told her that Iowa State was going to play in a bowl game next year. That cracked her up and we had a great picture! The Garland lingo for the month is "Houdini gas." I don't know how many times she has smelled like she has a serious blowout in the old diaper. I mean, we are convinced. I start to take off her diaper and then--poof!--there's nothing there! What? Where did it go?!?! There's no way something could smell that bad and not be a dirty diaper! I check her back to see if it defied gravity. Nothing. Alas, Houdini gas.

As we reflect on 2008, we are amazed at the blessings God has given us. We got to celebrate our first year of marriage together--it has been amazing! We have a great family. We love our friends and jobs. We are simple, ordinary people serving an extraordinary God, and for some reason He has chosen to bless us in so many ways, especially with this little girl we have fallen for so quickly.

To close, I'm reading a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. Today I read these words: "God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show the world that your God is great and that knowing Him brings peace and joy, even when life is hard." These are great words.

P.S. On a side note (bad pun intended), we decided to put some new pictures up on the left. So for those of you who didn't like the picture we had of you, you are now off the hook. For those of you who will miss seeing yourselves, you better visit so we can take another one to put up. :)