2011 Year in Review

2011 proved to a blessing of a year for our family! The year before had been a great one, but 2011 was our settling year. We settled into our life with a few changes, but change is always going to be there so we consider it normal. :)

**sadly I have no pictures from the beginning of the year due to our hard drive dying last year**
January
January began the change that has probably been the biggest for Hubby. He started his new job. The last three months of 2010 had been crazy with a few job interviews (not counting the handful he had that summer) He ended up with two offers on the table. We were blessed. This job has been an incredible blessing.

February
Our big boy turned FIVE. A whole hand. How did that happen? He had first official big party with his friends. He was pretty pumped to turn five because he knew Kindergarten was starting soon.

March
Hmmm...apparently I don't remember well. I have NO idea what happened in March last year. ;)

April
We went on the Children's Retreat at church. The boys had a ton of fun. We got a taste for what it would be like to go to camp for longer in the summer.

We also celebrated Easter, which held a special meaning for our big boy this year. He understood what Easter meant. You could see the Holy Spirit grabbing his little heart and it was a something new we were praising God for!

May
JJ graduated from preschool. He loved his year at preschool and we loved the preschool, too! So much in fact that Ty began as a three year old and I committed to serving as president of the preschool board.

A few days later we headed out on our first official family vacation to Destin, FL. We had so much fun! The boys loved the beach, though it was a little chilly, as they were hitting record lows. The boys did so well traveling. (made me realize we could travel in June with Diana to NM)

During our trip we celebrated 10 years of marriage! Not bad, eh? We still haven't taken our 10 year anniversary trip or a weekend away, but one day we will. For now, I just enjoy being with my husband and our boys. We're in a sweet time of life.





June
JJ began his summer Kindergarten program, which he loved! It was just a half a day for five weeks. He was so excited to go to school and see his teacher. He enjoyed meeting other friends. It turned out to be a great experience for him.

The beginning of June was devoted to VBS. We loved Pandamania and are still listening to the VBS songs. **apparently my computer deleted my VBS pictures. Weird.**

In the middle of June Diana, the boys and I loaded up in our van and headed to New Mexico to move Jacob and Amber (who had been there since January) back. We were gone a week. We had a blast! While we were gone, Hubby and his dad worked on the kitchen. It was a win-win for everybody! (though probably more of the win on our side of things, but the work was able to get done faster without little helpers. ;) It also cut down on the amount of stress I would have felt being here. HA!

July
Ty celebrated his third birthday. Suddenly, there were no "babies" in our house. Life was noticeably easier and became easier with every month.

August
We all went to camp. Hubby was a counselor in the little boys cabin, where JJ was! We had an official camper! I was in the older girls cabin and Ty stayed with me. We had such a fun time at camp that week! It was fun to get to know the girls and my co-counselors.

We had a few days before JJ started KINDERGARTEN! oh my! Those first few days were the longest of my life. My little boy was so excited that first day. The second day he had a tummy ache and I ended up with a migraine. By the end of the week he was back to loving it.

We also ordered our kitchen cabinets. I know this may not feel newsworthy but after having lived with our kitchen for four years we were so stinkin' excited!










September
Labor Day weekend was one of shopping for kitchen stuff, while the boys spent two nights at Lake Of the Ozarks with Hubby's family. They had so much fun but two nights was the longest I had ever been away from them. They did wonderful and so did we! :) We met up on Sunday and enjoyed a night at the house with everybody.

The day after Labor Day Ty started preschool. He is in the three year old class on Tuesday and Thursday. He cried the first two days, but since then he has done great! (yet still runs out of the classroom telling me "I no cry today, Mom!")
The second Tuesday of the month I began volunteering in JJ's classroom while Ty was at preschool. It has been a rewarding opportunity. I have helped the teachers with whatever they need and gotten to know them. I have helped his little friends with their ABCs and sounds.

September may have been our busiest month coupled with the new kitchen renovation!! Wahoo! Love my new kitchen! Hubby and his dad did a great job on it! I have never been so thankful for a handy hubby and father-in-law...oh wait- yes I was last year when they finished off our basement! :)

I was second shooter for preschool pictures. I have never been so exhausted from my side job as a photographer as I was those two days. 46 preschoolers on two different backdrops.

October
Life slowed doooown! We enjoyed fall activities with beautiful weather. We went pumpkin picking, to the pumping patch and then began cheering on our Cardinals as they won the World Series! Such a fun family month!

We also had two field trips back to back. JJ's class went to The Magic House and Ty's class went to the pumpkin patch!

During a break from school he even lost his first tooth!

November
We had a fun time gearing up for the holidays. The boys were already getting into the Christmas season at the beginning of the month.

Ty also began speech! So happy for my little guy that pretty soon we'll be able to understand him better! He has so much to say and we're happy that he is pretty easy going when you ask him to repeat himself or just don't really know what he is saying. (I'm sure I've said yes a few times when I shouldn't have!) He marched right back with his speech therapist and has enjoyed going.

JJ not only lost his second and third tooth but also his fourth- three days in a row for the Tooth Fairy at our house!

Thanksgiving was fun- JJ was excited he was off for FIVE whole days!

December
December was a fun month! The boys were into everything we did! They were so excited!

Ty FINALLY decided to pee on the potty on Christmas Eve (when we celebrate our little family of 4's Christmas) From then on he has been in big boy pants! Wahoo! (and you better believe that this made our list. We have been buying diapers for 5yrs and almost 10 months! (He's still in pull-ups at night but normally wakes up dry!

In the middle of the hustle and bustle I asked JJ why we celebrate Christmas. His answer, "We celebrate it because of love." (we had just finished a book about Christmas that made no mention of the TRUE meaning of Christmas.) Before I could ask him anything else he went on. "We actually celebrate it because Jesus was born. Jesus was born so that he could die for our sins." It made our Christmas season even brighter that our son truly understood Christmas!

We had a truly fun Christmas season! Celebrating Christmas five times!

So, what does 2012 hold?

We can't wait to see!

Choo-Choo!

 One thing we love about Lowe's is their FREE kid workshops! They are supposed to be for kids ages 2nd grade-5th grade but they have always let us do them. This month their workshop was to make a train. It went three weeks in a row and they made a caboose, coal car (toy car for Christmas) and an engine.

The first week we went we weren't able to stay and put them together and Hubby wanted them to have a hammer their size to work with. We didn't find a hammer their size until we found these tool sets. They were half off and had real tools in them. Anybody need some little construction workers? They work for chocolate chip cookies. :)

 The boys aren't used to me using my external flash on my camera...can you tell?

 This made me literally LOL. 

Making Cookies

A couple of weeks ago the baking bug finally bit me. Ty and I ran to the store and grabbed the couple of ingredients we needed. I am not good at taking the time to bake- actually I'm not good at it b/c I have  tendency to eat everything in sight when it comes to sugar!

 Ty is my little kitchen helper so he was ready for helping. He loved getting to lick the spoon (b/c it was only a cake mix and pumpkin- no raw eggs there. ;)

His favorite part was putting the sprinkles on the cookies- oh and eating them! :) Yum!

Rockin' Around

 The Christmas tree! The day after Thanksgiving, after we had celebrated we left the boys at my parent's house and headed out for Black Friday shopping. After getting five hours of sleep (which I actually don't think is too bad considering!) we brought the boys back home. I thought we would all nap, but it turns out the weathers was super nice and the boys were ready for the Christmas decorations.

Hubby worked outside on getting the leaves mulched up and Christmas lights up. I got the fall stuff out and let the Christmas stuff explode all over my kitchen. On Saturday we finally put the tree up.

Every year this part gets more fun. The boys were at the stage this year that they could put up most of the ornaments without help. Here were a couple that brought back some memories...

JJ's first Christmas ornament. I couldn't wait to start putting these kinds of ornaments on the tree!

 A Potato Head ornament. Fitting for our family, who has over 80 potato heads now!

 A fish ornament that Diana gave us the first year or two of marriage. I figured that fragile thing would be in pieces by now, but it just keeps swimming!

And finally, our two helper elves who helped us put the decorations on it...

 One surprise they had this year was that Great-Grandma gave us Great-Grandpa's train to put around the tree. The boys were so excited! 

 They have been told many times that they couldn't play with it and it has finally clicked now, but oh how they love that train! It is a reward for them to get to see it before they go to bed.

(& I included this picture only b/c JJ is sitting how I used to sit when I was little. hehehe)

Uncle Brett and Aunt Danah's House

A couple of weekends ago we finally got to go see where Uncle Brett and Aunt Danah live. They moved back in January to a small town so that Brett could take on a job as an associate pastor at a church. It's only 3.5 hours away but somehow our schedules were not matching to go see them.

The boys had a LOT of fun! We were out in the country...as in lots of acres. We could see one house from their house and it was pretty far down the road. Oh and there was a traffic light...for a one lane road. HA!

These pictures were on their property. You could do some pretty fun family pictures there...if only it wasn't so far away!

 Brett and Danah got a cat once they moved to the house they are in. George was a true hit with the boys!

 They were also super happy to see Buster! On our way there we saw a stray black lab and they were pretty worried that we were leaving Buster behind! They were happy to see him when they got there...and I think Buster enjoyed playing with them, too!

We went to a Children's Museum for the morning. It had all kinds of fun things, including this rather creepy water room. ;) They boys loved it, though! There was also a real ambulance that they got to play in. 

We had planned on coming back and making a fire in the fire pit but it was super duper windy, add on the country and the guys used best judgement to call it off. Never fear- there was a wood stove in the house... hot dogs and smores were made! 

Thanks for letting us come see you, guys! We had lots of fun and can't wait to visit again!

Grant's Farm

 A few weeks ago we headed to Grant's Farm. Some nice ladies ended up riding the tram with us and somehow we ended up at the same point at every thing we did. They insisted on a family picture.... it makes me laugh...we were looking straight into the sun...can't tell, can you?

The goats were super hungry as we were there near opening. We walked in, one goat latched onto one bottle that I wasn't holding high enough and suddenly my bottle was gone. The others started fighting. Hubby somehow got through to some others. Ty hung right in there with the bottle. He loved feeding the goats. (JJ was very happy to watch and pet them :)

After a ride on the carousel we watched the bird show and then the elephant show. Ahhh...these ages are so fun for things like this! I never dared do this three years ago...it wasn't happening, but now it's perfect.

 Jake the Clydesdale...little did we know that the Clydesdales would have a VERY important job a couple of weeks later in pulling Tony LaRussa around for the World Series Champions Parade! Woohoo! We cheered on Jake...b/c we know he was there, right?... from the family room! :)

Picking a Pumpkin

The day after the pumpkin patch we went to pick apples, but when we got there the apples were gone. The pumpkins were the ones needing picking! We went with some of Hubby's family. It was also a big day for the Cardinals- I don't remember which game it was, but we were in the playoffs- being as though we are now in the World Series- it went well!

When we told the boys that we were going apple picking, JJ remembered going two years ago and picking apples from the tree and eating them right then and there. He began talking about it as soon as we told him we were going apple picking. Uncle Jacob took the boys to find apples just for them to pick off the trees! What a good uncle!

 JJ won't eat it with his front teeth. I think the next day is when he came out school telling me his tooth was super wiggly. I wonder if this had anything to do with it.

 I loved this bumpy pumpkin. Hubby didn't, but his mom did! She bought it, along with it's two bumpy siblings that were separated by many other pumpkins in the big field.

 Pumpkins picked and we're ready to go! Ty was very sad when it was time to get off when we got to the field b/c he wanted a longer ride. He was very happy that we were getting back on!

They had a little area full of fun things for the kids. So fun that they're old enough to want to ride it and not cry once it starts!