2012 In Review

January

Annual Pass to the Aquarium 

February

Valentine’s Day picnic

March

Expecting Number 3…aka Baby Gummy Bear

April

Silly Fun

May

Reese graduated from Preschool

Family Vacation on a cruise

June

Ballerina Beauty…Dance Recital

July

Reese turns 5!!

Family Vacation to Destin

August

Reese starts Kindergarten

Sam starts Preschool

September

I’m a soccer mom!

October

I continued to grow and couldn’t wait to meet Baby Gummy Bear

Last minute “family of four” fun

November

We finally welcomed Baby Hayes

And Sam turns 3!!

December

Our party of five was ready to celebrate Christmas

What an amazing year we have had. I love to go back and look at all the blessings we have seen over the last year.

Happy New Year! I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for us!

Red Top Mountain

On the 27th we were all going a little stir crazy. Lance and I tossed around several ideas on things to do and finally decided on going to Red Top Mountain. There are several trails that aren’t too difficult. We bundled everyone up (it was in the mid 40’s that afternoon) and headed out. Everyone was excited to be out and in the fresh air. We started out right around 4:00 and knew we needed to be back before the sun went down around 5:30ish.

So off we went.

The kids did great. They had a lot of fun exploring the woods.

You can’t tell in this picture of Sam but as we walked up on this log he thought it was a deer. From far away it did look that way.

Hayes was nice and bundled up in the stroller. I even laid a blanket over the canopy to keep the wind off of his face. He slept most of the way and didn’t cry once.

We were so impressed with how well the kids were doing at the one mile mark we decided to keep on going. We gave ourselves a time that we needed to be heading back in the way we came. The trails were very easy to follow because the trees were marked with paint colors that coordinated with the maps. We were following the red trail. Every once in a while I would open the map on my phone just to make sure we were doing the right thing.

A while later Lance decided to cut through the woods to another trail he could see thinking it was the same trail we were on. I started noticing that the trees were marked with white paint but Lance was a good bit ahead of me. The white trail was a bit rough due to roots, steep hills and pushing the stroller made me slow. We made it down to a part of the lake and stopped to check it out. While Lance and the kids walked down to the water I pulled my phone map out once again and we realized we needed to turn around. It wasn’t a big deal because we were too far off track.

However, that little detour was about a 15 minute detour and about 15 minutes before we got back to the car the kids started melting down. They were both getting tired and getting back to the car was a lot of up hill climbs. About five minutes from the car, Reese tripped and got a big bruise on her knee. That made her decide that she did not like our trip even though for the first hour and a half she was having fun. I think we finally convinced her that one incident didn’t define our whole adventure.

Overall, we had a great time. Next time we will definitely start out earlier though so I am not getting stressed at the end about making it back to the car before dark. I was starting to get worried about that towards the end. However, we made it just in time. We will definitely be doing that again! What a fun day!

Our Christmas Recap

Wow! I can’t believe Christmas has come and gone. It was a blur for sure.

On the 22nd we started our Christmas celebration with my dad’s family. We had a great time visiting with everyone. We were missing several cousins and hope to see them all soon. 

On the 24th we went to Lance’s sisters house. Lance’s parents, sister, and nephews were there waiting on us. We ate and visited and ate some more for a little while.

Then it was present time.

The kids got these hippity-hops with horse covers. These gifts have probably been the most used so far. They love them!

Lance’s sister bought Reese some make-up. Since she was the giver, she got to get a make-over. Reese also did her own make-up but did not want me to take her picture…hence her scary look in this picture. She has actually gotten better at putting her own make-up on since then. However, when she puts make-up on Sam (much to Lance’s dismay) he looks super scary. She likes to draw eyebrows on him. It looks so weird.

After Christmas Eve service we headed home to get ready for Santa. The kids put cookies and milk out and then they were off to bed. Santa took it really easy this year and this mommy was VERY happy about that.

The kids were so excited to get downstairs and see their loot.

Reese was most excited about her art kit from Santa. She has loved drawing with it and has even been very sweet to share it with Sam.

I had talked to several mommies whose kids had the ImagiNext Castle. They all had rave reviews so Santa brought the castle and Ogre for Sam. He has had a lot of fun playing with it so far…and so has Lance. He also got the dragon from Lance’s mom.

The picture above was the damage done after everything was open and out. And the house has remained this way since. I have no idea where everything is going to go.

Later in the morning my parents and grandmother came over. Apparently we didn’t get any pictures though. They gave the kids lots of fun things including the big Pottery Barn chair for Hayes. Now we have three of those gigantic chairs in our family room.

We have one more get together this weekend so we should have a few more pictures to come.

Sam’s Christmas Show

Yesterday Sam had his Christmas Show at school. He was so excited about it since he had already seen Reese perform in her show. We had been hearing bits and pieces of songs for a while now and we couldn’t wait to see them in the show.

Sam and his buddy, Davis

I wasn’t sure how Sam was going to do in the show. His shy side could have easily come out and he could have hid the whole time. But he didn’t! He was just so excited. He waved to us several times throughout the show.

He did all of the motions and sang all of the songs like a pro!

I couldn’t help but smile and giggle the whole time. He looked like such a big boy. Jumping during a fun song…

It is amazing to me how much you can teach a two year old class. The preschool teachers are just amazing.

HE IS STRONG!

I love that you can see the big kids behind him doing the same thing that he is doing. This was such a fun show. We have seen three Christmas shows over the last three years here with Reese. This year there is a new music teacher and I think she did the best Christmas show so far.

I loved seeing my sweet boy up on that stage. We were so proud of him.

I got several videos but the quality is horrible. And it died before some of the most fun songs of the show! I was bummed. Here is one of the videos…so cute!!

Fun Times

After hearing about the tragedy in CT on Friday all I could think about was enjoying my family that night. We had our usual pizza and a movie night and watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Since it was a short movie I had some other ideas in mind to fill our night. First we made “Grinch Floats” that I saw on Pinterest. They were just green sherbet and Sprite…they were not a hit. HA! Good try! While the kids were waiting for their floats I sent them upstairs to put on their Christmas pajamas. After trying the floats we all loaded in the car to see some Christmas lights. There is a house about 25 minutes from us that covers their house and yard in lights and makes a show out of them to music. They even have a radio station that you tune in to hear the music. It is a little over a 30 minute show and they do a great job. It is a big hit and there is always a line of cars coming in to see it. Reese and Sam really enjoyed the show and Hayes just slept right through it.

Saturday morning we had several things to do so we got started early! While we were out the kids were just not getting along and completely misbehaving. I was alone with them for about an hour during that time and was so over playing referee. When Lance got back I told him I needed a little mommy time out that afternoon. He understood and was happy to send me on my way. I decided that I needed a pedicure so Hayes and I set off for the nail salon. He was the perfect partner to get my toes done with. Don’t mind the silly look on my face…I was trying to be discreet about taking my own picture. I really just wanted a picture of Hayes snuggled up.

Today the kids and I hung around the house. Lance went to the Falcons game and enjoyed his time away.

This is what happens when I am nursing Hayes…Sam gave me a different kind of pedicure.

I am glad for the week to start again. We have a busy week ahead of us and then Reese will be home for two weeks. Hopefully we can plan some fun activities during those two weeks.