Monday, January 6, 2014

And another year bites the dust. Epic blog failure for 2013. I rather enjoy blogging and look forward to seeing all my journaling efforts made into a book each year, but I still haven’t made books for 2011 and 2012. I’ve started 2011’s but it’s a lot of work. Maybe I can just squeeze the 5 posts from 2013 into my 2012 book when I one day get around to that.  However, let’s not start the year off counting all of last year’s failures. Maybe this year I’ll document our family’s happenings more frequently so that they are actually remembered, but then again, maybe I won’t.

Anthony and Geana had their little baby girl, Evalyn, on December 4th. What a darling little thing she is! She makes me want a little girl just like her.

Amber and I threw her baby shower on Nov. 16th at my mom’s house. So much easier to throw a shower with someone’s help! I made zuppa toscana, my mom made a creamy tortellini soup, and Amber made a Mediterranean pasta salad. We served it with salad and bread and hot spinach artichoke dip. I kept the dessert simple by making fluffy sugar cookies and cream cheese topping and serving that with fresh fruit to create your own mini fruit pizzas. Quite yummy.

 

Easton had a big birthday on December 12, 2013. He turned 8. I’m not going to say what every parents says when their children turn another year older, but I’m certainly thinking it. Since it was his 8th birthday, he got to have a friend party at Pump It Up on December 13th. What a blast it was for everyone, and I don’t know if I’ll ever throw my own party again. That place did everything. They unloaded my car, put out the food, served the children, set up the room, cut the cake, loaded gifts into my car, cleaned everything up, and I got to sit back and enjoy the night for a small fee of $229. We don’t do birthday parties around here, at least not big ones where we invite friends, but we do for the ages of 5 and 8, maybe 12. So I don’t mind splurging on those years. Teagan’s 5th birthday is coming up in a month, so I’ll have to get his party planned too (Lousy pictures from the party, but sometimes I want to be present at events and not taking pictures).

Between Easton’s birthday and Christmas, life was a blur of fun family activities. I felt like we had something every night, and none of us went to bed before 10pm, the baby included. We did the Magical Forest with Jacob’s family, the live Nativity, played in the snow at Mt. Charleston, had gingerbread making nights, watched movies, went to a couple Christmas parties, went shooting, out to the dry lake bed, and spent time with our families. Jacob’s siblings were in town from UT for a week during Christmas break, so we did a lot with his family. We really had a lot of fun.

Magical Forest

Playing in the snow at Mt. Charleston (Jacob was there too :/)

Fun at the dry lake bed

Shooting with Dad and Grandpa

Took the kids to a Rebels game with Bed and Jud

Christmas morning was magical. And in a perfect world I would have a lot of pictures to show for that, but, again, I like to enjoy things without a camera in my hand.

They all got duck calls. They’re kind of big Duck Dynasty fans.

Lots more awesome presents are not pictured.

For New Years Eve, Bec, Jud, and Sadie came over to watch movies. We partied like it was 1999. They left at 11:30 because they are old. The rest of us stayed up until midnight to watch the fireworks on the strip from our third floor window. And maybe we blew up some balloons, drank sparkling cider, and made quiet noises so as to not wake the sleeping toddler.

Beginning Christmas Day our home has been plagued with all sorts of ailments from hand foot and mouth disease, which has overtaken each one of the children one by one, to sore throats, fevers, and Sunday morning Easton and Logan woke up sick with fevers and chest congestion. We are all congested, but those two are definitely the sickest of the brood. I don’t count myself sick unless I’m confined to my bed or the couch and, thank the heavens, so far I have not been.

In other news, I am 12 weeks pregnant. And in awesome news, I haven’t been sick at all. Like barely even for a minute I’ll feel nauseous only if my stomach is super empty, but the minute I eat or even drink a glass of water, I’m completely fine.  It’s been perfect. Like E and T’s pregnancies were. I heard the heartbeat and saw baby kick at 10 1/2 weeks, so hopefully everything is still going good. We should be having another baby sometimes around July 18th. Can’t wait!