2012 Look Back

Welcome to the longest post ever! I've been working on this post for 3 months and just might have time today to finish it. I forgot I had to day off of work for Good Friday and already signed the kids up for daycare. Currently my "free" time is spent caring for an emotional toddler, an extremely mommy focused, clingy but adorable one year old, a poor little neglected doggie, a house that needs more cleaning, and a part time job with 2 full time workloads. During nap time and after bed time, I attempt to clean, catch up on work, say "wasssup" to my husband, and rest my weary pregnant body. BUT, today is the day to catch up. Here's a look back to 2012. What a fine fine year it was!

January/February

 Lots of cuddly jammie times during the chilly months. I just returned back to work from maternity leave.

March/April

It was 80 degrees a good chunk of March. Crazy awesome for us, bad for the crops and such.

May/June

One of my all time favorites!!! Odie and grouchy Ellie!!!

Painting with pudding is fun and yummy!

Play time with Julia, Carson, Emma

Loves to read!

Loves her bath!

The dreaded spinal fusion surgery for Scott. 6 days in the hospital and 5 months off from work. I had to do pretty much everything and barely remember any of it. Thankful for friends and family who stepped in to help with some meals and yard work! I just wish it would have made him better. He is still having a lot of pain 1 year later.

Festival of the arts! One of mommy's favorite weekends of the summer but not sure how much the kids enjoyed it.

July/August

My baby girl turned 3! Sounds so old and definitely not a baby anymore! So smart with way too many words and expressions. Lots of different emotions on all ends of the spectrum. Sure keeps us on our toes and our hair out of our heads!

No words.

September/October

We continued to have great weather that stretched into early fall. We took a lovely trip to the beach to finally use the season pass for the first time. Also discovered baby #3 was on his/her way. HOLY WOWZAS.

We surprised the Bobbie Joes for their 60th birthday with a surprise trip! Since Scott's back was still freshly cut and with the girls age, we stuck fairly close to home and rented a nice condo in New Buffalo. It was "steps" from the beach.  We had a super cold weekend, but it was a lot of fun to hang out with the family.

Where is Kyla? Amber Alert!!!

Be still my heart. Stuffed french toast, strawberries, and Delsky's bacon.

On the last day, we ventured to Washington Park Zoo in Michigan City.  It was a GREAT zoo to visit, especially with little kiddos as everything is very close together. The sun even made a brief visit.  At the end, we let Ellie pick out a toy from the gift shop and she got a $3 snake head - ha!

How sweet is this???

Our trip to Art Prize. Both girls loved riding in the stroller and checking out the pieces. We took the kid friendly tour. Love Grand Rapids!!! Kyla's hat kept falling off and some lady lectured me about sun exposure though.
I don't love people.

My little mermaid.

Someone ate my apple I just set out to take to work 5 minutes prior. Any guesses?

The "time to wake" owl is awesome!

Playing nicely together???

Even though I bought Ellie two costumes this year, she wanted to be what she wore last year, a strawberry. She still talks about being a strawberry this coming year as well!!

It is hard to find a happier kid than Kyla!

Pro photos by Sara Combs Photography. We loved her!

November/December

Kyla's dedication at Mars Hill. She threw up the day before and within the next few days the majority of those you see in the picture below also had it. What a sweet lady! Scott's dad and Becky were also in town for the week which was lovely as we don't see them very often as they live in warm, sunny, NC!  This is also the day we announced #3. It was still far off from when we told most people. Most learned at the bottom of their Christmas card - ha! 

Kyla bear turns 1. We had a nice little shin dig at our house. The entertainment consisted of balloons on the floor. It is amazing what keeps kids occupied!

LOVE costco cake. Too bad Kyla is allergic to eggs, dairy, and peanuts which we learned shortly after.

Christmas time is here! 

Getting ready for the Happy Elephant Christmas Program

Waiting patiently for her sister's big performance

Ellie shares my love of performing to a crowd

Christmas morning!

cozy sisters!

A few toys

Somewhat smaller load

The end! We are so blessed! Hope to see you soon!

Double the fun

We made it to Van Andel area twice within the same week! The first was to take Ellie to see Disney on Ice.

She was soooo excited and kept talking about frozen Disney for a week leading up to it. Grandma Mars and Grandma Bailey also attended, along with Daddy.

She seemed pretty overwhelmed for the first half, but was laughing and smiling during the second half. Maybe it was the popcorn?

Kyla stayed at home with grandpa.

I teared up a little during "can you feel the love tonight?"

Then a few short days later Scott and I were young and strong and running against the wind! We spontaneously snatched up some Bob Seger 11th row floor tickets that were just released.

 It was even a work night! We started off the evening with some 1/2 lb cow burgers at Stella's and then waddled over to the arena. I caught a glimpse of what I'm going to look like in 30 (ok maybe 10-20) years going to Brad Paisley concerts as we were definitely on the younger spectrum of the crowd. It was SUCH a great show though. So many great songs. I can't believe he is 68!

He was jamming and going through so many sweat bands :)
I tried not to cry to much, but hey, it is Bob Seger.

I win - for now

Kyla is my child to put to bed and Ellie is Scott's responsibility. I won't even get into the process Ellie goes through, but I would like to personally thank Kyla for being such a good kiddo. Sometime around 7:45 Kyla grabs her blanket (her teeth are already brushed and she is in her jammies, she is just playing for a few minutes). She  comes out in the living room and lays down on the floor. I say "Kyla, ready for bed" and a huge smile crosses her face. She runs to her crib, points at it and says "nye-night!"  I pick her put and she beams ear to ear. She laughs. I check her diaper while she claps her hands. I lay her down and put her blanket on her while she laughs and say nye-night.  Then I go blog about it while Scott is in a two hour heated battle with Ellie :) 

Hello! Well, it has been a long long time. I'm going to try to do some catching up over the next few weeks so we'll see how it goes. Baby steps. One day at a time. Now time to transport back to the late summer...

It was a very difficult 8 months for us after Scott's surgery. We didn't do much of anything fun over the summer, but on one of the last nice days, and one of the last days before Scott returning to work, I drug the fam to the beach!  We picked up up some chicken on the way and ate right on the beach. It was somewhere in the 70s so I didn't plan on swimming, but Ellie had other plans before we left. Good thing I brought a change of clothes! Kyla really enjoyed eating the sand and crawling all over the place. I only took a few pictures pre-dip in the chilly lake.  The sand was whipping all over and I didn't want to ruin the camera.