2010 Dirt and Lace Recap

This past year has been a year of ups and downs for my family and I. Luckily the good far outweighed the bad. Here are some of the highlights of our year… mostly blogged about, but some things I don’t think I did. I’d love to hyperlink everything but I don’t have time so you will have to go to the archive if you want to read about any of this stuff

JANUARY

Summer and Camryn were both potty-trained and mostly out of Pull-Ups FINALLY!

Camryn began the habit of getting in our bed at night, which they both continue to do several times a week.

FEBRUARY

Summer gave Camryn her first haircut. It was a little off the back that gave her a bit of a mullet. Luckily her hair started growing pretty quickly and you couldn’t tell by May.

Joe’s work truck, parked outside our house, got broken into and $4000 in tools was stolen. Luckily our homeowner’s insurance and Joe’s work insurance paid enough to replace most of them. We also found out that they had tried to pick our front door lock. I didn’t sleep soundly for a week, picturing someone breaking in and coming into my room while I slept.

MARCH

Joe’s dad, Joe, had a heart attack. He had to undergo surgery and scared the crap out of us all. He’s doing really well now, thank goodness.

We took the girls on their first fishing trip.

APRIL

Summer started playing soccer at the Y. Started off shaky but by the last game she was making goals left and right. We're looking forward to this next season, and Camryn will play, too!

MAY

My parents, brother, Joe, the girls, and I took a trip to Okaloosa Island, Florida for a week. We had a wonderful time and I am aching to go back there.

JUNE

I start to figure out how to use my point and shoot camera to take decent pictures. It all started when I discovered the Macro button.

I went on a fishing trip with Joe and my dad. Joe gets a fish hook stuck in his nose, and manages to remove it himself with pliers. I still cannot forget the sound of the pop as it came out.

We finally painted our porch and planted landscaping along the front of the house. What a difference it made!

JULY

Summer and Camryn rode their first boat.

AUGUST

Summer jumps off the side of the pool and goes underwater for the first time. A few weeks later she learns to swim with floaties on, above and under water.

Joe, my brother, and I take the girls to their first movie at the movie theater. We saw Toy Story 3D and they had a great time.

Summer started preschool. She hasn’t had a bad day yet!

I ate a donut burger at the fair. I still crave them.

My goddaughter Olivia went to the zoo for the first time with us.

Joe and I made a huge transformation to our living room when we painted our retro brick fireplace white and tan. Best decision, ever!

SEPTEMBER

Joe injured his eye at work. Luckily it was just a corneal abrasion with no lasting damage.

Camryn started biting her toenails.

OCTOBER

Joe and I took the girls on their first camping trip.

Joe spent a week working on the local Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house. We have an air date!! January 9!! I’ll remind you all again closer to the day it will come on

Our front door lock wouldn't work when I came home one night and we were told (by the locksmith at Lowe’s after looking at our lock) that someone had tried to break in again. We added a chain lock to the door and don’t go to bed without it locked and the porch light on.

NOVEMBER

My sweet, wonderful, courageous Grandmother passed away at the age of 83 after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

I got my new camera, a Nikon d3100, courtesy of my parents as an early X-Mas gift. I’m still excited over this and am DYING to get a new lens already. My birthday is in February, guys ;-)

DECEMBER

My friend Erika had her baby, Gracie Maria.

Joe got laid off for a month while his company gets more work. He is getting unemployment during this time but it’s not enough.

We held our first annual Christmas party for our friends.

What a year! I feel so excited about 2011… I can’t wait to get it started and see what is in store for us. Have a happy new year!

Carrots

Last night at dinner, Camryn was taking forever to eat and, as always, had barely touched her vegetables. After sitting there waiting for her to finish, we got up and started clearing the table and going about other activities. Joe walked over to her to encourage her to finish eating and caught her feeding her vegetables to Harley!  He told her he better not ever catch her doing that again and she promised she wouldn’t.

She said she was finished a few minutes later. I glanced over and saw that her plate was, indeed, clean. Since she ate her vegetables, I let her get a piece of candy for dessert and she went on her merry way.

A few hours later, when I was loading the dishwasher, I picked Camryn’s cup from dinner up off the counter. It was still half-way filled with milk. I slowly poured it into the sink, and as I did, six carrots and three peas came out with it.

I showed Joe and we were both laughing for a good five minutes. There were a few times as a kid that I didn’t want my vegetables and may have hid them under other food on my plate. But my milk? Never thought of it. Tell me my child isn’t brilliant.

This morning, I said, “Camryn… I found carrots in your milk last night…”

She looked at me with this mischievous grin and said, “I didn’t want them.”

I told her that while I was proud of her innovation, it’s not okay to be deceptive and lie to us. We told her that we would be checking her milk from now on.

Joe said to her, “That was really creative, but it’s only going to work once.”

The Day After Christmas

Are you still with me? I’m barely with myself at this point. It’s almost 3AM but I am going to get all of this up before I go to bed.

Today we headed out to Joe’s dad’s house to have Christmas with him and Joe’s Grandma and sister Jessica. I woke up feeling MUCH better… still sick but functional.

Joe and his dad playing with his new binoculars.

Why does he need binoculars, you ask?

Because this is his backyard:

Bruster

Lakoda

Terra and Fiona

It was sooo cold and we forgot their gloves so we only lasted about 3 minutes outside.

This is a bad decision in progress… luckily they couldn’t get it to start.

opening presents… they got some cute animals from their aunt Jessica and jewelry making kits and a sing-along CD player from Papaw and Grandma

And so that concludes our 2010 Christmas. I hope you all had a very happy holiday!

Christmas Day

After eating and opening presents at my parents’ house, it was time to go to my aunt Susan and uncle Paul’s house for Christmas with my mom’s side of the family.

Summer is SO excited about this guitar. She’s been asking for a “real” guitar forever. Whenever you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she says, “A rock star guitar player.”

my uncle Mark

mom and aunt Ann

Joe, me, and Wes – I was run over by a truck, remember?

My beautiful cousins Katherine and Libby

All the cousins… Nathan, Katherine, Camryn, Libby, Summer, Wes, Andrea, Joe, Me, Richard. I was informed by Joe that my brother looks so tall because he was standing on his tip-toes.

The whole family… my mom, Richard, me, Mark, Libby, Summer, Ann, Nathan, Katherine, Camryn, David, Wes, Billie, Susan, Joe, Andrea, Paul

I don’t know what your family does on Christmas… but mine had a jam session in the basement.

Oh yes, that would be me on the cowbell.

I can’t begin to explain to you how hard my aunt Ann rocked this tambourine.

It was the perfect ending to our Christmas day.

Christmas Morning

We woke up to a white Christmas! It wasn’t too much, just enough to cover everything and make it look really pretty. Summer and Camryn didn’t wake up till almost 9am. They came straight into our room just like we had told them to… the night before I had given them a speech about not going into the living room when they woke up and coming in to get us and tell us they were awake. I could hear Summer whisper as they walked in, “You tell Mommy, and I’ll tell Daddy.”

I was feeling horrible. My goal was to not ruin it for everyone else and to make sure I still enjoyed every moment despite feeling like I had been run over by a truck. I just kept reminding myself how lucky I was to be otherwise healthy and spending the holidays with my family.

So, we got out of bed and had the girls wait in our room. I went in and started the coffee, and Joe lit the fire. We sat down and turned the camera on, and told them to come on in.

They ran in and saw the wrapped presents that Santa had left under the tree. I love this picture… it isn’t the best but it captured the moment perfectly. Camryn was saying, “Look, Sissy!”

Unwrapping the first gifts

Santa didn’t forget Harley and Jack

Summer got what she had been asking for… a Liv Girl

We sat around and played for a bit… actually Summer, Camryn, and Joe did. I layed down on the couch and fell asleep for two hours. When I woke up it was time to get ready to go to my parents’ house for round two.

My mom makes a really good breakfast casserole every year.

My brother got the girls the LeapFrog Tag reading system. They love it!

Christmas Eve

The Wednesday before Christmas, the four of us went to my aunt Susan’s house to decorate cookies. It’s something we do every year and the girls are old enough now to really love it.

hard at work

you can never have too many sprinkles when you’re three

when you give the little ones free reign… you will have brown icing eventually, most likely in more than one place

the fellas minus joe… jordan, wes, richard, and austin

the finished product

On Christmas Eve, my parents had us over for dinner. I was feeling awful with a bad cold, and Camryn was too. She was coughing so much that Joe and my brother had to run out and get her some medicine before all the stores closed. While they was gone, I got out the gingerbread house kit that Jillia’s grandma had given them. They had a lot of fun, even though by the time we were finished the house was falling apart.

As soon as we finished our really….. interesting… gingerbread house, Joe and Wes got back with the medicine. My mom went to church for a Christmas Eve service, but I was feeling way too bad to go, so we consumed our gingerbread house and headed home to get ready for Santa Claus to come.