2011 in Review

2011 was a busy year for our family.  Here are a few lot of highlights:

Winter

Little G turned one! 

He wolfed down the cupcake and would have eaten more if I'd given it to him!

"Official" 1 Year Photo

He mastered the art of getting around - even if he couldn't walk yet. 

Acrobatics

We taught him to start contributing around here!

Playing with the vacuum

He had his first plane trip and boat ride when we visited south Florida.

Spring

Taking a passport photo.  It turned out great!

In the spring we undertook our biggest adventure yet and went to Paris with Little G for 10 days!  The flight was miserable and by the time we arrived, I was ready to permanently relocate to Europe to avoid a return flight.  Fortunately, I had 10 days to compose myself and get my mind right about the flight home.

We saw some of the tourist highlights.  From the outside.  Fortunately, this wasn't our first trip to Paris, because we didn't go inside very many attractions and museums were a no-go.  We enjoyed the slow pace, good food and adventure of getting around an old, big city with an almost-toddler.  We spent lots of time in parks, taking walks (the Eiffel tower was walking distance to our apartment) and enjoying the neighborhood around our apartment that was a true Parisian family neighborhood.  We went further afield a couple of times to take a guided tour in another arrondissment (district), which we loved.  We also went to visit a small amusement park that was fun for Little G.  We even got to see the finish line for the Paris Marathon and ride the Metro with thousands of marathon participants and their friends and families.  It was a special surprise bonus!

Eiffel Tower

Double Decker Bus Tour

Crusing Around at Notre Dame

Summer

Summer found us going to infant swim lessons.  Little G was a trooper and after a rocky start he picked up on it and was soon swimming and floating around the pool. We highly recommend ISR for infant swimming and safety training! 

We went to the beach a few times and enjoyed spending time with the ladies and Little G enjoyed impressing folks at the pool with his crazy swimming skills. People would literally go get their family to come back and watch him swim. We were a teeny bit proud of him. :)

July 4th

My side of the family

 We capped off the summer with a trip to the lake with Big G's side of the family. It was great to have all three cousins together. They were all born within a few months of each other and are old enough now to play together.

Bouncing on the bed after bath

Getting in the lake with Sug and A

Big G's side of the family

Fall

Little G started preschool two morning a week in September.  He loves it!

Next on our calendar was a trip to Chicago to spend time with friends!

Enjoying the view from our high rise apartment

Baby J - sweetest little heartbreaker!

Playing with Baby J

Walking around the Lincoln Park Zoo with Mr. Lucas

Next Up... Halloween!

Chillin' in the sweet ride at the pumpkin patch!

Our Little Lion

I was a terrible photographer at Thanksgiving and don't have a picture to show!  We had a fun time visiting my side of the family and eating way too much.  We have so much to be thankful for!!

Winter

Here is our Christmas card photo from this year: 

We celebrated Christmas the weekend before Christmas with my side of the family and then on Christmas Day went to Big G's family.  The three cousins were united again!

Opening Gifts Christmas Morning at home

P is a Pony!

"Airpane" as G says



Our all-three-babies-in-front-of-the-tree photo

dancing followed

A was feeling the music!!

All the fancy Christmas presents and they find an old bin to play in.

The Aftermath

As you can see from the last picture, we have some cleaning out and donating to do with the older toys.  I'm also going to put away some of the new toys so I can rotate them in later.  I've found that Little G plays better with smaller groups of toys.  Maybe because he can focus more? 

That brings us up to date.  Almost.

I have one other bit of news to update.  I hope it won't change the way you think about me.  Big G and I had a fundamental shift in one of our long-held beliefs this year.  Something has happened that we said we would NEVER happen.  I'm not proud of it, but I'm working on swallowing my pride and embracing it. 
















We bought a minivan.  Or as I prefer to call it, a car with sliding doors.  Shocking, I know.  It was a sad day when I parted with my beloved Infiniti sedan for a more sensible mom vehicle.   I finally came to the realization that the time in my life for zippy, fun cars is not right now.   Right now, I'm in it for the sliding doors and extra back seat leg room for those huge baby car seats.  It is the smallest minivan on the market since I wanted to be able to park in the garage and my stall isn't very long.  Also, it isn't very cute, but as I said above, I'm working on embracing it.

Here is our little swagger wagon .... please try to contain your envy!

Mazda 5

Happy New Year!!

25 Things About Me

1.  My family is my top priority.
2.  Sometimes I am still surprised they let us go home with a baby and now we are expected to raise him without messing him up.  It's a lot of pressure even 18 months down the road.
3.  While I am persnickety about some things, there are lots of things that aren't on my radar to worry about.  Which things fall into which category is probably surprising at times. 
4. My hubs (Big G) is the best husband and daddy ever.  I'm sorry if you were under the impression that it was your guy.
5. My son (Little G) is the light of my life.  Sometimes now I wonder what we used to do with ourselves before he was here.  Except I do remember the sleep and free time.  Well, maybe it is coming back to me, but this is way better anyway!
6.  I always thought I would have little girls because I had no idea what to do with a boy.
7.  Sometimes we make plans and God laughs.  Having children is a prime example of this.
8.  Now I can't imagine if Little G had been a girl.
9.  One of my favorite snacks is popcorn.
10. I love to save money.  Or at least to feel like I'm saving it. 
11.  I put a lot of effort into planning shopping trips to spend as little as possible on groceries, toiletries, medicine and baby care items (diapers!!).  It's a game I like to play with myself.
12.  I have very little problem forking out money for items that are my splurges.
13.  I love Kiehls Ultimate Strength Hand Salve.  It is worth the price.
14.  I use drugstore moisturizer (Purpose).
15.  I hate to pay more than $15 for a shirt for myself.  It has to be pretty special for me to break that rule. 
16.  I am not into status purses or sunglasses. 
17.  I have a very hard time shopping for purses and sunglasses because I can almost never find one that fits my requirements which basically include that it be exactly like my last purse.
18.  I'm shy around new people.
19.  I love to shop for fabric. 
20.  I don't always love to sew with the fabric I purchase.  I have a lot of fabric.  Sometimes just looking at it satisfies my creative urge.
21.  I love to read craft blogs and come up with grand plans of things I'm going to make.
22.  I can conservatively estimate that approximately 1% of those plans become reality.
23.  I love to cook.
24.  I am a procrastinator. 
25.  I am a perfectionist.  I had a blog partially set up for months but never launched it because I couldn't get the design the way I wanted it.  I would rather not have it than have it be wrong.

Hello!

Well, hello there!  After reading and enjoying other blogs for years I'm taking the plunge and creating one myself.

I hope that this space will allow me to share our daily life with family and friends we don't get to see nearly often enough.  Also, it will be a place to share my creative projects with the blogging community after being a lurker for so long.