2011 Wrap Up

This afternoon I saw these questions on this blog. She got the following questions from another blog, but the link to the original blog would not work for me, so I am just linking to mommode. On the way home from a quick trip this afternoon I asked Jay these questions. We had a great discussion about the year and all the changes it has brought. I thought it was interesting that all the personal growth questions were answered by him about work, where as I answered them all in relation to our kids. Even though we both have full time jobs, I just thought it was a neat parallel about how a woman thinks versus a man. Here are my answers:

REFLECTION QUESTIONS FOR 2011

What was the single best thing that happened this past year?
Charlotte being born into our family.


What was the single most challenging thing that happened?
Figuring out life with two kids. One kid didn't seem to rock our world too much. He easily adjusted to a schedule and we adjusted our lives to fit his. With two kids who have different schedules it was hard to be available to both kids at the same time with different needs. How do a get one child's lunch ready when another child needs to nurse? While it was much more challenging in the beginning, I think we now have a better handle on things. How people have more than 2 children and manage things I have yet to figure out!


What was an unexpected joy this past year?
Charlotte being a baby girl. Her gender was a surprise and I will never forget the excitement and joy on Jay's face when he said she was a girl. Adding pinks, purples, dresses and baby dolls to our house has been so much fun!

What was an unexpected obstacle this past year?
Realizing that Trey had a delay in his speech. I didn't think it was that big a deal that he wasn't saying many words when he turned 2 and when the pediatrician wanted to recommend him for early intervention it really threw me for a loop. I am so glad we did it though because he has taken off with his speech and now we can't get him to stop talking! I can't believe that just 6 months ago he was only speaking 30-40 words. Now being able to communicate with him and hear everything going on in his head still amazes me. He continually surprises and cracks me up with what comes out of his mouth.

Pick three words to describe 2011.
Balance. Joy. Change.

What were the best books you read this year?
I honestly could not name my tops books of 2011. I have read TONS of books on my kindle, many of which were free downloads so they weren't always the deepest of books. I think it shows that I need to read more books that might stretch me or make me think, since not one single book stands out to me. As I look back through my kindle downloads though I can recommend one good read, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman.

With whom were your most valuable relationships?
My husband. He challenges me and teaches me things every day. I love living life with him.


What was your biggest personal change from January to December of this past year?
My biggest personal change was learning that I can't do it all. I can't be the best at everything in my life. There have to be compromises. I can be the best mom, wife and teacher I know how to be each day, but what is my best isn't going to be the same as someone elses and that's okay.

In what way(s) did you grow emotionally?
Emotionally I grew in learning who I am. I love my kids more than life, but they aren't me and they will one day grow up and I will still (hopefully) be here. I am learning to find out who I am and continue to develop my person to be one that brings glory to the Lord and finds my joy in Him, not in my family or my blessings.


In what way(s) did you grow spiritually?
God is constantly teaching me to trust in him and not in my own ways. I grew in trust and seeing that trusting God will bring peace that no amount of my own planning can bring.

In what way(s) did you grow physically?
I would say I shrunk physically in that I lost my baby weight. I will also have to say that despite weighing what I weighed before I got pregnant with baby #1, my body is not the same. I know now what strength my body is capable of after two births, but lets just say it still shows that I had two babies in two years.


What was the most enjoyable part of your work (both professionally and at home)?

Watching my kids love each other. Charlotte lights up when Trey comes into the room and she crawls to the bottom of the stairs when she hears his voice coming down the stairs. Trey will give Charlotte a hug randomly and then say, "I am glad to see you Charlotte. Want to play with me Charlotte?" It melts my heart every time.

What was the most challenging part of your work (both professionally and at home)?

The most challenging part of my work at home was finding balance. How to let things go just to play with my kids and not worry about the dirty dishes or the laundry in baskets. I am better than I used to be, but I still need to focus on the time I have with my little ones and not just trying to go through the evening checking off chores.

What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?

Facebook.

What was the best way you used your time this past year?

Spending time with my family. Afternoons where we just played together on the floor tickling or reading a book. Singing songs with Trey and playing peek a boo with Charlotte or listening to silly rendition of a nursery rhyme being read by Jay. Those are times that are so precious and I wish I could relive over and over again.

What was biggest thing you learned this past year?

There is no "right" way to parent. It is just what works best for your family at the time. My two kids have different personality and what worked with one doesn't always work with the other. If that is true for my two kids with the same mom and dad then there is no way I can compare my parenting to that of another mom with a completely different child.

Create a phrase or statement that describes 2011 for you.
Once you think you got it down, something else changes, but each change fulfills you a little more.

Christmas Recap

We did Christmas with my side of the family the weekend before Christmas. Even though we had to come back and go back to school after we got back from the trip, being able to travel early and then stay home over Christmas has made our vacation much more relaxing. The kids had a great time seeing their cousins. We opened up presents and Trey was very excited about his new train set. Papa and Daddy helped him set it up. Jacob and Chandler had fun playing with it too.







This was our first Christmas in the new house and the first year we really went all out with decorating. It was a lot of fun planning how to make the house look festive.











Every year decorating the Christmas tree is a trip down memory lane. Many of our ornaments came from ornaments we collected whenever we traveled. This year we realized we got all our traveling ornaments before we had kids! Now our tree is filled with baby's first Christmas ornaments and other kid ornaments. We have 4 first Christmas ornaments for Trey and Charlotte got 2 before Christmas and 2 on Christmas day so she has 4 too!

Christmas Morning

We had a great Christmas morning here. Unbelievably, I was the first one to wake up at 7:30! I quickly woke up the kids- Hello, Santa came and we gotta check out the toys! No really I woke them up because if we let them sleep in too long then they don't nap, and this mama needs that nap time!

The kids did really well opening presents. Last year Trey wanted nothing to do with opening any presents and this year he really seemed to get into it. Charlotte didn't really know what was going on, but she was happy to play with any tissue paper or wrapping paper she could get her hands on!

Warning: There are lots of pictures coming up. My kids look really cute in their pajamas. Me, not so much. But I love them enough to share their Christmas morning pictures despite what I look like first thing in the morning. Luckily, my husband loves me even after seeing me first thing in the morning.

The goodies set up for the kids to see!


Jay came downstairs first to get set up with the camera. Then we let the kids come down.



A first glimpse of what Santa left him.


So excited about his stocking.


First he brought his stocking and Charlotte's stocking over to me. When Trey pulled out 2 DVDs from his stocking he said, "Oh, one for me and one for Charlotte." Then he gave one of his DVDs to Charlotte. I won't say he shared this good this rest of the morning, but he knows whenever there are 2 of something he is supposed to give one to his sister!


Charlotte didn't get the whole toys in the stocking thing. But she gladly played with whatever I pulled out.


After looking at the Santa presents and stockings Trey pretty much just wanted to play on Charlotte's riding toy. He didn't want to open his other presents for a while.


It worked out okay because Charlotte just wanted to play with his underwear package.



After a while they were ready to open some presents. Now I am so glad they each only had 1 stocking, 1 big presents that was unwrapped and 2 presents to open. Any more and they would have been completely overwhelmed!






Trey put on his snowboots as soon as he opened them. Thanks Granddaddy!


Say Cheese! The camera was really a present for Charlotte, but I think Trey has played with it more than any toy he received.


Charlotte got a new baby doll.


She is so gentle and nurturing with it.


Trey loves his "favorite puter" as he calls his new portable DVD player.


The construction worker hard at work.



Trey finally let Charlotte have a turn on her riding toy. She really likes the buttons and dancing to the music. She can't quite get it to go on her own yet, but I am sure she will soon.


Christmas night Uncle Mark and Grandma came over for dinner and more presents.

Uncle Mark knows Trey very well and gave a stuffed Mickey Mouse. Trey carries Mickey Mouse everywhere! I should also note that Trey has become very opinionated about his clothing choices these days. Apparently brown and gray now go together because he insists on wearing his super Grover shirt whenever it is clean with brown pants. He also likes to refer to himself as "SUPERTREY!" when wearing this shirt.





Grandma and Grandpa got Trey his very own slide. He has had a lot of fun playing on it and having Charlotte go down in his lap!



At the end of the night Trey and Charlotte were playing with a book Uncle Mark got Charlotte. At first they were just waving it between each other and laughing and then Trey told her to pull hard. They both pulled together and I am not sure who pulled harder!

Merry Christmas!

The Great Santa Debate

We have been debating all December about what we want Santa to look like at our house, and if we even want to DO the whole Santa thing. In the end we decided to go for a toned down version of Santa with Santa bringing stockings, but keeping our focus on the birth of Jesus and reading lots of stories with Trey about baby Jesus. I knew Trey would get so excited about the idea of Santa and the magic of presents on Christmas morning.

So tonight we told Trey that Santa was going to come and bring presents tonight to his house. He knows who Santa is because of some stickers he had and he kept asking, "Who's that?" when he would pull off a Santa sticker.

Tonight Trey pointed out his stocking and we told him Santa would put toys in his stocking. He was very excited. About 10 minutes later he had some more questions about it.

Trey: Santa's car is coming to our house? Sidenote: We don't have a lot of cars come up our driveway to our house so it kinda a big deal to him to see a car come to our house. Hence the car question.
Jay: No, Santa is rides in a sleigh, so you won't see his car.
Trey: A sleigh, wow!

Then later on right before bed Trey informed us it was "breakfast time!" Apparently he thought if it was breakfast time then it was morning and could open his presents!

Adoration

Charlotte adores her big brother. Literally, I cannot keep her away from him and whatever he is doing. In the evenings Jay tries to take Trey outside to run around and get some energy out while I fix dinner. Charlotte is stuck inside with me. She does not like this. She wants to be with her brother. We would let her go outside except she eats every stinking stick, leaf, twig, leaf, bug, dirt, piece of grass ........

So for now she just stares out the window until he comes back in. Or waves at her.





We are having to work a lot more on sharing these days because Trey usually wants what she is playing with and vice versa. They do love to share food though. Apparently a snack is no good unless it shared among both of them.



Charlotte somehow got a bit of Trey's play doh in her hand yesterday evening and she ate it. We don't think it was too much, but her tongue did turn blue. Luckily it was homemade so I know exactly what she ate and we can rule out any food allergies for blue food coloring! She threw it up about an hour later so I guess all that salt didn't agree with her system. Today I had a long talk with Trey about keeping the playdoh on his table and not on the floor so Charlotte didn't eat it and get sick. So while playing Trey informs her, "Charlotte, don't come over here, you can't eat my playdoh because I keeping it on the table."

Charlotte decided to go for the Christmas tree lights instead...

Holiday Cheer

I mentioned in the last post that we hosted our Sunday School Christmas Party at our house last weekend. We spent most of the day on Saturday cleaning and getting ready for the party. The first thing we did at the party was wrap all the presents for our class' angel tree child. Jay went down to the basement and got all wrapping stuff out so we could organize what we needed.

Charlotte wanted to help.







Before everyone arrived I asked Jay to go around downstairs and take pictures. I figured out house would never look as clean and as put together as it did then. I was hoping for some more creative shots, but he did what I asked :)

We did the wrapping on the kitchen island so everything is laid out on the island for wrapping. We also put out a card table in between the kitchen and play area for more seating.



We spent every night last week figuring out how to hang up this wreath over the fireplace. After 3 unsuccessful attempts we used the ribbon with wire in it woven through the back of the wreath and then tied to 3M strips on the inside of the bookshelves. I am not a huge fan of the ribbon on the sides of the wreath, but after all the work putting the wreath together we wanted it to stay up!



The dining room table has the leaf in it which leads to more seating, but less room to maneuver around the table.

Weekend Recap

We had such a great weekend! It was filled with holiday activities and time together.

• On Friday Trey had his last speech session. He started speech at 24 months old because he was only speaking about 15 words and now his vocabulary is over 400 words. He is 32 months old and met or exceeded all the 36 month old speech milestones, as well as placing 36 months old in gross motor, fine motor, and social/ emotional developmental areas. Once again he showed us he likes to do things in his own time :) We are so proud of him and love hearing all he has to say.... even if it seems like we can't get him to STOP talking now.
  
• Saturday morning we put the finishing touches on our Christmas decorations. Including figuring out how to hang the enormous wreath on our fireplace (where hopefully one day a flat screen tv will rest).
  
• Trey helped Jay find sticks to put into the fireplace wreath to add a more rustic feel to the ribbon, pine cones, and berries already adorning it. Tonight he asked me "What's that?" pointing to a wreath in the kitchen. When I told him it was a wreath his next question was, "Where's the sticks?"
  
• Trey has started calling Charlotte "my baby." On Saturday morning I put Charlotte in his bed with him and he said, "Thank you for bringing me my baby, Mommy." and then when Charlotte was trying to crawl out of his bed to go play he said, "Go take care of my baby now Mommy."
  
• Charlotte spent most of the weekend chasing Trey around the house. He likes to crawl on the floor with her and she is a fast mover and will get to wherever he is.
  
• We hosted our Sunday School Christmas party at our house on Saturday evening. We had 14 adults and 8 kids come. The party included wrapping all the presents for the angel tree child our class adopted, a yummy BBQ dinner and the annual dirty santa ornament exchange. We ended up with the lovely ornaments of cheese with the label "I love stinky cheese" and a clay Santa.
  
• Charlotte wore her Christmas dress to church on Sunday complete with a matching hair bow. She looked so adorable! We forgot to get pictures today, but I am sure we will take more.
  
• Charlotte is the happiest baby ever! She spent the whole Christmas party watching people, crawling to get to presents or toys, and being passed from person to person. She entertained the dining room by buzzing her lips for 15 minutes and then laughing hysterically like she was the funniest kid ever.
  
• We spent Sunday afternoon with the kids napping and Jay and I relaxing downstairs. It was the first time in a long time that I can remember just reading and relaxing and not worrying about laundry or housework.
• Sunday evening Jay went to church to help with the children's choir program because he helps teach children's choir on Wednesday night. I was flying solo with bedtime duty. I introduced Trey to The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and he loved it. We read it 3 times before bed. Later when I told him I would come back to read to him after I put Charlotte to bed I could hear him saying in his room, "Want Apples? And the tree was happy."
  
• During Trey's nighttime prayer he got a little distracted. It went something like this, "Dear God, Thank you for Mommy and Daddy. (pauses to think about this) Daddy is at church. (looks at me) Daddy is at church with my church bus. Thank you for my church bus. Amen." Seriously I don't know if any kid has ever prayed for the church bus as much as Trey has.
  
• I was so refreshed from relaxing in the evening I made peanut butter balls, a loaf of bread, pizza dough, and a hashbrown casserole after the kids went to bed. It felt so good to be productive and now all my dinners are prepped for the week!
  

Ok, so that was a really long recap! I love to use the blog to see how our lives have changed and what season of life we are in now. One day I am sure those little details will be so much fun to go back and read. And thank you if you made it all the way through this wordy post!

Hats and Hairbows