At the stroke of midnight last night, we bid farewell to 2011. It was nothing fancy or exciting. We had a nice night in with some wine, appetizers, and champagne. My mom came over for a while but left well before midnight. We were in bed by 12:15 (although, thanks to some of neighbors, we weren’t SLEEPING because they decided to set off huge fireworks).
2011 was an eventful year. It was exactly a year ago that Michael and I decided to start our search for a house. We put our condo on the market at the beginning of February, and things just… didn’t go as planned. We put an offer on a house in March but didn’t get it. In early June, we finally found another one worth putting an offer on–a noncontingent offer that was accepted–and so began the months of real, live stress.
Obviously, things worked out. For the time being. We rented out the condo right after we moved out of it, and although that stress was relieved, we jumped right into home improvement projects at the new house which were just exhausting. We had lofty ambitions about how quickly we would be able to do things, and well, I’m here to tell you that we ridiculously overestimated how much we’d be able to get done in a short time.
Our kitchen? It’s still ugly. We have wallpaper ripped down, we removed the light fixture above the sink, but then… we haven’t done anything else to it. Oops.
We don’t have a single room that is “complete.” There are things in every room that stick out like a sore thumb to me, things that need to be done.
But we are living here at least. We are doing what we can but we are not letting the projects rule our lives like they did in the first month or so that we lived here.
Going into 2012, we don’t exactly know what the year will hold for us. The lease we have with our condo tenants expires on April 30. We don’t yet know whether they plan to stay or not. We might be putting it back on the market for another attempt at selling it. We may be renting to someone new. We may have to replace the furnace/air conditioner. We may have to repaint the entire place. We just don’t know.
Amidst all of the stress and changes we experienced in our lives in 2011, we had the most remarkable little girl to remind us of how blessed we truly are. We watched her grow from this smiling, squishy baby in January to this energetic, joyful, busy toddler at the end of December. I look back at photos from the year and I just cannot believe how much she has changed before my very eyes.
We were lucky to be able to travel a lot in 2011. Charleston, Las Vegas, Utah, Arizona, Mexico, Poconos, Virginia. We don’t yet have any trips planned for 2012, and because of the lofty goals we have for things we want to do with the house, we’re not sure what our 2012 travel will look like. Our priorities are with our home right now, but we do want to make sure to go somewhere this year, so it’s just a matter of figuring things out.
The people in our lives went through their ups and downs, too. We prayed for and supported them all, just as they supported us. I think we’re all entering into 2012 better for what we have been through (big and small), and I think the year holds a lot of promise for all of us.
Just as I hope it does for all of you.
Happy New Year.
After Christmas morning breakfast and gifts, we left my mom’s house a little before noon, if memory serves me right. We made a brief stop at home to drop off the gifts we had just received (we needed the room!) and began to the drive to spend Christmas with my in-laws at my sister-in-law’s house. Nora napped for a good part of the ride, the weather was great, and we made good time (the roads were empty!). It was time for more family fun!
It was actually quite relaxing. The cousins played together and watched movies (even though they couldn’t agree on what to watch), and us adults were able to talk and catch up, which doesn’t always happen during our normal, whirlwind visits.
We received more gifts–the majority of which were for Nora–and were very grateful again for everyone’s generosity. As always, we had a lot of fun GIVING gifts this year, too, and they seemed to be well-received by everyone, so that’s always a good feeling. :)
Tessa traveled with us (here she is, sporting her new collar that Santa brought for her), so we truly had our whole little family with us.
Melissa and Andy made us a wonderful Christmas dinner–lasagna rolls. Everything was delicious; in fact, Nora ate an entire lasagna roll by herself, so clearly something had been done right!
After dinner, we tried to get some nice photos of the three cousins together, just like we had done with Nora and Hunter in the morning. Unfortunately, we waited too long and Nora was too tired. This is the best we could do:
Oh well, at least we have photos for posterity. No one ever said all of the kids have to be smiling in them, right? :)
We spent the night at Melissa’s and came home the following morning. It was a busy holiday for us, but one that we really enjoyed. We felt like we got to spend a lot of quality time with our families, and the kids all had a great time together.
I can’t wait to see how Nora does with it all next year. It seems like it’ll just keep getting better and better as she comes to understand it more.
When we arrived at my mom’s house on Christmas morning, we had a quick conversation with my siblings about whether we wanted breakfast or gifts first. We actually chose breakfast, which would’ve blown the minds of the children we were a handful of years ago. :)
After pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and sausage, we all piled into the living room to start the chaos that is opening gifts. Nora settled right in.
Hunter was really into opening gifts this year, which was cute.
My mom got both of the kids bike helmets for next spring/summer.
Everyone was really generous, we are really grateful for everything. Nora got some really cute stuff from her uncles/aunties and grammy, and Michael and I got a lot of gift cards to Home Depot and Lowe’s, which is really all we want/need this year!
My mom got Nora and Hunter the recordable books, and recorded a greeting message. Nora loved pushing the buttons. Hunter was adorable–he kept listening to it and saying, “Grammy!”
We had to take the obligatory “cousins” series of photos. Hunter was very serious this go-round. I think he was counting down the seconds until we let him go back to play with all of his new toys.
I just love the way she looks at him. LOVE it.
Ahhh, they love each other so much. I can’t stand the cuteness!
After the kiss, we let Hunter escape to go do his own thing again. Back to the toys he went. Sweet boy.
Nora let my mom read her new book to her, which was great. At this age, she’s generally shy with everyone that is not Mommy, Daddy, or Mary (daycare), so it’s tough for the grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. who want to snuggle her. I was so happy to see her warm up to everyone on Christmas morning. Progress, yay!
Family pic (minus Michael, who had to take the photo for us)
From my mom’s house, we hit the road for my sister-in-law’s place to celebrate with Michael’s family. We had a 2+ hour drive ahead of us…
After dinner at my mom’s on Christmas Eve, we got Nora into her pajamas and stayed for a while longer, but headed home by Nora’s normal bedtime (7:00 p.m.). We did manage to snap this photo of the four generations before Santa came, though. :)
Once home, we read Nora “The Night Before Christmas” (thanks, Kara!) and put her to bed.
We did all of our wrapping on Friday night (the 23rd), which was wonderful–it was the first time ever that we weren’t scrambling to wrap gifts on Christmas Eve. Instead, all we had to do was play Santa, which didn’t involve much since we went pretty light with Nora’s gifts this year. We got to work assembling Nora’s kid table and chairs with a few glasses of wine and a fire in our fireplace. It was really nice.
Unfortunately, Nora was up from 3:00 a.m. to after 4:00 a.m., which was sort of miserable. I’m not sure if her ear was bothering her or what. (Did I mention she got another ear infection for Christmas this year? Just like last year. Except way less miserable than last year.) As a result, we were actually up before she was in the morning, giving us time to shower to get ready to go to my mom’s before she was even awake.
But eventually she did wake up on her own, and we gave her a little cereal for breakfast before bringing her into the family room for the big reveal… which, you know, was relatively uneventful this year. I’m guessing it’ll be a little more magical next year. :)
Still, Nora was highly amused by her “just my size” table and chairs, and got reacquainted with the Little People airplane that she got from my in-laws on Christmas Eve.
Then it was time to open stocking stuffers. Nora was sort of into it. She had fun pulling the gifts out of the stocking, and helped Michael unwrap a few of them.
She got a big girl plate and bowl and a Sippigrip.
Tessa had gifts in her stocking, too. She’s really good at opening her own presents.
Here’s Nora, studying the cover of her new movie (Despicable Me) from Santa. I think she’s thinking, “Wait, this isn’t Rio.” (Her FAVORITE.)
After her Santa presents, we opened a few gifts from other people. Nora opened presents from Mary (her daycare provider), her “aunt” Donna (my mother-in-law’s best friend), and then from “Pa” (my dad).
Pa got her Zig the Big Rig, as well as some extra Wheelies cars. Nora was pleased.
And here’s Nora sitting in the middle of some of the aftermath. But we didn’t have long to sit around–we had to head to my mom’s for my family’s Christmas morning breakfast!
How did Christmas morning go at your house? What were your favorite gifts this year? Are your kids “into” Santa yet? It seems like Christmas will just keep getting better and better as Nora gets older. What toys were the biggest hits with your little ones?
OK, so… looking back (here and here), it appears as though I was really into reindeer this year. Again, I blame Pinterest.
As part of their gifts this year, we gave six packs of beer to my brothers, my father-in-law, and our brother-in-law. But they weren’t just ANY six packs, you see. Each bottle of beer was dolled up with antlers, a couple of eyes, and a puffy red nose.
They were damn cute and FESTIVE, too! And really easy to make.
The antlers are brown pipe cleaners, cut to maybe about 8 inches long or so. I figured out the right length by experimenting a little bit, then just copied that length for the rest of them. The pipe cleaner is just twisted around the bottle neck, just under the cap. I didn’t have any problems with it staying in place. Then, I cut little pieces to make additional points on the antlers, wrapping the shorter pieces around the longer ones.
The eyes are googly eyes, and the nose a red pompom. Both (as well as pipe cleaners) can be found in the kids’ craft section at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Joann’s, etc. I attached the eyes and nose to the bottles using a hot glue gun.
Some brands of beer are better than others for this project. For instance, it wasn’t until I sat down to do it that I realized that the “neck labels” on Yuengling wrap all the way around the neck–not leaving me any blank space to glue the faces. So, I had to rip off the little labels, which didn’t make for the best looking six-pack. And the Land Shark reindeer, while cute, didn’t look as nice as the ones on the dark brown bottles. We bought the types of beer based on our recipients’ preferences, so it didn’t much matter to us–but it’s just something to keep in mind if you’re not sure which kind of beer to buy for this project.
All in all, it was cheap to turn these six packs into reindeer, and didn’t take much time, either. It made for a nice little gift for the beer drinkers in our lives. And if you want to make them for someone who doesn’t drink alcohol–the original pin on Pinterest actually used a six pack of root beer bottles, too, so that’s an option.
That sums up my Christmas crafting this year. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to all of the ones I wanted; I’ll have to save some of them for next year!
Did you do any crafts for the holidays? Did they come out like you’d hoped? Did you find that others (or your recipients, if they were gifts) appreciated your efforts?
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
