Year in Review

2014.  A summation.

We went to Wisconsin the beginning of the year.  It was -20.  So cold.  So cold that water trick that you see on YouTube, where you throw boiling water out into the air and it instantly turns into snow?  Yea we did that.  A couple times.  I posted photographic evidence.  It was bitter cold.  But G, being of the 3yo invincible set, was still determined to play in the snow.  He went out in 15min increments, with inside breaks that were like half an hour to warm up his freezing limbs.

Brother wanted no part of it.

The end of February we went with friends to the Happiest Place on Earth!  And it was magical and I can't wait to go back.  I love Disney.  Love love love.  And they love me.  It's such a special relationship that drains my disposable income but I don't care!  You hear me! I don't care!  I love Disney and all their magic and awe and inspiring quotes and I just love love love it.

The kids loved it too.  Well, the 3yo did.  The 18mo was less enthralled with a completely messed up sleep schedule and he probably had a virus of some kind because he just wasn't himself.  But travel and large costumed mice will do that to a baby.  He was a trooper though, and I have so many fond memories of that rainy (oh did it RAIN!) trip.

In March Lew and I went to Napa - leaving my kids with my DAD! - for a wedding and it was very fun.  Lots of sight seeing and driving around and some wine tasting but seriously I couldn't hang in that department.  21 I am not.

And then the positive news that we were expecting another wee bairn.  And then in the weeks that followed the unimaginable illness.  Oh the days I spent laying on the bathroom floor moaning while the children raced cars in the bathroom grout.  We hadn't told them about the baby, so G just thought I was really sick.  For about ten weeks.  After 12wks we told him, and then he would say "is the baby pushing all the food out again?"  His reactions have been a highlight of this pregnancy.  He is darling.  I especially liked - on the day that we told him mama was having a baby - him asking how the baby got in mama's belly.  The look on his face ... priceless.

The news that baby was a girl, though tentative.  But 80%.  A girl.  G was thrilled.  D liked the cupcakes, and added "baby sister" to his exploding vocabulary.

D turned 2.  G started school.  Played soccer.  We went to Fiesta again.  Earlier (in May) we went to Louisville and Indiana and saw cousins and visited.  A few trips back to Kansas.  Some folks came here to visit.  I went to a wedding in town and had to run down four flights of stairs to the nearest bathroom to dry heave in peace.  We left that event shortly.

It's funny now, at 30wks, to think of those moments.



We made cookies today.  It was pajama day at MOPS and it's dreary and cold and rainy.  Seemed a good day for it.  This is one of those pictures that I take because it's a moment I want down, where I don't want to pose or set up the shot or race to get my settings just so before someone moves.  So I switch to auto and just click.  The photos from my childhood that are the most enduring are the ones that were just shot, point and shoot.

Three weeks left of 2014.  Who can believe that?  Enjoy the rush up to the holidays all.  And only make cookies if you want to.  I despise cookie exchanges and holiday parties and forced festivities.  I'm more of the decorate your house and watch Christmas movies sort.  So I plan on doing more of that.  Though there is a work event for Lewis I have to attend this week.  But after that it's all family fare, an amazing train ride that I hope dazzles, enough presents to bring joy to share and enough food to make everyone happy.

Merry Christmas, all.