2013. A Year in Review

Last year I never got around to doing a year end post like the ones I'd done before. Probably because we were off to Chicago right after Christmas and stayed through the new year. I don't have much of an excuse this year as our big plans for NYE tonight are to stay home, order a pizza, make lava cakes and try to see midnight without falling asleep.

As I mentioned, 2013 started off in the best possible way...with a vacation :) And any year that starts out with a little vacation is alright by me. This day last year, we'd just seen our two sweet friends married, arranged a babysitter for the boys and had a (grownups only) night out on the town in Chicago.

 NYE dinner at the Publican was incredible.

 

 

 

We muddled through the rest of winter, enjoying our 6th wedding anniversary, Valentine's Day and Josh's big improv debut.

 

By spring all our focus was on selling our old house and buying our new. I would say this was definitely the biggest undertaking of the year and much of the rest of the year was focused on that. It was hard saying goodbye to Westvale and even harder getting through all the drama involved in selling it. But in the end, I am happy to say we became proud owners of our dream house and I have had so much fun turning it into a home.

 

 

 

 

As if buying a new house were not excitement enough, I turned thirty in August and we celebrated with the trip of a lifetime to Iceland. Well, technically Amsterdam and Iceland (not that I'm complaining, because that was certainly the happiest accident of the year by far). And I've decided I'd easily turn thirty every year if it always involved icebergs. And puffin. And glaciers and time alone with Josh too. Gosh, that was a good trip.

The boys grew by leaps and bounds, as they seem to do each year without fail. We had Oren's last birthday party in our old house and Weston turned five in our new one. I ended a two year nursing career with Oren and he got a new room and a brand new twin bed.

 

 

 

 

 

We also welcomed a new family member into our home, our furry little boy, Lincoln! And, goodness, I just can not believe how well he fits right in and how much we love him already.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back, I'm actually surprised by how much we managed to squeeze into one year. I tend to prefer to spread out big events like these so I can put all my energy and focus into one thing at a time, but this year was full to the brim with excitement and changes. It was a really, really good one and I have high hopes for 2014 after this year.

 

Hope you all have a safe and fun new years eve and get to spend it with the ones you love.

 

See you in 2014!

 

xoxoxo

Emme

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve + Christmas Day

 ^^^ Christmas Eve brunch is quickly becoming my favorite meal of the year ^^^

^^^Typical picture of Oren and I. Hand always down the shirt^^^

 ^^^Favorite gift^^^

Baby Rory!

Oren was feeling under the weather by Christmas Eve night and was asleep well before Wes, so Wes got to fly solo setting out milk and cookies for Santa and leaving the carrots out for the reindeer. He did a bang up job ;)

and finally, presents!!!

And that's it for the Christmas posts. Whew, what a year! I've got a couple new house posts in the works and even a DIY up my sleeve. Be back with those next week and until then have a great weekend, guys!

Some Miscellaneous Christmas-ing

Merry day after Christmas, everyone! Personally, I think December 26th is sort of the most depressing day of the year, but that's just me. Did you all have a good one? Ours was pretty great. Exhausting, but great. The real camera is still full of pretty Christmas photos that I haven't gotten around to downloading yet. So, today's post is just a little recap of the past few days before Christmas via my iphone. 

The last day before break I volunteered for Weston's class Christmas party and brought in all the stuff to do a gingerbread man craft with the kids.

 I know I'm biased, but was Wes's not just the cutest thing ever?

 We also watched this more than once and loved every minute of it.

There was an ugly sweater contest at the family Christmas party with some pretty stiff competition.

 ...and we have a winner!

 is that not just amazingly hideous? Bravo, Uncle Sean, Bravo.

Also, just to confirm that we do indeed live in Mayberry, we had more than one neighbor drop off baked goods and gifts to us this week. Below is one of the baskets dropped off which was promptly dismantled and pilfered by two little elves only moments after this photo was taken. But seriously, we struck gold deciding to move here and I feel so, so lucky to be surrounded by these people every day.

 

And speaking of lucky, we got a far too short visit from friends whom we haven't seen in far too long. And planned a memorial day trip to Chicago while they were here and now I'm counting down the days until spring :)

In not-so-lucky news, poor Oren face planted into the side of a tool box and got a nice Christmas facial wound, perfect for holiday photos!

(This is just evidence that I can no longer walk past the little girl's section without buying something for our new baby niece, Rory. Whom I got to snuggle for about an hour on Christmas and was probably my favorite part of the whole day.)

 

And these were what my freshly wrapped presents looked like right before Oren overdosed on breakfast sausage and puked all over them. They all got a fresh re-wrapping and we learned an important lesson in limiting Oren's pork intake. The boy just doesn't know when to stop.  

Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and only had to wrap your presents once!

xoxo