2010 In Review

As a mother with young children, I often have the feeling that "I didn't get anything done today." However, when I looked back through our happenings in 2010, it helped me realize that we have actually done a lot this year! I have already posted about all of these events, but for my own record of this eventful year, I enjoyed putting the memories together in one place.

January

At 9 months pregnant, I began my yoga teaching journey. We spent one last getaway as a family of three with our friends from college. We prepared for our second baby, barely finishing the preparations before his arrival.

February

Our sweet Nash Ryan arrived three weeks early. We made a lot of adjustments. The entire month became a blur.

March

We blessed Nash and started to get into more of a routine. Blake begged for m&m's.

April
We spent Easter in Arizona and stayed a few extra weeks while Troy spent his first 2 weeks out of 10 in total working in New York.

May

I reflected on motherhood on Mother's Day. I got back into crafting when the boys' naps started overlapping. Nash and I both lost a lot of hair.

June
Troy spent 5 more weeks working in New York. We talked to him on Skype. Nash and I joined him for a week and loved exploring the big city. I painted the Laundry Room.

July

We went to a Tanner family reunion with 150+ people. We celebrated the 4th of July with the Stadium of Fire and saw fireworks. We went boating. I hosted three bridal showers.

August

Troy spent 2 more weeks in New York. We went to the splash park and enjoyed other summer activities. We celebrated the mission homecoming of Troy's brother and the wedding of Troy's sister.

September

We road tripped to California for a wedding reception. Blake started mackin' on the ladies. Nash had his first surgery and Blake managed a head injury a few days later. I hosted another shower.

October

We spent a week at Disneyland with our best friends from Michigan. We trick-or-treated three times. Nash tried to eat the pumpkins at the pumpkin patch.

November

We began the task of potty training Blake. We made a slew of rolls for Thanksgiving at our house. Blake started attending a co-op preschool.

December

We could barely keep up with all of the holiday mayhem. We attended plays and parties and concerts. The boys met Santa. We celebrated Blake's third birthday with a balloon party.

2010 has been wonderful, challenging, and eventful. Most of all, it has been a blessing.

Christmas Morning Take Two

We started off the actual Christmas morning with matching pajamas as is our tradition.

We all paraded down the stairs singing Jingle Bells and someone was pretty excited to see what Santa brought.

Santa didn't disappoint. Blake's favorite part about Santa coming to the cabin was that he ate the cookies and the carrot we set out. Blake squealed with excitement to find the evidence that Santa was here. And he didn't mind finishing off Santa's crumbs for breakfast either.

There were a lot of fun toys involved.

And a few mix-ups. Todd received this present from "Grandma and Grandpa." Oops, wrong tag.

Todd showered everyone with Jamaican souvenirs that exceeded the weight requirements for his baggage on the flight home from his mission. He left all of his clothes behind in order to bring us these treasures.

Nash woke up from his morning nap towards the end of the unwrapping to enjoy his first Christmas!

Not that he understood what was going on, but he enjoyed getting into the new toys and little tiny shreds of wrapping paper and ribbon. 

I have fished many small things out of our little puppy's mouth since the Christmas extravaganza. One day, he shoved 7 or 8 minuscule sparkly silver balls in his mouth. That was a fun one to tackle.

There's nothing better than enjoying the excited expressions together on Christmas morning (and I like how Nash crawled on top of the present to get a better view).

The best gift of all is the love these two have for each other. I am so lucky to spend Christmas day and every day with our darling boys.

The Nativity

I love how each of our extended families have different Christmas Eve traditions. My favorite tradition with Troy's family is acting out the Nativity with characters and costumes. I'll admit that while we always have good intentions for the play to be reverent and thought provoking, it usually ends up becoming quite humorous.

For example, how could we not be amused by our humongous and very wiggly baby Jesus? 

He was still sweet, of course, but he was not a fan of being "wrapped in swaddling clothes." The poor boy just wanted mobility and freedom! It wasn't quite the same experience having an almost one year old play the part of baby Jesus as our Nativity three years ago where Blake was only two weeks old.

Now that Blake is big, he got to play the part of a sheep.

And Grandma was the (female) shepherd.

The sheep adored that gigantic baby Jesus.

We cast the newest member of our family and the rookie to this tradition as Joseph (adorned with a towel, scarf, and monkey?).

We came up with glamorous costumes for the Wise Men.

There may have been some rambunctious renditions of Christmas carols and we are far from taking our act to the stage, but our production is a tradition I look forward to when we spend Christmas with the Tanners.

Christmas Greetings 2010

From our family to yours...

Christmas Morning Take One

We celebrated Christmas a week early with my family while they were in town for a brief few days. After opening another round of gifts shortly after Blake's birthday, I can't believe that we are going to do this all over again in a few days! I hope the magic of the actual Christmas isn't lessened from all of our recent present-opening extravaganzas. It's too bad that we can't spread out the indulgence a little bit throughout the year. I think that Blake is still excited about the "Santa" aspect of Christmas though (and we're working on the excitement for the "Nativity" aspect). And what child would complain about additional presents? 

The boxes and gifts took over the living room; looks like a typical Christmas morning.