A Year in Review

I think if had to sum up 2013 in a single word I would choose "exhausting". It's been a great year, but having a baby who doesn't sleep is very exhausting. I probably should be napping right now, but instead I will share some of my favorite memories from the past year!

January...
...was a big month! We welcomed Bryce Frederick to the family on January 6.

In February...
...we celebrated Brennan turning 3!

...and shared Valentine's Day snuggles.

In March...
...Lala came to visit and met Bryce for the first time.

...and we enjoyed celebrating Easter.

In April...

...the boys, Val and I went to visit a friend in Georgia!

...we also had a visit from Papaw and he got to meet Bryce.

                                           

...and began getting good use out of our zoo membership.

In May...

...we took a day trip up to Boston.

...celebrated my first Mother's Day as a momma of two!

...and enjoyed the warmer weather by spending more time outside.

June was the month when...

...Brennan finished his first year of preschool.

...we took a little trip up to Vermont!

...and celebrated Father's Day!

In July...
...we let Brennan use a sparkler on the 4th of July.


...finally got a family picture taken as a family of 4.


...and Brennan started using the climbing wall in the basement.

In August...
...we enjoyed several picnics in downtown Mystic.

...and had a fun day in Newport, RI.

September...
....started with Brennan's first day of 3-year-old preschool.

...and ended with a fun family vacation to Daytona Beach (even though these two pics were technically taken in October) where my parents got to meet Bryce.

October brought some of my favorite pictures of the year...

...we enjoyed pumpkins and fall foliage.

...the boys had their first tubby together and got some cute matching pjs!

...and I was able to capture two of my favorite pictures of the entire year!

November was spent giving thanks for...
...another visit from Papaw.

...Brennan's 2nd place finish at the AWANA Grand Prix!

...praising God no one was hurt when I hit a deer with my car.

 ...and being extra thankful for getting a new car.

December...

...was all about seeing the magic of Christmas through the eyes of a three year old.

...and celebrating our Savior's birth.

I hope you had as much fun looking back at these pictures as I did. What fantastic memories. I am looking forward to the new year. We will kick it off with a first birthday celebration and a trip to Disney. I don't know what else is in store for 2014, but I'm thankful God has it all planned out for us.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.  -Jeremiah 29:11

Christmas Pictures

Here are some pictures we took of the boys on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

We took these shots right before we headed out to our church's Christmas Eve service.

We had a pretty relaxing Christmas morning. Unfortunately Bryce has had a few rough nights of sleep again, so we let him sleep in after having a middle of the night bottle. We let Brennan go ahead and open his presents and then once Bryce was up he helped open those too. We kept it pretty low-key this year. Brennan just asked for Play-doh and the game of Life on his iPad. He was super happy to get three Play-doh sets and we were happy that Life was on sale Christmas Eve for only $.99. Both boys got lots of new shirts.

We Skyped with my parents and sister who were vacationing in the Smoky Mountains while the boys opened their gifts. Brennan was pretty funny. He wanted each piece of wrapping paper thrown in the garbage bag right away and when he opened his Monster's University DVD he immediately got up and put it away in the DVD drawer. OCD much?!?!

And some throwback pictures just for the fun of it!

Christmas morning 2010...

Christmas morning 2011...

Christmas morning 2012...

Cookies with Santa

This morning we went to Brennan's school for the annual Cookies with Santa event. It was a little extra special to me this year because I was the co-chair for the event. I think I lost some sleep stressing about it, but it turned out great and I had fun getting to plan and do something other than being a mom. I look forward to being able to volunteer at the boys' schools as they get bigger.

I was proud of Bryce for sitting there. Brennan was never afraid of Santa and maybe Bryce isn't going to be scared either.

These are Brennan's best buds from school.

Dear Bryce

You are 11 months old today. A mere one month from turning 1. Wow! That's so hard to believe. You currently wear mostly 12-18 month clothes and are still in size 3 diapers. I'm not really sure what size foot you have because I only have one pair of soft soled shoes that you've worn a handful of times. Here's what you've been up to during the last month.

Today is a big day because I am officially done breastfeeding. We didn't make it quite to a year, but I'm happy with 11 months. I've been exclusively pumping for a over a month now, so I'm glad that is over. You have easily transitioned to whole milk mixed with breast milk in a bottle. With Brennan I went straight to a sippy cup, but I haven't pushed that with you. You drink your milk well from a bottle and since you were on the small side at 9 months it was important to me that you be getting plenty of milk. You have definitely put on some weight over the past two months, but I don't have official stats.

Last month I mentioned you were starting to sleep better. That didn't last long. But at the beginning of this week I decided it was getting ridiculous that you were approaching 11 months and still getting a bottle every single night. Monday night when you started crying, I turned the sound machine app on my phone to drown you out. I usually can't sleep while you cry, but I was able to sleep through it and you fell back to sleep. You made it until a little after 6am that day, took a bottle then, and then ending up sleeping until I woke you at 9. The next night you cried out again and I just let you cry. You fell back to sleep and I woke you at 8 to take Brennan to school. The following night you didn't cry once and slept all the way until 7. It was your first 12-hour sleep and it was glorious. Last night you did wake a little after 5am. I let you cry a bit, but decided to give you a bottle and you fell back to sleep until I woke you after 8 for school. So, sleeping seems to be getting much better. Finally.

You aren't walking yet. I don't think you'll be doing it before your first birthday, but I could be wrong. You are cursing pro! You still do army crawling, but it's very fast. You pull up on everything and also like to be on your knees exploring things at that level. You can now get yourself to a seated position something Brennan still couldn't do at 15 months.

You can now sign "please" along with your other signs of "more" and "all done". I haven't tried to teach you any others. You babble all the time. You say "dada" and just recently started saying "mama" a lot more. You try to say "duck" and "quack" and I think you've said "baba" for your bottle a few times. I also feel like you have a word you try to say when you're referring to Brennan. One of my favorite things happens if you wake up from afternoon nap. You and I will be playing and as soon as your hear Brennan say, "Mommy, I'm ready to wake up," you take off at a full speed army crawl to his bedroom door babbling like crazy. You are so in love with him!

You aren't too crazy with your climbing yet. You do love to crawl onto the top of the subwoofer. In fact, you broke a cord from the back just the other day. You can also crawl all the way up the entire staircase. You are trying super hard to do a forward somersault. It's very cute. You love to play in Brennan's room. You like to pull toys out of his toy box, but your favorite activity is pulling all his books off his bookshelf.

You've been trying lots of new foods. You have never been a huge fan of purees so you've been eating mostly table foods now. You love crackers and puffs. You are also a fan of corn and love yogurt. You aren't interested in any meats yet.

You are such a cute and sweet little guy. I just love when your Daddy or I pick you up and you snuggle right in a for hug. More than anything this month I am thankful for your safety since you were with me when I hit a deer. I pray that is the first and last car accident you ever experience. As usual I'm excited to see what the next month holds. It could be a big one if you start walking! Whatever it holds, I'm sure it'll be exciting!

Lots of love,

Mommy

Bryce back at 10 months...

Bryce today at 11 months...

The New Ride

I never got around to blogging about my run in (literally) with a deer. Now that I have my new car I guess I might as well write about the old one getting totaled. You don't have to read about it if you don't want to, Mom. :)


On Wednesday, November 13 Kyle was working late and I took the boys to Wednesday night supper at church. As we were finishing up our dinner, Kyle texted that he was on his way home. After eating, I took Brennan to his children choir practice and instead of staying at church with Bryce like I had originally planned, I decided to head back home since Kyle was there so I could put Bryce to bed. I was driving home along 95-N when all of a sudden I saw a deer standing right in the middle of the road. I was in the center of three lanes and from what I can remember it was just standing there in my lane. I knew I couldn't slam on my brakes because of traffic on the interstate and I tried to swerve a little into the right hand lane, but I hit the deer. And hit the deer hard. My airbag immediately deployed, so I knew the crash had been pretty bad.

Once the airbag deflated, which I'm sure was a matter of seconds, but seemed like an eternity of not being able to see, I was able to give the car enough gas to get off onto the shoulder. Through all of that I managed not to hit any other car on the road and no one hit me. A good samaritan pulled over with me and jumped out of his car to make sure I was ok. I immediately jumped out of mine and told him I was fine, but that I had a baby in the back and needed to check on him. Bryce was crying, but seemed perfectly fine too. The man who stopped told me he saw the deer run off after I hit it. I couldn't believe I hadn't killed the darn thing.

I grabbed my phone and called Kyle and told him I was fine and Bryce was fine, but he needed to come get us because I had hit a deer. I'm sure I gave him a heart attack because no one wants to get that kind of phone call. I told him where we were and asked him to call a tow truck. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get Bryce's car seat into Kyle's little Honda Civic very easily, so I also texted Val who I knew was still at church and asked her to come meet us too. Val and Kyle arrived at almost the same time and we got all the stuff transferred from my car into Val's. Val drove Bryce and me home and then was nice enough to head back to church to get Brennan after his choir practice and bring him home too. Kyle waited with my car for the tow truck and then came home.

We were able to get a rental the next day, but it took a little over a week for my car to finally be assessed. That's when we got the call that it was a total loss. We were pretty much expecting that, but were holding out hope that it might be repairable. We started car shopping and really only looked at Honda Pilots because we had been so happy with mine. We were looking for a slightly used one, but couldn't find one that was perfect for us, so we ended up with a brand new 2014 Pilot. It's so nice.

We are feeling so very blessed that no one was hurt in the accident and that we are able to go out and purchase a new car. Were also thankful for the amount of money USAA gave us for my 2007 Pilot. It helped a lot!

Here are some pictures of the old car the day after the crash:

And two pictures of the new ride. It looks very similar to the old one. We actually transferred the license plates over. We went back to the scene of the accident a few days after it happened and I jumped out of the rental car and found my license plate on the side of the road. It had deer hair and probably deer guts on it. And now it's on my new car. LOL.