2012: Year In Review

January ~

2012 started off for us with a 2 year old and a 6 month old who were keeping us busy for sure!  Maisy started crawling this month and saying her favorite word DA-DA!  Ryder was being his mischievous little self.  Mommy celebrated her 28th Birthday this month :)

February ~

Maisy said MY favorite word MA-MA this month and started pulling up on things.  We celebrated Valentine’s Day then passed a cold around the house, this was our first experience of when ONE kid gets sick, they BOTH get sick!  Maisy & Ryder started interacting more this month and bath time together became a regular thing!

March ~

Alan & I celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary in the beginning of the month.  Ryder turned 3 and had an awesome Blast Off Birthday party to celebrate.  One HUGE milestone this month is that Ryder was officially potty trained and out of pull ups!  He was supposed to get Botox injections and go through a round of Constraint Therapy but a stomach flu saved him from all that!

April ~

This month we celebrated Easter with the Sunrise service and Easter egg hunt at our Church.  We also took a fun trip to Great Wolf Lodge with some friends!  We went through a huge change this month when Ryder finally got a haircut!!

May ~

This was a pretty crazy month for us!  It started with bringing Ryder to the hospital for Botox injections in his left arm and leg.  A few days later he got a cast put on that he named Street Glide for 3 weeks of Constraint Induced Therapy.  He worked REALLY hard and got Lefty doing some amazing things!  We attended lots of Birthday parties, we celebrated Mother’s Day, and Maisy was dedicated at Church.  She got her first tooth, took her first steps, and switched completely to whole milk.

June ~

Ryder got his cast off in the beginning of the month, then got it put back on a week later only to get it taken off a few days later because his arm was severely irritated.  Mommy got promoted to Supervisor of her department.  We celebrated Father’s Day and Ryder took his very first (very short) ride on Daddy’s motorcycle.  Maisy turned ONE whole year old and we had a Fun in the Sun Birthday party to celebrate!

July ~

What a hot month this was!  We ended up buying a kiddie pool and spending a few days letting the kids play in the water.  We took Ryder on his very first camping trip, along with my brother’s family, and we got hit with a crazy storm!  Ryder still tells the story any time there is mention of camping OR a storm.  We celebrated the 4th of July but neither of the kids cared much for the fireworks.  We got our first family of 4 pictures taken by my friend Nicki!

August ~

This month was filled with more birthday parties and a sleepover at Angela’s with our friends Carter & Callie.  Daddy brought home 2 pet hermit crabs which Ryder named Oso & Buffo.  Ryder started going through some testing to see if he qualified to get into a special education program with the public school system.

September ~

We had a blast at Alan’s company picnic this month and Ryder got to go on a special treasure hunt.  Maisy started learning some cool things from her big brother like how to jump and how to give a high 5!

October ~

The beginning of October brings Daddy’s Birthday which we love to celebrate!  We took trips to the State Fair and the Renaissance Festival which were both SO fun!  Maisy took a not-so-fun trip the ER for a horrible cough she got which turned out to be Croup.  Ryder almost went to the ER when he cut his eye open after falling off the recliner, but Dr. Daddy fixed him up and he has a pretty little scar above his eye to prove it. Ryder started Pre-K this month and went on his very first field trip to the Pumpkin Farm.  We did lots of fun Halloween activities, and the kids dressed up as a Fireman & a Daisy.

November ~

Ryder had follow up appointments with his Kidney Doctor & Eye Doctor this month, both went so well that his time between follow up visits has been extended!  The kids got to see Santa for the first time this year and it seemed like Christmas preparations started way early.  We did manage to sneak Thanksgiving in there though!

December ~

Our December was consumed with Christmas fun: shopping, trips to see Santa, Christmas tree decorating, cookie making, Christmas parties, present wrapping, visits from our Elf Doodle, singing at Church, Christmas Eve service…all leading up to the day finally arriving and us getting to celebrate Jesus’ birthday!  We had quite the celebration :)  Ryder transferred to the Elementary school this month and rides a school bus now!  Unfortunately this month we also lost a very close friend to us, James Darago.  New Years Eve we just spent at home cozy in our beds!

What a year!!  Doing these Year in Review posts at the end of the year make me realize how we rarely have a moment of down time! Each month is packed with its own activities, we sure do have a lot of fun!  And we really have a lot to be thankful for.  My hope and prayer is that 2013 holds all of the same for us…time with each other, family, friends, getting to watch our kids learn and grow, and being truly appreciative for all that we have been given. 

Happy New Year everyone, here’s to another year of Marsh Madness!

18 Months

Oops, with all of the Christmas fun going on, I didn’t even realize that our baby girl turned a whole YEAR and a HALF on Christmas Eve!!  Here is what she’s up to these days:

• Wearing 12-18 month clothes, size 5 shoes, size 4 diapers.
• She eats all kinds of different foods…she loves apples, bananas, chips, popsicles, and really anything she can dip in ranch dressing or ketchup!
• She has 4 teeth on top, 3 on bottom, and has one molar trying to poke through in the back.
• She is really trying hard to talk these days, some new words she has added to her vocabulary are help, phone, cookies, tea, please, thanks.  She calls herself May-May. She is starting to put 2 words together like “hi brother”, “help mama”, “thanks dada”.  Her all time favorite words right now though are NO and MINE!  I guess that comes with the territory of being a little sister!
• She LOVES Bubble Guppies, it is the only show she wants to watch. She will bring you the remote and say “bubble, bubble, bubble” until you turn it on. She would literally sit in the recliner and watch it over and over if we would let her.  If I try to trick her and put on Team Umi Zoomi, as soon as it starts she starts yelling “No Zoom Zoom!!!”  Even on her way to bed at night she waves at the TV and says “Ni-night Bubble”.
• She can be the sweetest loviest little thing, but man can she flip that switch and get an attitude!  She knows how to pout, yells NO when she’s not getting what she wants, and will fall on the floor with all the dramatics in the world to let you know she’s not happy!
• She gets around so well, it amazes me to watch her use 2 hands to do things!  She picks up stools and carries them around the house to get where she needs to go, always running through the house in her own little world, just busy. 
• She loves to dress herself, just not correctly.  She will go in Ryder’s drawers and get out a pair of his underwear, put both legs in one hole, then come out looking like she’s wearing a batman mini skirt! 
• She still enjoys going potty, she’ll just randomly come tell us “Paaa Paaa” holding her diaper, we’ll run her to the bathroom and sure enough, she goes pee.  She gets really proud of herself which is so cute.  I bought the slip on diapers so they’re easier to get up and down when she wants to go.  I never ask her or try to get her to go, I’m not ready for all that yet, but if she asks I take her!
• She loves her baby dolls, she has quite the collection already.  For Christmas she got a little crib set and high chair for her baby and it’s adorable to watch her take care of them.  She does everything right…lays them down with a blanket, tells us all to shhhhh, then wakes her baby up, feeds it, rocks it and burps it…such a little Mommy!  You can usually find her walking around with FOUR babies in her arms, and she will make us tuck them all in to bed at night and Daddy has to kiss them each goodnight.
• Speaking of Daddy…having a little girl has turned him into quite the softy (I can say that way down on this bullet because I think he usually just skims the blog for pictures, no way has he read this far!).  She melts him with just the way she looks at him.  It’s the sweetest thing to watch them together although I might be in trouble in the future because I seriously think he’s never going to be able to get mad at her.  She already does NO wrong in his eyes, then turns and gives me the evil eye when he’s not looking!

What a little personality this girl has.  For some reason when I was pregnant I thought for sure our second child was going to be so shy and reserved…I guess I was picturing the exact opposite of Ryder.  But I wouldn’t use those words to describe her at all, she is really coming into her own and making her voice heard these days!

Our Christmas 2012

Wow what a whirlwind the past few weeks have been!  The week before Christmas Ryder got the flu and Maisy had pneumonia!  Luckily they were both healthy in time for all of the Christmas festivities…because you know how we do, lots of stuff going on for the Holidays!

We celebrated with my family the Sunday before Christmas which was so nice because we got to spend the whole day together and not be in a rush to go anywhere.  Mom surprised us with Prime Rib & Crab Legs!!  Mmmm it was good!

  

The kids were so cute opening their presents, they each had their own style!  Ryder would tear open a present, bring it to someone to talk them into getting it out of its package, then run back to open another present just in time to forget about the one the person had been struggling to open for the past 15 minutes!  Maisy kept taking her presents and running back to her & Ryder’s room they have at my moms house, it was too chaotic for her! 

 

They were super excited about everything they got!  Me & Alan got some goodies too :)

Love my fam!

The next night was Christmas Eve so we headed to Church for the candle light service.  Not before taking some pictures in our Christmas outfits.

Oh wait, someone needs to have a meltdown:

Okay, we’re back!

  

The next two were taken by Ryder!!

After Church, Yaya came over for dinner and there were some presents under our tree for her!  There was also a present for each of the kids from Doodle!

(Side note: Do you see how many needles are around our tree and how bare those branches are???  Our tree was SOOO dead!!!  It barely made it until Christmas day, if we just walked by it you’d hear a shower of pine needles come down, haha!)

Okay so Doodle gave them their Christmas Eve Jammies and a little friend for them to remember him by that they get to keep with them all year!

I don’t exactly know what their names are because Ryder keeps renaming them every day, they started off as Snowflake and the Incredible Hulk, but today I heard him calling them Popsicle and Wolverine, soooo….yeah.

It was finally time for Pajamas and to set out Santa’s cookies that we made earlier & milk.  I totally forgot to buy carrots for the reindeer, but luckily Ryder informed me that they also eat apples!  Shew.

Off to bed they went…and then…we didn’t know what to do!  I seriously was a nervous wreck.  I did NOT want to get caught being Santa.  So we waited and waited, decided to make some Raggedy Robins, then finally at about midnight set everything out.  And WOW did it look like Santa had really come!

We were so excited it was really hard to even get any sleep!  Having kids to celebrate Christmas with seriously makes you feel like a kid all over again.  It’s SO fun!  Ryder woke up around 6:00 and asked if Santa had come, we went and woke Maisy up then headed to the Living Room to check it out.  He ran right for his firetruck pillow racer, which I knew he would LOVE!

Then they started opening…It’s so cute because Ryder can read his name now so he could identify each present that was for him.

Ryder was so funny about these popsicles, he saw them in the store when we were Christmas shopping one day and couldn’t get them out of his mind (he goes crazy over stuffed animals).  The last time he sat on Santa’s lap I heard him tell Santa that all he wanted for Christmas was a popsicle!  LOL Santa looked confused…so Mommy sent Daddy back to the store.

Alan & Ryder call each other “best friend” all the time, so Ryder has been giving Alan one of the popsicles to sleep with each night to remember him.

And the opening continued…

Maisy & her Bubble Guppies obsession, she would have been fine with just this one book!

 

They were finally done, so Mommy & Daddy started round 2…we spoiled each other again this year!  Until finally our living room looked like this:

 

It still wasn’t even light outside!  We had a few hours to play and clean up before it was time to have breakfast with Poppy & Nana.

We all exchanged presents, which as you can see above the kids loved everything (and Mommy & Daddy did too, not pictured!)

      

The rest of our day included trips to Aunt Annie’s house, Aunt Dee’s house and Grandma’s house…exhausting, but so worth getting to see all the sides of our families and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. 

The day after Christmas we stayed home and played with all our new stuff.  None of us got out of our pajamas the entire day!  This has become a tradition for us and I plan to make it happen every year.  We run around so much on Christmas day that we really need that recovery day to just relax and enjoy each other.

 

Ryder was so funny this year because he really understands the true meaning of Christmas and why we’re celebrating.  So between each visit he’d be preaching to us in the car about how “Christmas is NOT all about presents, it’s about God & Jesus and having them in your heart” then as soon as we’d get where we were going he’d be the first to ask “is there a present for me here?!”  Hmmmmm.

But he’s right, we try to keep the focus on Jesus’ birth day…without that we’d have no Joy or reason to celebrate!  Obviously we get caught up in the magic of it all as well. 

At the end of the day we went to bed feeling blessed beyond what we even deserve…to have each other, to have family so close that we can visit with during the Holiday season, to have these babies that we have the ability to make smile and feel so special, and to have a Savior in our Lord Jesus Christ who came to this Earth and suffered and died for us…we are truly blessed and we’re cherishing it this Christmas.