2013 Review

January:

We started off the year excited about the newest member of our family--who we then thought would be a bouncing baby boy. We were also elated to find out that Chris had landed a job where he would be working from home.

February:

Britta girl celebrated her  second birthday with a Dumbo themed party. I had  mini breakdown realizing that my baby was truly no longer a baby.

March:

We spent the first ten days of March in glorious Hawaii. We basked in the sun, slept in, saw giant turtles, went to the zoo, and generally fell in love with the place.

April:

We found out that Baby Boy was really Baby Girl. We could not have been more excited.

May: 

At long last, Chris ended his career on the road and moved in to the sunroom off the kitchen as a makeshift office. The talk about buying a house began.

June:

We went to San Diego with my family and enjoyed the sun, beach, fair, Padres, and catching up with family.

July: 

Chris' brother and sister in law came to town to celebrate the 4th and we got ready for baby girl to come. I was seriously hoping she would come early.

August:

Elodie Mae was easily the star of the month. She did come five days early on the 21st, and has been an absolute joy in our lives since.

September:

I took both girls to visit my family in Utah to help them get ready for their move to Washington. When we got home, the home search began in earnest.

October:

We put an offer in on our first house. Chris turned 29 and we enjoyed a fun Halloween season alongside the stress of buying a home and potty training. My parents moved in with us while they waited for their house to be built in Southern Washington. We have loved having them here to help!

November:

Moving month. We closed on our house the week before Thanksgiving and moved in that night. I went back to work. *sigh*

December:

Christmas! I turned 27, we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary and enjoyed having lots of family and friends visit.

2013 was a year full of blessings. We feel so grateful for our growing family, Chris' new job, and our new phase of life as homeowners Here's to a wonderful 2014 as well!

All things Christmas

This Christmas season was the most magical of my life because of the pure and simple joy it brought to Britta. She was old enough this year to appreciate the lights, the smells, and the sounds of Christmas and every experience was as exciting as the next. She experienced her first real snowfall, her first Christmas pageant where she was the sweetest angel in an over-sized sheet I have ever seen. Not that I'm biased or anything. She surprised us by memorizing multiple Christmas carols and singing them at the top of her lungs all.day.long. But really, it was adorable. She would come down every morning and turn the Christmas tree lights on before doing anything else. She embraced Rudolph, Frosty and the Grinch, but told me "I not like Santa...but I still want toys." On Christmas Eve as we got ready to leave cookies for Santa, she said "Mom, I don't want to sit on his lap" with tears in her eyes. We then had to reassure her that he was going to come while she was sleeping and there would not be any more lap-sitting required this year. (Are there any kids born with a natural love for Santa? ) I think she even understood by the end of the season, the reason we celebrate Christmas. I do think she got a little confused about the Nativity concept when Chris, Elodie and I posed as Joseph, Jesus, and Mary for our ward nativity. Later when we asked her what Jesus' mother's name was, she replied "Erika." We'll get it next year.

I may be even more of a Christmas fanatic than I have been ever before. I can't wait to see both of my girls enjoy the magic next year and in years to come.

27

Twenty-seven was a transition year for me. I can't point to any other specific birthdays in my life where I felt a definite change, but I woke up on my twenty-seventh birthday this year, had the thought "wow, I have two kids and a mortgage" and suddenly I felt old. It's pretty hard to stay down when you've got two beautiful girls and a father-in-law who will get you a Snuggie for your birthday though.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at Chris' sister's house. We had moved into our new house days earlier so we didn't contribute much to dinner, but were just happy to be upright and functioning. It was a happy and loud occasion, as most are with our family. We ate, played games, and just generally enjoyed each other's company. The highlight of the day for me was Elodie learning to roll over. I am sure everyone else was just as enthralled by it as I was.

How did this girl get so big. I feel like at any minute, she's going to be off with her fiends at the mall or something.

Name and Blessing

Elodie got a name and a blessing the Sunday after we moved. Two days later. I am not sure what I was thinking except that I didn't want to do it on Fast Sunday with the three other babies born in our ward right after her, and January seemed too far away. So I decided to have her blessed right before Thanksgiving and hoped and prayed her blessing dress wouldn't get lost in the move.

It was a beautiful blessing and made me so grateful all over again for my wonderful husband. I love being able to witness him using his priesthood and feel the love he has for our little girls. As much as I know he would love a boy, these girls have him wrapped around their little fingers.

House

Chris has been itching to buy a house from the minute he got the word that he would no longer be travelling, but would be working from home. He insisted that we get a king size bed and then a bigger house. I am sensing that perhaps he wants some distance from me...

I went for the bigger bed but was pretty reluctant about the house idea. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I have no great love for where we live. Simply put, I like sunshine. I don't like cold, wet things. The thought of buying a house terrified me mostly because I don't want to end up living here for the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong, I have met wonderful people here and I (usually) love being so close to family, but my body just craves vitamin D and warm sandy beaches. Doesn't every body?

So I held Chris off for a while and convinced myself that our two bedroom, one bathroom rental was plenty big for us, our baby on the way, and Chris's new need for a home office. Who needs an office, when you've got a dank unfinished basement. Am I right?

All of a sudden Elodie was born, Britta was potty training and I felt like the walls were closing in on us. Not to mention my parents were selling their house and moving in with us --and our ONE bathroom--in a few weeks. So, I caved. I reassured myself that people buy houses all the time and sell them just a few years later. I made Chris swear an oath in blood that we were going to move somewhere warm someday and I took a giant leap of faith.

We called our trusty realtor (my sister in law) and had her show us everything in our price range in the space of two weeks. We fully expected not to find anything until Spring, but found our house within the first few days of looking. There are a few funny things about this experience. First, this house was not one we were even interested in from the pictures online, but Haley convinced us to go look at it. Second, this house has a laundry list of projects I want/need to tackle and is not my dream home by any means but as soon as we saw it both Chris and I  felt really at peace that this was our home. The whole process was incredibly smooth and we moved in the week before Thanksgiving. I am itching to get things done but we have so much company coming for the Holidays that we have decided to hold off until the New Year. I have almost nothing decorated since we are changing flooring, painting, and have yet to buy new living room furniture.

We are excited and feel so blessed that we are able to own our own home. I'll post pictures as we complete projects. In the meantime, here are some pictures of features I LOVE about our house--my bathroom, our view, our backyard...