2012 in review

I DO have about 14 blog posts half written. Are they finished? No! Am I publishing them? No! Maybe someday! Am I sitting down making unkept or maybe kept resolutions for the new year? No!

Instead humor me, if you will, as I lead you through our 2012 year in mostly chronological order with the super awesome (and some not so awesome) pictures to remind myself what we did this past year. Just keepin' it real here, folks.

My littlest brother left for a mission. Okay. Okay. TECHNICALLY this was like four days before 2012, but look at what a little cutie he is. Also what a little cutie my niece is. Ahhhhhh. This was back in the day when I was her favorite. Pretty sure.

January, the girls got a bunk bed. What? I can totally hear you. This really IS memorable. Worth recording.

On that note, the girls' room also got a makeover.

Chevron? Check. Ridiculously bright colors? Double check. Love it? Check.

In other news, the girls spent oodles of time at the doctor's office with one or both of them getting sick about every two to three weeks. Super fun late nights? You bet. It either had something to do with starting daycare for the first time or every.single.time.jackson.left.for.work.they'd.get.sick.so.i.could.be.nice.and.stressed.trying.to.figure.out.who.could.cover.my.work.schedule.and.what.to.do. Good times.

One of my personal favorites of 2012 was when one of our neighbor kids apparently broke part of our fence and they left this enjoyable note that I still have to giggle about.

Who is Steve? We'll never know.
Hopefully you can read it, because it's awesome.

Addy started dance this year! Cutest little thing ever! She LOVED it, and practiced so much at home that Brylee knew the dance just as well as anyone else in Addy's class :)

We sang happy birthdays

(Just FYI, my mom and I have birthdays one day apart. We buy our own ice-cream cake every year to celebrate. It's delicious. This year was Coldstone. Yummy)

We played.

Celebrated holidays and events

Easter

Annual 4th of July 5K run

Addy's first day of school

Halloween.

Rapunzel and a mermaid. I mean, it's super obvious, but, you know.

Christmas


We missed Jackson like crazy when he was gone, but we LOVED having him home.

Why, yes, this IS the ridiculously high platform at Lava Hot Springs that Jackson and I are jumping off of. Thanks for noticing. And, yes, it was way fun! If by way fun you mean incredibly terrifying and I screamed like a 5-year-old girl the whole way down, then, yes, it was way fun.

We even went out to visit Jackson once.

A mere 14-hour drive.

Each way.

I quit my job and became a real-life stay-at-home mom!

We started doing stay-at-home mom things like visiting the library

They have these pretty awesome educational computer games there for kids to play. And those headphones are out of control.

We went to the zoo.

I know what you're thinking. Such well behaved little children.

And then...







......not even ten minutes later.............

Classy.


We moved!

Sucked up every free minute of summer

This little rafting trip thing I remember being so fun and soooooo funny, but for the life of me I can't figure out why. It's also at Lava. Maybe somebody go and inform me what's so hilarious about this ride.

Oh, I love summer. Why don't I marry it? I just might. Oh, I just might.

We (mostly Jackson) welcomed(ish) fall

And last, but certainly not least, in the latter part of 2012 we changed our whole style of eating. We merely cut out all gluten, casein, sugar, corn, yeast, and 40-some-odd other foods that we've found out little Addy is intolerant to. It's been wonderful. refreshing. delicious. healthful. interesting. The first few months consisted of foods looking like this:

They're pancakes, by the way. And darn good interesting ones too.


And here I was, just like the mother in this hilarious little clip. Complete with the singing.

...a pinch of salt, lots of love and lots and lots of tofu...



And this is what I do in my free time these days. My cooking has gotten better though! I'm 47% sure.

Here are your perfectly normal pancakes, kids!

Overall, pretty good year, eh?
Now, anyone want to come over for dinner? :)

Thanks for reading... especially if you made it to the end.