2013 in Review

**Geez I know this is so late. Life is crazy!!**

One of the best parts of blogging is keeping a record of what I've done. I really enjoy going back through old posts to do these recap posts at the end of the year. So lets see what 2013 held for me:

At the end of 2012 I took a break from blogging but was back in February 2013 to recap everything I'd done in between and review my weight loss strategy and success. I'm really proud of that weight loss. I'm stuck in sort of a rut right now trying to get back into it and I'm so glad I wrote that post so that I can remember how well I was doing back then.

Left is Sept 2011, Right is Oct 2012

In March 2013, I caught up on Steven's monthly posts and did months 15-21 and then announced I was pregnant again with Logan. That was an exciting announcement! Steve and I wanted to get pregnant in 2013 but we had no idea it would happen so quickly! Also in March I picked up weekly pregnancy posts again starting with 11 weeks. During my 12 week post I mentioned we started thinking about converting the spare bedroom into Steven's big boy room and Steven was doing well with potty training. That seems like SO long ago!

One of his last pics in diapers!

Clearly thrilled about the news of becoming a big brother.

In April, we celebrated Easter by dying eggs for the first time and getting sick! Boo to being sick during the holidays. Around 14 weeks pregnant the rash from hell appeared for the first time. That was miserable! At 16 weeks pregnant, my good friend, Julie had her baby boy Nicholas and we found out baby #2 was a boy! Exciting week. We thought it would be fun to have a gender reveal party this time and we had that in April.

IT's a boy!

In May, we started the transition to Steven's big boy bed. Boy was that an adventure!  Steven turned 2, we took our traditional trip to the zoo on his actual bday, and we had a birthday party for him. Also in May, we took our first vacation as a family of 3 with my parents to Gulf Shores, Alabama. That was SO much fun! And I worked on converting our spare room to Steven's big boy room with a construction theme.

Cupcake face. LOL

In June we took Steven to the Renaissance Faire, which he both loved and hated. ha ha! We also went to Circus Flora with Steve's family for Willow's bday. That was fun and memorable when Steven peed on the stairs during the show! lol Also in June I had some fun with girlfriends and we celebrated Father's day.

All the daddys on Fathers Day

In July we got a new nephew, Micah, put our house on the market (after a TON of work on it to prepare) and finished Steven's big boy room. We also had a great time celebrating the 4th of July with the Elder's. I also finally made it into the 3rd trimester and started getting the nursery ready for baby #2.

In August, Steven and I had fun on a playdate with the Elders, Steve and I had a date night and we attended Kris's baby shower in Rochester, IL. I was ready to be done being pregnant and we decided on the name Logan Garrett. We had some fun weekends at Grants Farm and the zoo and hanging with family in general. Steven got excited about the new baby by attending a big brother class and Steve and I celebrated our birthdays.

The prego cousins

Goofball cousins

Practicing to be a big brother.

In September I felt huge and complained about being pregnant in the the ridiculously hot weather. Steven was both a joy and a challenge at 2.5 years old. We hung out with family at the botanical gardens and took Steven bowling for the first time. We took Steven to Eckerts to pick apples and had a blast. At 39 weeks I was DONE being pregnant and ready to have this baby! My cousin had her baby girl, Emelia.

On October 1st I couldn't take it anymore and was induced. Logan Garrett was born at 2:13am and changed our lives forever. Steven immediately loved his little brother which was so great. Also that month I finished and revealed Logan's nursery. We also braved the unseasonable cold weather to take Steven to a pumpkin patch. We all froze but oh well.

In November I blogged about the fun stuff we did for Halloween including Boo at the Zoo, Fall Festival in Manchester, Fall Carnival at Grandma Riegerix's church, and carving pumpkins. We also went trick or treating in the pouring rain but Steven loved it. Logan turned 1 month and I tried to settle into this mother of 2 role. I also had a blast on maternity leave.

In December I blogged about our Thanksgiving celebrations and counted my blessings. I got a little behind on blogging and didn't post my Christmas update till January but that was because we were in the hospital for almost 5 days with Logan's RSV in December.

Whew! That was quite a year for us!! It's fun to look back. Hopefully 2014 will be awesome too! Happy New Year!

2011 Year in Review

Can you believe its already the last week of the 2011? (oops this is a little late ;) This year has flown! Its time for the annual end of year wrap-up post. I enjoy writing these because it makes me take a look back at the entire year's events. That's always fun remembering what you did and thinking about what you want to do in the future. Obviously 2011 was a huge year for us! We were blessed with the most wonderful baby boy! But I'm going to try to go chronologically so here we go....

Here I am in Dec 2010. I think...

In January 2011 I was 6 months pregnant and sent on a (impromptu) trip for work to Salt Lake City. I remember that the weather was so bad and I was scared the flights back would be cancelled and I'd have my baby in another state! ha! Pregnancy paranoia....During that trip I did get a chance to see my baby kick which was awesome! Steve and I also took another impromptu trip to Indianapolis to see a Colt's playoff game! That was a lot of fun!

Also in January, Steve and I were hard at work on the nursery, getting ready for our bambino. I made Steve paint the walls 3 times, poor guy. He's such a good hubby.

In February I was getting into the 3rd trimester of my pregnancy and getting a lot of pain, symptoms and general yuckiness. I also had a pre term labor scare....and that was no fun. I had to cancel any future work plans for travel and we started to really worry.

In March I had 3 baby showers! One given by my girlfriends, one by my mom and aunt and one by Steve's mom and sister in law, Meghan. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends and families and I also ate a lot of cake! ha ha!

By April, I was very uncomfortable in my pregnancy and really ready to have this baby!! April was also when those crazy tornadoes went through St. Louis and did a lot of damage very close to our house. We were without power for a whole weekend but didn't have any damage. We were so lucky. This was one time when I was sort of glad our baby was still in my belly because it would have been a lot harder to handle if he'd been a newborn.

In May we had a baby!!! That was the most amazing, crazy, happy experience of my entire life for sure. Steven was born on May 4th and after that for the rest of may we were just surviving...basically! It is crazy business having a newborn. I was breast feeding constantly, sleeping not much and trying my best to figure out what this screaming baby wanted!! ha ha! At the every end of May Steve and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. It was our first outing without baby and it was scary for mommy but I was so glad we did it. I have a wonderful husband and its important to celebrate our relationship.

In June we celebrated Steve's first Father's Day and also the 1 month birthday of our baby boy. I think we had Mother's Day in there somewhere too but I didn't blog about it so..moving on! ha ha I also had some struggles with breast feeding. It was really hard getting started and getting comfortable. But we are on a great track now. I'm so so glad I stuck it out!

July was the end of my wonderful maternity leave. After being home for 3 whole months and having my life completely changed, I really didn't want to go back to work at all. I didn't mind the job I do and I love the people I work with but it just didn't seem to matter one bit when compared with staying home with my baby. Believe me if we had the financial means, I would have never gone back! It was so hard in the beginning, but we have amazing childcare (love you guys!) and that made it much easier. And eventually I got used to it.

In August and July I started with new hobbies. I started doing more DIY stuff, mostly inspired by Pinterest. I also started couponing, which is so much fun but also so time consuming. I also started reading books at work during my pumping time and I've really enjoyed that hobby. It was nice to get back into reading for pleasure. I have read 5 books since that time and my favorite by far was The Hunger Games. I cannot wait for the movie!

In September things started getting crazy with my cousin's wedding preparations. I helped to plan her bridal shower. That was so much fun and she seemed to really have a great time. That same weekend was the bachelorette party here in St. Louis. Craziness! But Kris had a great time.

In October we had a 5 month old baby already! Can you believe that? He started rolling over this month. So big! We had amazing weather in October and got to do a lot of fun things with Steven. We took his first trip to the zoo, went apple picking and also to a pumpkin patch! We also celebrated Steven's first Halloween! What a busy (and super fun) month!

In October and November we had a great time cheering on our St. Louis Cardinals as they won the World Series! It was a crazy ride and we were so glad to be a part of (watching) it. Super cool that they won the year I was born and the year Steven was born too! Also during this time we started Steven on Baby Led Weaning and had some difficulties. But we quickly learned from our mistakes and adjusted our techniques and now Steven is eating and feeding himself like a champ!

During this time Kris and Zach got married too! We stayed up in Springfield for the weekend so I could be in the wedding. That was our first "road trip" with Steven and it went really well! The wedding was gorgeous and fun too!

Also, in November we had Steven's first Thanksgiving as part of our family. It was so nice to celebrate the holiday with him even if he did sleep through dinner on Thanksgiving day. ha ha!

This December has been nuts! Our baby is no longer an itty bitty baby (sniffle). He is growing up right before our eyes and will very soon be crawling, talking, teething and leaving for college.... ;)

We got to share Christmas with you this year and that was great!

Whew! That was certainly an eventful year. Seems like time is flying by now at rapid speed...hope we can keep up in 2012. Happy New Year, everyone!