Favorite Memories from 2012

One of my favorite things to do is to go back at the end of the year and look through all of my blog posts. It brings back a lot of good memories and really helps me to reflect on all of our ups and downs. Here are a  few of my favorites from 2012:

January: I came up with a few resolutions for the year. Some I kept (like spend less, grow out my hair, and turn 30 - okay okay so that one was inevitable but I wanted to make sure I had at least one success!) some not so much (namely Keep from looking like a hoarder by putting clean laundry away immediately. If you saw the wash baskets full of clean clothes in my bedroom right now you would be horrified)

February: We started to have potty training success and after a lot of debate I ventured to write a post with some tips from our experience. Little did I know it would become the most viewed post on my blog. That's right - a post about pee and poop is by far the most viewed on this site. Craziness! :)

March: The inevitable happened. I turned 30. Kevin and I wanted to do something special to celebrate without spending too much money or going too far away from the babe, so we decided to take a weekend and go to Philly. I had a blast relaxing in bubble baths at our hotel and eating out at the yummy restaurants and patisseries.

April: We had a lovely Easter surrounded by family and Violet had her first real taste of egg painting and an egg hunt. Oh, and my parents got her a polka-dot chicken that lays eggs while singing probably the most annoying song known to man...and she loved it. The day was a hit and she looked absolutely adorable in her pigtails.

May: We celebrated Violet's second birthday. I can't believe my baby is a two-year-old! I had a lot of fun with the decorations and we went with a Cinco de Mayo theme, complete with sombreros and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Oh yeah, and a Cookie Monster pinata (what can I say, the kid loves Sesame Street!) Not the most creative party theme ever but it was darn fun! And to top it off, she got her first bite of cake! Thanks to Duncan Hines I was able to make a dairy-free cake that wasn't disgusting. She loved every. messy. sugary. dairy-free bite.

June: We celebrated Kevin's second Father's Day. I found a bunch of books that featured Daddy's for Violet to read with Kev (is it just me or do a lot of kids' books seem to be missing the dad?!). We had a big homemade breakfast and topped it off with a picnic at the lake. It was a lovely laid back summer day.

July: This month was a busy one, so I couldn't pick just one thing. We celebrated the Fourth of July with cherry snowballs, a barbeque, a sprinkler, a parade and sparklers. Somehow we managed to squeeze in a trip to the zoo before jetting off to Australia to meet our new nephew. The plane trip went surprisingly well thanks to some seriously crazy pre-planning (see tips here, here, and here). We decided to break up the trip by spending the night and following day in L.A., so Violet got to see the Pacific from the American side and later the Aussie end (sadly before ever seeing the Atlantic which is much closer. Shameful.) We spent the trip soaking up our newest little family member, playing outside in the Aussie sunshine, and topped it off with a visit to a friend's farm. I'll admit that I felt a little off my rocker planning such a long trip with a toddler, but it ended up being a lovely holiday that we'll remember always, and I learned that sometimes taking a risk leads to the best experiences in life.

August: We got the most amazing photos from our trip - the lovely Candice Van Moolenbroek snapped these of my beautiful blue-eyed nephew and these of our little family. I couldn't be more in love with any pictures and only wish she lived here in the U.S. We slowly unwound and unpacked and tried to get back on track after our big adventure before starting back to work for the year.

September: It was a rough month. We ran into sleep issues with Violet, were both back at work full-time, and I landed a gig writing for Apartment Therapy. Life got crazy and I didn't post as much as usual, but things gradually got easier. I learned that this too shall pass.

October: The sleep thing didn't get much better, but we fell into a rhythm of taking turns getting up at night. I learned that having a supportive husband is something I am very very thankful for. The holiday season started up and it's so much fun with a toddler. We went to a local farm for some Fall fun, celebrated Halloween with not one but two costumes - one with red sparkly shoes and and one with brown leather boots. We dug through trick-or-treat bags and looked up unlabeled candy for allergen information. And last but certainly not least we announced that we would be adding a new little surprise to our family - a stow away from our trip to Oz...it was a good month.

November: We chowed down on pumpkin pie and Violet had a love affair with candy corn. I made it through the first trimester and started to feel like a somewhat-normal human being again (just in time for the eating holidays, hooray!). Instead of thinking about how nauseous and miserable I felt I started dreaming of a few new things for our new little bean and you awesomely gave me your advice and suggestions. We also welcomed our newest beautiful niece, Braithe to the family (and Violet fell in love with her) and ended the month with an early Christmas tree from our favorite local tree farm. (And yes it lasted through Christmas, although it's starting to look a little brown-tinged more "golden" than green as of today)

December: I wanted this month to be magical for Violet. And it was. Instead of going too crazy buying new decorations we made a lot of our own. I got crafty with the gift wrap and made a different kind of Christmas to-do list for us. (And we (mostly) stuck to it). We saw twinkling lights, visited Santa (with smiles for the first time this year!), and had a perfectly lovely Christmas morning. And to add the cherry on top, we found out that Violet is going to have a little sister. 

So there you have it - our year in all wrapped up in a single blog post. All I can say is 2013, you have a lot to live up to. Looking forward to meeting the newest member of our family and continuing to make memories with our little family. Happy New Year all - thanks for helping to make this one amazing!  xo, Lauren