A Look Back at 2011

For the last two years I posted the highlights from our year. You can check out the highlights from 2010 here and 2009 here.

In January, we had to find a new home for Aedan’s baby monitor, I did my tenth installment of things we loved, Aedan had his first experience being sick, poor baby, and we came up with a homemade baby gate.

In February, I talked about some work changes here, here and here. Jon celebrated his 30th birthday, we had a snow day and Aedan showed off his laundry skills.

In March, Jon and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary, Aedan turned 1 and had a few celebrations, I got a Nook Color (which I loved until I replaced it with my iPad), I talked about the baby things we loved/used the most during Aedan’s first year and Aedan showed off his love for books.

In April, we Jon built a garden, Aedan said goodbye to bottles and hello to using spoons on his own.

In May, my great aunt, Tia passed away and is still greatly missed by all. Aedan showed off his table manners and learned how to go out the doggie-door. Jon and I both did some traveling for work (although he went a lot farther away!), I celebrated my second Mother’s Day and shared some of our go-to dinner recipes.

In June, I shared a day-in-my-life for the days I go to see clients and for the days I work from home. Jon and I both did some more traveling and we showed off our growing garden (along with our little gardener).

In July, we celebrated the 4th of July in Plano, Aedan showed off his dance moves and remembered how much he loved his bouncy seat.

In August, I shared my favorite crockpot recipe and I refinished my grandparents’ old dresser for Aedan’s room. I thought about getting lasik and we had a little stay-cation and got to spend some time with Jon’s parents.

In September, we installed new floors, I bought myself an iPad (and LOVE it!), we went to Austin City Limits, Aedan officially became a toddler and came down with his first stomach bug.

In October, we went up to Plano and took Aedan to the zoo and a pumpkin patch, I talked about a few things I love and did my first Pinterest project.

In November, we bought our dream home and put our current home up for lease, recapped our Halloween celebrations, and I took Aedan to the Children's museum.

In December, we found a renter for our house and had to move out a little earlier than expected. We made it work and moved into our new house just before Christmas. I shared our Christmas card and recapped both our our Christmas celebrations here and here.

We have definitely had a full year and have been so blessed. I cannot wait to see what 2012 brings!

Happy New Year!

-Lauren-

Christmas Recap: Part Two

Sunday morning, after a quick breakfast, we headed up to John’s grandparents’ house. We spent the morning with them, Jon’s parents and two of Jon’s nephews. Jon’s parents (aka Mama & Papa) got Aedan a Cozy Cope and a tool set, both of which were (and still are) huge hits! Aedan has been using his tools to “help” Jon all around the house this week. They have hung up blinds, put the table together and fixed a fence post. So cute!

Aedan was kind enough to help Jon put the car together…(sorry, these pictures are super grainy. It was dark inside and again I only brought my phone…I will do better next year!)

The picture above is right about the time Aedan dropped his screw driver in the gas tank of the car. It took awhile to get back out…

Jon’s aunt, uncle and cousin joined us for lunch. And then we all exchanged gifts. We had a great time hanging out but eventually we had to head back home.

After a quick stop home to take care of Hiro, we headed to Jon’s sister’s house. We got to see Jon’s parents and nephews again along with my sister-in-law’s family. We all enjoyed a great dinner and good company. Before we knew it, it was time to head home to get a tired little guy to bed.

All in all we had a great Christmas and were able to spend lots of time with all of our family (along with getting everything on our wish list). I am only sorry I didn’t remember my good camera at either get together.

-Lauren-

Christmas Recap, Part One

I think it is about time I did a Christmas recap post…

First check out this cute picture. My parent’s yellow lab, Ruby spent a night with us at the new house since my parents went out to dinner with my Grandmother after helping us unpack. Both dogs are a little spoiled and since we only have one dog bed, my sister told Ruby she could get on the couch. Hiro jumped up at the same time because obviously he wasn’t going to miss out on a night on the couch.

So we spent Saturday with my side of the family. Check out what Santa left for Aedan…

I was most excited about the great wagon my parents (I mean Santa) left Aedan. But I’ll let the video show which toy Aedan was most excited about…

After Aedan played with his Santa toys for awhile and my Dad went out to get Round Rock donuts (a must have by the way!), we opened the rest of our gifts. It was so fun to see Aedan open everything. He would stop and play with each item as he opened it.

After everyone had opened all their gifts, we had a big breakfast and spend the day hanging out. My grandmothers, aunts, uncle and one of my cousins came over for dinner. We did a gift exchange, but I of course took zero pictures. We had lots of fun and Aedan of course was spoiled with even more gifts from everyone.

We headed home after dinner and we were all pretty exhausted. We got a good nights sleep and headed back up north to spend the day with Jon’s side of the family on Sunday….more on that tomorrow. :)

-Lauren-

Merry Christmas!

It's been a whirlwind week here, but I wanted to jump on and wish everyone a merry Christmas!

We closed on the new house on Monday and started moving in on Wednesday. Thanks to my mom and my sister watching Aedan, we were able to get about 80% unpacked by Thursday night. Neither Jon nor I can relax until everything is put away so we worked really hard to get settled before Christmas weekend. I will post pictures soon, but I have to say we are all loving the new house!

We celebrated Christmas with my immediate family on Saturday morning and with my extended family Saturday evening. Today we were able to spend time with Jon's family at two get toegthers. I will have to do separate posts with pictures and such, but "Santa" (aka Nonnie & Pop and Mama & Papa) were very good to Aedan (and Jon and I too!) and we had a great time with everyone!

Jon and I have the week off so we are going to get some things done around the house and try to do a lot of relaxing. It has been an exciting and crazy month and we are exhausted!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day with friends and family! 

-Lauren-

Trip to the Park

We are still staying up in Round Rock at my grandparent’s old house. There is a park down the street and we took a little walk down there this afternoon.

There was a slide to play on…

It’s always more fun to climb up the slide than slide down.

Big kid swings…

And since I am usually behind the camera, here are a few of me and my little guy…

Such a fun afternoon. I am so excited that our new neighborhood has two parks for us to walk to. :)

-Lauren-

That's a Wrap

Our first house together is officially all ready for our new tenant to move it tomorrow!

It has been a long week and both Jon and I have decided we are never moving again. Good thing we feel like this new house is going to be our forever home.

100% of our stuff is either loaded up and being stored in a POD or hanging out with us in Round Rock.

The house has been cleaned from top to bottom, the carpets have been shampooed and all the paint has been touched up. We (read: Jon) actually ended up having to re-paint our entire living room and hallways and our bedroom. Since Jon is a bit of an over achiever he also painted the utility room, which have never been painted before. The house looks great and I'm a little jealous, but then I remember we will be in my dream home soon and I feel better. :)

We were supposed to close on the new house today, but it got pushed to Monday. Actually, is it going to be kind of nice to just relax this weekend instead of moving in. We are hoping to start unpacking next Tuesday and hopefully be getting settled in just in time for Christmas.

For now we are going to relax and finish up Christmas shopping/gift wrapping while we enjoy the weekend!

-Lauren-

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Christmas Card Carousel

This is my third year to participate in Faith’s Christmas Card Carousel. I love receiving Christmas cards, as well as picking out cards to send to our family and friends. You can check out our past cards here and here.

We are right in the middle of moving, and things have been crazy busy. Usually our friend Aaron takes family pictures for us sometime in November and I order cards around Thanksgiving. I like to have them go out in early December. But this year that just didn’t happen.

We never had a free weekend to take pictures and I haven’t even had a chance to get some good pictures of Aedan on my own (other than with my iPhone). But, I still wanted to get Christmas cards and get them out, even if it was a little late.

I used a picture of Aedan that I took a few months ago and I think I found the perfect card to go with it.

So if you are on our Christmas card list, I promise our card is on its way! Better late than never, right?

Thanks for stopping by and go check out Faith’s blog for some other great Christmas cards!

-Lauren-

Another House Update

Things seem to be on the right track as far as the house stuff goes. We met our new tenant Wednesday night to get the lease signed. Jon and I were both a little worried about what our tenant was going to be like. Even though our realtor/sister-in-law had done all the background and credit checks, you just never know, right?

Well, we were both pleasantly surprised. She is really nice and normal. :) She signed an 18 month lease, which means we won't have to worry about finding another renter during the holidays next year. We both feel really good about it and I think she is going to take good care of our home.

We also got the appraisal and site survey back on the new home. Yay for a decent chunk of equity in the home already! Our closing date has been moved up to 12/16 and everything is good to go.

Everything is happening so fast, but seems to be lining up well. Our house is almost all packed up, we have a Pod coming on Friday and friends helping us load it up on Saturday. We will be staying up in Round Rock for the week while we do some touch up work on the house. The cleaning crew and carpet cleaners have been scheduled and the lock guy is coming next week.

This time next week, our current house will be already for our tenant to move in and we will be 24 hours away from closing on our new house!

Now who wants to help me finish packing, address Christmas cards, finish up my Christmas shopping, and entertain my busy toddler? Anyone? Anyone? :)

-Lauren-

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Our Weekend and House Update

This past weekend, we headed up to Tyler to visit Jon’s parents. We had a great weekend but I didn’t take any pictures (fail).

We headed up Friday morning and made pretty good time. Aedan has become a really good traveler. He loves to read books or watch Bob the Builder or All About Airplanes on my iPhone. But what he loves to do most of all is say “mommy, mommy, Mommy, MOMMY”, then when I turn around and say “yes”, he points to something random, like his shoes, his book, a truck or tree outside, and labels it. It cracks me up. It is like it is the most important thing in the world and I have to look at it. :)

Jon’s parents live on some land with lots of animals. I think Aedan and Hiro were both in heaven. We got to see huge turkeys. Jon’s dad taught us how to do a turkey call that was hilarious. I took a video but apparently I did something wrong because  there is zero sound (second fail).

They also have a horse, a donkey, chickens, rabbits and goats. The donkey was hilarious and Aedan has been imitating his “he-ha” whenever I say donkey.

We had lots of fun hanging out playing games, even though Jon and his dad beat his mom and I at Sequence. Aedan had a blast with his cousin Jesse and all his fun toys.

Jon’s mom made me a birthday cake and we celebrated my birthday Saturday night. Jon’s parents gave me a recipe binder that will let me organize all the recipes that I print out online (so perfect) and a holiday baking cookbook that I can’t wait to try out.

We had a lot of fun, but we had to head back early Sunday because Jon had to work that afternoon. The weekend went by too fast!

Oh and an update on the house situation…

We found out last Tuesday, that we had someone put in an application. On Wednesday our realtor (which happens to be Jon’s sister – so great!) got all the info and did all the background work and everything looked great. We have gotten the deposit and will be signing the lease tomorrow. Yay!

The only downside is that she wants to move in by 12/17. Which is super soon!

We are planning to move up to my grandmother’s old house (my parents own it now and use it when they come to down) this coming weekend. We are so blessed that we have a place to stay while we finalize our close. Next week we will be doing any touch up work on our house so it is all ready for our new tenant!

All that to say, I may be a little MIA for a while!

-Lauren-