Saturday, December 31, 2011

our year

january
in january i got the mutha of all toothaches. that taught me a little bit about our Heavenly Father (weird, i know!) and His love for us. sometimes we all have to go through some pain so we can learn and be willing to do the things we need to do. and as a parent, even though it's hard, it's necessary. simple, i know, but my toothache taught me that.

february
in february we celebrated love and all that goes with it. we had our first annual official 14 days of valentines and we added another teenager to our family. there was lots of basketball and lots of candy to be had in february.

march
march brought frankie's 1st birthday and a fun pink party, papa's fun visit and lots of sightseeing around our beautiful neck of the woods, and some st. patricks day celebratin' and lots of green.

april
in april grandpa ray came to town! we love spending time with our grandpas! we also took a fabulously fun trip to florida with the fischetti crew. on the road there we got our first dose of crazy weather for the year when we survived our first tornado. we missed christian while we vacationed, but also grew and learned from difficult situations.  and matt turned 42! yikes!

may
the warm weather started and we spent a lot of blessed time outside. we checked out beaches and had pool parties and wrapped up some school stuff.

june
june is our busiest birthday month with our 2 girls celebrating on june 3rd. matt and i ran our first race and we found out we were expecting our latest little bundle of JOY! school wrapped up, alexis went to girls camp, christian went to boy scout camp, and we prepared for our summer voyage.

july
brought our long, long trip to seattle and exactly 0 blog posts! the pregnancy nasuea and exhaustion came full force, but amy still made me participate in my second race and first half marathon. we sent christian off to texas (sad face) but he was kinda bored and miserable and came home earlier than he ever has before (happy face!). we checked lots off our seattle bucket list, spent time with lots of family and friends, and got our fill of traveling until after baby girl comes.

august
back to school! 8th graders and sophmores! it was also the month with the craziest weather ev-ah! in one week we survived a tornado, earthquake, and hurricane. we came out of august exhausted and broke, but safe and happy. we also found out we were having another baby GIRL!

september
the kids finally went back to school again, lexi made the varsity cheer squad, christian played baseball, mama and addie started preschool, matt finished up our deck, and frankie started gymnastics.

october
in october mama nested and worked hard to organize and become more efficient with life - including kid swaps and days of cooking. we also went to tofw, franks had surgery, lex had homecoming, christian gave his first talk, and we celebrated halloween. 

november
we painted, finished baseball, went to ny, got ready for christmas, and went to breaking dawn at midnight. we also enjoyed super mild and wonderful weather!!!

december
we had a wonderful christmas, the boys went snowboarding for the first time of the season, we experienced some teen growing pains and lots of parenting learning moments.

2011 was a good, good year. a relatively easy year. we didn't have any new jobs, new homes, new schools, new babies, it was just a good, calm year. which was twice as sweet because it was followed by a particularly tumoltous year. it was a year of learning and growing and discovering. relationships were tested and strengthened. lots of lessons were learned.
(wish i could say we were done with all the lessons being learned but something tells me otherwise;)

i think there's a good chance (but hopefully i'm wrong!) this next year and a half could be pretty difficult. 3 little ones at home all day, plus 2 big ones, plus some exciting stuff matt's been cooking up for awhile... just the thought of it all wears me out. so i'm taking some extra time to reflect on the good, sweet year we've had. and i know we can make it through the bad and that will make the good that much better. and i know that
 i can do hard things. in the strength of the Lord i can do all things.

so, i'm preparing as best i can. i'm willing to ask for help and accept it.
i'm looking forward with faith and excitement and gratitude and hope
2012, bring it.


4 comments:

Shelly said...

You give yourself too little credit. You are capable of a lot, sweetie. What a great year you had!!

The Ainas said...

ha, i just did a similar post. Only yours is cooler because you went by month. :) And I agree with Shelly. And I doubt you have anything to worry about next year, because your little baby girl is going to be calm and perfect! ;)

Sara said...

And all I want to know is what Matt is cooking up??

Glorene said...

Syrie's favorite Bible verse is: With God, all things are possible.