2011 Recap

As I've looked back over the blog and thought back over 2011, I realized that I accomplished quite a lot and we lived a very full year!  I am so thankful for God's continued provision and faithfulness to our family.  2011 was a great year.  Here are some of my highlights...

{January}

One of my goals as the year began was to organize and simplify my life. 

I feel like in some ways I did a good job with this especially the first few months of the year.  

The first thing I did was finish up making over our master bedroom...

(new curtains, new lamps, paint, bedding)

In January, I also got to spend a weekend with college friends in Atlanta and it was so much fun! These girls mean so much to me:).

My organization kick also motivated me to get into my pantry and do some cleaning out.  It was a big job, but so worth it and I'm happy to report that 11 months later,  we have kept it pretty organized and clean!

{February}

We celebrated our Ellie Kate turning 4 with a super fun princess party!

I also started reading 1000 Gifts and really saw the Lord work in my heart through this amazing book.   If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it and I actually might pick it back up soon!

{March}

Brought some changes as we decided it was time to say goodbye to the crib and transition this cute big girl into a normal bed and share a room with her sister.  I wasn't sure we would ever use that crib again.  Ha!

Because of transitioning Abigail, we gave Samuel back his own room (he had been sharing with EK)...

{April}

This was as a big month for many reasons!

Ellie Kate got to be a flower girl for the very first time.  She rocked it even though she did have a slight tumble as she walked down the aisle.  If you missed that hilarity, click HERE

Samuel won first place in his Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby race,  Abigail continued to grow up and got potty trained, & I reached my goal of losing 20 pounds.  At the end of the month on April 27, our city experienced a horrific storm...

The tornado that ripped through Tuscaloosa was seriously life changing.   Our city was turned upside down and was very chaotic for awhile.  You can read one of my posts about it HERE. It's been 8 months since that fateful day, and we are still picking up the pieces around here.

One bright spot was that I met this little guy and his momma, Camilla, after the tornado and an unlikely friendship began.   I've learned a lot through my relationship with her and Richard and am thankful to God for bringing us together. 

{May}

I got to host the MOST FUN party with my partner in crime, Carlley.  We called it Dinner Under the Stars and it was seriously fabulous!  We will definitely make it an annual affair! 

Samuel got his first homerun in baseball, we had a fun beach trip with Jeff's family, and just continued to pick up the pieces around town after the Tornado. 

{June}

Just a few short weeks before heading on a cross country trip, we got a big surprise...

The Lord certainly has a sense of humor as we had just declared recently that our family was complete:).   Not so fast!  A 4th miracle was seemingly on it's way!

We drove 3 days from Alabama to Colorado and it was truly an adventure...

{July}

We spent all of July enjoying the great outdoors in one of our favorite states.  Jeff also took a few seminary classes and we attended our annual staff conference with the ministry we work for, Cru.

{August}

We celebrated 10 years of marriage on August 4!  
So thankful for Jeff and the blessing of a decade together. 

 

Later in the month we found out our 4 child would be another GIRL!

Another major organization, simplification project was redoing our laundry room.  It's not too dramatic or fancy, but it is much prettier and more functional than before.  I still LOVE my new washer and dryer and everything we did in this room...

{September}

With a growing addiction to Pinterest and a never ending list of projects in my head, I decided to tackle a fairly easy one and make a wreath...

We also visited Old Baker Farm in Birmingham and had a blast picking out pumpkins, going on hay rides, petting the animals, and playing in fresh picked cotton.  Fall is so much fun!

{October}

Our big boy Samuel turned 9 this month and we celebrated with a very chaotic Campfire birthday.  It was cute and most of my ideas were from...you guessed it - Pinterest.

Samuel decided to spend his birthday money on his first reptile, an albino leopard gecko that he named Max. 

{November}

We celebrated again!  This time it was a colorful birthday for Abigail who turned 3.  It was a really cute and fun party for our littlest and sweetest girl.

November also brought the 3rd trimester of pregnancy and our 6th Gotcha Day with Samuel.  We also realized in November that is was time to pursue some testing with Samuel as we continued to struggle with school, behavior, and anxiety levels.

{December}

We saw God bring redemption as Camilla moved into her new Habitat house!!!  What a beautiful thing to be a part of.  I am forever grateful to have seen how our town has come together to make things like this happen...

We also had a wonderful holiday season and got our very first real live Christmas tree. 

Yes, it was truly a full year!  As 2011 wraps up, I can't help but let my heart worship.  Our God has been good to us.  It has not always been easy, but overall His blessings abounded and we look forward to 2012 with much anticipation as we get to meet a precious surprise blessing who is being knitted together perfectly in my womb.  We look forward to seeing Samuel grow and hopefully get some much needed help from a wonderful Christian psychologist.  We look forward to growing closer to our Lord and serving Him with abandon. 

I am also really thankful to all you read, lurk, and check in on this little ole blog!  It's really funny to me that I get around 10,000 hits/pageviews every month.  I so appreciate your input, comments, encouragement and prayers as I seek to follow the Lord and raise our little family to His glory! 

35 Weeks!!!

Well, as you can clearly see...I am GROWING!  35 weeks today. It's hard to believe that Anna Mitchell will be here before we know it! 

I started my weekly doctor visits today (fun, fun)!  My belly measured at nearly 38 weeks.  That's no surprise.  This little gal is BIG (have I mentioned that Jeff was a 10 lb baby?).  I know I will most likely not go past 39 weeks (other girls came at 38) so we are now at a month out from meeting our precious surprise. 

I  was sleeping good until this week.  Now I am waking up a lot due to my carpal tunnel (hands are going numb), getting up to use the bathroom, reflux, throwing up, etc.  I think I will actually be glad to wake up and feed a baby as long as I don't have to deal with all the other stuff:).   I'm pretty sure I was up nearly every 1-2 hours last night:(.  My feet all of a sudden have swollen up (along with everything else) and my blood pressure was slightly up today.  I won't be surprised if it continues to go up like it did with EK (which is why she came at 38 weeks).  We shall see though.  On the flip side, I love to feel her roll around, get the hiccups, and stick her little bottom out.  I'm trying to cherish those feelings as this should most definitely be the last few weeks I will ever be pregnant.  

Here are the belly pics from the last 12 weeks...

Hopefully, I can share the nursery with y'all soon.  I am almost done with it and I LOVE it!!!!

It Was Very Merry!

We have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas the last several days!!! Seriously, goes down in the books as one of my favorites...which I'm sure is due to the fact that we got to stay home.  We are very grateful to our families who traveled to us this year!!! 

Christmas morning was great!  The kids were very excited and actually didn't get up too early.  Samuel got lots of Star Wars stuff, a skateboard thing, and some smaller stuff.  The girls got a dollhouse together and then each got puzzles, books, and some smaller stuff.  I made some breakfast casserole muffins that we all enjoyed around 9:30 am and then back to the toys it was!  Jeff surprised me with Kuerig coffee maker!  I love it so far!

Later Christmas day my family arrived!  My parents, Erin & Ryan drove from Atlanta and we enjoyed a yummy meal together.  I was excited to host Christmas dinner for the very first time.  Crazy!  I kept it pretty simple (honeybaked ham, corn casserole, salad, sister shubert rolls, ice cream cake for dessert, and sweet potato casserole that my mom brought) and we even used paper products to eat on, but it was fun!  Then we opened presents.  I wasn't too good about taking pictures.  Nighttime pics indoors just don't excite me. Ha!  I didn't get one pic of my brother (sorry Ryan). Not sure how that happened.  The kids loved having everyone here for 2 nights and we enjoyed hosting everyone.  My parents gave me a Kitchen Aid mixer that I have been wanting for a long time.  I'm so excited to break it in as soon as I can figure out!  The kids also loved everything they got and have been going from one thing to the next:). 

BEFORE Christmas, we hosted Jeff's family at our house (so I actually got to serve 2 meals to family)! We had a great time with them as usual.  The kids got lots of great toys and we enjoyed being together.  Jeff's big present from his parents was a BCS National Championship ticket to see Alabama play on January 9.  So now, we just pray little Anna Mitchell decides to stay put until after that:).  Since Jeff got that, his parents were very generous to me as well with some money.  I'm very excited to use it on some needed stuff in our home.  We are very thankful for our families!!!

 
Today, we took down all the decorations and organized a lot...finding places for all the new stuff.  I am in major nesting mode!  My back and uterus just don't always love for me to nest:).    Christmas 2011 truly was a wonderful time for our family!  I hope it was for yours too!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

"I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; 

he is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10

We enjoyed a wonderful relaxing Christmas Eve today!  Our candlelight service at Church was a wonderful worshipful time and then we came home to eat some crock pot soup together.  I then staged some pictures of course:)!  

 Then we all gathered around the ottoman to look through our Samaritan's Purse catalog.  We already did some Operation Christmas Child boxes earlier this season, but we wanted each of the children to pick out a specific "gift" to send to someone around the world through Samaritan's Purse.  

Samuel chose Life-Saving Medicine

Ellie Kate chose Shoes & Clothing

Abigail chose Baby Chicks

I love that each gift they chose sort of goes with their personality and age.  We are thankful to be able to give in this small way through such a great organization!

 

We got our pajamas on and listened as daddy read the story of Jesus coming to earth as a baby.  He read out of our favorite Children's bible {The Jesus Storybook Bible}

Then I took a few more pictures:)
 and off to bed they went!

I love this quote and had to share...

{Charles Spurgeon on December 24, 1854:}

Feast, Christians, feast; you have a right to feast. 

Go to the house of feasting to-morrow, 

celebrate your Saviour’s birth; do not be ashamed to be glad; you have a right to be happy. 

Solomon says, “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. 

Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.”

“Religion never was designed
To make your pleasures less.”

Recollect that your Master ate butter and honey. Go your way, rejoice tomorrow, but in your feasting, think of the Man in Bethlehem; let him have a place in your hearts, give him the glory, think of the virgin who conceived him, but think most of all of the Man born, the Child given.

Christmas Week Insta Friday {Recent Phone Pics}

We still love babies in our house and I have a hunch that it's not going to go away anytime soon with the soon to be real live baby that's going to arrive in a few short weeks:)! 

The picture on the left is baby Conner.  Abigail has a slight obsession with a student in our ministry named Conner and so she names lots of babies or princes after him as she plays.  It's pretty cute!

I just love this picture of EK right before her ballet recital...although she looks a lot older than 4 to me!

We painted our toes and fingernails the other day.  The girls just love getting all dolled up! As you can see, I can no longer wear my wedding ring.  The time of swollen hands, fingers, toes, ankles, etc has certainly arrived for the pregnant mama!

Ellie Kate got one of my scarves the other day and fixed herself up to look like Mary (mother of Jesus). 

We did some baking the other day.  Some for ourselves and some to bless our neighbors (I found a cute free printable online to tie to the bags of cookies)!  The kids had fun going crazy with the icing and sprinkles on the sugar cookies we made.  We kept those for ourselves:).  I have the best memories of making these cookies with my mom every Christmas.  They are the best sugar cookies EVER!!!  I hope it will be special memory with my kids as well:). 

Can't believe it's Christmas weekend!  We start our celebrations today with Jeff's family! 

Making Memories

We decided to start a new tradition this year with an idea found on Pinterest (because where else would I find any good ideas)!

After the kids baths as they were getting ready for bed, we surprised them with a ticket to the Minivan Express.  They were so excited even though they didn't really understand yet what we were going to do.  I had popcorn ready for them along with their tickets and then off we went out to the minivan.  Jeff was the conductor and we punched their tickets as the got on board.  Then we told them we were going to drive around town to look at lights in different neighborhoods.  We saw some really good ones! 

You can find the free printable for these tickets from the blog I pinned this idea from HERE

Samuel doesn't look excited here, but he really was...he's just a stinker for pictures sometimes:)