2011: a look back

I'm kind of in awe that I'm writing a look back at 2011 when I can distinctly remember just writing 2010s. This is insane. So for grins and giggles, lets look back shall we? I loved doing this in 2009 and 2010 so here we go again. This year was kind of a doozy. And to be honest? As it ends, there is still so, so much up in the air. I'm actually ready for 2011 to be over. I'm going to need some answers and some closure in 2012, please and thank you? But at the same time, 2011 was sort of awesome. So many changes. Some good, some bad. It will be interesting to see what happens next... January: We started the year quietly, in our tiny little apartment, just the three of us and the pets. I set some 2011 goals, that I didn't do too bad on. Could always do better, but at least it wasn't a total fail. My little one turned 9 months old. I started Project 365. We had our first snow day which was HUGE to this Georgia girl.We ventured to the park for the first time and the little one got to check out the swings which she loved. I got to meet one of my favorite bloggers in person and began what has become an "in real life" friendship. We headed down to Savannah for a big 'ol visit home. February: BG had her first real sick day. Boo. BG turned 10 months old. We celebrated the little's first Valentine's Day. BG and I had a couple of really fun park play dates. BG and I made the trek up to Maryland with Uncle Marine to spend some time with Nonny and Pops. March: BG turned 11 months old. As BG's first birthday drew closer and closer, I got all kinds of reflective about my first year with her. We went on our first family trip to the zoo. BG and I went to Savannah for her first St. Patrick's Day and had an absolute blast. I spent the month getting ready for BG's first birthday and trying not to lose my mind. I got to meet Anne for the first time and begin another great friendship thanks to blog land. I decided it was time to get the baby weight off for good and joined Weight Watchers. April: My sweet, sweet girl turned one. We threw an amazing party to celebrate the first year of her life and were surrounded by our amazing family and friends. The little started taking some hesitant steps. Mr. P and I struggled to find our family a new church home in our new state. We celebrated BG's second "first" Easter. BG and I got up really early to watch THE WEDDING. We went down to Georgia for a big 'ol celebration of April birthdays with AP's family. We took our first family hike. May: BG turned 13 months old. I celebrated my second Mother's Day. BG started walking more and more! Mr. P and I celebrated our sixth anniversary. We moved. Again. Mr. P celebrated his 34th birthday. BG and I headed down to Georgia to go to the aquarium with family and also got to meet up with Lyndsey and Tracy and their sweet kiddos. My family came up to celebrate Memorial Day with us in South Carolina. I hit eleven pounds down thanks to Weight Watchers. June: BG is now 14 months old. We headed south to BG's buddy's birthday party and then north to a wedding all in one weekend. Mr. P celebrated his second Father'sDay. We found out my sweet Grandma had stomach cancer. I took a leap of faith and began taking pictures of people that were not my family. I went back to work part-time. July: We traveled down to Florence to spend some time with Uncle Marine as he began to get ready to head overseas again. BG is 15 months old. We had an incredible Fourth of July weekend. We checked out the splash pad for the first time. BG's fierce love of accessories and all things "girl" exploded. We switched BG to forward facing in the car and she LOVES it. August: BG is now 16 months old. We did whatever we could to survive the hot summer days. I continued to lose weight slowly but surely on Weight Watchers. We went to a "Princess Night" and BG loved it big time. I left BG for the first time to head home for my high school reunion and my Mom came down to hang out with her for the weekend. September: 17 months. Hold me. I turned 29. Hold me again. We took BG to see Sesame Street Live. Mr. P and I had a long overdue "date day". Mr. P traveled to Orlando for a week for work. We headed to Savannah for a second birthday party and some family time. I went to a "tweet up" in Atlanta and got to meet one of my blog "besties" for the first time. October: Uncle Marine headed back overseas. BG's sitter went back to work and she started attending a "real" daycare for the first time. I also redid her room to a big girl room. The little is now 18 months old. We ventured to the pumpkin patch. We let BG attempt pumpkin painting for the second year in a row. We went to Boo in the Zoo. BG got her first ear (double) infection. We ventured to another pumpkin patch (and another). We celebrated Halloween. November: BG and I checked out the Balloon Festival here in town. She turned 19 months. We checked out Cabbage Patch Land with AP. BG got diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease. BG and I made another Savannah trip. We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving just the three of us. We got to spend some time with my Dad, Mr. P's parents and Mr. P's cousin who lives overseas and his family Thanksgiving weekend. December: We kicked off the Christmas festivities with our town's Christmas Tree Lighting and Christmas parade. I now have a 20 month old. We went to see Santa. We picked out our perfect (?) Christmas tree. BG had her first hair cut. BG had her first Christmas program at school. We celebrated Christmas here a few days early and then headed to Savannah for a few days. BG came down with RSV and Mr. P is battling some sort of yuckies. It's New Years Eve and I'm watching tv and drinking some wine while my sickos rest. 2011 is done son. Looking back, it's been an amazing year. I am ready for 2012 though. Bring on the clean slate! Happy New Year to you all!

time-out

So we've started trying time-out.

I'm not here to discuss discipline methods or what is right and wrong, I'm just trying to figure out what is right for us.

Now we're not above spanking. I got spanked. Mr. P got spanked and we both turned out fine. But... I don't think spanking is the answer for everything.

So we're trying time out.

Apparently BG goes in time-out at school, or has seen other kids do it because she totally knows what it is.

She'll go right into that corner and stick that little nose against the wall. Then she'll start side eyeing you. Based on how you appear during that side glance, she'll either start giggling, or crying. And when I say crying, I mean a break your heart "Mommy..." with a shaky bottom lip.

Oh yea. She's totally playing us.

But it's sort of working. After she gets out, she'll come running to us and say "I sorry Mama" or "I sorry Daddy" and we talk about why she went into time out. I think she gets it. I do.

Then tonight, she got popped on the bottom. It was actually a little play pop from Mr. P to tell her to get out of the fridge. It actually was more of an attention getter than anything. No sooner had he done it than she whipped around, pointed that little finger at him and said "Uh uh!!".

How do you keep a straight face with that?!?!?

She's a spit fire. That's for sure. And while I love her spirit, I know it has to be guided. So we're figuring out how... daily. By trial and error. Good times.

So time out. How do we keep her still in that corner. And how do we not laugh when she is such a ham?!? Even when she's getting in trouble!

our little family Christmas Eve

Since we headed down to Savannah for Christmas this year, we decided to just move our family of three Christmas ahead a few days so that we could still have that time just the three of us. Since we moved Christmas up, we had to move Christmas Eve up as well right??

So that's what we did.

Last Thursday when Mr. P and I got off of work, we took BG to a local place that does a big light display every year. It was raining but I was bound and determined to see some lights, so off we went. We got out for a second to check out Santa for the second time. I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn't slightly hoping for the "terrified toddler does Santa" screaming picture, but alas, this does not appear to be my year for that.

Where did this cool, calm baby come from?

After her visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus, we hopped in the truck to check out the lights. I climbed in the back and pulled the little out of her seat to sit with me and we "oohed" and "ahhed" as drove past the lights multiple times. Who only goes through once when they have an excited toddler with them?!? Not these guys.

Afterwards we headed on home to get ready for Santa. Thankfully for BG, her Daddy worked out a deal where Santa went ahead and came a few days early so that he could visit her before we left. That nice, old man. ;)

We didn't get around to making cookies, but we did have some in the house to leave out for the big man. Getting BG to put out the cookies instead of eat them was quite the battle.

BG moved her advent calendar mouse for the last time this holiday..

We battled it out over eating Santa's cookies for another go 'round (my child loves the cookies y'all)...

trying to convince her that Santa wouldn't come if there were no cookies...

...and then finally we curled up to read a few pages of one of her Christmas books before calling it a night.

It was off to bed after that so that Santa and his elves could build a baby girl's kitchen and work some more magic for our family Christmas the next day.

to be continued...

checking in..

I'm in a bit of a post Christmas funk. It's cold and gray here and I already miss my family.

But more than that, my little one managed to get pretty sick last night while leaving Savannah and we've had quite the night. But more on that to come.

She's fine. We're all very tired. And we're all feeling very, very blessed as we sit and enjoy this quiet day together. (Only plus of a sick kid? lots of cuddles and an extra day off work).

Hope you all had the merriest of Christmases! I know we did.

Christmas program

Daycare has managed to become both the bane of my existence as well as a saving grace. Crazy right?

I hate waking BG up in the morning to get her there in time. I also hate being away from her all day and having her come home overstimulated and overtired some days.

But I love that she is learning and drawing and making little friends which shows her growing social skills. And I really love that she gets to be involved in fun things like Christmas programs that I can attend and take way too many pictures of.

Last week, BG's school put on a program for the kiddos. It was a "pajama party" of sorts where the school headmaster lady read them all a Christmas book with songs thrown in.

We went ahead and hooked BG up early with her Christmas jammies and some amazing new kicks to wear for her first performance.


That would be her "I really, really like Elmo, but I'm not so sure about the little dude on my feet" face.

The older kids did most of the program which was pretty cute and sort of hilarious. Way too many children, but they behaved well. I kept finding my mind wandering as I tried to figure out how in the world I became old enough to have a child in one of these things. I still remember being in these programs.



Finally it was time for the little ones to come out for the last two songs. BG walked out with her teacher Miss B and was in awe. Check out her face!


We were on the front row (duh), so she saw us immediately and tried to make a run for it. Thank goodness all it took was us asking her to go back to her teacher and she did. Love that girl.


Y'all she did so good!! Obviously she was pretty much frozen and spent most of her time staring out at everyone, but she stayed up there and behaved and, oh, I am so proud!

Then it was over and the girls in her class headed back with their teacher for pictures where two of them melted down and my always cool, laid back kiddo sat on the couch and waited for the others to cool it and say "cheese". Nothing about the night phased her.

Cross that one of the "Mommy Bucket List"; I've officially been to my daughter's first school "play". And loved it.

snip snip

It was time.

BG actually doesn't have a lot of hair. While she may have gotten every single other physical characteristic (okay not all) from her Daddy, one thing she did not get is his thick, amazing hair.

His hairline? yes. His lack of a part? yes. But not that thick hair.

Instead, the apparently ONE contribution I made to the little (besides her coloring and that amazeballs smile), would be a head of thin, doesntwanttogrowatall hair.

Fun.

So BG is almost two (gasp!) years old and is still rocking basically no hair up top but was starting to rock a fierce mullet in the back.



I've trimmed up her little baby bangs a few times but I was not touching her sweet hair to give her her first actual haircut.

So last Saturday, I picked up the phone, called a local salon and made BG an appt for that afternoon.

Right during naptime. I have amazing timing.

After multiple tantrums and looks from Mr. P saying he had zero faith in this decision, I finally got the two of them to the salon.

Where BG happily took a sucker from the nice lady, climbed in a chair, and froze.


I know my kid folks. She is always better for other people than she is for us. I so knew this would work.



While the other ladies in the salon "oohed" and "aahed" over her, BG sat wide eyed, sucker forgotten, as the lady took a few snips of that baby fine hair. I cannot tell a lie when I say I totally choked up a bit at just how big she seemed while still looking like my tiny baby in that big 'ol chair.



We took a billion pictures and smiled when the ladies remarked on just how good she was doing, while we let ourselves just soak all that in (and tried to block the hell we went through to get her there out).



It was over in five minutes. I managed to grab a handful of tiny, baby hairs to keep forever and BG hopped out of the chair and remembered that sucker.



We took her to Chick-fil-a to celebrate her being so good. And just like that, we accomplished another first. Man this is flying by.

the tree.

So we got a tree.

My plan was to drive us out to a Christmas Tree farm, look around, take tons of pictures and then hit up Lowes on the way home and buy one. Because that's how we do. And I'm cheap. And Christmas tree farm trees are not cheap.

But.... that didn't happen.

Well, I didn't drag us out to a tree farm for pictures (which could still happen..), but we did hit up Lowes and got us a tree.

BG was super excited to pick out her tree. Or she was super excited to wear the awesome hat I got her out of the Target dollar bin. One or the other.


We walked around for a little bit while we begged asked BG to focus and pick a tree. Finally she did.


It was perfect. It was full and tall and cheap green. What more could you ask for?


Well then we got home and found that it's trunk was crooked. And Mr. P cut a good two feet of it off. So now? we rock a Charlie Brown tree. Which is fun in it's own way.

We dragged out all the Christmas ornaments and waited two days for the tree to fall and Mr. P to put lights on it. Finally, it was time to decorate.


This little creature got to put the first ornament on. She was pretty proud of herself too.


Charlie Brown tree and all... I think it turned out perfect.