2014 in Review

As tradition, our 2014 year in review:

January

The boys enjoyed ringing in the New Year in their festive hats with fancy glasses of "champagne" (sparkling juice).

We had a pretty boring start to the year as evidenced by this post.  Although I am a little ashamed to admit that I didn't follow my "resolution" to get healthier quite so well as I had hoped.  Haha!

We had some good days and bad days this month with news about my mom's health declining rapidly and unexpectedly from a lung infection while she was in the hospital.  I also had my wisdom teeth extracted and awaited news from the doctor about my own health concerns. 

February

On February 4, 2014, we had to make the decision to take my mom off the ventilator when it was no longer working satisfactorily.  It was a tough decision for my dad, but he felt he was honoring her wishes.  

We got our first snow day of the year. 

We went to the circus again.

We enjoyed a few much better snow days with 3 days of snow falling to give us about 8 or 9 inches.

We celebrated a snowy Valentine's. 

Evan finished his first season of basketball.

March

The beginning of the year gave us many lemons, but we refused to let it get us down.  I finally got some answers to my health concerns, and the boys were all relatively healthy and happy.  We also started seeing some welcome Spring weather that always seems to lift our spirits.

We prepared to welcome and enjoy another beautiful Spring, my favorite season of the year.  

We wore our green for St. Patrick's Day. 

As tradition, we enjoyed spending one of our first warm days of the year at the park. 

Evan celebrated his 7th birthday. 

We celebrated Evan's birthday with an awesome bowling ninja party. 

Brody was really enjoying school.

Evan began his first season of machine pitch baseball. 

April

We celebrated Easter visiting Washington D.C. and seeing the last of the cherry blossoms.

Our Spring Break vacation to D.C. marked the beginning of the many good times ahead. 

We loved seeing this mama and baby panda at the National Zoo. 

My sweet little Brody turned 3!

We celebrated Brody's birthday with an awesome choo choo train party. 

May

Brody wrapped up his second year of preschool with a fun little picnic. 

These boys enjoyed playing outside a lot this Spring.  We have to enjoy the outdoors before the heat and mosquitoes make it unbearable.

We almost wrapped up a full year missing our sweet little angel. 

Evan finished up another fun season of baseball. 

We made some big family changes this month as I chose to leave my current employment to stay home with the boys for a while.  It has been such a blessing!

We celebrated Memorial Day and Grandma's birthday with a little cook out and cake. 

June

Evan finished up a successful year at school. 

We celebrated our amazing Daddy for Father's Day. 

We celebrated 11 years of love and laughter together. 

We enjoyed a whole lot of summer fun!

Mattie celebrated her first heavenly birthday! 

We had a nice little birthday celebration for Mattie complete with pink balloons and cupcakes. 

July

We celebrated a fabulous 4th of July in our city. 

Lots of summer fun!

Visiting Tweetsie Railroad was one of our most favorite summer activities. 

August

Daddy left us for two weeks to help fight a wildfire out west. 

The boys and Mommy said goodbye to Daddy and prepared to spend our last weeks of summer alone. 

Mommy packed us all up by herself and drove to the beach.  The boys enjoyed the water park and slides while we waited for Grandma, Papa James, Aunt Naomi, and Grady to arrive. 

We thought we would only have one day at the beach with Daddy, but he gave the boys the biggest surprise when he arrived only one day after we arrived at the beach.  

Our first attempt at some family beach pictures was not fully successful as Brody refused to smile. 

We got to "meet" some celebrities. 

We took our traditional beach family pictures. 

Evan started second grade. 

September

We welcomed this little cutie into our family.  And oh my, I can barely even fathom her this small.  Seems like it only lasted a week.  She now weighs about 48 pounds.  Sigh. 

Brody started his 3rd year of preschool. 

We announced the pending arrival of our little rainbow. 

Our first glimpse of our new little one. 

We made it to week 16 with our little avocado. 

Brody enjoyed his first soccer experience. 

Evan's 4th season of soccer

October

Evan becomes a Cub Scout.

We announced that our rainbow is another boy!

We got another peek at our little one at 18 weeks. 

Evan and Daddy went camping together for the first time with Cub Scouts.

And caught his first fish. 

Brody got his first trophy!

The boys made a super cute ghost fighting duo for Halloween. 

November

The boys enjoyed some leaf pile jumping. 

We all enjoyed our Veterans' Day Nature Hike. 

Evan got a medal for another awesome soccer year. 

Evan did a great job making and sailing his boat for Cub Scouts. 

We all enjoyed the Charlotte Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

We all enjoyed our little Thanksgiving feast. 

December

We started the Christmas season with the annual tree lighting ceremony. 

We found our tree. 

We decorated for Christmas. 

We got another peek at our very expressive little man at 28 weeks. 

And we prepared to celebrate another joyous Christmas together. 

The boys both enjoyed meeting Santa again. 

We celebrated Jesus' birthday. 

And had another fun Christmas morning and day. 

Whew, that turned out to be quite a year!  Adios, 2014!