2012 Year in Review

Our friend's Andy and Sarah did a 2012 review blog I like so we will be copying it below.  Austin and I will pick our favorite blog or event from each month of the year and link it here in a 2012 review.  Which is how I realized that we never blogged about our trip to visit family or Disneyworld.  So here we go...

January - 
     Austin - Disneyworld
     Janelle - Trip to Oregon to meet Family for Zachary

These were blogs I just did because we were so busy I forgot to go back and blog, these were also two of the highlights of the year.

February -
Austin - Standing Baby Z
Janelle - Long Over Due this is in reference to Zachary's First Haircut which was long over due.

March
Austin - Zachary's First Birthday
Janelle - Dancing Z (Zachary's first Birthday was also my favorite but we wanted to give you two each month so our second choice was Dancing Z).

 

Have you noticed a theme with our 2012?  Zachary was clearly the highlight of most of our 2012.  He changed so much from a little baby to a toddler, from barely being able to hold a bottle to feeding himself and running around.

April
Austin - Komen Race
Janelle - Pool Time

 

April also brought us Easter which was a special time as well, we had a sick baby and so it wasn't a highlight, but quality family time.  Our many afternoons in the back yard with the baby pool were relaxing and fun.

May
Austin - Walking Baby Z
Janelle - Relaxing Weekend Time

A lot of great stuff happened this month.  We also found out that baby X was a boy and Erica got married, and a fun weekend with family around her wedding in Raleigh.  It was kind of a toss up to pick our favorites.

June 
Austin - Father's Day Traditions
Janelle - Relaxing at the Beach

Our Father's Day and Mother's Day books are already a favorite, we can't wait until the babies can do more of it on their own and it will be one of our prized possessions when they are grown.

July 
Austin - Fourth of July
Janelle - Family Bike Ride

Austin - it was fun watching Z see fireworks for the first time.
Janelle - I wanted to ride bikes so badly I bought the trailer while Austin was camping for the weekend and assembled it so we could go.

August 
Austin - Picking our Jeremiah John's  Name
Janelle - Surprise - not only for how meaningful it was for my coworkers to support me in that way, but also because of how adorable Zachary was with his "up"

Austin also wanted the bouncy water slide day to be noted, however I noticed I didn't do a blog about this activity.  There are pictures in August of a birthday party for Piper with a bouncy slide that triggered his memory.

September 
Austin - Celebrating 10 Years Married
Janelle - Celebrating 10 Years Married

We both agree the best part of this month was celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary.  Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures but had a great evening out, but most importantly are happy to be married to each other.  The other highlights were Z turning 18 months old and learning to talk in funny ways and a painful highlight Austin wants to mention is putting the giraffe on Jeremiah's wall.  We both were sad to help Brent load up his stuff to move away for good over Labor Day.


October 
Austin - Jeremiah's Birth
Janelle - Jeremiah's Birth

We cheated and picked the same one again, but after Jeremiah's birth and having him enter our family, Halloween would be the second highlight from the month.

November 
Austin - Boat House
Janelle - Hanging with Jeremiah

Obviously it was horrible to have Z and Jeremiah get sick but it was a memorable time in November for us.  It helped remind me we are very lucky to live in a country and a time when medicine is available and to live in a town with a good Children's Hospital to ease the pain of these type of events.

December 
Austin - Becoming a Professional Engineer (which we never blogged about, it occurred during our computer downtime, we opened a bottle of Champaign to celebrate, such a huge weight to have that behind him)
Janelle - Nana and Papa's Visit and our Christmas Eve time

And that ends our year in review.  We haven't posted it but we also started in a new small group at church going through The Story (church sermons and group on the same chapter each week).  It is a great way to actually learn the bible events.  But it has been so meaningful to us because the families in the group have become great friends when many of our other friends were moving on and have been amazing for us.   It was a year filled with our children as the focus and wonderful in that way.