Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013 A Year In Review

One of my favorite blog posts is the year in review recap that I did last year for 2012. This year hasn't had quite as many huge events for our family as 2012 did but it's been memorable and fun just the same.

We've watched Georgia Grace go from baby to a walking talking toddler in a years time. We left 2012 as very green young parents and though we might still be green in some areas, we are now experienced and feel better about ourselves as "mommy" and "daddy".

Here is what our 2013 looked like month-by-month:

January
I went back to work 4 days a week after being home on maternity leave for 10 weeks. We also moved Georgia Grace to her crib (12 weeks).

February
Georgia Grace learned to roll over and we had our first snow of the season which she did not enjoy.

March
We attended the SEC tournament in Nashville and came home with our tails tucked after we lost the first game. You win some, you lose some.

We also celebrated Georgia Grace's 1st Easter. She just so happened to be the cutest Easter bunny I've ever seen :)

April
I turned 26 on the 7th, it was my first birthday with a helper to blow out the candles.

We took our first semi-long trip with Georgia Grace to Cincinnati for a work conference for me. She loved the city life!

May
She sat up for the first time and never looked back.

1st Mother's Day and our third year wedding anniversary

She took her 1st swim in May too.

June

1st trip to the beach as a family of 3! We learned that she travels really well and we couldn't be happier about that.

1st Father's Day for Marcus.

6 month portraits arrived-my favorite session of all time

July
1st Independence day, lake days, 1st Blogiversary, and my sister's engagement

August
1st haircut, Marcus started his 4th year of teaching, and Marcus turned 25.

September
Spent Labor Day at mom's brand new pool, had a Steve Madden boot named after our Georgia Grace, were on a billboard, and went to the Governor's Cup.

October
The busiest month of my 26 years of life!
My sister and BIL tied the knot on the 18th

And we celebrated Georgia Grace's 1st birthday on the 26th. A busy but blessed month no doubt.

November
First weekend getaway (UK Homecoming) and first snow of the season

December 
A very dramatic Santa visit :)


A bear hunt for my hubs and BIL

A wonderful Christmas with our fun 14 month old!

 AND our Christmas present trip to Jackson Hole! We definitely said goodbye to 2013 in a big way.

2013 was good in so many ways. There were bumps in the road like any year but looking back it's obvious how blessed we are with our faith, family, friends, and health. God is good!

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Christmas 2013

We have had a wonderful few days celebrating the birth of our Savior. Georgia Grace is still too young to get much out of hearing the real Christmas story but you better believe she will get big doses of it in years to come.

We started our Christmas on Christmas Eve at Grandmommas and we all went in together to get her the sewing machine she was wanting so badly! She was so excited. It allows you to take images straight from a computer and it will embroidery them for you. Amazing. She has offered to let Shanna and me use it so I'm excited too. This made for a memorable Christmas for her.

And someone else was pretty excited about her new kitchen!
I was afraid she wouldn't be ready for a kitchen this Christmas but I let my preschool teaching in-laws inform me otherwise and they were so right! She absolutely loved it. She got dishes to go with it and the first thing she did was put the dishes in the sink to wash them. And she pushed the buttons on the microwave just like she has seen all of us do. It was the perfect 2nd Christmas gift for our GGH!

Next we loaded up our goodies and headed to my mom's for our traditional Christmas Eve night celebrations. We have been spending Christmas Eve with my mom since I was just a baby.

My favorite girl ready to open presents with her signature spoon in tow.

Our little Christmas dolly

Watching everyone open presents with Gran Stan and her new baby doll

My adorable siblings and their honeys


My adorable mom opening her new table runner from my sister

Our 2nd Christmas as a family of three. We said all last year just wait until next year and she will be all into it and we were right.

I love comparisons. We are all growing up.

All of us together under one roof for Christmas is what Christmas is all about.

Stan snapped this one of us from the side and I'm dying because it looks like GGH is gagging herself!

After celebrating at my mom's we went to a Christmas Eve service with them and I got to see two of my dearest friends. Juleah lives in Pittsburgh now so we don't get to see her much so it was really great to see her over the holidays. Ash just got back from Disney World and brought GGH some goodies of course. They spoil her so much! Loved seeing these two.

When we got home we put our little Christmas baby to bed and Mr. and Mrs. Santa got everything ready for Christmas morning. This is one of my favorite parts of adulthood. Oh yeah, and I'm trying out my new earwarmer from mom for our trip to Wyoming. It's a keeper!

Christmas morning!
As you can tell we kept it small and simple this year. Georgia Grace got a new table to match her kitchen from Santa, and a dancing tower, snowsuit, and bonnet from us. We knew she would get SO many gifts from everyone else so we didn't overdo it and opted for putting money in her savings account. It's a win-win for everyone!

Santa came!

Poor baby is battling a side effect from her medicine so she wasn't feeling 100% but she still enjoyed opening and seeing all of her gifts.

The holidays make me sappy. Listening to the Taylor Swift song "Never Grow Up" and looking at pictures like this will do that to you. By the way that is my mommy song. Like a couples song or a wedding song, I'm coining a "mommy song" :)

"Oh darling, don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up, just stay this little"


Dancin' a jig on her dancing tower while Owen nips at her foot :)

Miss Sassypants

This picture would make you believe that she was excitedly getting ready to go through her stocking. This picture would also be a lie because what she is holding was from Owen's stocking and that was the only stocking she cared anything about. She was not interested in her own whatsoever but the both of them nearly fought over one of his toys. I have never!


On Christmas day we went to visit some of my mamaw's family that we do not get to see very often. Georgia Grace was so tired from Christmas morning.

Georgia Grace with my Aunt Loyce, Mamaw Carolyn, and Uncle Desper. They live in Evansville, Indiana so we don't get to see them as often as we would like. I'm glad they were able to make the trip down.
Our sweet cousin Lynn made Georgia Grace and our baby cousin Marley little aprons for Christmas! She was enjoying the modeling of it.


Sweet cousins Georgia and Marley in their aprons. Marley's nickname "Marley Moo" has stuck so Lynn found the cutest fabric that said "Moo" on it to make her apron with. This was the best of about 10 pictures I took. Busy babies! And sweet Marley gave GGH an animal pillow that is so adorable! So sweet of her to do :)
Christmas night was spent at Ma and Pa Harrison's. They got her matching Santa jams like Ma's :)


Marcus loved his new shirt and everything else he got. They know him so well.

Georgia Grace got a wooden Radio Flyer wagon! I can see us wearing this thing out come spring.

Peek-a-boo in the wagon
Aunt Shann opening her gift from us. Her pandora bracelet is full!

And I got new Bean boots!! I love them so much. I needed a pair of outdoor boots so bad. They know me well too :)
Georgia Grace received a very special gift-her daddy's old Radio Flyer bicycle. My FIL repainted it and bought new parts for it and it is as good as new. Here's daddy acting out the picture on the front of the bike.

They attached this picture to the front of it of Marcus riding when he was about 3-4 years old. This will be Georgia Grace before we know it.

Brother-sister loves


And if a wagon and tricycle wasn't enough, Uncle Jake & Aunt Shanna got her a princess rocking horse! Oh my it is gorgeous.


And if a wagon and tricycle wasn't enough, Uncle Jake & Aunt Shanna got orgeous.

My favorite memory from Christmas with my dad this year was Eric's gift from "Santa". The background on this gift is when he was 9-10 years old his twin sister and Eric received Barbie and Ken dolls for Christmas. He ripped the head off and threw both pieces of Ken into the fireplace!!

His biggest mistake was telling us that story because we will haunt him with it forever. I see another Christmas tradition in the making...

Christmas 2013 is in the books and it was a great one. Thanks to all of our family and friends for making it so special.

And now it's time for Christmas for Marcus and me--our trip to Jackson Hole!! Prayers are appreciated at 7:30 am as this will be Georgia Grace's first flight and I am anxious about how she will handle it. Trusting God on this one! I will try to blog some iphone pictures if I can.

See y'all in 2014!