Best moments of 2012

This is a condensed version of what 2012 has been for us. I got busy with school and so many things happened that I completely ignored the blog and now I'm going to give you a break down of our busy year! Ready.... GO!

 

I attended the University of Louisville in the Spring semester. Sorry, no pictures of classrooms for you, I figured I'd save you from boredom. The only decent snow we got during the 2011-2012 winter in Kentucky was on our 7th wedding anniversary, in March. I was so disappointed it didn't snow more, but to make up for that, we survived a few tornadoes. THOSE were fun! Can't wait to go through another one again.

 

 

It's crazy we've been married for 7 years. Even more so, we've known each other for just over 10 years now. Time flies.

 

In April, Grandma Glazier came to visit us in Kentucky for Easter and Jacen's birthday. Jacen turned 4 (see my remarks above in regards to how time flies). Unbelievable. We held a little Cars birthday party for him and we had a lot of fun showing Grandma Glazier around the area.

 

 

 

 

After being away from my home country for over 12 years, the kids and I were able to go to Brazil for two weeks in April to see my family. That was such a great vacation... exhausting, but fun! I'll never travel internationally with two small kids by myself again (that was horrendous), but my dad and family helped me out with them while we were down there. Here are some of the highlights:

 

 

Jacen meeting great-grandpa Mourao for the first time.

 

Haven't seen them in so long!

 

A visit to Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens), the most famous park in Curitiba.

 

 

My dad and his wife Neiva with little Andrew.

 

Of course we had to go to the beach! We even visited our old beach house... brought lots of memories.

 

Met up with my childhood friends. #friendsforever

 

And met my half-sister, Liege, for the first time. She's beautiful!

I had so much fun! If it wasn't so expensive, I'd go back every year.

 





 Our situation wasn't the best in Kentucky and we made the decision to move in with Elijah's parents in Virginia right after the kids and I got back from vacation. He got a job and we moved about 2 weeks after we got back home. We're grateful for them taking us in :)

 

Then in June....

 

Greatest.Timing. Ever. NOT.

Anyway. In July I got accepted to George Mason University, so I spent the Fall semester there. Probably the worst university I've ever attended, but I thought the biology labs were pretty well funded. 

In October, we found out we were expecting a GIRL! Thank goodness, it was about time. I've been experiencing complications but that's not different than my other pregnancies. Comes with the territory, I guess. (I'm on bedrest now, so that's why I can blog again!)

 

 

 

Halloween was a lot of fun. I was still able to move around as I pleased at the time and Elijah and I took the kids out Trick or Treating. They each hauled candy to completely fill their buckets. I would have to say that was a successful year!

 

I don't think I have to explain what Andrew and Jacen were for Halloween, do I?

 

I guess I don't have pictures of Thanksgiving. Uncle Ken and aunt Myrt drove down from WV to celebrate it with us. Great food, and I thought I was going to roll out of my chair once the meal was over. Same for everyone else as well!

 

Then the kids and I decided we should write letters to Santa Claus this year. These are it:

 

 

The coolest thing was that Santa wrote back! It was amazing. Thank you, USPS!

 

Now that I'm on bedrest with enough issues to write a book, I hope that I can keep up with this blog better. Christmas is in 2 days and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas as we remember the birth of our Savior and all the love He has for us.

 

Andrew turns 1!

Andrew turned one on New Years Eve 2011. We had a little party for him with our closest friends. He seemed to have a great time! And I made some Brazilian hors' deuvres and they were delicious!

 

 

 

Happy first birthday to our little monkey! He did not walk yet but was really good at crawling! My favorite part was that he was sleeping through the night and he's just always been such a sweetheart. Love you Andrew!

Christmas 2011

It's been a while since I last updated anything on here, so I'll be writing everything from my awful memory that I have.
We spent Christmas in Kentucky in 2011, and we had Grandma and Grandpa Caswell come to have Christmas with us. It was a lot of fun! Tons of presents, good food and good company. We were happy they were able to come to spend it with us so it didn't have to be so lonely.

 

Thanksgiving 2011!

We had the privilege to have a visit from the Leggetts for Thanksgiving. They were so fun to hang out with! We had yummy food and lots of good times!

And Andrew turned 11 months! He got some teeth, and started crawling really good. He is growing so fast :)

Halloween 2011

Little Andrew turned 10 months today. The little peanut (who isn't very little anymore) has two bottom teeth, learned to army crawl, and pull himself up to his knees along the furniture. He is officially EVERYWHERE, now. His favorite things are playing with cables and touching the fireplace. Why, oh why, do babies not play with their toys? Anyway. Since he turned 10 months old today, he was also in his "costume". Not much of a costume because he was in bed at 7pm. So the onesie that says "This IS my costume" was his costume for this year. Next year he'll get something special and he gets to go trick-or-treating with daddy and brother Jacen.

This year Jacen went as Yoda. He even got a light saber to go with his outfit. He returned with a whole bunch of candy... and we only had 2 trick-or-treaters knock on our door, so we have a ton of candy left over. UGH!!!

This past saturday, we took a day trip to Cincinnati, Ohio. It took us 1 1/2 hrs to get there, and let me tell ya... What a BEAUTIFUL city! I LOVE big cities and tall buildings. It looked just like what I had seen in movies. We were going to the Duke Energy Children's Museum but Jacen had (still has) a cough, so we ended up just walking around downtown. It was chilly, but wow! I was in love! I even took time to take a picture of the Tiffany and Co. store. Had never seen one before.

We'll be going back around Christmas time as we were told that they have lots of things for kids to do up there.

In other news, I was accepted to the University of Louisville. Now I just have to pick a different major since mine from the University of Utah doesn't exist here. That's a MAJOR setback for me. It doesn't help I'm having a rough time adjusting here. Good thing we've made wonderful friends that keep us occupied on the weekends, but during the week it's really rough as we still are down to one car and I'm stuck at home during the weekdays. Hopefully going back to school will change that. January can't come soon enough.