We have had quite a year. It has been one adventure after another. I actually love looking back at the year and realizing all the wonderful things we have been able to do. It is a great reminder on the mundanes where we are not doing very much. This year has kept us busy just because we have two growing children. We have also been learning and growing so much. The Lord is walking us through this journey called life. There have been times of rest and times of being pruned, but through it all we are able to see God's hand at work in our lives and we are so thankful for all the growth. This year has had some tough moments, but as Charlie reminds me often. Without these tough moments we would not grow. Our family and our marriage are strong because of these tough times. So, look beyond the lessons I want to share with you the joys and blessings we have had along the way.
I had A LOT of pictures so that you can enjoy looking back at our year with us. I am sure there are things I forgot to mention over the course of this past year.
January:
We were able to spend a week in Las Vegas with Charlie's family. This is the Cazin side of the family. We had a great time visiting the family and spending so quality time with the cousins. We were able to meet many new additions to the family.
As you can see, the Cazin side of the family is predominantly male. Jack had a great time. For now Chloe does not know the difference, but that is bound to change. However, knowing Chloe she will have no trouble keeping. The grand kids were 2years, 1year, 11 months and 4 months old at the time of our visit.
February:
This was a big month in our family. First we celebrated Jack's second birthday We had a toy story themed party and had a great time playing games, having a photo shoot, eating cake and opening presents. Jack had a fantastic time with all his friends who are definitely much older than him. Jack is quite the 2 year old. Literally right after he turned two he entered the boys stage. He has so much energy. He loves cars, wrestling, dirt, sticks, balls,trains, and food. I mean what else could you possibly need when you are a two year old boy. He is pretty short for his age, but he is dense. He is our little running back. Right after Jack turned two we started receiving speech therapy once a week at our home. It has been such a help. Now we can understand most of his imaginative stories. He really always has so much to say.
Right after Jack's birthday party we traveled to Midland, TX to celebrate my brother's wedding. This the best blessing we could have ever received from anyone. It was such a great trip and we were blessed with a vacation home to stay in with my sister and her family. The house was amazing and allowed us to have some quality time with my sister since it was just for a weekend. Jack loved the fact that there were horses in our backyard all weekend. Alan and Erin had a beautiful wedding and Jack did a pretty amazing job as the ring bearer. No problems for our little social butterfly. He never shies away from anything in the limelight. This weekend also happened to include: a broken shower head, a trip the ER, 3 our detour through the streets of Midland with a U-Haul, two kids with ear infections, and a plane ride with the stomach flu. However now we can look back on it with laughter at just how ridiculous it was that all that could happen in one weekend.
March:
After getting back from Texas at the beginning of February we actually spent the next two months pretty sick. We had everything you could imagine. More Charlie got the worst of it. The blessing was that we had a lot of time at home to relax and have some family time. So much for putting a limit on the amount of TV you watch in any given day. All routines went out the window. We did have one day of snow to document. This is about all that happened. Jack took a walk on the deck. No playing in the snow for our kids and Chloe completely missed her first snow.
The end of March we celebrated Easter with the family. We had a great time dying Easter eggs and then hunting for them.
More days at the park. In the midst of sickness we tried to enjoy the nice weather as much as possible.
April:
At the end of April we were blessed with the opportunity to get away for the weekend and use a friends time share in Windsor, CA. This was exactly what we needed after having a very long, difficult winter of sickness. We took my parents with us and had a perfect weekend. They also needed a chance to get away. Just a few weeks before this we packed up my Aunt and Uncles house for them to move to Denver, CO. This was very difficult on all of us because they have been a major part of all of our lives here in Grass Valley.
Our intent was to relax, sleep, eat, play with the kids and just have a great time. We did just that. We were able to spend a lot of time at the pool. We played on the playground, walked around town, went on walks, played shuffleboard and pool, ate ice cream and watched movies. It was exactly what we needed. We went home feeling completely refreshed. The weather was perfect. We really could not have asked for a better gift.
On our way home we visited the Shultz museum. That was a fun little stop. Also, we had a great time meeting up with one of Charlie's old friends from Christian Encounter. He as extremely encouraged to hear how this student is walking with and serving the Lord.
May:
On Mother's day we had the blessing of dedicating Chloe to the Lord. This is something we hold very dear to our hearts. It is our chance to acknowledge the gift God has given us and commit to raising our children in a way that honors the Lord. It is a time to commit to teaching our children about the Lord and have the support of our church family to do the same. To set examples for them and always point them toward our savior.
Since it was mother's day we had a picnic in the park with family and friends. Chloe and Lizzie had so much fun playing together.
June:
We had a lot of fun just hanging out at home. We thought we would have a pretty uneventful summer, but it always seems to go by pretty fast. We did not go very many places, but we seemed to do a lot of things.
At the end of June we traveled to San Luis Obispo for yet another wedding. This time my cousin was getting married. It was a quick trip, but we made the most of it. Charlie and I left Friday morning and we thought it would be a great idea to break up the trip, so we stopped at the Jelly Belly factory on the way. They kids had a great time. We made it to SLO just in time for the rehearsal dinner.
Since we did not have very many responsibilities during this wedding we decided we would enjoy Saturday morning at the beach. A group of us rented a house together not far from the beach. It was a great chance to be able to spend some time together before and after the wedding. The blessing was that we were able to take Jack down to the beach while we left Chloe at the house to take a nap. This was Jack's first time at the beach. He was not sure what to think, but I think he finally settled in. We even say a horse. That was super exciting.
Our family at the wedding. We had a great time. Jack even got to dance with the flower girl. He is such a flirt.
Charlie also took Jack to his first movie in the theater. They had popcorn and had a great time watching the movie with his daddy.
July:
We did not do very much during the summer, but we did celebrate the fourth of July with family and friends. We had our annual BBQ and swim party. We had a great time together.
August:
In June Charlie and I celebrated our 5 year of marriage. It is hard to believe that much time has passed. I has been an amazing journey. We decided that we needed a weekend to get away from the kids and enjoy some focused time alone. It was exactly what we needed. We found a really amazing deal on a hotel in Reno. We got to enjoy a day at the spa, eating some amazing food, walking around town, and going to a movie in the middle of the afternoon. We really enjoyed having no schedule and just being able to do whatever we wanted whenever. I am so thankful that my parents were able to keep the kids for the weekend.
August, also brings our annual county fair. We were blessed to be able to spend a day at the fair with the cousins. Jack was able to ride horses and an elephant. Those are way better than any carnival ride. We had so much fun having a family day.
Chloe also enjoyed the county fair, well a little. Chloe and Lizzie competed in the diaper derby. The point was to see who could crawl the fastest across stage. Lizzie booked it and won her heat. Chloe was completely uninterested. She did not even move. Every time Charlie set her on her knees, she would just sit back down. She was pretty funny to watch.
September:
Since I work two days a week, one of the days Charlie gets to have a day with the kids. They always make it so much fun. They have their little routine and they really enjoy there time with Daddy. They have gone on train rides, to museums, out to lunch, to the pet store, the park and even visited me at work.
October:
Chloe turned one!!! Amazing. She is such a sweet little girl. So full of energy and really loves an adventure. She is this petite little girl that wants so badly to keep up with her brother. We are blown away by how incredible she is and how adorable she is. It is difficult to even think she does anything wrong when she smiles her cute little smile with dimples. She really melts our hearts.
We had a fun birthday party for Chloe with friends and family. The extra special blessing was that Charlie's mom was able to be there. She came out to visit us for a week. She had it planned well in advance, but it was perfect timing since I had just broken my arm. Over the course of a week we really kept Gail very busy. We had the birthday party, went to church, went to Apple Hill, out to lunch, Chloe started walking and we played hard. It was such a fun week.
At the end of October we celebrated Halloween. We had a little elephant and a ladybug. They were super cute. Charlie had the day off and so we got to go trick-or-treating in downtown, visited Grandma Morrish and went to our Harvest Festival at church. Jack enjoyed all the games and loved getting all the candy. Obviously Chloe still did not really understand what was going on.
November:
We had a quiet Thanksgiving, but we loved it. It was a beautiful day and we got some great pictures of the kids.
December:
This was a busy month. We decorated trees, made gingerbread houses, looked at Christmas lights, baked cookies, did our Christmas program and really enjoyed every second. Our whole family was here and we spent so much time with my brother and his wife as well as my sister's family. We needed this amazing time together. I loved it all.
We even got snow at the beginning of the month. Jack loved playing in the snow. Chloe liked being outside as long as she was being held. She did not like sitting in the snow.
The grandmas and their grandkids. Jack, Chloe and Moriah
Aunt Erin and Chloe had matching headbands.
Cute picture of the kids, yes Chloe was not happy.
The few days after Christmas was just got to play. The weather was beautiful. Not like we wanted, but at least we got to play outside.
Fun with Uncle Alan.
These are our adventurous little girls. It will be interesting to see what they do together as they grow, especially since they are only 6 months apart.
