2011 (or...The Year in Which Many Great and Not-So-Great Things Happened)

I already did one of those "year in review" posts I am seeing everywhere.  This is mostly because my birthday is at the end of the year and I get all introspective and reflective around my birthday.  This year I mostly talked about how incredibly busy 2011 was for my family.

But I realized that I missed many of the finer points of 2011...the little things that contributed to the overwhelming feelings of change and stress and excitement that the entire year brought.

So, here it goes!

To start, I learned a lesson in parenting - never say never.  That was right around when Jack turned two and I was in complete denial about the Terrible Twos (not MY child, right?).

In February, we had a problem with scorpions.  And spiders, and worms.  In our house.  But on the plus side, I went back to California for a baby shower and long overdue visit with friends.

Then we had more scorpion problems.

In April, I came to the realization that maybe keeping Norman, our beloved horse, wasn't in his best interest (or ours either, for that matter).  This was a tough decision, especially because I knew that I was pregnant with my baby girl at that time (and what girl doesn't want a beautiful horse to call her own?).

Then we had even more scorpion problems.  And for good measure, a few more scorpion problems.

In May I realized that our house was actually for sale and we would actually be moving (someday) and I documented my daily walk down our country road (cows and dead snakes included!).

In case you haven't seen enough scorpions yet, here are more.  And here's a picture of one I found in my dryer when taking out the laundry.

In June, I was really pregnant and busy packing because we had accepted an offer on our house - which fell through after the house was about 75% packed.

In July, I freaked out because the baby was about to be born and our whole house situation was up in the air.  But then, she was born and I had more important things to worry about than boring little details like, you know, where the heck we were going to live.

In September, I finally took the kids out in public by myself.  Seems like a little thing, but trust me, it WASN'T.

In October, I got all insightful and grateful for the postpartum help I had (that I thought I didn't want or need).  I also wined about how my kids don't sleep (they really don't).  AND I decided I was going to get all crafty and domestic (which I am totally working on!).  And to cap off October, we had our first Halloween as a family of four.

I thought I'd get all crazy in November and participate in NaBloPoMo.  I almost succeeded in a blog post every day, but not quite...I got lazy at the end of the month.  But I did write this great song, so there's that. Oh...and I learned that one guy basically started Daylight Saving Time because he wanted more daylight to collect bugs.

And that brings us to December.  Jack turned three and we threw him a party at Chuck E. Cheese's. Yeah, probably won't do that again.  Charles and I also celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary (pretty good considering I met him in Las Vegas).

And that, my friends...is my year in hyperlinks.

Happy New Year to one and all!