I know… isn’t it crazy!?!?!  We’re so excited about this move.  What’s even cooler, is we already know two families there and another couple of good friends are on their way!  So at least we’ll get there and KNOW people!

So let’s do a little recap on 2011 and tomorrow, I’ll move forward to 2012.

In January, my sweet man left for what would be a 6 1/2 month deployment.

Kylie learned to ride her bike:

I turned 30, 5 different times!  Woot! (1. a surprise from my kids at church. 2. at my Dad’s for hot wings.  3. At my house with some friends.  4. On my actual birthday, more friends came for dinner.  And finally, 5.  At the Melting Pot with some great ladies.  We had a GREAT TIME!)

OH!  And I also painted my dining room while the man was gone!

Much later, some friends came over and put up a chair rail for me so it looks WAY better now!

We had a few tornado warnings, too, so the kids prepared for that:

And really, let’s just fast-forward to the greatest day of the year…

The day my husband came home from Afghanistan.  It was really the best day.

Such a wonderful day.

The second half of our year was pretty packed with family, trips, friends.  I may even just go ahead and blog about all of that separately!

We had a good year despite being with out the Man for half of it.  Our family is truly blessed.  Now here’s to 2012!!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Summers in NC are horrendous.  Just super hot and HUMID.  I don’t know how I’ve ever managed to live in NC this long w/o one!

Please welcome to our family, our NEW POOL! 

So then I found this super cute pattern online to make Kylie a SUPER cute Easter Dress.  I LOVED IT!  It was so bright and fantastic…. 

So I made this dress 2 weeks before Easter.  Way to be on top of things, right?  Wrong.  Here’s the deal.  I wanted to show it off so bad that I had her wear it to church the week before Easter.  LOL!  So then of course, I had to make her a new Easter dress:

Which one’s my favorite?  I’m unsure of that.  I think they’re both SUPER cute!  I loved them equally. 

And finally, my dear Ruth and I had a wonderful sewing day not too long ago.  Once I had finished making Zachary’s pajama pants (that I don’t have a picture of) and something else (that I can’t remember), I made her an apron from a pattern I used to make myself an apron with several  years ago.  This apron is SO super d duper cute!  SERIOUSLY!  And it’s just PERFECT for Ruth.  Perfect!

Isn’t it sad?  I think so… look at what they can do now:

How did they ever get so big?  I mean, don’t misunderstand me.  It makes life so much easier to have my boys go out and take care of the lawn while my man’s gone…  but my boys are growing up!

Or take our day back in March (maybe April) when we were helping out our neighbors by taking their dogs out to the bathroom during the day while their owners were at work.

Bettilu, the super cutie pie yellow lab was apparently having stomach issues.  I ran over (not knowing at the time… It’s not like she could call me, you know) to let them out right quick and instantly smelled something, well, nasty.  I look around and Bettilu has had a small (okay, HUGE) bout of diarrhea.  Loverly.  Not only does Bettilu have diarrhea, but see, Betti likes to WALK while she’s using the bathroom.  Every. single. time.  And well, my neighbors were going to be gone for a few hours, so I came home and enlisted my children.

Think they’re ready?  (giggle)

After much consideration, I figured out where I wanted everything to go and we put everything away, ever so neatly.  1.5 months later… well, let’s just say it didn’t stick.  Ha ha ha ha.

While Lacee and I cooked crabs and pranced around our gardens, the kiddos rode their bikes.  Connor used Kylie’s umbrella to get a sailboat effect…. it didn’t work out so much for him.  Ha ha ha ha.

My garden's really taken off! In just a month, my pansies must have doubled or tripled in size!

The sprouts you see here aren't weeds, but rather humminbgird/butterfly flowers. I can't wait until they grow nice and tall and attract tons of butterflies! Last year, we had butterflies GALORE!

Here you see that I'm starting to see some corn, broccoli and bean sprouts. YAY! The broccoli and corn may be hard to spot at this point.

Not too much is happening here. There was some lavendar sprouting and I think that's about it at this point. Oh and the pepper plants that I started inside.

Now let’s take a quick little tour of my neighbor, Lacee’s, garden.

Her poor palm tree and ROCKIN violas!

Her "good" palm tree and more beautiful flowers.

Pretty pink crocus.

Beautiful yellow iris.

And that’s all she wrote, folks!  I hope you enjoyed our little garden tour.

First, you must boil the crab in water, your spice blend of choice and garlic.

Then you smile at the cooked crabbies before you start breaking them apart.

Then you rip the legs off.

Then you remove what's called the, "pistol". (Only on male crabs, though)

You rip off the top shell

Make the kids eat sandwiches and microwaved fries and watch you from afar eating delicious crab.

Clean off all the "deadmen" or lungs. Apparently, if you eat them, they'll make you very sick. Who knew? Well, I mean, Lacee did. Ha ha.

Dig the meat out, moan at its deliciousness, and here's what you're left with. Crab skeleton.

Have pity on said kids and give them some crabbies to enjoy too.

Seriously?  That was some super delicious crab meat.  I can’t wait to do it again!

As I said before, we also planted our veggies.  I did take two helps from the store:  tomatoes and cauliflower.  I’m not ashamed…. Nope, not me!    The seeds I planted are: beans, broccoli, basil, peas, carrots, arugula, onions, corn, sweet and hot peppers, lavender, chives, oregano, thyme, rosemary, parsley, dill and cilantro (my most favorite herb, EVER!).  I can’t wait to see the fruits of my labor! 

Happy gardening!