2011 in review

I always forget how fun it is to look back on the year. Here is 2011, shown in as many pictures as some daily posts have in them. I try to keep it to one picture a month (not sure why, I guess it's just for the challenge).

January:

I took Andrew into Seattle. Our fun day out included a trip up the space needle.

February:

I was invited to talk to a group of moms (mops) about why blogging is awesome. Even though I'm very far from being a public speaker, I seem to be fairly passionate about blogging, so it was fun.

March:

Andrew's school started having a sharing day again afer stopping for a few years. It was mainly (if not 100%) because Andrew loved bringing toys in to show his friends and teachers. Before they started sharing day, he would show everyone who was there but then I'd take it back to the car with me.

April:

We went to our first community egg hunt this year. Even though we got a winning egg (that won us a pretty cool basket) it was so crazy that we decided this was also our last year doing a community egg hunt.

May:

I won a facebook contest that got Matt and I a free dinner at one of our favorite restaurants (Blazing Onion). They opened a new store and this is what they did to let the employees have a practice run. I'm not joking when I say this was a highlight of our month, if not the whole year.

June:

Andrew learned how to do the monkey bars. He was very excited!

It was also Mason's (rad, Dr. Seuss) 2nd birthday.

July:

We finally went camping with our boys! It was fantastic.

August:

Grandpa Mel farmed on his own for the first year this year. Matt spent some time helping and the boys had fun "helping" too.

Mason also grew just enough to finally ride his tricycle.

September:

We started our 'Andrew Dyk school' this month. We started with the letter A and will be starting on O next week. He has learned a crazy amount since we started this and he loves it!

October:

Andrew fell in love with magic in October. He is completely amazed by the simplest magic tricks. The problem is, he must know how it's done - he goes nuts trying to figure it out. He's such a logical kid, he knows it's not real but can't handle not knowing how it was done.

November:

I know I say it every year, but I cannot believe Andrew is five. Five is how old you are when you start kindergarten. What the heck?!

December:

This month brought some stress. Andrew had a rash of some type from the end of August through December. We finally saw a dermatologist in the beginning of Dec where I was told that he had 4 or 5 different rashes, all common childhood rashes with no fix and no way to prevent them from happening again. I asked if there was any concern that he got a bunch one on top of the other and the doctor said it was just bad luck.

We also saw Santa stop off at Starbucks, so that was cool. : )

Happy new year, friends. I hope each of you find this year filled with happiness!

a day with Kai & Mayli

Because school is closed for a couple weeks for Christmas but work is not, we watched Kai & Mayli yesterday so their mom and dad could keep their jobs. : ) Here's just a few pictures from our fun day.

Andrew was excited to show them his magic/science trick he got for Christmas.

Then we had some delicious enchiladas (thanks again, Pioneer Woman) and called it a night!

2 1/2

This little monkey is 2 1/2 today.

I think the thing that stands out the most for him at this age is that he is very particular about what he wears. He likes to pick out his clothes and his pj's, but if we're in a hurry or if there is something I want him to wear, I can usually talk him into it as long as he can pick his socks. This boy is still crazy about socks!

He's finally showing some interest in learning to count and say his abc's. He can't do either, but he sure tries. I think he can count to 4 or 5, but mostly he just smiles and says the number with a half second delay after I say it. It's cute.

He's a snuggler and still likes to be held or be sitting on my lap when he's not playing. I don't know what his favorite toy or show is because he just plays with whatever Andrew is playing with and watches whatever Andrew is watching. He does seem to like Elmo and The Wiggles, though he's also fine without them.

The biggest change is that he has decided to give up his naps. Just like that. He went from 3 hour naps to none. I remember this stage with Andrew. He still napped like a champ at school but just had quiet time at home. My guess is that will be the same for Mason. Goodbye naps...

Time is flyin'!

but if you kiss me now I know you'd fool me again

The title of this post is for Andrew. He has been singing songs like crazy this year (including Last Christmas by Wham) and singing lines I'd never even realized were in there. He has a few that he sings with made up words that make me laugh. My favorite was when I realized he was signing "Cindy, Alli a wonderful Christmastime" ... I swear Christmas keeps getting cooler. I love it!

And now, on to our Christmas... I love Christmas wrapping paper! It was hard for me to do the Toy Story and Cars paper for the boys, but I knew they'd like it. Plus, their favorite colors are green (Andrew) and blue (Mason) so it worked out pretty great.

This was a fun year with Andrew and Santa. We do not set him up to fully believe in Santa, but we also don't squash his imagination or the fun that comes with it. This year he kept asking if he was real and when he saw that he ate the cookies, drank the milk, stuffed the stockings and left gifts, he yelled "he is real!!" : ) And he was very impressed that Santa knew he liked robots.

Matt's parents got him a fishing boat this year!! so I got him and the boys matching fishing vests. Mason isn't in the picture because unfortunately his was on back order. So stinkin' cute, I can't handle it!

After we wake up and have Christmas morning at home, we head to Ellensburg to finish the celebration with Matt's family.

This is my favorite Starbucks cup ever - I love the exclamation point.

We went in with Melissa to get Matt's dad a sign for his shop. We're all slowly helping to make his shop look awesome.

This is me waiting for Andrew to get back to let me know if grandpa was okay with me going through this door even though it is the way to the man room. : ) He takes the man room very, very seriously!

Here's the sign and proof that we had a little bit of a white Christmas!

The day after Christmas was a lazy day, just as it should be. Grandma decided to take Mason upstairs for a little snooze, then a few minutes later Andrew decided he wouldn't mind joining them. Cute.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all remembered to pause and celebrate the real meaning of Christmas. And if you'd ever like to hear the real story of Christmas, I'd love to tell you. Did you know the nativity scene isn't right?! If you read history from that time and/or pay attention to the details in the Bible story, it's clear that not only were the wise men and shepherds not there at the same time, but the wise men didn't even get there until 2 or 3 years after he was born. And! There is a scientific explanation to why there was a bright star above them. Seriously - my mind was blown this year! : )

rudolph & a penguin {thumbprints for the grandparents}

... so cute!

and just like that, it's Christmas Eve

Andrew is so excited for tomorrow morning. He warned us he might get up early, he reminded us to say 'merry Christmas', and he even had a dream about reindeer (but not Rudolph) last night! It was fun to hear him randomly say that he is excited for tomorrow.

The boys opened their gifts to each other (our Christmas Eve tradition). Then we headed out for some donuts.

We did some other stuff, but it looks like my pictures skip down to Mason, excited to show off his new Christmas pj's. : )

Andrew put out some milk and cookies for Santa. He wanted to leave him 100 cookies but we got him to agree to two.

A recap of the last days of our countdown chain:

1. Thumbprint Ornaments, 2. Christmas Candy Necklaces, 3. Christmas Lights (and we met our first camel at a live nativity scene we passed on our drive), 4. Grow a Tree/Santa 5. Decorate the Clubhouse, 6. New PJ's

I was struggling to come up with ideas toward the end for our elf, but looking at the pictures, I now think this was my favorite batch!

1. Rode the train, 2. Played with some friends (my favorite decoration...a reindeer family I got when I was about 10), 3. Almost got wrapped, 4. Thought he was a Christmas card, 5. Zip lined across the hall, 6. Snuck into a stocking, waiting for Santa.

I hope everyone has had a fun time celebrating the season. We did, but it went by way too quickly - I can't believe tomorrow morning is Christmas! Yahoo!! Merry Christmas!

first day of winter?

I love random days like today that are great for no real reason. The boys were in good moods all day, lunch was good, we did a fun craft, played outside, etc... And even though Mason chose today to be the first day of his whole life to go without a nap, it was a really good day.

Mason decided to use their sit-n-spin as a drum. He was marching around drumming away.

Later we were able to play outside. We blew bubbles, got out the croquet set and played on the swing set (which will be upgraded to two regular swings tomorrow - the baby seat is no longer acceptable). It made me laugh when I realized today was the first day of winter.

Andrew likes to keep the boxes from his Lego guys. A while ago I hid them under my dresser to see if he would notice, with the intent to throw them away if he didn't care. It was a great plan until today when he was playing with a flashlight in our bedroom and found them. Dang it! He was so excited to find them he lined them up on his bed. So much for that plan.

cake pops

I decided the one little box about our cake pops day wasn't going to do it. We had way too much fun.

For Mason, the fun started with the first step of washing our hands. He loves to play in water!

I'm happy to report that even with my lack of baking skills, our cake pops turned out pretty great. Well, 7 or 8 of them did anyway. : )