2018 Recap!

January

We kicked off the year with a little getaway to Park City, Utah. We went in search of snow, but our absolute favorite thing we did was dog sledding! We also went snow tubing, explored their cute downtown, and just spent time lounging at our beautiful hotel.

February

Liam lost his first tooth! This has been a teeth-losing year for him - he is up to 8!

We did a little love day celebrating!

Liam finished his first season of basketball and really enjoyed it! 

March

The big kids and I took a fun trip with friends to Atlanta over spring break!

Took some 18 month photos of this handsome guy.

And welcome and new baby to the family! We are all pretty obsessed with our first cousin/nephew! And 2019 will be bringing his baby sister! 

Liam turned SEVEN! 

He had a fun fishing party with friends to celebrate! 

We kicked off Easter celebrations early with our neighborhood egg hunt and a visit with the Easter Bunny. Elias was NOT a fan of the bunny. 

April

We celebrated Easter! 

Will was the mystery reader in Liam's class. 

We took a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth - Disneyland!! 

May

We started a couple home renovation projects.

Liesl wrapped up her tball season. 

And Liam's team won first place in their division and second place in their tournament. It was a big deal because they got their first rings - which are huge and ridiculous and super exciting to get. 

We also said goodbye to my dad's mom, my Mamaw. We miss her a lot, but I was able to sit with her the day before she passed and talk with her and tell her I love her which helped so much. We feel like she truly held on to meet her newest great-grandbaby (who is named after my late Papaw and her husband) and then she was at peace and ready. Her name is Rose and my dad made sure she had the most beautiful roses at her service. 

I celebrated Mother's Day with my three greatest treasures! 

Liesl and Liam wrapped up preschool and first grade, and we were ready for the lazy days of summer. 

Will and I celebrated TEN years of marriage! We snuck away to Seattle for a quick weekend to celebrate, and we also watched my best friend from college get married! 

June 

We began the month with Liesl's ballet recital. 

We had our annual blueberry picking day with friends! 

We spent a week at VBS!

Liam and Liesl took swim lessons. Liam learned different strokes and Liesl officially became a swimmer! She was quite the little fish this summer!

We had a LOT of pool days with our buddies.

I don't have any "official" after photos, but our reno projects wrapped up and we have thoroughly enjoyed our new laundry room and playroom bookshelf! 

My mom and I hosted the sweetest sprinkle for Coy baby and my SIL got to introduce him to a lot of her own of town friends. 

At the end of the month, we got the shocking news that Will's uncle had passed away. It was tragic and terribly sad, and we all miss him very much. I don't have pictures, but went down for his funeral and spent time with Will's side of the family. Will's aunt and uncle and their kiddos remind us so much of our own family setup, and it was a huge reminder to cherish every day we have together.

July

We celebrated the birthday of our favorite guy! 34!

We rang in the 3rd and 4th of July with family! 

We hit up a couple museums.

We spent a lot of days going a whole lot of nothing!

Liesl had a ballet intensive for two weeks to prepare for the Nutcracker and Liam took a golf camp! 

At the end of the month, Will and I took off for our real anniversary trip. 5 days in Antigua! It was a much needed getaway just us. We did a lot of snorkeling and a LOT of relaxing! 

August

We celebrated my birthday! Hello 32!

Liesl took a cheerleading camp

We went to Seaside! We met some friends there and had a fun, quick getaway to one of our favorite beaches! The kids were in heaven with the sand, water, and fun friends! 

We wrapped up Summer with a trip to the rodeo with my family.

Liam started second grade! He has some sweet friends in his class and has finally discovered a love for reading (which is such a blessing because getting him to read was like pulling teeth before).

Elias turned TWO! 

September

Liesl and Elias started preschool and I began teaching (preschool) again! 

Liesl turned FIVE! 

Which I still find very hard to believe. She might be forever four in my mind. We celebrated with a sweet tea party with friends! 

Liesl began dance and gymnastics once a week. 

Liam joined our local country club's golf team and joined the chess team at school. 

Elias gave us a good scare this month!

The first picture is from Sep. 15 and the second is Sep. 17. He fell while running in the kitchen and hit one of his top teeth on the bar stool on the way down. We thought he fully broke his tooth off, but after a late night call to our amazing dentist and an X-ray the next day, it turned out he actually shoved it back up into his gums! Didn't know that could happen! It's been four months and it has almost completely come back in.

We took a quick trip to Waco for a Baylor game. We of course visited Chip & Joanna's new restaurant, Magnolia Table and it did not disappoint. 

And we ended the month with surgery for Liesl. After many, many doctor visits for ear, eye and throat infections, we finally visited an ENT. He took one look and said her tonsils and adenoids needed to come out. He actually couldn't even see her adenoids because her tonsils were so big they touched and he couldn't see past them. Poor girl has always been our "sickly" one, getting little illnesses constantly. Basically because of her tonsils, nothing was draining properly causing things to back up, bacteria to grow, and infections to arise. Have you ever heard of strep throat in the eye?! Liesl's had it! So we said goodbye to her tonsils and adenoids and she rocked it. Surgery was a success and thankfully, recovery was extremely easy! She picked up one virus from school since her surgery, but other than that, she has been so much healthier, breathing so much clearer, and no longer snores so she's sleeping better as well. We are very happy with our decision! 

The worst part was when they took her back. She was anxious and cried when they took her back which broke my heart. But my sweet friend who is a nurse happened to be there and carried her back for me, and then quickly came out to reassure me she was fine. It was smooth sailing after that. You can see her nervous eyes and smile here.

October 

We went to the Texas State Fair!

Started getting festive for the holidays! 

Hit up two of our favorite pumpkin patches!

November 

We had family photos taken by my dear friend, Joy! 

We got away with some of our favorite people for a long, kid-free weekend away in Beaver Creek, CO! We hiked 6 miles in a blizzard, ate way too much, relaxed at the spa, and just laughed together! 

Right after Colorado, Liam had dental surgery to remove a third adult front tooth. Surgery went well, but they ended up cutting out the third tooth that was growing backward up inside his mouth AND pulling two baby teeth that were impeding other adult teeth from coming down. Everything went well, but man, this kid is going to have one expensive mouth! His teeth are super big and complicated, and I have a feeling he will be sporting braces before too long. He was such a champ with the anesthesia and the healing. We were three for three with kid mouth injury/surgeries this year! 

Spent Thanksgiving Day with Will's family and the day after with mine! 

And started decorating for Christmas! 

We surprised the kids with an early family Christmas present - a golf cart! We have already enjoyed many rides around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights! 

After Thanksgiving, we officially kicked off the start of Christmas with our annual Nutcracker night. We took the big kids out to a fancy dinner and then saw the Texas Ballet Theater perform The Nutcracker. It's always a fun night! 

December 

December 1st, our elves came back and brought breakfast!

They weren't too crazy this year, but did show up in come cute places. 

Liesl had a lot of performances this month! She sang in our church's preschool Christmas concert, she was a beautiful angel in her dance studio's Nutcracker performance, and her pre-k class had a Christmas performance! 

Every December, our church has a special offering for the IMB, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Liam had been learning about this in his Wednesday night class and was so excited to decorate an envelope and put his own money inside to donate. Our church raised over 1 million dollars in one Sunday, and he was very proud to be a part of that. He told me, "Mom, I get to help change the world!" Yes you do, sweet boy. 

We met Santa! 

We always go with some friends and this year called for ice cream to celebrate a long wait, ha! 

We hosted Will's side of the family for Christmas which is always a fun day, even though this year was definitely bittersweet with a missing family member. 

My parents took Liam and Liesl to see T'was The Night Before Christmas at the children's theater and we took Elias to see the trains at the Gaylord!

Christmas Eve with my family! 

My sweet Mamaw was missed this year as well, but you can't help but smile when you look at these four. They brought her so much joy!    

Elias makes THE BEST faces!!!

Liam read Twas The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve which was extra special because this was the year he fell in love with reading. He actually had books on his Christmas list for Santa and read them all by the day after Christmas. I will always remember that!

Christmas morning. The most magical morning of the year!

Christmas lunch/day at my MIL's!

Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019!

2018, you were good to our family. We took some magical vacations, took care of some needed medical issues and everything turned out good with those. There were sad moment and trying moments, but they each left positive lessons and cherished memories. We are ready to take on 2019, hoping to continue simplifying our schedules and our lives to make even more room for the good stuff. 

Going forward, I'm challenging myself to blog once a week. Nothing fancy, just simple weekly recaps and hopefully some special posts when big events happen. Mainly because I missed a lot of the little moments in this recap that I just couldn't fit it -- this took me four days to compile and I know I missed stuff.  #goals :)