2012 - Year in Review

Since I let this blog lay idle for most of 2012 (and pretty much all of 2011), much of our life has gone undocumented. So, to rectify that, I'm going to take some inspiration from Laurie's blog and do a quick month by month recap of the last year in as far as I can remember what we did from month to month.

January - 

January was all about Oliver's health. We ended up in the ER due to wheezing (twice) and finally after a month of trying to figure out what to do about his breathing struggles he got a prescription for an oral steroid that he has been taking by nebulizer twice a day ever since (the prescription is for a full year so we are nearing the end of the treatments). We've only had one wheezing episode since we started the treatment so I think it's working.

February -

Brian and I ran in the Color Run here in Austin with Lindsey and Dauphin. A run self-proclaimed as the "happiest 5K on the planet" or some such nonsense.  A massive rain the night before the race left the race course a muddy, hilly mess. And they ran out of color so it was more like a forced march through mud than the happiest anything. And to top it all off, I was the only fool in our group to complete the entire course. Everyone else cheated. Awesome.

Afterwards my shoes looked like this:

which ended up being good news since it meant I was forced to go buy new shoes. Buying new shoes (and drinking too much wine one night while texting back and forth with Lindsey) led us to setting the goal to run a half marathon in Chicago in June. We even registered that night. 

At the end of February, I went to get what I thought would be a quick trim and ended up having all my hair cut off, a look that I quickly fell in in love with. 

March - 

At the beginning of March we went to the Zilker Kite Festival with Dauphin, Kelly, and Lindsey. We packed a huge picnic, brought a few kites (including the flying pants), and had a blast. It's such a fun event and the weather was perfect.

I got serious about my training for the half marathon - running the Cap10K towards the end of the month. I finished in 54:52. Not bad for my first "real" race.

April - 

We celebrated the knucklehead's third birthday with friends and family at our house. There were bubbles, cascarones, and freeze tag. Oliver had a blast. 

Brian continued to do an awesome job at UT Press and moved from his position as Assistant to the Director to Editorial Assistant, excited to get in on the editorial side of things. 

May -

May brought another health scare from Oliver. He started limping one day and wouldn't stop. A check with Dr. Google freaked me out enough to get us to the doctor ASAP. They ran a full blood test and did X-Rays trying to rule things out, including leukemia. Waiting for the test results was the longest day of my life. Turned out it was a strep infection, in his hip. Didn't even know that was possible but we were so grateful that it ended up being something easily treatable. It ended up being his first of two strep infections of the month (which brought us to a total of three for the year). 

June - 

June was our vacation month. At the beginning of the month, Oliver and I piled into my mother's minivan with her and my stepfather and we all set out on a road trip to Chicago. We had a blast on the road. Oliver did great. 

We were headed to Chicago for the half-marathon. On the morning of June 9th, Lindsey, her mom, and I all completed our very first half marathon. It was an awesome feeling and I was really proud of my time.

It was the culmination of  year of hard work that took me from looking like this:

to looking like this:

The day after Oliver and I got back from Chicago, Oliver, Brian, and I headed out to New Mexico to visit with Brian's parents and his little brother, Brad, and his wife, Gina. We had a great long weekend hanging out with family, exploring Los Alamos and feeding some alpacas.

It was a fun and busy month and at the very end of it we got some exciting and welcome news:

And, yes, Brian found out we were expecting another baby when I texted him the picture above with a message that said: This is a pregnancy test. Come home soon. 

Ah, technology.

July - 

July was a blur of exhaustion, nausea and nerves brought on by the first trimester of my pregnancy. Towards the end of the month we had our first doctor appointment and saw the flickering of the little bean's heartbeat.

August -

Two awesome celebrations marked the beginning of August - my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary and Kelly's baby shower. Both were so much fun.

The middle of August saw the arrival of my friend and co-worker, Meghan's, baby boy, Nikhil, which meant the beginning of her maternity leave. Having her out in the middle of bookfair season kept me crazy busy at work for the next eight weeks.

September - 

Oliver moved from the Dragonfly to the Sunshine room at school at the beginning of September. He has two great teachers - Rihab and Terri - and he has loved being in the new room since the switch (he still gets to see lots of his previous teacher, Chelsey, which helps). The Sunshine classroom is closer to a preschool type curriculum and he's thrived in that environment.

On September 19th, Dauphin and Kelly's little girl, Claire, made her debut. She was a tiny 5 lbs, 2 oz but absolutely perfect. Oliver loved meeting her and is still obsessed with "Baby Claire."

We celebrated Brian's birthday by driving to Lockhart with Lindsey for BBQ. 

October - 

October was a hellish month at work for me. I had two trips to make - one to Philadelphia and one to Portland - and two women's conferences, Texas Book Festival and some other things I had to take care of for Meghan's maternity leave. The good news was that the month passed super quickly which brought us to the big ultrasound that told us that we are having another little boy. Ended the month working 17 straight days and was really glad to see October come to an end.

November - 

We celebrated Thanksgiving down in San Antonio with my folks. It was a nice relaxing long weekend before the ground came out from under us the next week. A few days after we got back was when I ended up in the hospital and on bed rest.

December - 

I spent the month trying to adjust to bed rest. Despite the change of venue we had an amazing Christmas celebration with our family.

We had such a great year and we are looking forward to seeing what 2013 has to bring! And we are so grateful that despite all of the pregnancy complications we've dealt with in this last month, that Henry continues to thrive in utero and will be a 2013 baby!