best of 2011

Here is what we did this year:

 January

We celebrated Nate's first birthday January 15. The very next day, we found out that baby #2 was on his way!

 February

We played in the snow, Nate worked on learning to walk, and I tried to hide my morning sickness because we weren't ready to go public with the news yet.

 March

We celebrated our second anniversary this year with a quiet weekend in a small town bed and breakfast. Nate started walking for real and found a love for stacking blocks. We made our baby announcement and got lots of "wow! so soon! you'll have your hands full." I also started working again.

 April

We got our second look at Ben, and now he looked like a baby! We found out that he is a he, and I started trying to get Rodgers to talk baby names. Nate was (and is) still attached to Black Monkey and Orange Monkey.

May

We worked on teaching Nate to be gentle with his baby brother. We visited my grandparents and met my brother and sister-in-law (who was also pregnant) there. As the year progressed, we did more and more groundwork for Maisha Kamili. 

June

We got to experience many joys of toddler-hood, such as refusal to eat (and then eating the very thing he wouldn't even touch 30 minutes later just because it came from Baba's plate) and a major sleep regression. This was a super freaking hot summer. I survived only because of tank tops, a/c (which couldn't really keep up with the heat), and ice water. In June, Nate and I took a roadtrip by ourselves to go to his cousin's birthday party, his cousin who is now a big sister!

 July

Nate moved up to the toddler class at daycare and started bringing home artwork - how fun!! He also got a little potty. Baby brother being born and us moving took us back a few steps in potty training, but now we are making progress once again. Also, our friend Mwangome visited us from Kenya.

 August

I lost my job again in August. I looked for another one, but really, who would hire someone this pregnant? We spent early mornings in the park before the sweltering heat hit us - by 10 am it would be too hot.

 September

Though it was a major change in our lives, switching to cloth diapers wasn't the biggest thing that happened in September. ;) Ben was born! Tragedy also happened in September - my grandparents' home (where my parents also lived part time) burned, along with over 1000 other homes in a major wildfire. (The trees in that picture are all burned and dead.)

 October

As we adjusted to being a family of four, which seems to have been the hardest for Nate, we were also packing, moving, unpacking, and adjusting to living in a new place and having new schedules. Nate helped with chores like sweeping and putting away dishes.

November

Life began to quiet down a bit in November. We started getting into a routine, balancing Rodgers' new work schedule and both boys' individual schedules. We took this really awful family photo, trying to get a shot of us to use on a prayer card for Maisha Kamili (see the Christmas post), which by this time was only a week or so away from being an official non-profit organization in the State of Texas.

December

Ben was dedicated in our church this month, along with 4 other babies. He is starting to put things in his mouth. He's drooling like mad, so we suspect he may be trying to grow some teeth. We celebrated Christmas as a family of four, then spent Christmas weekend with my family - parents, brother, sister-in-law, their two kids, sister, brother-in-law, and their son. There is a picture of all of us somewhere but I haven't seen it online yet (hint, hint).