Our little community grew by 4 pounds 10 oz when our neighbor and dear friends Jenny and Greg welcomed their son, Townes Edward into the world. Six months later, Hunter would begin a rivalry that would quickly dissolve.
Hunter celebrated his second Valentine's Day with his sweetheart, Jenna, and I blogged about my Toddler Friendly Valentine's Day Snacks
I was on the ball with the blog in February and blogged about giving up make up for Lent, our dresser turned buffet and did a review of our beloved HOVAS (still the most popular keyword for traffic)
At 17 months, Hunter became a full-fledge, climbing, ornery toddler.
After snagging a rug off Craigslist, I officially declared the nursery DONE
JEGs was able to sell his 2001 Jetta and purchased a much more reliable 2005 Subaru Legacy
and in the same weekend, Hunter got himself a new set of wheels, too.
and in an epic showdown, we invited some neighborhood friends over for a Pizza-Off to determine the best pizza place in the area. I still say Dante's won.
March was also a rough month because my Uncle committed suicide in a very public manner on St. Patrick's Day. It left me with a lot of unresolved anger towards him, but made me appreciate my family as we gathered around to support my mother and help settle his estate.
Our Bubbers turned 18 months old and I couldn't believe that he was no longer my baby, he was a little boy now.
...especially when our pediatrician gave the ok to make his car seat forward facing. I died a little inside that day.
We realized around the beginning of the month that we weren't going on vacation this year, so I started taking random days off to use up my PTO. JEGs and I took a random Monday off together and had, what we called, a "Pre-Baby Saturday"-- basically we did all the things that we would have done on a Saturday before Hunter was born. We dropped him off at daycare, and went back to bed. We slept until 10. We grabbed lunch at a local Mexican joint. I sipped margaritas with my quesadillas. We came home and just leisurely laid around the house and were able to have an actual conversation. The weather was unseasonably warm, and it was awesome.
I also spent a hilarious night in West Chester, PA to celebrate the bachelorette party of my friend Whitney. The night began with a champagne toast and ended with me bumping into my high school crush in front of a pizza place and asking him to protect me while I ate. Yeah.
Three weeks later, Whitney married her gentleman caller, Max, in the most beautiful wedding I have ever attended.
We spent Memorial Day weekend with some close friends, where Hunter tried to make some moves on 2-year-old Cora
Later in the week we cleaned up the planting beds in the front yard and planted some hostas and impatiences with the help of my neighbor, Amy.
Our little monster turned 20 months old, and was proving to be all boy
A memorial service was held in my uncle's honor and it helped me come to terms with my feelings. Family I haven't seen in years came in to share moments of his life, and help spread his ashes. My cousin Tara (Hunter's godmother) and her boyfriend came to stay with us, and we finally got a picture of the two.
I also checked out this awesome place called Painting With a Twist in Skippack, PA. They set you up with a canvas to paint, and you can bring your own beverages and snacks to nosh on while you release your inner Monet! So much fun, and I want to go back again!
I was so excited to host my first Fourth of July BBQ this year!
JEGs and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary by spending the weekend in Lancaster, PA to attend the wedding of our very dear friends, Mike and Kaitlin. Actually, not only did we attend, but JEGs was the best man! It was such a sweet, home-spun affair, and I swear, one of these days I am going to blog about the whole thing.
Hunter turned 21 months and reminded us that we are still rookies at this whole parenting thing.
We checked out a local Musikfest, and Hunter experienced his first bus ride. He talked about it for DAYS.
This month I got a double dose of Shannanigans when we were invited to Gabe's birthday party, and then a week later, Kim from NewlyWoodwards came into to town! It was so exciting to finally meet Kim after years of
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| Hunter and the birthday boy, Gabe |
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| Such a horrendous picture of me.. but these things happen after copious amounts of wine |
We welcomed another member of the IKEA sofa family into our home as we made the guest room/play room a little more useful.
JEGs and I also discovered Smallville, and promptly became obsessed. We spent many night with a glass of wine and Tom Welling.
For the special occasion, we threw a Cars themed party for him, complete with outdoor race track and cardboard cars!
Hunter and JEGs share a birthday month, and it has become an unoffical tradition to go pumpkin picking on Justin's birthday. This year we checked out our local farm market and Hunter picked out his own pumpkin.
Hunter's Clark Kent costume was a huge hit on Halloween
I started the Couch to 5K program in September, and to keep myself motivated I signed up for a local 5K the first week of November. My friend Jenny and I ran together and we did much better than I anticipated! We finished with a time of 38:34!
The middle of the month I landed in the hospital with kidney stones two days before I was hosting out of town guests and helping to decorate for a baby shower. I finished up last minute crafts in my hospital bed, and the day of the shower I popped two Percocets to get the job done!
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| the guest of honor, Cassie, is to my right |
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| Hunter spends some quality time with our house guest, McKayla. |
The first week of December, we traveled to Pittsburgh to celebrate the birthday of McKayla, our friends Amy and Tim's daughter. They hosted a Winter ONEderland party with an enchanting candy buffet
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| Hunter and JEGs with the birthday girl and her proud papa |
After the party was over, we popped over to my cousin Tara's apartment to spend the night. We had planned to stay until after lunch, but the weather forecast was calling for a little snow, but it quickly turned into a fair amount of accumulation. As we started out it looked like this
and by the time we were 30 miles from our exit, it looked like this.
Eight hours later, we got home. We were all sick of being around each other.
The weekend before Christmas we hosted a small holiday party for our neighborhood. We ate munchies, sipped on champagne punch and played the most hilarious game Quelf.
The week before Christmas we got to see my cousin Tara again as she came to stay with us. We spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas morning my in laws came to our house with gifts and brunch bread. Hunter was excited to receive a circus tent, helicopter and tugboat from Santa, and JEGs spoiled me with a rose gold watch and tickets to see Phantom of the Opera in April. BOO YA!
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| if you need him, he'll be in his fortress |
It was raining, and the guy in front of me stopped abruptly to avoid going through a just-turned yellow light. I slammed on my brakes, but it was raining and there was not much I could do; I slid into the back of him. Now my precious Sasha is sitting in our driveway, waiting for the weather to warm up just enough for JEGs to try to fix her.
There is our year in a nutshell. There have been some highs and lows, and I am ready for this year to come to a close. Tonight we are just hanging in the house (I have to be at work at 5:30a tomorrow) but I am really looking forward to 2014-- I've got some goals in mind that I am really hoping to achieve. Basically...
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Always & Forever,
ME
