Beginning Ever After: 2011

I know this is a week late... but we can celebrate 2012 all year long, right?

This year we have been so incredibly blessed. We're not the party-it-up type (did you guess?? :P). We actually did have plans for a party(New Years Eve), but ended up not going for various reasons. Instead we spent our New Years Eve together, playing Mario Kart on our new Wii, and watching The Cosby Show. I fell asleep well before midnight, and even though Daniel assures me he gave me a New Years kiss as the ball dropped I have no memory except for waking up at 12:15 and asking if it was 2012 yet. :)

We are especially excited for 2012 because we will get to meet our sweet baby face to face, but as I reflect on 2011 I'm aware that, baby or not, we have been incredibly blessed. It was a great year!

The first week of January Charlotte got dusted with snow, and we enjoyed a "real" winter... for about a month.

We celebrated our first Valentine's as Mr. and Mrs. by stuffing our faces :-P at the Japanese steak house (so good!)

And at the end of the month our home was full of visitors!

Jonathan, Chloe and Oliver - then still in utero. :)

and Mom and the five youngest kiddos.

By March spring and love were both in full bloom. We got to see two of our best friends fall in love, while the daffodils popped their yellow heads through the dirt. [Cue Audience to "Awww"]

We began thinking and praying about post-seminary plans, and Daniel buckled down on his last few weeks of classes.

By May, he officially had his masters, and we celebrated with his mom and sister, and my sister.

My sister also spent a week with us in May, and we had a ball just being sisters again. (Well we're always sisters, but we don't live together anymore - that's what I mean) :)

And for better or worse this feisty mutt joined our family. We think we'll keep her. She was pretty darn cute, huh?

June 5 we celebrated our 1st anniversary. I was sick so it was rather low-key, but we were both thankful to have made it through a year together.

A friend and I threw a baby shower in Ohio for my sister, then 20+ weeks pregnant with twins

I spent several days in Michigan with my family the second week of June.

I nannied these crazy kiddos 9 1/2 hours Monday - Friday and had a blast of a summer!

July 3rd, 2011 we found out Baby was on the way!

And we celebrated the 4th of July with my family in Michigan

Towards the end of July we took a road trip down to Tampa to spend some time with Daniel's family.

We also used some vacation time to visit the beach and soak up some rays.

In August Daniel celebrated his golden birthday. :)

September and October we dipped into some different cultures and visited the Greek Festival...

... and the Renaissance Festival (which were not on the same day, even though Daniel is wearing the same outfit... whoa!)

September 28th, we became Aunt Ashlee and Uncle Daniel for the second and third time as our first nephew and second niece made their entrance into the world! (We can't wait to meet them face-to-face this summer!)