As 2011 comes to a close, I wanted to look back at all of the things we've done in the past year. It's been one of the busiest years we've had. Some of the most amazing things and best moments of our life have happened. We have so much to look forward to in 2012 but I don't want to forget all the wonderful things we've experienced this year. That's why I blog, I never want to forget all of those little moments that happened in 2011.
January
New Year's Eve
We rang in 2011 with some of our best friends and family. This is us just after midnight.
February
Snowpocalypse 2011 hit and we got 2 feet of snow and we were snowed in for days!
We watched the Packers defeat the Steelers in the Super Bowl with lots of yummy food with my family at Arla and Teddy's
We had a beautiful candlelit dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day
March
The Easter decorations made their appearance
I got my iPad 2 and was instantly addicted!
The weather started to break and we got our first walk of the year in
We got to witness Jacob starting to crawl
Poor Michael had to have a tooth pulled
April
I visited Washington DC for the first time for a work conference
I chopped my hair for the summer
We dyed Easter eggs
We hosted Michael's family for Easter
We celebrated Jacob's first Easter
We went to my parents house to celebrate Easter with my family
Porkchop had to have 15 teeth pulled and was not feeling so hot
May
We celebrated Mother's Day with both of our Moms
We had a great trip to Disney, we won't be there again until 2014, so sad
We enjoyed the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot
I had to go to the hospital for my HSG test where we found out IVF was our only route to have our own children
June
We celebrated our nephew Jacob's first birthday!
We had a major closet malfunction that inspired us to totally re-design our master closet
Just a little different wouldn't you say?
We kept up the DIY spirit while Michael built some new benches for his garage
We celebrated Father's Day and my Dad's birthday at my parents for a barbecue
We celebrated Father's Day for Michael's Dad with his family and Tif's family at Arlington Park Race track
Jacob totally stole the show in this outfit we brought back for him from Disney!
July
We celebrated the last Harry Potter movie with some Golden Snitch cake pops!
I took a photography class and learned a lot
We had our first BLT with homegrown tomatoes of the season!
We hung new blinds throughout the house
Work got pretty crazy for Michael and he required 2 phones at a time! (It hasn't slowed down either!)
Michael got a new car, it's almost exactly the same as his old one, even down to the color
August
We showered Arla and Teddy for their upcoming arrival, a little girl!
I helped paint some decorations for the nursery of Rich and Tif's upcoming arrival, a little girl!
Our garden harvest was in full swing
In our hopes to grow a family, I underwent several procedures for IVF
We had 5 perfect embryos, 2 of which we implanted
I cheated and took a test 9 days after my transfer to see the most beautiful word I've ever seen, Pregnant!
September
I spent most of Labor Day at craft shows with my Mom and Tif and her Mom
We got the official confirmation from my doctor that we were indeed pregnant and we celebrated all Labor Day weekend with our parents and siblings!
We bought a new dining room set and moved our old one into the kitchen to have more room for our little baby on the way. We also got a new coffee table storage ottoman to replace the glass table we had since it wasn't very child friendly. We weren't wasting any time in making preparations for our little one!
We went apple picking on the most beautiful day and had a great time!
Our niece Makayla finally made her grand entrance!
Michael and I were so excited to be an Aunt and Uncle for the second time!
Jacob became a big brother and this family of three became a family of four!
We celebrated Michael's Dad's birthday
We all enjoyed the delicious annual Dworianyn Pierogi Fest
Michael turned the big 2-9!
We celebrated his birthday and our being pregnant for a weekend at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva!
We got lost in a corn maze while we were there too!
October
We went to Goebbert's for our annual trip to feed the giraffes and pick out our pumpkins!
We hosted our 6th annual Oktoberfest
Makayla attended her first Oktoberfest!
We shared our big news with the rest of the family!
We made our first official baby purchase, our stroller!
Michael surprised me with a new car for my birthday, I officially have my mom mobile!
Baby Lily made her dramatic entrance to the world 3 weeks early!
She was perfect and beautiful!
Michael and I were so excited to be an Auntie and Uncle for the third time!
We carved our pumpkins for Halloween!
Porkchop was a hungry great white shark for Halloween!
November
Arla was awarded the honor of Emerging Leader at the IL CPA Society's Women to Watch Awards
We were a very proud family!
We celebrated Rich's birthday with a sushi dinner and I got lots of Makayla time in!
We found out we are expecting a little boy!
We had so much fun announcing the news to our families!
We had a great Thanksgiving dinner at my parents
We're a couple of turkeys!
Lily's first Thanksgiving with her Auntie and Uncle!
We went to Michael's parent's house for Thanksgiving dessert and crafts!
Jacob did crafts for the first time and tried to eat the paints!
He entertained us all being a turkey too!
We decorated my parents Christmas tree, it was Lily's first year for the tradition
We got a new deck
I went a little overboard buying our baby boy clothes the day after Thanksgiving shopping
We decorated our 2011 Christmas tree
December
Our house got the full Christmas treatment!
I tortured Porkchop in various outfits for his annual Christmas photo
We took our annual Christmas card photo with our family of 3!!!
We got our first snow flakes of the season!
We went to Zoo Lights at the Lincoln Park Zoo!
We baked lots of Christmas goodies!
We donated Christmas gifts to those in need.
We had our first snow free Christmas in years
We hosted our first Christmas Eve with Michael's family
Arla and Teddy hosted my family's Christmas and we had a wonderful day.
