A Quick Look Back at 2011

I almost can't believe we are already into 2012! It has been a very restful holiday break. Neal has been off work since Friday before Christmas! It has been really nice having an extra pair of hands and eyes on the munchkin! He goes back tomorrow, and I, and definitely Amelia who yells for "DAAADDYYY" as soon as she wakes up, will miss having him home all day.

But, we must move along with our days and get back into somewhat of a routine. I took a quick look at my goals I posted for 2011, and well, I didn't get many of them done, only 47%, but I did do a lot of other things that weren't on the list!

· DIY curtains for Master Bath
· DIY curtains for Office/Craft Room
· Frame Diplomas
· DIY Bedspread in master
· Find and refinish bedside tables for master
· DIY skirting for crib
· Put shelves in nursery and master closet
· DIY something to the fan for the nursery
· Install above mentioned fan in nursery
· Decide on wall art for behind the sofa
· Set up a chair/rocking chair in the bay window (We actually just re-arranged sofas!)
· Refinish a buffet piece for downstairs
· Figure out how to plant a vegetable garden
· Keep the aforementioned vegetable garden alive…long enough to harvest its fruits!
· Research becoming a certified natural childbirth educator
· Sew more
· Scrapbook 2010 (pictures have been ordered!)
· Scrapbook our 2008 Europe trip (pictures have been printed for over a year now)
· Take more pictures in 2011 than I did in 2010
· Cook at least one new meal a week (A lot of new ones, but not every week)
· Bake bread
· Prepare Sunday school lessons before Saturday
· Keep files organized as we go through the year


We did do a lot of traveling and celebrating with friends this year. Here's a quick synopsis:

January
Snowmageddon (wasn't that what we were calling it?!)

February
Neal and I had our 25th birthdays
Celebrated 6 Parker family birthdays

March
Nephew #4, Damon August was born
Day trip to Helen, Ga

April
Neal travelled to Croatia for 10 days
Amelia and I travelled to Savannah
Day trip to Chatanooga for wedding of Louisville friends
Amelia's first Easter in her handmade, forgotten buttons in the back, dress
Travelled to Athens for a welcome party for Damon August

May
Celebrated 125 years of Coca-Cola at Centennial Park downtown Atlanta
First Mother's day!
Overtnight trip to Montgomery for Air Force OTS graduation

June
Little sister's high school graduation party
First Father's day!
Sharon's going-away party at our house

July
Amelia's first plane ride
Travelled to Washington, DC to celebrate Independence Day
Travelled to Athens for Nephew #1's 2nd birthday
Neal travelled to West Virginia for one night to help move his sister
Travelled to Savannah & Statesboro for Anderson family reunion

August
Travelled to St. George Island for a week beach vacation
Mini highschool reunion
Overnight trip to West Virginia for Sharon's White Coat Ceremony

Septemeber
Travelled to Boone, NC for Labor Day weekend
Went to 6 Flags for the first time in about 8 years! (and Neal lost his keys and broke his phone :( )
My first overnight trip away from Amelia
Amelia Bedelia book signing
Travelled to Savannah for weekend
2 year house anniversary

October
In-laws in town from Israel for the month
Lots of friends over for dinner
AMELIA JANE TURNS ONE!!
Amelia's first visit to the zoo (and it was free! Check out your library for details)

November
Found out we were expecting Baby #2!
Joined the neighborhood BOD for the HOA
GT vs. VT Game (we lost and it was freezing :( )
Thanksgiving at our house
Thanksgiving at in-law's house
Ran a 5k

December
Christmas parties
Christmas shopping trips
3 Christmas celebrations
New Years eve party with friends
Neal home for a whole week!



So, it was a whirlwind year, and I'm sure 2012 is going to keep marching right along. I should really sit down and figure out how many miles we travelled out of town! But in the mean time, I wanted to just jot down some simple goals for 2012, just so I can look back in another year and see part of what I did do.

• Clean out and move the office into the guest room before Baby #2 comes



• Paint Baby #2's room



• Twin beds in Amelia's room



• Build toy storage



• Plant the vegetable garden that I've spent several hours planning and researching



• Again, keep the vegetable garden alive!



• Cook one new meal every other week



• Go to the grocery store more than once a month



• Do better with coupons (currently, I can save about 30%)



• Keep bathrooms cleaner



• And the floors vacuumed



• Blinds on the windows



• Complete the year-long Bible reading plan



• Scrapbook 2008 Europe trip!!!



• Take just as many pictures of Baby #2 as I did of Amelia



• Have Baby #2



• Blog more about the meals and projects completed

OK, I think that's enough for now! I may add some things as I think of them though.

Happy 2012 everyone!

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Living Room "Artwork"

We've been in our house 2 years on Friday. Wow, has it already been that long?! We've had the living room in a nearly-finished state that whole time. The big items that was always missing was some sort of art piece behind our sofa where there is really, really big, blank wall. After pouring through idea after idea, we decided to try our hands at something like this we saw on Pinterest:

So, I went to our local Goodwill to look for some frames. I came home with a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors! Nothing that a good ole' can of ORB spray paint couldn't fix! I was able to snag all of these frames for a mere $20! Can't beat that anywhere!



We then went to Michael's and Joann's, because we had coupons for both and thankfully they are right next to each other, and got some fabric and matting paper for about $10.

Early Saturday morning, we loaded into the car and made a family run to Home Depot. Picked out our board, had the handy-dandy employee cut it down to size (6.5 feet) and then picked up our stain, the braces and few other odds and ends, and for about $45 we were out of there and on our way back home to get to work!

It took 4 DAYS to get the board just right! After applying our first coat of stain, we weren't particularly thrilled with the color. So, we just mixed it with a stain we had leftover from the crib project, and it ended up being just what we wanted! We wanted to do it right, no matter how impatient I became to just 'get it done', I waited the full 24 hours in between staining so that it could dry before I sanded to apply another coat!




Then, the big install night came! It took about 1.5 hours to do all the measuring, centering, measuring, centering, measuring, centering and you get the point! And then.....




How pretty is it!?!? I just looked at it from all different angles including walking in and out of the room several times, for about 30 minutes!

Project Breakdown:

Board- $8.00 (they cut the board for free!)
Braces- $20.00 (they were sold in packs of 2, so we have one extra for another project!)
Stain & Sandpaper- $15.00
Picture Frames- $20.00
Fabric, Matting- $10.00
Accessories- $0.00 (I had most of these on hand around the house)
TOTAL- $73.00 (definitely can't buy a nice and large piece of art for that!)



BEFORE:

AFTER:

Foodgawker

Lately I have been making lots of yummy treats that I have found on foodgawker.com. That site is fantastic, but a total time hog! Unfortunately for a lot of the recipes, I haven't had my camera close by, so no pictures of banana white chocolate almond muffins, blueberry muffins, yogurt dill bread, buffalo chicken pasta, golden lemon roasted chicken (so easy and inexpensive!), paprika potatoes, variety quiche, and rataouille just to name a few! Last night however, these looked so good, I actually went upstairs and got my camera to capture the awesomeness!

These were suppose to be Gouda-Stuffed Mushrooms, but last week when I bought the gouda, I didn't anticipate having to wait a whole week to make this recipe, and we ate it all before last night! So, I had plenty of mozzarella and cheddar on hand, so that's what we used! I also used cilantro instead of basil, because I had some fresh in the refrigerator.

So, without further ado, here is the evidence of yum:

The inspiration recipe can be found here:

http://circle-b-kitchen.squarespace.com/food-and-recipes/2009/12/2/gouda-stuffed-mushrooms.html

Summer Update- Part 2

So, picking up where I last left off of our summer adventures:

In July, we took Amelia on her first plane trip to Virginia/Washington, D.C. We spent a wonderful family-fun-filled weekend with Neal's grandmother, Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. There was lots and lots of swimming, which Amelia just loved. We also were able to have a family reunion of sorts with people from all over Virginia & West Virginia. It was good to see some of these people we only see once every year or so.




Our first trip into D.C. we visited the Air and Space Museum...with about 7.4 million other people, as well as the Native American Museum with about 4 people. (Let's just say it wasn't that the most popular attraction in town, but the building itself is fabulous!)

Neal & Amelia in front of the Amelia Earhart section

On the 4th, we dared to travel into D.C. for the festivities there! Heard the concert in the National Cathedral, and toured the beautiful gardens on the ground there.




Visited with Brian in his digs up in Georgetown and enjoyed some tasty watermelon!



And then, for the grande finale of the day, watched the concert and fireworks on the lawn of the Capitol building. It is always such fun to be in our nation's capitol on the day that we celebrate our declaration of independence...and apparently the entire eastern seaboard thinks so too, because they are all there with us!!