Transition

(I know, I know waaaaaaay late, but better late than....well you know.)  If I had to describe 2013 in one word for our family it would be the year of TRANSITION!

January thru March all was well, pretty much the same for our bunch.

April -  Liberty had her incident with touching peanut butter. That was the scariest day of our life. Praise God nothing terrible happened and we were thankful for His guidance through all of it and keeping us calm. I still cringe thinking about it. She is our healthy, talkative baby girl.

May - Mr. P-man potty trained. That was so nice going down to just one set of diapers. He seemed ready and we just went for it. He is different though than Hall, he doesn't mind being wet or dirty.  Still to this day in 2014 he is not great about telling us if he needs to potty, unless it is #2. We just have to pay attention and take him when he crosses his legs, before going outside, before bath and before bed.

July - Preston turned 3 and we had his awesome Super Hero Party. I am proud to say I made the capes as party favors, out of felt, and no sewing was involved. The kids still play in them and have worn them to the Zoo!

This month we also had a stay-cation to celebrate our anniversary, just at our house. We saw the Broadway show Grease and fixed up a few things around the house!

August - Hallister started half day preschool at the public school behind our house. We really thought we wanted him to go to a Montessori school but found out some things we didn't agree with and 1 spot was left at Castleman Creek Elementary so we took it.  We were thankful he had a small class of 9 and that is was just 3 hours a day.

This month we transitioned the kids into the same room, made Liberty's room my office and started the long process of turning half the garage into a playroom.

September -  We had three different people give us quotes for building our playroom but we decided we would save money so we wouldn't use all of our savings, and build it ourselves.  I picked out the paint, carpet, decor, fun floor mats and Jonathan did the months of work designing and building on evenings and weekends.

We did decide this month to finally have a back porch poured.  We needed something level to walk out on. I called some people that I used to design an ad for and they gave us a great deal!

Hallister turned 5 this month. After Preston's party I realized how much time and effort I put into parties and wear myself out. We decided to ask him what he wanted since he was old enough. He wanted just his best friends and a pirate theme. It was fun, buried treasure, walking the plank and all.

Preston gave up taking naps. It was pretty sad to not get a break while Hall was at school but thankfully Pman is our easy-going child and plays well by himself.

November - A friend of mine painted her kitchen cabinets that were brown to white using chalk paint, and right when I saw it I knew we needed to do that too.  Most every other painting project we have had in our house I have been pregnant and couldn't do much.  So I decided this is going to be my project! It was a lot of work, took a good 2 weeks, but we were so very happy with the results. The kitchen was brighter and it just seemed like it was always meant to be that way. We have a small kitchen but after painting it it did seem bigger.

We got to enjoy Thanksgiving at our house this year, which was so very nice not packing up everything the kids need and heading out, and then forgetting something and then worrying about getting back for naps.

Our  "'Lil Bit" turned 2! We had a fun party at Jump n Place to celebrate, a place full of bouncy houses. The theme was 'Lil Stinker because we often called her that.  We got her gluten free cupcakes, but really she didn't eat much, doesn't seem to care for sweets, which probably comes from going so long without them due to milk or egg being in them.

And also this month Jonathan finished the playroom, in enough time for our Thanksgiving guests to enjoy it! Finally all the toys were contained in one room!

December - We transitioned to a smaller Christmas celebration, focusing on the real reason for the season and not wearing ourselves out with traveling. I got into wreath making and really enjoyed it! We saw Christmas lights with Jonathan's parents in lieu of exchanging Christmas gifts and that was fun making memories. We stayed home all day Christmas day and spent time as a family.

So I am pretty sure you can see why 2013 was our year of transition. It wasn't bad, just a lot of transition happened. 2014 has already brought us many joys and a few changes. I will be sharing those in more posts coming soon!