Year in Review...

I know a lot of people skim over this type of blog entry, but I think it's fun to look back over the year and see the good and... if we must... bad things that made this year different from any other.

I pretty much summed up January, February and March, then my life became hectic. So I guess instead of a year in review it will be 3/4 of a year review.

In April everyone started feeling better after our bouts with the flu and infections. It was starting to get warm in our neck of the woods, so that meant lots of trips to our local park. The boys always have a blast on the swings, the slide and the see-saw.

By the way, that gash on Elijah's nose was (I think) from a collision with his trundle bed.

In the middle of April was Easter and later in the month we hit up Sandy Point State Park for a little trip to the "beach". It's in quotations, cause to Marylanders, actually going to the beach means trekking to Ocean City. Caleb wasn't sure how he felt about the whole thing.

Elijah loved it.

There was also a lot of hopscotch being played.

May brought even warmer weather, Mother's Day, and a trip to the airport.

The boys enjoyed the warm weather in the backyard before the mosquitoes overtook it.

In June we visited a firehouse where we saw a medivac up close and personal.

 We did some creating...

 (Elijah made this whale out of coins)

Played with lots of angry birds...

Made lemonade...

  And had a picnic in Grandma's basement. It was a pretty fun month.

 July was hot and humid, but we made the most of it. We washed a lot of cars, had a 1st birthday party for a certain little person. August was pretty non-eventful. We had a visit from our friends, Steve and Brie, who brought over their kids, Sammy and Delia. Other than that just hung around the house out of the heat... except when we went to the fair at the end of the month.

September was jammed packed full of fun. We attended Andre's birthday party. He is the son of one of my best friends. They had it at the Fire Museum of Maryland.

The boys -loved- it.

There were toys for every age and they even had clothing where the kids could dress up like real firefighters.

Here are Andre and Elijah working on the fire engine.

The kids even got to ride in the basket of an old fire engine.

Everyone had a great time.

During the week, while I was at work, Joe would take the kids out to different playgrounds around the area. This was one of their favorites.

Later in the month, on an absolutely beautiful day, we decided to take the kids to DC. It's only an hour from our house, so we go down at least once a year. This was Caleb's first time on the Metro and boy was he excited. Elijah had been on it before, but he was excited as well.

We ended up at the Air and Space Museum. Elijah is big into space, planets and stars, so we thought he would have fun. (I hope to have a full post with more pictures soon)

On one of the last days of the month we took Elijah to his first Orioles game.

As you can tell by his face he was very "into" it.

Also during the month we celebrated Caleb's dedication. He is such a little blessing to everyone. It was a great day.

October brought cooler weather and the anticipation of Halloween. We were goofing around with the camera one day and figured out how to make the pictures red, like in some scary movies. Caleb was very scary.

Elijah didn't get the concept. He was a happy scary guy.

During the middle of the month we went out to Frederick with Joe's side of the family. There was lots of things for the kids to do.

After they played on, and with, some of the things we went out to the pumpkin patch to pick the pumpkins for this year.

On the 29th we went to two Halloween related activities. In the morning we went to a Harvest Party for my mom's group (just like last year). This year the theme was pirates.

The kids got to dress up and they had lots and lots of activities. Mostly crafts, but some for the tiny people to do too.

This is one of the crafts Elijah made.

Later that evening we went to Trunk or Treat. Caleb the mountain climber, Elijah the Angry Bird and Joe the mountain.

We had to wait in line a while, but the kids made the most of it. It was awesome. Lots of unique trunks. I plan to do an individual post about it because the one I posted last year got about 1800 views, in October alone, so I will continue to share the love (and ideas).

In November we apparently decided not to take any pictures with our regular camera for most of the month. But we made up for it when we went to the Festival of Trees the day after Thanksgiving.

The people that decorate these trees have some of the best ideas. Here are a few of my favorites.

Spirit Tree - It had little bottles of booze hanging on it... along with a smattering of other things.

This one is an "I spy" tree. On the packages underneath they had clues like, "Find the green stocking". I thought that was cute and fun.

Charlie Brown Tree

After we looked at all the trees, we headed over to the train garden.

As you can tell, the boys loved it.

I made sure to take a couple pictures with my boys, since some people have pointed out that I'm hardly ever in any of the pictures I post.

Then December rolled along. The first Saturday of the month we attended "Breakfast with Santa" at Joe's job. He works downtown for a copy center of a law firm that is on the 19th-21st floor.

The view is quite nice, if I do say so myself.

They had a balloon twister (who made Elijah a Santa hat) and gingerbread cookie decorating along with some other crafts.

They also got a present from Santa. Elijah got a football and Caleb got a book.

Later in the month we decided, spur of the moment, that we would go down to DC to see the train garden at Union Station and the National Christmas Tree. This was one of the worst spur of the moment trips I have ever taken... and we take a lot. We are old pros on the Metro, but on this trip we actually missed one of our transfer stops, had to go two stops down and ride another train back.

When we finally (FINALLY) got to our destination... Union Station, everyone was hungry and ready for a sit down. We took a few pics in front of the Christmas tree outside and then headed in to find the train garden.

Not as good as the one at the Festival of Trees, but the boys liked watching the two trains go round and round.

Union Station was decorated very nicely. We ate at Unos for dinner, which was less than wonderful, but we got to sit down and eat, which was nice. Then we took in some sights, like the Capitol being all lit up and just the city at night is really pretty also.

After that, we headed over to the National Christmas Tree. The thing Elijah wanted to see the most.

It was quite nice, but the boys were less than enthusiastic about seeing it.

They also had a Nativity, which I was sure was outlawed, in public, years ago. It was nice to see it. They also had Santa's workshop nearby, but the line was about a mile long, so we ended up making the trek home.

During the rest of December lots of creations were built with Legos (this is one of my favorites)

And Elijah had an open house for roller skating lessons. He's been taking them since September and he's starting to get good. There is a show in April that he will perform in. I can't wait to see it.

We also took some time to goof around. It was especially cold one day, so we put undershirts on the boys. (I actually call these type of undershirts "wife beaters") They looked so cute in them I couldn't help but take a picture. A few days later Elijah came up to me and said he wanted his "White beater" on. I just laughed. Guess I better watch what I say.

Then Christmas came. We celebrated at my in-laws on the 22nd. Elijah enjoyed modeling a few hats and playing with all the toys he received.

The pink hat isn't his. He borrowed it from one of the girls.

On the 24th Azalea waited up for Santa and was very surprised he came while she was still awake.

The boys got to see what Santa brought the next morning.

A few days later it snowed and Elijah got to play in it with Daddy. They made a great looking snow man.

On New Years Eve we tried to take a nice family picture, but this is how it turned out.

Crazy, as always.

I say it was a pretty great year, full of ups and downs, but it was special none the less. I hope your year was as good as ours and even better.