2012 in review

2012 is gone! Poof! No more!

It was a fantastic year for us, even if my blog doesn't show it (sorry for the lack of attention lately). But my resolution is to write something every day- on one of my many currently-ignored blogs, or a journal, or attempting short stories/fiction.... I just need to get used to writing more. So hopefully that means the blog(s) will get more love.

Camille has undies here, you just can't see them. This was her first day in big girl undies.

So, 2012:
We sold our Houston home and moved to Woodstock, GA (just NW of Atlanta) in June (we're renting a home here). We still love it here.

We love our gym nearby, the church we go to, our neighborhood, the seasons, the rolling hills... if I had to say there is a downside it's that we still haven't found a social niche and we're very far away from family and friends.

Camille turned 2 in October. She has these big bright blue eyes (which get cross-eyed pretty often) and her hair has come in curly/wavy- if I style it, I can get ringlets all around. She was potty-trained in September and does a great job- now diaper and pull-up free for 3 months+! She talks ever-so-much more than Daniel ever did at this age and picks up a few new words a day. She's adorable, and she knows it:).

She definitely has strong opinions but she is easy to snap out of a bad mood as well. She will hug/kiss/cuddle anyone willing. She eats a lot of honeycomb (the cereal) and is a bit of a neat freak- she will not tolerate food mess on her hands or face, she loves to organize our shoe pile, and she WILL NOT SLEEP without Bambi under her right arm, Manatee under her left, and brobee above her head just-so.

Both kids play on our iphones pretty nonstop... I'm pretty sure Camille's first word was "phone?".

Daniel turned 4 (!) in April. He now goes to pre-k (it's free in Georgia thanks to the state lottery) and loves it. We had our first-ever parent/teacher conference and he got glowing reviews (aside from his need to learn some classmate's names... 4 months into the year).

This kid talks non-stop, and wiggles non-stop. To be honest, the physical clinginess is killing me. Aside from that though, he's a good kid. He's a wonderful big brother, he loves to compliment others (usually within a few minutes of meeting someone he'll tell them they have pretty hair or a nice shirt), he loves to share... really he has a heart of gold. But oh, the wiggles... I can barely handle it anymore;).

We play a lot of video games together and for someone who can't count above 13 without skipping numbers, he's quite the pro at Fable II.

Kenny turned 28 in May, and ran his first marathon in October. He loves being a stay-at-home dad and is pretty much the best dad ever. No really. I can't express enough how much I admire him- his patience and involvement with the kids makes me wish more dads had the chance to stay home with their kids (though I think Kenny is pretty uniquely wonderful;)).

I (Jenn) have had a crazy year- in a good way. So many changes. I feel a bit like this year was my
"coming of age" year- I guess I'm a late bloomer. I'm not at all who I thought I would be as an adult- religiously, geographically, occupationally, physically, politically... pretty much everything turned out differently than I would have predicted. But I also would never have predicted I would be this happy.
I was promoted to direct a team of 8 at work (well, the number varies) and it has been a really amazing and challenging experience. I do really enjoy it though and can see myself seeking out more management positions in the future. I'm still doing some pretty neat work with some really big companies (we mostly work with Fortune 500) and work with some of the most awesome folks in my industry.
I got a Kindle a few months back and now read a book every other day or so. I've also rekindled my interest in the harp (turns out it's much more interesting if I find pieces I can sing along with). I travel every other month or so for work and while I miss my family, I'll admit it's nice to not be clung to for a few days every now and then. Because when I'm at home, this is my life:

We had a few trips and a few visitors over the year- we went to my family reunion in Birch Bay, Washington in July and truly had a blast. We also traveled to Utah in September and got to introduce the kids to their great-grandpa Kenny (my husband's namesake, obviously). He passed away only a few weeks later, so we were thrilled to have been able to see him.

My parents came for thanksgiving and we had a blast, the kids still talk about them a lot. Then this last week our best friend from BYU, Ben, came and visited for a whole week. The kids love their "Uncle Ben", and Kenny and I were happy to get some good gaming time in:).

Christmas brought a lot of books and legos for the adults, a bike for Daniel, and princess barbies for Camille (who loves to organize THEIR shoe pile, too).

All in all, a wonderful year. Can't wait to see what 2013 has in store.

Note: The well-done professional-ish photos were taken by my sister Lori- the full album can be seen at her website.
The rest of our family photos from the year can be seen at my smugmug album.

Daniel's Priorites

Daniel's bedtime prayer last night:

"Heavenly Father, please bless that I will write my name all by myself; please bless that I will beat daddy at the breaking ice game and not make the ice fall down; thankful for my toys, thankful mommy plays DeBlob with me... *burp*... scuse me... Amen."

Thought that was worth sharing.

Again, I don't have time for an original blog post, but my sister-in-law does a fantastic job of putting together a Family Newsletter based on snippets we send her, so I will copy the snippets we send, so my in-laws aren't the only ones who hear what's up for us currently. Sorry, in-laws, for being repetitive:

• Kenny continues to train for his marathon on October 28th. He is running a minimum of 6 miles a day, but usually more.
• Daniel has started preschool and likes it a lot.

• Daniel continues to take swimming lessons on the weekend at the gym and loves it.
• Daniel has taken a special liking to one of the care takers at the child care center in the gym, Ashley. Kenny asked Ashley if she would be interested in baby-sitting Daniel and Camille, and she had been hoping we would ask. Kenny and Jenni got to go out for their first date while in Georgia. They said it was to celebrate their 6th anniversary (even though it was a week late). They went to a fancy French restaurant and then to go see The Bourne Legacy.

• Jenni surprised Kenny with some home-made Mario fridge magnets for their anniversary. She had a lot of fun making them. Kenny surprised Jenni with a not-home-made sapphire necklace.
• Jenni has been promoted to a management position as the Director of Implementation Services. She enjoys helping out her colleagues in their tasks.
• Jenni got a Vitamix blender for her birthday. She enjoys making lots of smoothies and blending in spinach/kale to help make the treats a little healthier.
• Camille is starting to say lots of words such as: light, nose, mom, dad, leg, ball, dog, car, truck, Daniel.
• Kenny has been missing his regular game group that he had in Houston and has not been able to find enough interested and committed people to start another one. He did however find a gaming store very near his new home that hosts Magic tournaments. Kenny is now using that to feed his gaming needs. Every Thursday night, Kenny gets to go play in a Magic tournament. He was worried that after about 10 years of being out of the game he wouldn't do so well, but quite to the contrary, in his first tournament he placed 2nd out of 24 people. In his third tournament he placed first out of 30 people. He is now king of the nerds. (I added that part)
• Jenni is enjoying practicing and singing in church choir every week.
• Daniel earned his first Lego set ever.

Quick catch-up

I've been daunted about restarting the blog, it has been so long and SO much has happened (oh, by the way, we sold our Houston house and live in Atlanta now).

But I just wrote an email to a friend updating her on the last few months, and figured the least I could do was copy and paste that:

Things are going great. We LOVE Atlanta. And I just got a promotion to a mentoring/management roll that I think will be a good fit. We've gotten a gym membership and I've been doing boot-camp style team workouts that have completely been kicking my butt, plus we got a vitamix and I've been sneaking spinache into my smoothies (and kenny is training for his first marathon) so we're feeling healthier (and tireder).
Camille is starting to talk, saying things like "dog" and "duck" and "car". We're thinking of starting potty training with her soon, since she is showing a lot of the signs of readiness. Daniel starts pre-k (it's free in Georgia) on Monday- woohoo!

We attended a family reunion (with my 2 parents, 4 siblings, 4 siblings-in-law, and 13.5 nieces/nephews) a few weeks ago in Washington and had such a wonderful time- honestly, I can't think of how it could have been better.
I have about 7 months worth of pictures to post, but I'll go ahead and just post the recent family pictures my sister Lori took (as taken from her Elby Photography website):

So many more at the album, go check it out!

And the family reunion pics:

My cute parents:

With all of their grandkids!

December 2011

Oh my, so much to catch up on, and December was a crazy crazy month. This post may be a tad dry, but since this blog serves as the family journal as well, I feel I need to detail some of the fun that was had.
First, I had a week-long business trip to NYC- what was the last of my regular trips. I may still travel for work but not this every-other-week thing anymore. It was a fun trip- a friend took me to a bar at the top of a building, just to see the view. It's cold enough that the bar keeps thick red hooded bathrobes and everyone wears one to stay warm- kind of freaky and cult-ish. But it was fun, and the view was incredible.

I was home from that trip for a few days, then my sister Becky arrived from Portland to watch the kids while Kenny and I went to Utah for my company's Christmas Party. Becky hadn't seen Daniel since he was 15 months old, and had never even met Camille, but Kenny and I both couldn't think of someone we'd trust our kids to more. She brought her youngest, Tyler, who is just a few months older than Daniel. They hit it off pretty well, even if it was hard for Daniel to have someone in his space playing with his toys (he needs more practice at that). Much fun was had, though:


Kenny and I missed Daniel's Preschool Christmas Program, much to my dismay. But Aunt Becky went and video taped it, just so I could see Daniel have a bit of a breakdown in front of the whole audience. Poor kid, apparently musical performance does not come naturally to him (yet).
Meanwhile, Kenny and I had an absolute blast in Utah. My company went all out. Most of us work remotely so we don't see each other very often. We got to stay in nice hotels (sans kids), go inner tubing at Soldier's Hollow, and go snowmobiling near Heber, not to mention much karaoke-ing. It was so so so much fun, and it once again showed me that I'm working for the right company (not just because they spoil us so, but also because we got to discuss where the company was headed and what we've accomplished this year). Though while snowmobiling, I may have taken a corner a bit fast and gone off course and hit a tree. It could have been much much worse, I'm very lucky. Kenny had been in front of me and took a few minutes to figure out I wasn't following him anymore. A coworker was behind me, though, and helped me get out of the deep snow once we were sure I hadn't broken my leg (and that I wasn't going to pass out).
Unfortunately, my camera fell out of the snowmobile's "trunk", so I lost all my pictures from the trip (not to mention my beloved camera). And my leg had a nasty bruise for a week afterwords:

Also, semi-unfortunately, my cellphone stopped working, so we had no choice but to buy new iphones. Oh, boo ;)
When we got back home, my oldest brother Chris and his family were in town from Denver. Camille and I went by ourselves to NASA to spend the day with them (Daniel was sick so he missed out). We see them so rarely, it was so nice to spend time with them. They have delightful daughters and Camille seemed to take a shine to them all.
Then, Christmas! And such a delightful Christmas. Really, it was perfect, minus a few minor germs we had floating around. Camille got a pink wagon she loves to sit and be pulled in, Daniel got Cars 2 and a few fun race tracks, Kenny got some board game expansions, and I got a new wool coat and some books/DVDs. But mostly, we got a lot of time together. My company gave me the week between Christmas and New Years as some additional paid time off, so we had a full week. And what do we do? Nothing much at all, and it was delightful.
The downside was that I caught MRSA ("the superbug"- drug-resistant staph infection). It started off as what looked like a spider bite and ended up with my entire forearm red, swollen, and throbbing. In summary: it hurts a lot, looks AWFUL, and needs treatment. Bleh.
In happier news, New Year's Eve, our Best Man Ben (he will always be that to me) came out to visit from North Carolina for a few days. We went folfing and played games and had a lot of fun. We miss him so much.

Camille is now walking like a pro, but here are some of those first steps from december:

Many more pics up at our December Album.

One Year Old

Anyone still out there? It's been months since I blogged, but here's the general theme since my last post:

• Work keeps me busy. I've been traveling every other week or so for various work projects- this won't be the norm, it's just for this season. I'm ready to be a homebody again. I've spent a lot of time in New Jersey (Princeton area) and Manhattan and even got to see some old friends.
• Kenny is the ideal stay-at-home dad. He's happy and feels "more appreciated and productive as a stay-at-home dad to two kids than he did as a public teacher to 100+ kids". On top of it, he does almost all of the cooking, cleaning and dishes- and yes, he even does most diapers these days. What an awesome husband I have.
• Daniel is hilarious and bright and exhausting. He's learning his letters (slowly) and will happily tell anyone he meets his full name ("Daniel Jatson Toonz"- still working on that K sound) but mostly, he's perfecting his already impressive video game skills. Seriously, this kid can navigate a Wii Mario Kart course on his own, or get a Mario Sunshine sprite, and this afternoon he found me my sword on Zelda Skyward Sword- in a place I didn't even think to look.
• Camille had her first birthday yesterday. She's babbling WAY more than Daniel ever did, can correctly identify Mommy, Daddy, Brother, and Puppy, and is still a few weeks off from her first steps (by my best guess). I think she has finally resolved whatever digestive issues she had her first year and she eats most anything we eat these days.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving week: we got to see my parents here in houston AND kenny's parents and sister in Fort Worth. We went to the zoo and an animal park and the kids loved seeing their cousins so much. We're SUPER excited to go up to Utah in December for a few days for my company Christmas party- my sister Becky is flying down with her Tyler (just a few months older than Daniel) so Kenny and I can take the trip with just the two of us. It will be the first overnight trip we've had together without kids since before Daniel was born. 

Here are all our pictures from November. Others can be found at our online album.

Big Brother

Daniel loves to tear apart our couches. It drives me nuts. So when I saw him bringing couch cushions from upstairs to our front entry way, I asked him to put them back. He said, "make bed for baymill!" (His name for Camille has evolved from Baby 'Mille). She was happily crawling nearby, so I decided to see where this was going.
He assembled two couch cushions, two pillows, his blanket, and a baby blanket, to make them a little double bed:

Camille quite enjoyed it:

He even "read" her a book (which she tried to eat):


Call me cheesy, but I think the biggest joy of parenting for me so far has been seeing my 2 children show unfeigned love for each other. The second Camille starts crying, often before I even realize she's upset, Daniel starts making this weird goofy noise in an attempt to make her smile instead- and the majority of the time, it works. He's been calling her "sweetie" lately (thankfully he hasn't started on "fatbaby" yet). Camille lights up when he comes to her and cries when he walks away from her. He helps her sit down when her chubby legs are tired. She plays with his hair and blows filberts on him.
I tried to find one or two good photos of them together, and found so many sweet ones, I don't know how to narrow it down- this is not even half of the cute ones showing their relationship.