Year In Review

I know everyone says this, but this year has really flown by.  I can't believe the progress Erin has made and the changes we've witnessed in her.  I do this year in review every year on the blog mainly so I can look back on it all.  I am truly blessed.

January -
- I had my surgery and went back to work half days for a while
- Erin turned 18 months and still lead the pack in height and weight
- Erin also started a new classroom at school

February -
- I turned 40 and was sick on my b/day with a head cold
- Tommy continued to run the household while I was recovering
- Tommy turned 38 - yes, I like younger men!

March -
- We got William!  Amy & Matt got their long awaited baby
- We had a party for William at our house to welcome him to the family
- Erin's school put on a Trike-a-thon to support St. Jude's

April -
- We celebrated Easter with Aunt Lolo in Minerva (baby William was there too!)
- Erin took her first ever school pictures and they turned out too funny
- We went to the Country and Erin climbed up on the roof and rolled down.  Being the good parents that we are we watched and laughed.
- Erin got her first modeling gig for Hard to Hold Photography

May -
- Daddy built Erin a kitchen tower to allow her to "help" at the kitchen counter
- Erin was in her first school production and sang "You Are My Sunshine"
- We went to Florida with almost the whole family

June - 
- Erin started gymnastics at the Little Gym
- I became a total slacker on the Blogging

July - 
- Erin got her first haircut.  We had bangs cut
- Erin turned 2 and had a huge party at the Little Gym
- At her 2 year check up the doctor predicts Erin will be 5'9"
- Roxie got diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and we're told it will be fatal 

August - 
- Roxie responds well to the medications
- Tommy went back to his old job in Special Investigations
- Erin had surgery for tubes in her ears - she responded well to that also
- Erin and I attempted the 3 Day Potty Training Method and failed miserably

September -
- We converted Erin's crib into a Toddler bed
- Erin's crush on Minnie Mouse really picks up - she's our favorite
- Erin fell off of our really tall bed for the first time and did it in spectacular fashion

October -
- Erin continues her obsession with Minnie
- We have our first trip to the zoo (Erin loves the sea lions)
- Erin dressed up as Minnie Mouse for Halloween

November -
- I still stink at blogging
- I blogged from the car on the go for the first time with my ipad
- We had Thanksgiving in the Country and the kids ran around like crazy people
- I finished about 90% of my Christmas shopping BEFORE Thanksgiving

December -
- We got new cows to replace the old cows in the Country
- We had the Mize family gathering here and my office party - all went well
- We had Christmas here at home with the Wistner's and the lights went out ALL DAY!
- Erin got a lot of Minnie toys including a Minnie Mouse convertible VW Bug
- Erin spent NYE with my parents while we went to a party.


All in all - a good year.  This year I promise to do better on the blogging.  (Looking back I noticed what a slacker I was some months!)

Bring it on  2013 - the Mizes are ready

Hobbies...Not the Hobbit

Why oh why do I have to have expensive hobbies?

I love photography and love my 50mm lens, but I've been looking at others too on the Best Buy website and I need another job to support my hobby.  Erin is by far my favorite subject and I love that I'm capturing her childhood in such a great way.  Not only do I take all these pictures, I can't make myself delete any but the really, really bad ones.  I bought on line storage to make sure that they stayed backed up and to allow me to keep them ALL!

As I sit here typing this blog, I'm using my new wireless keyboard I got for my ipad.  I hated the virtual keyboard on the ipad so I never used it for blogging... until now.  See, even a "free" hobby like blogging ends up costing me in the long run.  But, now I can blog from my bed or the car if I want to.    What was I thinking saying it was free?  I ran out of blog space weeks ago and had to start paying Google for the space.  It was like $5.00 so it wasn't worth changing the blog name, but still not free.

And don't go feeling sorry for Tommy about now either...he is obsessed with BBQ and all things Weber related.  I cannot begin to tell you the lengths to which he will go to for good brisket and ribs. The man is sold on Weber and I don't think anything will do now that he has found his brand.  Let's not even go into the Hawaiian shirt collection hobby.  It's too vast to merit much mention.  If you know Tommy, you know he has an assorted collection of Hawaiian shirts for every occasion.

Not that either one of us complain about the other's hobby, but still, not free!  I hold my breath to see what sort of hobby Erin comes up with.  Our luck she'll want to collect rare and antique fire trucks or something.   We'll end up having to build a garage in the backyard to house her vast collection.

That might work.  I can take pictures of them and Tommy can start fires on the Webers that Erin can put out with her fire trucks.

Christmas Videos...

Here are some of the videos I took this Christmas. Warning, some of them are long and will only be of interest to our family.

Christmas In the Burbs...

And for our 3rd and final Christmas... we'll have it here at home.  The Wistner, Ammerman, Mize (WAM) Christmas was this year.  We alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas Days between the 2 families.  This year was a Wistner Christmas and a Ammerman/Mize Thanksgiving.

We invited Matt's mom, Lois, or Aunt Lolo as Erin calls her.  She got here with the rest of the crew after Christmas Eve church.  Because of the late start, we let the kids open a couple of presents then sent them to bed.  As Wistner tradition dictates, we opened our presents to each other on Eve.  It turned out to be the best plan because it was chaos the next morning when Erin and William got up for Santa and all their presents.

I'm posting some pictures - mainly of the kids- and video at the bottom.  Erin was being Erin and running everywhere she went.  William did his best to keep up with her.  I was very proud of the way she shared all of her toys with William.  He especially loved the pink Barbie 4 wheeler Erin got for Christmas last year.  Hint, hint, hint...what a lovely grandparent gift that would be. :)

The craziest part of Christmas was when the cold front blew thru and knocked the power out at 10:00 am.  It didn't come back on until close to 8:00 that night.  We had a house full of people, 2 children under 3, and no power.  Christmas dinner was cooked on the gas grill and we were able to light my stove top to do some of the sides, but the rest went on the grill with the turkey!  Texas Pioneer Style is what I called it.  Remember the Alamo!

 

 

Our New Cows...

Welcome to the Mize Ranch ladies and gentleman.  The Mize cows have arrived.  Here are some shots of Erin, Daddy and Peepaw when we first got to see the cows.

 

 

 

 

Photos from Christmas in the Country

Here are some of the pictures I took from yesterday.  Christmas in the County...