2013 in Review

After a pretty relaxed 2012...we had to spice things up in 2013!  BOY did we!  2013 was full of many changes for our family!

Towards the end of 2012, Zach and I had some big decisions to make that would really shape our 2013 and take some stress out of our family.  Zach and I decided that 2013 was the year to get out of debt from our past so we could really move forward in our future!  A big decision we had to make to make being debt free a reality was to take Zoe out of school.  As much as we loved her preschool, it was not a necessity and was an added expense.  So january was full of lots of fun homeschooling activities for me and Zoe.  We did lots of crafts, visited the library for really fun events and learned lots about our letters.  We visited Kaitlin at Covecrest to celebrate her birthday.  Towards the end of the month, we visited Grandma and Grandaddy and got snowed in!  While in Tuscaloosa, we also got to go to the Children's Hands on Museum.

February began with Zoe and Zach's first Father/Daughter Dance at our church.  We continued on in our homeschooling with more fun crafts and activities around our letters.  We had lots of love in celebrating Valentine's Day and then learned all about Lent!  Evan was such a good sport and tagged along for the ride!  As the weather started to warm up, off and on, we played outside a ton.  For Lent this year, Zach and I gave up eating processed foods.  It was very challenging but quite eye opening.  We tried lots of new recipes and we were in the kitchen quite a bit!  We had lots of fun celebrating Zach's birthday.

March was quite exciting for our families this year!  Heather and Skylar welcomed Timber Dupree to the world and Chrysti and Joe welcome their first boy, William Joshua!  I was so happy that I was able to be a part of Josh's homebirth!  It was truly something I will never forget!  In March, we also found out that we were expecting our 4th beautiful baby!  We spent some more time in Alabama while Daddy attended his Men's retreat at Covecrest. And I officially became a full time stay at home mom!

Due to some very extreme pregnancy exhaustion, in April our homeschooling pretty much came to an end.  I could literally not keep my eyes open for the whole 1st trimester.  Zach and I had a fun night out to celebrate Sam and Katie and their wedding.  I went on the Women's Retreat at Covecrest!  We had lots of fun in Alabama for an Easter celebration and we told everyone we were pregnant in a surprise egg during our egg hunt.  We celebrated Easter at Covecrest this year and it was such a blessed celebration of our Lord's Resurrection!  We also said GOODBYE to debt in April!!!

May was Zoe's first ballet recital with Buford School of Ballet.  The production was of Alice in Wonderland at The Gwinnett Civic Center.  May brought gorgeous weather!  We enjoyed lots of days outside (when I had the energy) at Suwanee Fountains, Washington Farms Strawberry patch and in our own yard playing with the sprinkler.  Memorial Day Weekend we had a blast at the Mall of Georgia's free concert and movie under the stars.

June was full of fun!  Ally and I celebrated our birthdays.  We had our very first big roast over our fire pit in the back yard!  Zach and Zoe had their first camping trip with Brad, Nick, Ben and Flint up in North Georgia around Lake Burton.  I got to get away with my girlfriends to Fairhope for a weekend! We ended the month with a Gender Reveal Party where we found out our sweet baby would be a BOY!

July brought our first trip to Lake Oconee for the year!  Zoe had fun going to come summer camps offered by Gwinnett COunty Parks.  Evan had a first!  Evan broke both bones in his arm and had a full cast all of July and a half cast for half of August.  Zach continued working hard at the golf course and his landscaping business.  We had a pretty cool summer, so there was a lot less stress this summer!

August started by celebrating Evan's 2nd birthday with a backyard bbq!  The day after his party, Zach and I started a huge home renovation!  We decided that we needed to completely gut our main living space, redo our kitchen, dining and living spaces, as well as close in our carport to make a garage.  The month of August included framing the new garage, siding the exterior, painting, drywalling, moving our washer and dryer and installing a garage door!  Evan also got his cast off in the middle of the month.  At the end of the month, Zoe started back to ballet and we transitioned Evan into a toddler bed from his crib.

September brought more home projects and we started the demo on the interior.  We took a weekend off to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary at the lake.  We also celebrated Oliver's 3rd birthday in heaven.  Zoe, Evan and I loaded up and took a week in Alabama to visit family, while Zach completely gutted the kitchen, removing a wall and all the cabinets!  The last week of September, Zach took vacation and he laid the floors, installed the new cabinets and we had the granite measured for installation.

October began with new granite countertops and painting all of the interior!  I got to start shopping for some new things for our house like bar stools, lighting and a kitchen table.  Zach finished lots of odds and ends, including cabinet and recessed lighting, the backsplash and the fireplace.  In the middle of October, we celebrated our sweet Henry with a sprinkle at Dominick's.  The end of the month brought a close to our home renovation.  We had a blast enjoying fall at Washington Farms, decorating cookies and trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.

November came quick!  We started the month celebrating Zoe's 4th  birthday at Babyland Hospital in Cleveland, GA.  And on November 10th, we welcomed Henry James to the world!  The month was full of lots of adjusting to our new family of 5.  We had lots of visits from friends and family.  We celebrated Thanksgiving in Berry and at Covecrest.  We finished the month with Evan and Henry having RSV, absolutely no fun!

December started with lots of time at home to make sure our babies stayed well.  We started our Christmas festivities at Thompson's Tree Farm to pick out our tree.  We had lots of fun throughout the month decorating the house, making cookies, putting together a gingerbread house, watching Christmas movies and shopping.  We had so much fun celebrating Christmas this year at our home, in Berry with Grandma and Grandaddy and at Grammy and Papa's.  We closed out the year with our cousins, KK and ZZ on New Year's Eve and an early bed time!

Such a blessed year!  Wow does time go by so very fast and another year has come and gone just like that!  Can't wait to see what 2014 hold for our family!