2009-The BEST year of our lives!

I did a little recap of our year last NYE. I thought it would be fun to recap this year as well. We have seriously had the BEST year. I just cried last night reading through our blog and thinking about how blessed we were this past year. We made so many wonderful memories as a family. We marked so many "firsts" in Brody's life. It was just wonderful! Yes, there were hard days and sleepless nights. Yes, being a parent is harder at times than people tell you it is, but it is also way better than people tell you, too. I have never had more fun in my life than I have this year. I took fewer showers this year. My laundry piled up often this year. I lived in sweats and pajamas until the spring. I probably wore make-up only half the year. My house was dirtier at times than it has ever been. But I would not have changed a second of it. It really was the best year of our lives. I just pray that God is gracious enough to bless us with another wonderful year in 2010!

January
We started off the year with a precious 3 month old boy!

Two days after his 3 month birthday, Brody started going to Mother's Day Out 2 days a week.

February

I turned 24 and celebrated my first birthday as a mom. It was so special!

March

Brody may have been the cutest little boy I have ever seen wearing his green on St. Patrick's Day!

Josh turned 26 and we went away for the weekend to celebrate. Brody came with us and spent his first night in a hotel!

April

We were able to finally spend some time outside since it started warming up!Brody met his "EEE Aunts" for the first time.We attended a couples' shower for a girl in my pledge class and all my friends were finally able to meet our little maBrody went to his first Razorback sporting event...a Lady Razorbacks Softball game to celebrate Aunt Jilly's birthday.We also celebrated Brody's first Easter. He was such a cutie!

May
We celebrated my first Mother's Day! It was wonderful!
I was given the sweetest gift from my two boys....a ring with Brody's name on it! Brody attended his first two weddings on the same weekend. He didn't get to sit in either one of them because he kept yelling "Hi" to people! June

We celebrated Josh's first Father's Day! He is a WONDERFUL dad! That same day, we left for our beach vacation to Destin. It was Brody's first beach trip! We also went to our church's fireworks display at the end of the month. Brody loved it!July

We celebrated Brody's first 4th of July by attending one of my college best friend's wedding. Brody got to meet more of our college friends. We had a wonderful day with friends!Brody started acting like a real boy...he got a big knot on his head and ate dog food in the same week! We spent a lot of fun weekends together as a family throughout the summer! It was such a wonderful time for us! August
We spent a lot of time outside, especially on the weekends. Daddy got really into playing disc golf so we started going as a family to the park on Saturday mornings.My grandpa passed away unexpectedly in the middle of the month. We spent several days in Benton with all my family.

September

Brody started back to MDO after the summer break.

He and I started attending MOPS.We cheered for the Hogs all fall! We also went to some fun tailgate parties!

Brody got his first hair cut from Julee.

Josh and I were part of the start up group for the 10:55 service. We also started attending a new connection group with other couples from the 10:55 service. It meets in our home weekly now!

And I cut my hair off! Yes, it is a big enough deal to make the list for the year!

October

We celebrated Brody's First Birthday! It was such a fun day!

We took several trips to the pumpkin patch! Brody dressed up as a duck for his 2nd Halloween!

November

Josh and I celebrated 2 wonderful years of marriage! I want at least 70 more!

We helped with the Blessing Basket ministry at our church.

We had a great Thanksgiving with our families.

December

Jill taught the blog world how to poof their hair!

We had a wonderful month of celebrating Christmas!

Happy New Years!!!

Christmas

I am finally back from my Christmas blogging break. I didn't intend for it to last this long, but I got overwhelmed with the number of pictures and videos we took, and I couldn't decide how I was going to blog them.

We had a wonderful Christmas. I love the joy and the magic that Brody brings to the Christmas season. I love that his sweet little life has brought a new understanding for me of the story of Christ's birth. I am more amazed, more joyful, and more grateful than ever before when I think about the birth of Jesus. I know how much we love Brody as his parents and to know that God loves us with an even greater love is hard for me to grasps at times. It usually results in me crying! :)

I am also amazed at how many pictures we took of Brody and of no one else. :) I think we may have 5 pictures that have Josh or me in them and the other 300 we took are of Brody. Haha! It was such a wonderful time for our family. I am so thankful for the time we had together! I have said it 1000 times, but I will say it again, we are BLESSED!

To spare you from the longest post ever, I made a little video of some of our pictures. It's almost 5 minutes long, but it has music and it covers our Christmas!! I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for caring enough about our family to watch a 5 minute long Brody picture parade! You are are such sweet people. I hope you have a wonderful afternoon!

Merry Christmas.....

from our family to yours!You will have JOY and GLADNESS and many will REJOICE at His birth.

Luke 1:14

We pray that you experience true joy today as you celebrate Christ's birth!

Picture with Santa

We took Brody to have his picture taken with Santa today at the mall. It went soooo well. We only waited in line about 3 minutes. Brody was so happy since he had just woken from a nap. We sat him in Santa's lap and he just laughed and smile and talked to Santa. Then, we the lady got his attention to take his picture, this is the face he made at her.....Hahahahahaha! He posed like that. It wasn't that she just happened to catch him making that face. He probably sat like that for 5-7 seconds. We all were laughing so hard. Santa even got up so he could take a look at the picture. She asked if I wanted to take another one and I told her no. I explained that this picture captured his little personality perfectly! :)

Jill thinks he looks like Kevin on Home Alone when he puts the aftershave on and is standing looking in the mirror. I have to say that I agree!

I just love that boy. We are so blessed!

Christmas Card

I wanted to share our Christmas card with you all, our sweet blog readers. I was so pleased with the way it turned out. It is exactly what I had in mind! My very sweet and very talented friend, Leslie, designed them for us. Check out her blog here!

Dogs!

I think I have told y'all before that Brody is obsessed with dogs. We do not have a dog, but I am not sure how much longer we will be able to go with out one if this continues. Brody is CRAZY about dogs!

Yesterday, He got a new Clifford the Big Red Dog dvd from my aunt and uncle, and he also got a new stuffed dog from Julee. He was so excited about both gifts and kept saying "dog" over and over this morning. Since he was so excited, I let him watch his new dvd this morning while I was doing some things around the house. He made sure and had his new stuffed dog with him while he watched the movie.

He was saying "dog" to me in this picture! SO cute!

I have been wanting to get him a shirt with a dog on it. I found these little onesies at the Carter's outlet in Branson on Monday. I thought they were cute! I know he will love wearing them.

Here is a little video of him watching Clifford. You will hear him say "dog", then I ask him what the dog says, and he says, "Woof Woof"! It's so sweet!

Hopefully, the dogs will entertain him some more today. I have SOOOOO much to do today and I cannot seem to get it done. I just cannot believe how much harder it is to get Christmas stuff together with an active little boy running around the house. I don't know how you moms with 2, 3, 4, 19 kids do it! :) I can't even get the house cleaned and presents wrapped today with just one sweet baby. Hopefully, a long nap is in store for the afternoon! I just need a couple of hours and some caffeine and I think I can get it all done!