Happy New Year's Eve 2013

We went to a Pow Wow, and then we came home and took a walk and ran into a neighbor who does bubble blowing street performance art, and Aurelien and I both took turns blowing bubbles.  Then we went home to just have a very quiet family new year's eve.  It was awesome!!!!!!

Merry Christmas 2013

And here's our handsome little man enjoying his second Christmas ever!  He LOVED it!  It's my favorite holiday too, can you tell?  I hope this year is just as special for our family, especially for William!!!

Christmas Eve 2013

This is always traditionally the biggest party of the year in my family, where I get to see everybody all at once, so I get really EXCITED!!!!!  William had fun but he did lose us in the crowd a couple of times and started bawling!!!!  As if we would ever leave our little darling!!!!

Christmas Play Dates

We started taking walks around the block around this time, which was great!  We also went to a couple of little people Christmas parties, which was also great fun!

And here were a couple more play dates, one with my cousin and her son, and another one with just William and I at Cafe au Play.  Very fun!!!

Last year's Christmas ornament

For the past 2 years I've been making these little dollar birdhouse ornaments from Michael's.  It is pretty fun to make them, and I love how they turn out.  This is last year's ornament.  Wonder what I'll come up with this year?

Celebrate Awesome Neighbors

This was our last BBQ with our neighbors in 2013 before we left for France.  It was bittersweet, since we were going to be gone for such a long time and we are VERY close to our neighbors.  Good memories!!!

I love you More than Ice Cream

Here's one of the first times William pulled himself up and starting walking around some furniture.  Very CUTE!!!!

Christmas Cuddles

Ah yes I remember those days, when William was still a cuddle bug.  Now he's Mr. Independent!  I will treasure all those cuddles always in my heart...so incredibly precious to me...more precious than gold or silver...Love is the most important thing in existence!

William turns 1! (The US Version)

So last year we went to France for 9 weeks at the beginning of July, so we had to have William's US party before we left.  It was an awesome party!  He had a Winnie the Pooh cake, and I was so excited I forgot to give out the ice cream!  LOL!  After the party we all had to decompress a little, especially William, who was a bit bewildered by the whole experience!

The guys in our family

Well, this is just about all the guys in our family, we were just missing a few.  It's so nice to see everyone when we get together as a family!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

William could definitely feel that there was something truly special about this time of year.  Hope we can make that same magic for him this year!!!  Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, Papa, and his cousin...good times!!!

William and the Birthday girls

This was such a fun day, we got to celebrate 4 different girl's birthdays, all on the same day!  Whew!  That was hard work!  And lots of fun and yummy cake!!!

2013 Winter Magic

Here's some more early December magic-the first snow of the season, and his first advent calendar, which I made for him.  He LOVED it SO much!  Can't wait to do it again this year!!!

Tis the Season to be Jolly

And here's my very favorite little elf!  Cuddles, playdates, learning to feed himself, getting more confident with his walking...early december magic with the little man!!!!

Fabulous Friday Flashback-More Pregnancy Photos from 2012

I had to go into the hospital Friday, July 13th, because my blood pressure was too high.  So they began giving me pitocin hoping that it would induce labor.  I had some appallingly painful contractions over the course of the few days I was there with no progress in the labor.  No epidural because I wasn't dilated enough or some garbage like that.  So yeah.  OUCH!!!  We decided that I would just go home and be on bedrest and see if labor would start naturally on it's own.  That didn't happen, and so after a couple more days we went into the hospital again to have William, for real this time.  And that is a whole other story.  Anyway, these scrapbook pages chronicle that time.

I know this may scandalize some people, but I absolutely love these pictures of enormously pregnant me, dancing naked.  I felt like such an earth mama, a fertility goddess.  I loved it!

Neighborhood BBQ

Here's our handsome boy, charming all the neighbors at one of our neighborhood BBQ's!!!