A Look Back on 2014

2014 was a BIG year for our family. It was one of the busiest and stressful years, but also one that contains some of my most precious memories. I'd relive so many of the events in 2014 over and over again if I could!

January
- We closed on our new house. Matt took a week off work and spent the ENTIRE week repainting it.
- We said goodbye to our first home in Broken Arrow. It was the place where we saw positive pregnancy tests three times, the place where we painted and prepared for our two little boys (saying goodbye to the elephants in Nathan's room was tough), the place we brought Nathan and Samuel home to, the home in which  we hosted six Thanksgivings, and spent three Christmas mornings and Nathan's first and second birthdays. It was Rhapsody's first home and the place where we formed new friendships. It was where we watched the Cowboys win the Fiesta Bowl, where we came home to after so many wonderful vacations. It was a place that contained countless memories. It was a hard goodbye, but a good one.
- We moved into our new home and started creating new precious memories within its walls

February
- We met Sarah Louise the night she was born.
- We celebrated Valentine's Day with heart shaped pancakes, heart shaped grilled cheese sandwiches and an at home date night without the boys.
- Angela turned 29 (Nathan got me blue pants for my birthday :)).

March
- Our sweet Samuel Jacob turned ONE! We had a fun ball themed party and it was our first big party in our new home.
- Matt and I got away for a weekend without kids to Eureka Springs, AR
- We found out we were expecting a healthy baby GIRL, and we officially began preparing for our Elisabeth Kae!

April
- Samuel started walking.
- We celebrated Christ's Resurrection with special Easter traditions with my parents and on our own.
- We sold our Escape and bought a Toyota Sienna to accommodate our growing family.
- We took Nathan to Frontier City for a fun Big Boy Day. It was such a great day!

May
- Nathan Wilson turned THREE! He was so excited about his firetruck birthday party and especially the special guest firefighter who visited.
- We celebrated EIGHT years of marriage with a bloody eye from Nathan from an accident at the park. Real marriage, eight years in :)
- Matt turned 31

June
- The boys and I spent the week in Weatherford for FBC's Bible school. Matt and I got terrible food poisoning that sent Matt to the ER the first night we were gone.
- The Evetts came to visit for a fun weekend.
- We took advantage of our neighborhood swimming pool and visited it several times per week in the summer.

July
- We had a fun Fourth of July celebrating with family and friends.
- We celebrated our sweet Elisabeth Kae with a fun shower at my mom's house. I'll never forget how much fun celebrating pink things was!
- We finished Elisabeth's purple and grey nursery and packed our hospital bags
- Nathan and Samuel went to Iowa with my parents for Amelia's birthday. Matt and I enjoyed a few days to ourselves while they were gone.

August
- We took the boys to the dinosaur exhibit at the zoo. Samuel roared at all of them! It was our last visit as a family of four.
- Elisabeth Kae joined our family on August 9. She is the perfect addition to our family. I'll never forget her crazy birth and the joy of holding my daughter in my arms.
- We adjusted to adding a third baby to our family with lots of help from family.

September
- Nathan started attending preschool at FBC BA one day a week.
- We made a quick weekend trip to Weatherford so Elisabeth could meet her Momoo, and the boys picked apples from Granny and Grandaddy's tree.

October
- After a busy month at work, Matt took the day off and we took the kids to the state fair. It was one of my favorite days of the year.
- We dedicated Elisabeth Kae to the Lord at our church
- We took the kids to the pumpkin patch and pumpkin playland in Porter, OK for the morning.
- We had a fun Halloween complete with a trunk or treat, Halloween play date, and trick or treating.

November
- We headed to Branson to ride the Polar Express and spend the weekend away. I love that tradition we started. It was magical for the boys.
- We celebrated Thanksgiving with lots of extended family. It was my favorite Thanksgiving and such a great time to spend time with so much family.

December
- OSU won Bedlam. We scared Sarah and Elisabeth with how excited we were! A fun night after a lousy season
- Nathan had his first school Christmas program
- We celebrated Christmas in Weatherford the weekend before Christmas
- We spent the morning of Christmas Eve at the aquarium in Jenks
- We celebrated our first Christmas morning in our new home, and it was a great one!

Christmas Day

We had a really special Christmas Day. It was sweet and simple and full of reminders of the many blessings in our lives. I heard Samuel making noises a little before 7:00 on Christmas morning, so I grabbed him and sent him to wake up Nathan for our Christmas morning fun.  Later that morning Nathan got on to me for waking him up so early because he was still tired. I'm going to remind him of that conversation three or four years from now when he's waking me up on Christmas :).

The boys came downstairs and saw their big gifts and opened their stockings. Nathan was really excited about his castle. He said he always wanted that castle but didn't think he was going to get it.

They were playing so well with their new toys, that they forgot about the other toys under the tree for awhile. Matt and I went ahead and opened our gifts from each other while they were busy playing.

They eventually decided to open the rest of their presents. I'm pretty sure Samuel liked his Magna Doodle more than his racetrack. As soon as he figured out what it was, he grinned and yelled, "Color!" and started scribbling. He also got some cars for his race track, a Buzz Lightyear costume and he and Nathan together got the "Toy Story" DVD.

Elisabeth watched all the fun and ate a bow.

Since she's so little, we didn't get much for her. I did find some girly board books for her first Christmas and I'm so excited about all the girly toys we'll get to buy in the next few years!

Nathan got a Woody costume, a Toby Thomas the Train engine and a Thomas the Train Board Game. The kids also opened their gifts from the Flamings since we didn't get to see them this Christmas. They had a great morning with all their new toys.

After presents, I cooked a special Christmas breakfast while everyone played with their new toys. We had homemade waffles with chocolate chips, strawberries and whipped cream, bacon and hot chocolate.

It was delicious and fun to have a special family breakfast. We rarely eat breakfast as a family, so it was a sweet time.

After breakfast, we played some more while Matt cleaned up a little from breakfast. We played Nathan's new game and did a puzzle Nathan got in his stocking.

After we had played for awhile, we decided to get ready and head over to my parents' house to spend the rest of the day. I told Matt that this year was one of my favorite Christmas mornings. The kids really loved their toys and it was nice to have a relaxing morning just focused on spending time as a family.

I'll admit that life right now is hard  with three Little Ones. It seems like someone always needs something from us and usually someone is crying. Simple tasks seem to take three times as long because of interruptions, and just getting everyone dressed and ready to leave the house is exhausting. The last few weeks have been especially trying with the busyness and stress of the holidays. I think the difficulty of this season of life made Christmas morning more special this year. We took a timeout from everything and just enjoyed our kids for a few hours without any other obligations or distractions. It reminded me of the amazing blessings they are and how thankful I am for each one of them. It was just what I needed and a reminder to stop and simply enjoy my kids more often.

We made it to my parents' house shortly before 11:00. If you know much about my mom, then you probably know that she adores her grandchildren and she loves to give gifts. Combine those together and she was practically pushing us through the door to get to the gifts under the tree :).

We did pause for a quick picture before the opening fest ensued.

This year, it was just the seven of us for Christmas. Jeremy, Anna and Amelia and a lot of other family came for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas this year, so we had a small gathering on Christmas Day. I was a little worried it might be a bit depressing to not have any extended family with us to celebrate, but it was a perfect, special day.

The boys got SO many fun toys. They opened and opened and played for over an hour. Even Elisabeth got several adorable baby toys (most of which were princess themed!).

A couple of months ago, we were in Toys R Us, and Nathan saw a Mickey Mouse train tent. I didn't think much of it, but he has talked and talked about it. He told my mom he wanted it for Christmas, and she immediately ordered it, and he has continued to talk about it constantly. It was the only toy he said he wanted for Christmas when anyone asked him. The first thing he told Grammy when we got there on Christmas was that he got the castle he wanted for Christmas, but he didn't get the Mickey Mouse train tent. He did get distracted with all the other presents and forgot about it momentarily, and so when he opened it, his eyes lit up and he had the biggest smile. He was so stinkin' excited about that train tent.

Big hugs of gratitude all around for that present!

They got so many fun new things that day: books and puzzles and blocks, a Disney Little People play set, Paw Patrol action figures, castle accessories, a ride on firetruck and a spring rocking horse (that stays at Grammy and Papa Joe's house) and more. They spent all day playing with their new toys.

We had a  delicious steak lunch, my husband's favorite meal. Grandkids aren't the only ones who get spoiled by my parents :).

While Samuel napped, we played card games and visited. We had planned to spend most of the evening at their house playing games after the boys went to bed, but Nathan started to "miss his castle" and wanted to go home and play with it. He had gotten some cool accessories from my parents that I think played a role in him wanting to play with it, so we packed up and headed home about 6:30 or so.

He and Matt played with it once we got home until bedtime. I'm not sure who likes it more :). It's a really neat castle with lots of special effects (trap doors, sound effects, etc). He even got a fire shooting dragon to go with it (Samuel's favorite!). I'm glad he likes it so much, even though I'm pretty sure he broke his Grammy's heart asking to go home early. He never asks to leave Grammy's house :).

I was so thankful for my precious family on Christmas Day. They are by far my greatest gifts, and I'll treasure the memories we made that day for a long time.

Christmas Eve

Matt was off the entire week of Christmas which was wonderful. We enjoyed having a couple of days with no big plans to just play and spend time as a family. We didn't have plans on Christmas Eve, so we thought it would be fun to spend the morning at the aquarium in Jenks. It was the first visit for the kids, and Nathan and Samuel had a great time.

They were interested in all the exhibits, and we saw lots of fish, crabs, alligators, otters, and  turtles.

One of their favorite parts was crawling through a tunnel and then up a ladder in the middle of a big tank. They spent close to thirty minutes playing in it.

Their other favorite part was the shark tunnel. They ran back and forth through it at least seven or eight times. They seemed to enjoy the tunnel part more than the shark part. They had a blast though and burned off a lot of energy.

We headed home around lunch time, and had a relaxing afternoon. That evening my parents joined us at our church's Candlelight communion service. It was a special time to focus our hearts on the true meaning of Christmas. It was also one of the first services where Nathan stayed with us instead of going to the nursery. He was so well behaved, and it was super sweet to hear him singing the Christmas carols. He even went up and sat on stage with the other children during the Advent lighting.

And it was fun to get a little more wear out of one of Elisabeth's Christmas dresses :). She slept through most of the service. I'm so thankful she is with us this Christmas.

After the service, we went to Braums for ice cream and then came home and put the kids to bed.

After the boys were asleep, Matt and I got busy getting ready for Christmas morning. Samuel's gift took a lot more assembly than we were expecting.

While Matt assembled toys, I stuffed their stockings, set up the video camera and rocked Elisabeth to sleep.

Once everything was ready for the morning, we headed to bed. I think i might have been more excited than Nathan about Christmas morning!

Christmas in Weatherford

The weekend before Christmas, we traveled to Weatherford to celebrate and spend time with family. We had a fun weekend.

The kids had fun playing with Matt's old toys while we were there.

We had Christmas lunch on Saturday with Matt's family and my grandparents. Afterward we opened presents.

The boys got some fun new costumes. They like to play dress up.

Later that afternoon, we headed to visit Momoo. The kids got more fun presents, and we visited and ate cake. We always look forward to Momoo's chocolate cake!

Sunday, we went to church. It was nice to see friends and family we don't get to see too often and to introduce our sweet Elisabeth to friends at church.

That evening, we visited Brandon, Mindy, Carter, and Addalie in Cordell. Nathan was so excited to play with Carter.  We ate supper and visited and then tried to keep the kids entertained with a TV show, so we could play a game. The boys watched it for a few minutes and then just ended up chasing each other around the house. They were good at playing together without needing adults to entertain them. Poor Samuel took on the Little Brother role that night. He wanted to play with them so badly, and Nathan and Carter didn't really want to include them in their game. Poor guy. He didn't seem too distressed though.

 We did manage to get one quick game in. Brandon and Mindy are one of our favorite couples to play games with. It was a lot easier to play before five kiddos came along :).

 On Monday, we had Christmas with Granny and Grandaddy. It brought back memories of when I was a kid celebrating Christmas at their house.

The weather was pretty mild, so the boys played outside before lunch.

Samuel had fun playing with cousin Declan. Granny saved a lot of my old toys. It's fun to watch my kids play with toys I played with all the time.

We had a delicious lunch with wonderful company. Matt's family joined us and Aunt Sydney, Lindsey and Declan came too.

Our family did not sleep well away from home, and the poor sleeping and wild nap schedule from the weekend finally caught up with Samuel after lunch. Poor guy, it took him a few days to recover from the lack of sleep :).

We left from Granny's house to head home that evening. All three kids slept hard in the car on the way back. They were worn out from the busy, exciting weekend!