highlights of 2011

this has been a strange year. it's really hard to believe that the first half and the second half are all in the same year. they're that different.

january saw Brian and i training for the Austin Livestrong Marathon. when we discovered that a student at our childrens' school had been diagnosed with leukemia, we turned our training into a fundraising effort. Run for Ricky raised nearly $2000 to help the Zamora family. Margaret started Girl Scout cookie sales mid month and basketball season started for the kids at the YMCA. Brian turned 38 at the end of the month.

february had us running a lot, finishing up our marathon training. thankfully neither of us were ending the season with injuries. i gave a bridal shower for my friend Jess, and also helped her with wedding preparations. Brian and i celebrated Valentine's Day with a dinner at Eastside Cafe. a few days later we witnessed our friends, Chris and Jess say their wedding  vows. two days later we celebrated Samuel's 10th birthday, the same day Brian and i ran a marathon together, my 6th and Brian's 5th. the highlight was seeing the Zamora family sitting on the curb at mile 23. the last week of february we had a good amount of snow and the very rare snow day from school. it was all fun and games until memorial day rolled around and the kids realized that they had to go to school that day to make up for the snow day.

march blew in and i spent all my money on pregnancy tests. Brian and i had discussed on Valentine's Day how cool adding another person to our family would be. i was pregnant by the end of the week. i took a total of ten pregnancy tests until i got three positives on march 9th. i'll never forget riding my bike across town to Dollar Tree and buying a handful of tests that morning. when they showed up positive, i took a picture and texted it to Brian. we took a trip out west to Big Bend for spring break. i continued my work at the church on tuesdays and thursdays, and also teaching sunday school in the 4 year old class.

april was the month of daddy's birthday, and Easter, and Margaret's 12th birthday, and the birth of my third niece, Anni Noble. april also ushered in morning sickness like i'd never experienced before.

may came in hotter than usual. little did we know what extreme temps lay ahead for us! we made a trip down to Galveston to celebrate William's 9th birthday and stayed in our neighbor, Dan's cottage on the island. the kids skipped out on their snow makeup day while we splashed around in the gulf.

june brought the last day of school and John's 7th birthday. we celebrated by going to Schlitterbahn with Karen, Keegan, and Jules. we swam a lot in June. we also decided to make a drastic change and homeschool the kids for the next school year. once we decided that, we ordered our materials and got busy. Brian coached Samuel's little league baseball team, and William and John played baseball at the Y. Margaret had a great season swimming with the Patterson Pirhanas.

july was hot as a fire cracker. Independence Day celebrations were cancelled all over the state because of the extreme draught, and everything everywhere was dry and brown. we took the trailer out to Pedernales State Park where we met up with our friends, the Simpsons. we managed to find some water in the river there, water that wasn't stagnant, which made our camping trip way more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.

august started out with a trip down to the gulf with my family. it was such fun to have all the cousins together, as well as Leah, Thomas, and i. that doesn't happen so much these days. the next week, we took a road trip east through the deep south, ending up in Gulf Shores, AL. where we met up with Brian's family. once we got home, we began schooling in earnest.

september brought more heat and hundreds of wildfires in central texas. it seemed like the whole state was burning up. Brian and i took a babymoon the weekend of my birthday and went up to Jefferson. i turned 36 this  month. the kids started soccer at the Y.

october came and so did a little rain. i ran in the IBM Uptown Classic 10K at the beginning of the month. Brian and i celebrated 14 fabulous years together on the 11th, and then we all began to get more excited about Hazel's arrival. the kids all dressed up as pirates for Halloween and i dressed as a pumpkin.

november brought Hazel Jane. we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and then went up to Kilgore to celebrate with Brian's family. Margaret and Samuel ran their first 5K and did remarkably well.

december was filled with school, shopping, cooking, and crafting. we all got sick and were out of commission for a couple of weeks. we celebrated Christmas with as many relatives as possible and spent the last week of the year up in Kilgore with Brian's family, including his sister and her husband who came down from Nashville.

this has been such a full and beautiful year for me personally. God has been so merciful to me. words fail me.

i look forward with great hope and anticipation to the new year and what He has in store.