2013 in Review

 

I can’t believe another year is coming to an end. I love looking back on pictures from the year to remind myself of all that we experienced and learned. While there were no huge events this year in the Cody family, there were lots of little fun milestones throughout the year.

In February we had snow! We just-so-happened to be at a wedding shower for BJ & Jenipher and we weren’t really prepared to play outside!

In March we took a trip to the NC Zoo. It was the kids’ first trip and they loved it!

Our sweet five-month-old Abigail enjoyed her first solid foods. She hasn’t stopped eating since!!

Also in March, we celebrated Easter with our usual egg hunt at church and reading about the Resurrection at home.

Later in March, we celebrated the marriage of my brother BJ to his new wife Jenipher. They had a beautiful wedding outdoors and she has been a great addition to our family. Leah got to be the flower girl and she loved being a princess.

In April I took a trip with the kids to visit Mom & Dad in the Outer Banks. We enjoyed spending time exploring new sites there.

In May we took some spring photos for Mother’s Day.

And Leah danced in her very first dance recital, rounding out her first full year of ballet and tap combo class. She loves dancing!

In June I took another trip with the kids, this time to the mountains for our annual visit to my friend Sarah’s house. We also met my friend Elizabeth there with her kids. We spent a lot of time outdoors that week.

In July we went with some of the young adults from church to the beach for the day.

And Andrew turned 3 years old! We took him on a real train ride for his birthday. He’s been very into trains ever since.

 

Abigail started pulling herself to standing in July, also, officially entering her stage of mischievous curiosity. Our lives haven’t been the same!

We took another trip to the Outer Banks later in July and the kids enjoyed their first game of Putt-Putt golf.

We visited Colossal Coaster World for Vacation Bible School week at church this year.

In August, Leah started her kindergarten year of homeschool. What an adventure it has been! She is so easy to teach and has really taken off with her reading, as well as math! She loves to learn and picks things up very easily. Most of the time Andrew wants to do whatever it is Leah is doing, even if he isn’t really able, but more often than not, he goes off and does his own thing while Leah & I have school. We also started the adventure of Classical Conversations, a local homeschool group that meets every Monday morning. Leah loves her teacher and all her friends in her class and it’s a great way to be sure she’s learning everything she needs to learn!

At the end of August, our sweet Princess turned 5 years old. It’s unbelievable how grown up she’s getting to be and how much she’s able to do on her own now. We had a fun little party with her friends from church at the church playground.

In September we enjoyed the fall weather and one weekend took a trip to Fayetteville to a Children’s Museum and had a fun time together as a family.

In October we took a trip to a pumpkin patch with our MOPS group. MOPS has been a great little outlet for all of us. The kids get a chance to be around other kids their age and I get a chance to hang out with other moms experiencing the same types of things I’m going through.

At the end of October the littlest Cody turned one year old! She loved her pink polka dot birthday party with family at home!

For Thanksgiving, Brett was finally able to enjoy an entire week of vacation. We spent a few days in the Outer Banks, including one night alone without the kids, where we spent some time in the Duck area and saw the Currituck Lighthouse.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we took our annual family trip to Meadow Lights and saw Santa Claus! We put up our Christmas decorations and officially ushered in the season! We had a great Christmas and saw how we are truly blessed.

Family Christmas, Part 2

 

Grandma & Grandpa Claus came Saturday with a sack-load of presents for our family! There were even more than what Santa brought!!

Before we opened gifts, we spent some time just hanging out around the house. We enjoyed having Grandma & Grandpa there the night before & all day Saturday. We played Boggle with Mom, and Andrew had to have a pen and paper just like Daddy. He even wrote scribbles on there just like we did. We ate a lot of junk food and the kids jumped on Grandma & Grandpa’s air mattress.

Finally, when Uncle BJ & Jenipher got there, we opened presents! There was even more pandemonium than Christmas morning! Paper & presents everywhere! I didn’t even get to see half of what was opened because there was so much!

Leah loved her new dolls: Barbie’s sister, Ken, and a little Sophia doll. She loved her new Bible that she can almost read herself. She also loved her Sophia “amulet”—a huge “talking” necklace. She also got a tiara from Aunt Karen that she said was from a “real” Princess. That’s just what Leah needs to hear to make something special.

  

Abigail loved her stuffed elephant. She loved her shape sorter picnic basket (another addition to our pink Fisher Price collection!). She loved her ball-popping bug that crawls around. And her musical piano. (Why does everything this kid has have to make noise?!)

   

Here’s a little video of her delicately opening her gift:

Even Uncle BJ enjoyed Abigail’s picnic basket! Isn’t it pretty on him?

 

Andrew loved the additional track pieces for his wooden train. He also loved his motorcycles and his big truck with a horse carrier. He loved his Charlie Brown playset, a big puzzle of things that go, pattern block puzzles, and Leap Frog Letter Factory game.

   

Oh, there aren’t any pictures of me or Brett, but we did well this Christmas too! We got some pots and other utensils for the kitchen, Target gift cards, some shirts, body wash, and plenty of other treats! We also got a couple games as a family: Sequence for Kids, an adding & subtracting game, and a world map puzzle. I can’t think of anything we lack and again am reminded how blessed we are!

Christmas Day 2013

 

Christmas morning the kids were up by 6:45. I was able to feed Abigail before Brett went to get them. Here is a little clip of their first reaction to the Christmas tree. I didn’t get any more video because I just wanted to enjoy the time!

They loved that Santa wrote them a note back (Leah had drawn a picture for him). Although Leah was most excited that he knew their names! Andrew was most excited that the reindeer had eaten their carrots and Santa had eaten the cookies.

 

They wasted no time tearing into the presents. It was mass chaos and they were probably done in about 20 or 30 minutes. No sooner was one open then they were looking for the next. Andrew did ask for us to open each toy after he’d unwrapped it, though, and we had to make him wait until he’d unwrapped everything!

  

I managed to get all of them to stop at some point to look at the camera:

  

Little Miss Abigail is at the right age to just start to understand how to open presents. She would watch her brother & sister for cues and when we prompted her, she’d start to rip hers. She’d rip them just enough to see what was inside and then start playing with it. Once she was done with hers’, she’d finally gotten the hang of it and then she wanted to open all mine.

  

Among Abigail’s favorite gifts: a little purse that sings when you put the things inside, a ball ramp (drop the balls in the top & they spin down to the bottom), a puppy shape sorter from Uncle Brian, a little vanity that sings with a comb & makeup brush from Aunt Brenda’s family (she immediately kissed her reflection in the mirror), and some ABC blocks. We now have no less than 4 pink Fisher Price toys that play MUSIC.

   

Andrew might have been the most excited about his gifts and has played with them the most since Christmas. He got some little trains that go around without a track, a HUGE rescue helicopter from Aunt Brenda’s family, a semi truck that carries other cars from Uncle Brian, a toy shaving set (to which he immediately asked to go shave with Daddy), a toy shopping cart (he really just wanted something to be able to push his toys around the house with), and a treasure chest full of polished rocks!

    

Leah’s Christmas was of course filled with Princesses. She got an Ariel costume and a Barbie skirt. Since she never specified to Santa whether she wanted a BIG Aurora doll or a LITTLE Aurora doll, she got both (one is baby doll sized and the other is Barbie-doll sized). She got a set of wooden magnetic paper dolls from Brian and a huge plush Sophia doll from Nana. She also got a real necklace with a heart pendant from Daddy. She was also excited about nail polish & perfume in her stocking. It was a lot of fun buying for my big girl!

  

   

We were so blessed to be able to afford so many nice things for them this year. Every year we wonder if we’ll be able to get as much and every year God provides so the kids have some great things! I hope, though, that they won’t remember just what they got but that we all got to enjoy spending the time together at Christmas!