So long, 2011. You were cool and all, but I have PLANS in 2012 and they cannot get here fast enough.

In January I adjusted to being a mother of 2 by almost falling apart and dispensing tons of helpful advice, but I also discovered how much I LOVED having another kid. I shared pictures of Caroline’s nursery, posted my tutu tutorial (one of my top posts ever!) and failed at cloth diapers.

In February I made some muffins, which might have contributed to my slightly ranty post about my feelings on dieting.  I had a huge realization about why doing the dishes wasn’t such a chore after all – although honestly, I should reread that once a week, since I’ve pretty much forgotten it again. Because I like embarrassing myself, I shared my high school poetry anthology and I talked about headbands. A lot.

In March I failed at parenting not once, but twice. I tried to decide if the kids looked alike or not. And I bemoaned how even good advice isn’t always good.

In April, Evan turned 2 and we gave him a room makeover and an awesome birthday party. I embraced my inner hippie and joined a CSA (which turned out to be a GREAT decision). I knit some cute stuff while avoiding knitting the sweaters I’ve had started for more than a year. I had totally forgotten I made these scones until just now but I’m definitely making some this weekend.

In May I discovered Pinterest and my life was never the same. I tried to explain how hard it is to get things done when you ALSO have two kids to watch. I dressed Caroline up for a baby fashion show. To battle the evils months I reorganized my pantry and made it prettier. And then my toddler drove me to drink by asking WHY a zillion times.

In June I made a list of ways I might be crazy, but it turns out a lot of you are crazy too. We took on the hugest house project to date and built ourselves a gorgeous patio. Caroline had her half birthday – and it’s so crazy to look back at my just-barely-sitting-up and not-yet-crawling baby compared to the second half of the year! I wrote about the evils of Pull-Ups  and the joys of my amazing stroller.  And I complained for the zillionth time how parenting feels unequal.

In July I joined Weight Watchers (something I see to have forgotten recently) and  shared some of the amazing handmade shops I’ve found. I took a lot of adorable pictures at Lake Compounce and the Sunflower Festival.

In August I went to BlogHer, posted my 1000th post, and celebrated my 7th wedding anniversary. I dorked out with my kid’s dinosaurs and Caroline took her first step. I also baked a galette and redecorated my living room. And we all survived Hurricane Irene with minimal fuss.

In September I made a lot of stuff, like sriracha and cupcakes and shit with pinecones, which is one of my top visited posts ever. We went to the beach, which was epic. I decided having two kids wasn’t so bad after all.

In October we went to the fair and I met one of my long time interwebs friends IRL. We had a Halloween party where Caroline was her sunshiney self. Evan turned two and a half. I did that stupid accent meme vlog and I told the story about how I was once almost in a movie.

In November I posted every frickin day, which is too exhausting to recap.

In December I tried and failed at twinkle pics of the kids. I declared potty training a success but not necessarily a happy one but having a two year old is still kinda awesome.  I made super delicious cookies and the internet agreed. Caroline turned one and I threw her a pretty nice party. Then we tortured the kids with the all important Santa picture and had a very nice Christmas.

Whoa, I sort of can’t believe all the stuff happened – and that I wrote about all of it. I think I liked 2011 better than 2010, mostly because I was less sick, not pregnant and really let myself blog for the love of blogging (mostly). I am going to KEEP enjoying myself in 2012 and I’d be honored if you decided to keep reading.

Happy 32 Monthday Little Evan! You are only Little Evan here on the blog, and even most of our friends have stopped calling you Baby Evan. I haven’t thought of you as a baby in a long time, but the extent to which you are an actual human person astounds me on a daily basis. Because it is one thing to grow a baby – babies are tiny and helpless and they need you for everything so the fact that you made them with your body is impressive but not unbelievable. But once that baby turns into an independent being that can walk and talk and feed itself and tell jokes and recognize emotions and wear underpants it’s a totally mind-blowing experience. No one ADDED anything to that baby I grew (unless you count the truly impressive number of Goldfish he’s consumed in the past 2.5 years) but now he counts to 20 and can put on his shoes and use an iPad and help me decorate for Christmas and recognize his friends on the internet.

Of course he can also punch me in the face and scream at me in public and throw epic temper tantrums and push his sister and refuse to pick up the toys he just threw all over the floor and feed his breakfast to the dog and fall out of his stroller and drive me to the brink of insanity. He’s equally good at being both a functional human being and a sociopath. I think most toddlers are.

(Sidenote: I think at this point “toddler” is exceedingly inaccurate, but since he’s not in any kind of school “preschooler” sounds like I’m getting ahead of myself. CAROLINE is a toddler. She toddles. Evan hasn’t toddled in more than a year. Is there an in-between word?)

This week Evan ran up to me and said “Mommy, can’t locate the kitty cat!” He says stuff like that all the time now and constantly blows me away with his vocabulary. I can hardly believe I was concerned enough about his speech to have the early intervention people come out. It’s a good example of how the age range on milestones is REALLY A RANGE and just because you know a 2 year old who holds entire conversations about abstract concepts like poor choices versus wise choices doesn’t mean your kid is behind.

Potty training update: Day time training is done. Diapers at night and nap until he stops waking up SO wet, although yesterday he stayed dry during nap so we might be getting closer. He never uses the diaper on purpose – since he woke up dry I left him in it for a couple hours and he still told me when he had to potty. I think that means I can declare success.

He is at an age where he is super excited to see me, even if I only left the room for a minute. It’s good for my ego. Even my dog isn’t that happy when I walk into a room. And my dog doesn’t give such great hugs or laugh in the most infectious way ever. Almost every night before bed, Little Evan tells me “Mommy, so happy. So happy.” And I tell him “I’m so happy too, buddy.”

Favorite things include Mickey Mouse, jumping, hide and seek, boats, fire trucks, piggy back rides, sitting in a grown up chair, kitty cats, pillows, his blankie, rubbing noses, his sister, lemonade, lollipops, splashing, and hugs.

Least favorite things include holding still, being out of milk,  sharing when he doesn’t want to, mommy’s angry face, broken nails, and when the kitty cat runs away.

 32 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Recites own name – Yes! He uses his name most of the time instead of personal pronouns.
• Draws a circle – Yes, but he calls them other things, like kitties or dinosaurs.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Puts on a T-shirt – Yes but is much faster at taking OFF his clothes.
• Balances on each foot for a second – I said yes to this last month, so I made him do it to test and make sure. Yes.
• Recognizes ABCs – Some of them. Not all of them. He’s better at words than letters.
• Brushes teeth by himself – Yes, and we’re about ready to upgrade to real toothpaste because he’s figured out spitting.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Uses two adjectives – He knows lots of adjectives. His favorite one this week is “AWESOME!” Everything thing is AWESOME.
• Draws a cross – No.
• Points to objects described by use – Yes, and is especially good at things the baby needs. He’s an excellent big brother.

That’s a total lie. I just got SUPER DUPER LUCKY with the VERY FIRST SHOT I took yesterday morning when I tried my hand at a holiday twinkle lights bokeh photo shoot  (inspired by Jill & Pinterest).

Like I said, this is the very first shot, straight out of the camera. No Photoshop or processing.

Of course, the rest of my shots look like this:

For some reason when I set my camera (Nikon D90) on the A setting (which I am told stands for Aperture Preferred) so I can manually choose to shoot at 1.8 only 1 out of every 3 shots comes out right. The first one is good, the second is dark, the third is darker. Every time. I’m not switching angles or settings or anything, so I don’t know why the camera keeps changing its mind, but if someone could make it just always shoot like that first photo that would be super awesome.

Oh my God I am the WORST. I have this fancy, expensive camera and a whole bag full of lenses and I shoot in auto almost all the time with no real intentions of learning how to use manual. Like I said, THE WORST.

Here’s a couple more I managed to salvage with some editing:

Since I was trying to get photos to use on the mantle for Caroline’s party I went out and bought a silver sparkly dress (because the theme is sparkly snowflakes with lots of silver, light blue and light pink). So now she will match her decorations (CRAZY ALERT DING DING). But I ALSO bought an outfit for her to wear TO the party, because I didn’t want her to be wearing the same dress in the decorations as on the day (DING DING DING DING EFFING DING). I’ll try the twinkly light shoot again this weekend when E is home to a) help get the baby to look/smile and b) help me use my camera since he’s the one who read the instruction book.

Today I am thankful for photographs (even the ones that live in my computer instead of on my walls) so I can remember weekends like this one.

And YOU can be either a) thankful for something to look at on the internet besides funny misspelled kitten pictures b) thankful for the “x” in the upper right hand corner so you can skip a zillion pictures from our weekend and go look at funny misspelled kitten pictures instead. Here, let me help you.

Zombie Baby hunts for trees AND brains

Helping Daddy cut down the tree

How am I supposed to eat leaves off that tree if it doesn't have any?

A gaggle of gingers

Evan tried to ride the tree and ended up dragged across the field instead.

Family Photo avec un two and a half year old

Ridin' dirty

We accidentally went to the local holiday parade because it was at the end of our street.

Giving the traffic cop the side-eye

Parade dog

He liked the fire trucks

The parade was at least 50% emergency vehicles

Self portrait in my husband's glasses

I'd say she liked the parade

So cute

Best seat on the street

Colored lights & a lifetime of ornaments on the tree

Helpers

Twinkly

Failed (mostly) photo shoot

The magic of Christmas

Sharing his holiday spirit with you

Thank you to LiveOn for this sponsored opportunity to blog about storing and sharing my most important memories with those closest to me. Although story ideas were provided, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

There are a lot of ways to share photos online. Email. Facebook. Shutterfly. Snapfish. Flickr. Blogs. I use all of them, in one way or another, on a weekly basis. It’s great that even though they’re far away (or far far away) (or really really far far away – Hi Carolyn!) my friends and family can see little parts of our lives.

I sometime worry about the impermanence of all those formats though. I realize once you put something on the internet you have to be prepared for it to be out there in the world forever (did you hear that, teenage cousins on Facebook? FOREVER), but what happens if my server crashes? What happens when I lose my password or my account gets hacked? What happens if the hard drive where I stored all the photos from Little Evan’s first year of life fails unexpectedly and they are lost forever (true – very sad – story)? (more…)