2012...

We've had a crazy, busy 2012!  And we are very excited about welcoming 2013!  Colin has grown so much!  If you look at my other blog: Beane A Day, you'll see how much Colin has changed since the beginning of the year.  Unbelievable!

And this year we will have a precious baby girl joining us in May!  Oh and she has a name =)

Addison Elaine Beane

It is so exciting to now call her by her name!  We have liked the name Addison since we were pregnant with Colin (before we found out he was a boy, of course!)  And Elaine is Garet's grandmothers name.  It's perfect! 

Hope everyone has a safe, happy New Year's Eve!!! 
We are celebrating here in Morehead City!  I will update more later!

Our Wonderful Christmas...

This is going to be super long... I just put our Christmas with Garet's dad and our actual Christmas on the same post.  So, I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking =)

 

Garet's dad and his wife, Barbara, have a house in Wintergreen, VA, so we spent the week before Christmas there with them.  We went to the top of the mountain, and it was super cold, but so pretty!

 

There wasn't any snow that first day...

 

We looked all around the Wintergreen Resort - it was really nice!  There were some shops, restaurants, coffee places, fires...

 

It was like a big mountain lodge!  Really pretty.  And it was neat to see all the ski lifts outside.

Then next day we went back up the mountain and there was snow!  It was actually snowing a lot but none of it was sticking, but when we looked over that same overlook all the ski snow blowers were going!  It looked like a blizzard!  Colin kept calling it "hot", guess it does look like steam =)

 

We took advantage of the indoor pool.  Colin LOVED it!  You can see that there was a step next to the side that Colin could walk on.  He "ran" up and down, up and down...

 

Pop got out his tractor one day and took Colin on a ride!  This was awesome for Colin - he was so excited, but he didn't move a muscle when he was sitting there on the back =)  Wonder which one had more fun...

 

We brought lots of Colin's toys with us (you can see his beloved bike in the background), but Barbara had [TONS] of cars for Colin to play with, which he loved, and she brought out this little nativity set that they enjoyed playing with.

 

By the end of the week, one of Garet's sisters, Karen, and her family got there... here is Kathryn getting some cuddles...

 

And Suzi took over their dog, Jesse's, toys. 

 

The last night we were there we celebrated Christmas with them.  This is the box that Garet's gift came in:

 

"Bathe & Brew".... it was a fake box =)  But we weren's so sure at first. 
Here is Colin trying to climb up on Sam...

 

We had these poppers that when you pop them open them you get a little toy, a little page of jokes, and a crown...

 

Garet and his sister Karen, and her daughter Kathryn...

 

Are you still with me??? =)  Told ya it was long...
When we got back home, we decorated a gingerbread house.  This was a first.  Colin did really well with it, he really enjoyed taste testing the gumdrops!

 

And the finished house:

 

We also made a cake for Jesus Birthday!  I couldn't fit all the candles on there, so we just put one ;)

 

I mentioned in the previous post that we opened one gift on Christmas Eve... this was Colin getting his Christmas pjs:

 

And... that brings us to Christmas morning!  Santa came to visit our house, and Colin was super excited!  Not that he really "gets" it, but I think our excitement carried over to him.  When he walked downstairs he immediately ran over and said "BIKE!" and took off riding!

 

After a couple laps on the bike, he grabbed his grocery cart and made some rounds...

 

So funny!  He really loves grocery carts, the fake food, the cash register.... all of it!
I also kept the Beane tradition and made these cinnamon sticky buns.   The house smelled so good!  But as you can see, it made a lot!  (anyone want to come over for some buns?)

 

We spaced out our Christmas morning... so after Colin got all the gifts from Santa, we took a break for breakfast.  Then we got to opening our gifts to each other.

 

Suzi was obviously really excited about Christmas =) 

 

She pepped up once she got to open her stocking.
A little later, Garet got a fire going in the basement fireplace and we all hung out down there.  Garet's mom sent Colin one of her old desktop computers, soooo now Colin has a computer!  We got on PBS and got to play a few of the free kids games on there.  I am thinking that a couple computer games are on their way here soon.  But Colin loved it!  He is really good with the ones at the library.  Not that he knows at ALL what he is doing, but he is excited to just be doing something on the computer.   

 

A lot of the games just require the child to hit any keyboard key to make something happen. 

So, that was our Christmas in a nutshell!  We had so much fun traveling, but we really enjoyed having our own Christmas here!  It was relaxed and just great.  We even got to go on a walk that afternoon after naps.  It was perfect!

Last night when Garet put Colin to bed, I turned on the monitor before Garet left his room, and I was just in time to hear a tiny, sleepy, two year old saying "Merry Christmas...." before drifting off to sleep.  Precious.

Merry Christmas Eve...

We just got back from visiting with Garet's dad and one of his sisters.  I will have to post about it after Christmas - but we had a great time!  This year we decided that we were going to start our own traditions.  We were going to begin, from this year on, waking up at our house on Christmas morning.

 

I am so excited about this!  Starting our own family traditions!  Growing up I always woke up at my house with just my family to celebrate Christmas and Santa - so I am very excited to do that with my children.

 

Today was busy - this morning we decorated a gingerbread house and we made a cake for Jesus - after all it is his birthday!  That is one tradition that we are starting... I saw one of Garet's sisters do this a few years ago: singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and having a birthday cake.  I love that this is so visual for kids. Another one of the traditions that we are carrying on from Garet's family is Christmas morning cinnamon buns (from scratch!)  So, I began the process of making the bread this afternoon during Colin's nap.  And just finished so now I just have to pop them in the oven in the morning!

 

This evening we went to Christmas Eve service at church - it was wonderful!  I am LOVE religious Christmas music!  (Read: NOT "I saw mommy kissing Santa" or "Santa Baby" or any of those other crazy songs that start before Thanksgiving.)  I don't know about you, but I am seriously moved to tears at the Christmas Eve services.  I mean how GREAT IS OUR GOD?!?!  The song "Mary did you know" was played and I about lost it!  It is my favorite!  (google it if you don't know it!)  The fact that this young woman gave birth to Jesus Christ, the son of God!  I just can't wrap my mind around how she could have felt!  ..."Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?"..."when you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God."  Oh I love it!  It was a really great service!

 

After dinner, we got to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus, and Colin blew out his candle (yes we did it tonight).  He kept talking about "Baby Jes" [pronounced "Geez"].  Then he opened one gift.  It is a tradition from my side of the family... the Christmas Eve gift is always Christmas pjs.  And we did the last number on Colin's advent (which he LOVES to do!!) 

 

Since Colin's been in bed, Garet and I have been busy little elves =)  I don't have any pictures uploaded, so I will have to recap after Christmas.  I hope eveyone has very blessed Christmas.  I tried to put our Christmas card on here, but it said it was too big.  For those that haven't seen it, we did a bunch of outtakes on the front.  =)  Here is a "normal" one that we included on the back of our card:

 

Merry Christmas! 

Last week...

was super busy!  And super fun!
My parents came to visit!  We aren't going to see them for Christmas this year, so they came for a few days and we celebrated early!  We had so much fun with them!  Colin borrowed Papaw's hat and shoes...

He kept saying he was going fishing... I guess since there was a fish on my dad's Bass Pro hat =)  He went walking around the whole house with his new attire.

 

Garet and I had our big appointment where we found out we are expecting a girl!!  I blogged about this a few posts ago.  When I got home, I made some cookies for the cookie exchange party I went to that night.  I made the icing pink to announce the news to my girlfriends at the party... but before I left, we had to taste test the cookies!

 

The next day we got to hang out with some of my family that lives here - it was a lot of fun!  I didn't get any pictures though...
Then we woke up for an early Christmas!  I wanted to take a picture of our tree before we opened all the presents underneath - when I pulled out my camera, Colin ran.  Can you see his shadow in the picture??  =)  He didn't want his picture taken, but I got him anyway! 

We got lots of fun new stuff!  Suzi got a new bone, and Colin got a sleeping bag!  He loved it!!

 

And my parents gave Garet and Colin matching shirts!  They were made in NC mud!  How funny!  And don't they look so cute matching?!

 

So... we haven't really started potty training yet... Colin is very interested and let's me know when he needs a diaper change.  But I have decided that I am not going to push it.  The last thing I want is for it to be a big stressful thing, I figure when he is ready we will do it.  With that said... my parents gave Colin some new underware in his stocking!  And Colin was SUPER excited!  He wanted to put on a pair right away!  My mom grabbed the camera and I said, "stick out your booty to show Grandmama Thomas!"  And this is what we got:

 

He is so funny!  But he loved the big boy undies, to say the least!  I know that time is coming soon!
Garet and I managed to get a date night too!  Movie and dinner!  It was so nice - it is always nice to get some just the two of us time. 

My parents before we left for church... we are now packing to go see Garet's family for Christmas! 

Santa...

We took Colin to see Santa!  He has always done so well - no tears at all =) 

I thought it would be fun to look back at all his Santa pictures:

 

2010 - he was almost 3 months old 

 

2011 - He was 1 year and 3 months:

 

And this year.... he is almost 2 years and 3 months!

 

This Santa gave him a little Thomas the train he could hold!
What a sweet little angel we have =)

It's a...

GIRL!!!!!

We are sooo excited!  We went in on Thursday morning - at 18 weeks - and saw our precious, perfect baby girl! 
My parents are here, so we were able to go without Colin.  This was nice because the ultrasound takes quite awhile... they measure everything (arm bones, leg bones, head, stomach...) and they look for all the organs (heart, heart valves, bladder, diaphragm, brain...), so we got to see our girl for quite a while.  It was great!  And she sure was excited!  She kept kicking and kicking!  Then when the ultrasound tech tried to show us some 4D pictures of her face, she kept her hands up... like she was a fighter blocking herself =)  then she would throw some punches!  haha  It was amazing.
I am so excited to have one of each, but a little nervous... I'm used to being a boy mom!  What kind of girl mom will I be????  Will I dress her in all the frilly, pink stuff???  I doubt it, but who knows =)  Can't wait!!
We feel so truly blessed with this little miracle! 

The zoo...

Sunday, we went to Asheboro Zoo!  We went with another couple and their little girl (who is only a couple months older than Colin).  Colin was very excited about it =)

 

It was a little overcast at first, but by lunch it was nice and sunny!  We saw tons of animals, and this zoo is really good about keeping a natural habitat for the animals.  They had tons of room to roam, so I was glad we saw all of them!  Here is the rhinoceroses. 

 

Then we saw some monkeys.  They had just finished cleaning their area, so when they came out it was like a herd!

 

Abby and Colin were a little more interested in the little chipmunk that was hiding in the rock in front of them than the monkey's.  =)

 

There were statues that the kids could sit on too.  Here is the rhino

 

We got a good view of the elephants!  Colin really liked seeing them.  He is good at imitating an elephant.... he will throw his arm up like a trunk and make the noise.  It's really cute.

 

There was a spot where the kids could "fly" a helicopter.  This was a HUGE hit!

 

Then they got in the back and Garet "flew" them around.

 

There were giraffes.

 

Colin did awesome, I don't think he whined or cried once.  He even walked most of the time!  And it was a lot of walking!  He mainly liked to kick the dirt on the side of the walkway though.  I got a close up of my handsome boy!

 

When we got to the chimps, there was one sitting next to the glass eating.

 

And then when we got to the gorillas, this big guy started heading out way!

 

He also stopped in front of us to eat.  And Colin was really excited about this!  I couldn't capture it in the picture, but he was jumping up and down!

 

We saw tons of other animals!  Fox, some weird pig, ostrich, zebras...
One of our last stops was the bird atrium... and if you know me, you know I do NOT like birds.  So I was a little freaked out in there.  But I found shelter under some overhang and snapped this of my boys...

We had packed picnics so we grabbed lunch.  Then we headed back towards the parking lot to leave.  And look what happened....

 

Aren't they cute?! 

We had a blast!