2010 Year In Review

2010 was an exciting year for the Eyes. Last year at this time we were ringing in the New Year under a Florida sky with family. This year we are all back to normal life, off to our respective parties and ventures, Tim at work and me and Becka chilling in a new home with the new little munchkin. What a difference a year makes.

Here are some of the past year's adventures, the most memorable of which involve people we love dearly:

JANUARY brought some much-needed New England snow adventures with friends, including visits with long-time CO friend who has been stalking me around the country. We never did make it to the ski slopes, knowing the NW and CO mountains would probably provide better memories...



In FEBRUARY we found out we'd be expecting a third family member in October!!! Hello, life changing event! And Tim treated me to a fabulous Vday scavenger hunt around Boston.






MARCH was made awesome by a visit from our good friends the Browns. One of the major major major drawbacks of choosing to leave Tacoma was missing living near friends like these.


In APRIL we had a final stellar trip to the Big Apple, this time with friends to give us a tour of all the things we wish we'd known about the first few times we were there! Goodbye, NYC and your magic and cupcakes. April was doubly awesome because more Tacoma friends came to visit, the Helleksons! Of course we had to experience our last Red Sox (defeat against the Yanks) game. We topped off the month with a final visit to our friends the Campbells in NJ - one of the biggest bummers of saying goodbye to the East Coast!


MAY is always fabulous - celebrating our anniversary, Tim's birthday, and sure Spring. This year we truly enjoyed camping in Acadia National Park in Maine (again stalked by CO friend). A special thanks to blueberry froyo. To top that off, I BECAME A MASTER! I graduated from BUSPH with my MPH and look forward to working with community nutrition and HIV/AIDS programs in the future.


JUNE was our final month in Boston, after 2 years we will remember and treasure. We toured some great hidden places along the coast with friends, left our furniture on the sidewalk in front of our apartment, and hugged our landlady goodbye. Off to our next adventure...





Which was Europe in JULY! We accepted an invitation to visit good friends living in Paris, and took a side trip to show Tim Vienna, where I studied during college. The miles we walked there were an appropriate close to our foot-driven lives in Boston. Nonetheless important was the wedding of my brother and his wife in Colorado!



AUGUST was spent visiting friends and family in Tacoma and beginning to settle into our new season of sharing a home with my parents. The Rocky Mountains are an inviting sight to be explored in the coming years.


SEPTEMBER started with an extended family reunion for my grandma's 90th birthday, and the rest was consumed with Tim's new Starbucks in downtown Denver, and (too) much baby preparation that spilled into


OCTOBER. The month that changed our lives! Whoa, baby. We became parents.





NOVEMBER: I turned 30. And barely noticed amid sleep deprivation, postpartum recovery, and baby bliss. All immediate family is together for Thanksgiving for the first time in X (8?) years.


DECEMBER has been a fabulous month of settling into a new routine as parents, being close to family, and praying for snow for some nearby tromping:)




2010 has topped any other year so far in our experience, and we can't imagine what 2011 will bring. Looking back we are so thankful to God for His blessing, guidance and provision. We pray that all we have and receive in 2011 will bring Him glory.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

A Fairy Merry Christmas (and a Song)

Avery was very jolly for her first Christmas. She opened her stocking (my mom made) and flew around in some fancy fairy wings. It was a blessed day with family!

We wish we could carol at all of your homes. But this will have to do instead. Here's our 2010 yuletide song - Time Of Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2 months!

Avery is growing! She weighed in at 12 lbs 2 oz yesterday, 83% for her age (but 76% for height). She's our chunky monster!

We're busy being Christmasy with decorations and lots, lots, lots of sugar. Also working on a little Christmas jingle from the Eyes, so stay tuned.

Looking forward to having all the CO family together to enjoy it all!

Oh Christmas Tree

Tree trek accomplished! Gotta love tromping into the forest to cut your own tree for super cheap. Never mind the 6 hour process, and missing snow. We went with my friend Kathryn and her family and their truck, thank God! This allowed us to get a big one, between 15-18 feet we think (About half the size of Kathryn's, whoa).

Avery was an angel baby and slept the whole time pretty much, enjoying the fresh air. Had to take the opportunity to utilize the newborn Santa suit into which we squeezed her for the photo opp:)And another funny note, I saw this picture of our friend Elsa in CA who is a little older than Avery. I thought it bore a striking resemblance to someone I know! Friends from afar!
Finally, we decorated a million Christmas cookies this weekend and had an unfortunate fatality.
The rest are OK if anyone wants to enjoy them with us, we have plenty of extras!

So Many Smiles!

Grunter has been letting out some serious cuteness lately. Smiles are a daily occurrence now that we're to 7 weeks. We had a little photo shoot this morning before bath time, and I was also able to capture some good ones yesterday. How do you expect me to choose just a few of the cutest baby alive? So here are a LOT. Enjoy.





We also went to church yesterday and spent the morning with the Broweleit clan and their visiting grandparents, getting ready for Baby girl's arrival on Wednesday! Can't wait for Avery to have a playmate!

ready for church, unenthused

wait mom, you're going to keep me company in the back of the car!?

We took the opportunity to get a family Christmas shot. Now we're three!

It's quite an adjustment just having endless days at home with no real agenda and only Avery (and Gracie) to take care of. Time to meet new moms and join groups of some sort. Nights are tricky still; she'll sleep anywhere from 4-5 hours straight (the other night!!) to not sleeping more than 5-10 minutes at a time before fussing and grunting her life away (so it seems) for a couple hours. Calls for some patience (and naps).

But I love my girl! It's just you and me, kid.

Tiny, Tiny Apartment

If you have enjoyed the homemade music we've been making over the last two years, you can download an album of our personal favorites here. We've always liked the idea of "do-it-yourself" and "use-what-you-got". (Also, Tim likes the concept of "shake-it-like-a-Polaroid-picture"). So in our cramped Boston brownstone we decided to record our own tunes. Click here if you want to enjoy some handcrafted melodies from Massachusetts.

6 week happenings

We've made it 6 weeks! Supposedly recovery is supposed to be over at this mark, but I think I'll be going for awhile longer still. Friday was my first day home alone with the babe and the dog since my parents went to Florida for awhile. We celebrated by washing hair:

And we've been getting some social smiles over the past week or so. More pics to come as I can capture it.

We still need more recovery time from our 3 Thanksgivings, which were all fabulous.

We took our first walk as a family of three (plus Gracie) to Starbucks yesterday.

It's awfully quiet around here (when she decides to sleep)!