Christmas Part 1

On Christmas day we headed to church in the morning. After church we headed home to eat leftovers from Christmas Eve's lunch and opened presents before Canon napped. I loved that we were able to have some time together as a family on Christmas day. We also had a stocking full of gifts for a needy family in Will's stocking. We enjoyed seeing it by the tree and explaining to Canon all about it. 

After Canon's nap we packed up our car for the week and heading to visit Will's grave, then headed to Jess's parents which thankfully only live 45 minutes away. This is the first Christmas in four years we haven't had to hop on a plane and carefully plan all of our gifts so they will fit in suitcases. It was nice. 

Will's grave on Christmas day. 

We had a wonderful few days at the Rainer's. All of Jess's brothers were in town, so it was fun to be around everyone. All the daughter in laws cooked Christmas dinner on Monday evening. On Tuesday we all went to the Opryland Ice exhibit. We always play a game as a family one of the evenings, so Tuesday evening we played and had lots of laughs. On Wednesday we all headed out. 

Trying to get a sister in law picture. Ha! 

Thank you Rainer family for a wonderful time!

Funnies

Canon talks pretty well and most of the time we can understand him. He seems to be pretty witty and we are really enjoying what he says (for now anyway).

Some things he has been saying that are funny to us.

• Upt for up
• "Look mommy, cars running." We were sitting in our car and he was watching the cars drive by
• He has been putting "so much" on the end of his sentences. "Thank you so much" and "Love you so much" ;)
• Yelling "BEEP BEEP" as an older woman was backing up in her powered wheel chair at the grocery store
• When he is running or throwing a ball he says, "Two One Five".
• Old McDonald is called the "Duck Duck Song".
• An older woman with white hair waved and said hello to Canon at the grocery store. Canon looked up with a smile, waved, and said, "Hi Grandma". His grandma's do not have white hair, not even close. He's a character. 
• We are now in the stage of "What's that?" and "What you doing mommy?". These questions are asked many many times a day. :) 

I know I am forgetting some, but these are a good start.

Rachel

2011 in Review

A recap of our year.

Not sure why some pictures are all over the place.

January

Moved to our new home in TN from NC

Unpacked and starting preparation for Will's arrival

Had our first preview service for  Grace Church

February

Toughest month of our lives to date

Welcomed and said goodbye to our son, William Thomas

Lots of family and friends in town

March

Canon dropped down to one nap

Visited our dear friends in Alabama

Took a trip to IL to see my parents

April

One of my dearest friends, Chalise and her baby girl came for a visit. So good to see her and catch up.

I left Canon for the first time (well besides being in the hospital) to go a friend's wedding in IL

Went to your first Easter hunt

Celebrated Jess's 26th Birthday with a a little get-away for the first time since C was born

Our church plant launched this month

May

Canon's first trip to a zoo - The Nashville Zoo

Trip to IL to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday. Saw lots of family I hadn't seen in years.

Aunt Erin and Maggie came for a few days

June

Celebrated four years of marriage

Trip to Phoenix for the Southern Baptist Convention. All the Rainer's vacationed together! So fun!

Trip to Murray for Maggie's 1st Birthday

Our friend Robin and her son Elijah came for a visit from NC. Very much enjoyed our time together.

July

Went to the pool numerous times. Canon loved the water and mastered the baby slide.

4th of July - Went to a festival with Jess's parents where we saw a parade and a petting zoo.

Canon's first boat ride out on the lake

Trip to IL to go to the 4-H Livestock Fair where I used to show livestock for years. Canon loved it!

                                                                     August

Canon's 2nd trip to the beach. Went to Cape San Blas, FL and vacationed with both sets of grandparents. We had such a wonderful time!

Canon had his first day of school - Mother's Day Out!

Jess and I went to a Titan's Football Game

Remembered our Will at the 6 month mark of his death

September

Took Canon to ride Thomas the Train. A wonderful family day!

Canon got invited and went to his first big boy birthday party at Monkey Joes

Jess performed his first wedding ceremony for one of his best friends. My mom kept Canon while we went to KY for the weekend! So good to catch up with old friends from college and see our sister in law and niece!

October

Celebrated Canon's 2nd Birthday!!

Went to the pumpkin patch

Went to Ridgecrest where Jess had his first solo speaking engagement about his book

I went to NC for a conference and had a wonderful time hanging out with old co-workers and friends from seminary!

Brought cupcakes to Canon's Mother's Day Out class for his birthday.

Trip to IL for a wedding. Canon's first wedding.

Canon's 1st experience with trick or treating

First family movie night - watched Rio with popcorn

November

( didn't take many pictures this month )

Canon's 1st haircut ever!

Jess and I painted some walls in our house

Attended a Remembrance Service in
honor of Will

Jess and Canon started "guy time" once a week and still do it every week

Celebrated Thanksgiving with both sides of the family. First time with my family in 4 years



December

ER visit with Canon. He was very sick with pneumonia, bronchitis, strep throat, and the list goes on.

Canon finally started taking longer naps again!

Mam-aw (my mom) came for a visit

Attended lots of Christmas parties

Went to the ICE exhibit at Opryland twice

Took a trip to see Santa for the first time


Had a wonderful Christmas with both sides of the family.

 

       

 

Missed my calling in life

This past week I have been super busy organizing this house. We live in a fairly small house (but much bigger than the townhouse we lived in for four years while attending seminary), so I like everything to have it's place and not be cluttered. This is a complete different outlook and change from when I was in high school and college. I guess living in a tiny space for four years will make you get organized pretty fast.

Anyway, Jess works from home, so our bonus room is his office. Our garage has also become Grace Church's storage unit at times as well. Well those two areas had become quite disorganized and I was over it. We actually have been working on the bonus room for a year now, so it was time to do something about it. The Sunday after we got home from being gone for a week we cleaned the garage. We were going to take the Christmas decorations down, but Jess said he would work on the garage since it was a nice day for 45 minutes. Well that 45 minutes turned into 2+ hours, but I didn't complain one bit. I now can get out of my car in the garage without bumping the car door into boxes and huge coolers the church uses. The garage isn't perfection, but it is SO much better. 

And now it is filled with trash and items we will be donating, but those things will be gone on Monday!

After getting home from visiting family for Christmas we came home with a lot of new items thanks to very generous parents and grandparents. Again, I like everything in it's place, so I cleared out space for the new items. I went through and organized the kitchen cabinets, hall way closet, guest closet, went through every single one of Canon's toys, and cleaned out his room. I got a lot of new serving dishes for Christmas so I needed space in the kitchen cabinets. I refuse for our house to be over run with toys, so we got rid of the old to bring in the new. I also cleaned out the hall closet, so we could put all of C's art and craft supplies in it, neatly organized by paints, colors, playdoh, and paper. Since C does not have a play room (the bonus room is Jess's office and I like having a guest bedroom) I bought C a new bookshelf to put his toys on. I used old baskets I had along with a few cheap new ones to organize his toys into cars, blocks, music, balls, ect. I love our new system and I will have to say Canon is playing with more toys now instead of just the toys that sat on top of his big toy baskets bins. 

Whew.

So last night and today we tackled the bonus room. Wow. We are not done, but we are A LOT closer than we were before and the room finally looks good! We went through boxes, papers galore, dusted and vacuumed everything, hung things on the walls, put up a new bookshelf, and the list goes on. I am even going to get a space for my new sewing machine!! 

It has been an exhausting week, but I am so glad we are tackling projects that have been on our to do list for months or maybe even a year. :) Now the next big one - our master closet. That project scares me a little, well maybe A LOT! 

What organizing tips do you have? 

Christmas Eve

This year was a little bit different than the past few years due to Jess leaving for church a lot earlier than Canon and I needed to leave for the Christmas Eve service, but we had a great day!

Jess left shortly after Canon's nap, so Canon and I got ready for the Christmas Eve service. Jess's parents came over early to hang out before heading to church. We attempted to get some photos of Canon, but again he wasn't too interested unless you were making a complete fool of yourself to get him to look up.

Canon with his "guitar". He "plays" this thing all day long. 

I think this one was right after he threw himself on the ground in protest of taking pictures. ha! 

Such a sweet boy.

The Christmas Eve service was very nice. We had a great turn out at the church. We had Canon stay with us during the service and he did wonderful. I was very emotional during the service. I ended up having to get up and walk out. I was very overwhelmed that Will wasn't there with us. I went out and talked with Jess in the hallway and was able to go back in the service after 15 minutes.
We came home and put Canon in his new pajamas (which he ended up not wearing). Canon had such a difficult time falling asleep and didn't go to bed until midnight. 

Things I am thinking about

Just got home from being gone for a week visiting family for Christmas. We had a great time (blog posts to follow about trip), but we are all more than exhausted. Our home looks like a tornado ripped through every single room and my to do list is a whole page length long. So needless to say I have a lot on mind.

Things I am thinking about...

don't want to take down the Christmas decorations (means Christmas is over and it's a lot of work)

jess got lots of brownie points today for cleaning up the garage with me

i think i could eat cold pizza every evening for a snack

i really wish i slept better at night

i love that canon says, "what you doing mommy" about 50 times a day

i wish i poured my time into getting to know more people

i am sad all the Christmas cards won't be coming anymore, i love mail

i wish i had more pictures of will

i want to be more crafty

i need to go buy some dry shampoo

i just took the longest shower ever and i feel very relaxed

i like reading books to canon

i like orange soda and am kind of craving one

jess and i are kind of hoping our fish didn't make it (some friends kept them for us while we are gone and we haven't even called to see when we are going to pick them up, ha)

i like having painted nails

I could go on for hours. Goodnight!