A Year in Pictures: 2011

Well another year has come and gone and I have to say it has been the calm, positive, year that I had prayed for at the end of last year. There weren't any major life events which is just the kind of year I needed. So here it is the end of the year round up in pictures.

January:

We started off 2011 by attending Adeline's fourth birthday tea party. This was a highlight of my year for sure. I loved getting dressed up and watching all the little girls enjoy a real life fancy tea party. 

Then we took our annual trip to Oklahoma for Brendan's birthday party. This also continued my tradition of getting sick during my annual January trip to Oklahoma. Brendan use to love it that I was always am at his birthday parties. I think he probably still enjoys it, but now he always asks me "Why do you never come to Maggie's birthday parties?" To which I respond, "Well Maggie decided to be born on the same day I got married so I am usually busy." He never buys this, but it is the best excuse I can come up with. 

At the beginning of this year we had a little six month old, who could barely sit up. He played in one spot, needed us to feed him, was rocked to sleep, still drank formula, and couldn't say a word. We end this year with Mr. Independent, who feeds himself, drinks from a sippy cup, puts himself to sleep, understand what we are saying, runs around like a crazy person, and even has quite a few words. So amazing! Here is Mr. Man in January.

February:

There were no big event in February, just continued healing for myself and my little man. We survived the snow "storm of the century" unscathed. Zane started feeding himself little pieces of solid food. We got a new computer, which decreased the amount of rage in my heart due to the freakishly slow previous computer. Oh and how could I forget this, Zane had his first taste of chocolate and has never been the same since.

March:

March marked Zane's first steps towards mobility. He began army crawling this month, so the child proofing began around the house. Little did we know how much more of this was in our future. I started my scrapbooking hobby which has led to a lot fun stress relief. I reported to  jury duty, which was the single largest amount of time wasted in my life. And of course Zaney celebrated his first St. Patrick's Day.

April:

In April Zane started pulling up and doing a little cruising, the start of his independent streak. Mom came to visit this month which was tons of fun. Anna got engaged, there was the royal wedding (big highlight in our life because it was the same day that our basement flooded), we celebrated Becky's wedding, and we welcomed Zane's new best friend, Jamey Wamser, into the world. 

May:

I turned twenty eight in May along with celebrating my first Mother's Day. We made a quick trip down to Zach's parents to celebrate mother's day and Clay's 8th birthday. We all went to Oklahoma this month for the dedication of the Danny Blakley Science center, which was a difficult, but fun trip. As the weather warmed up Zane and I spent more and more time outside.

 Look at this chubby little baby boy.

June:

Of course the biggest event of June was celebrating Zane's first birthday. We did it up in style with all of our family coming in for the big event. Zane decided to walk a week before his birthday and that was when everything really started to get crazy around the Korenak house hold. June also marked Zane's first trip to the park and began his love affair with his whale pool, which lasted about a month before getting a hole in it. 

July:

July's big event was mom and I's whale watching adventure to Nova Scotia ending with the huge debacle that was our trip home. We had a quiet fourth of July here at home, Zane I took a trip to Oklahoma, and the only other event that month was Zach and I going to see the final Harry Potter movie. We have been seeing Harry Potter together since we started dating so it was an end to a big chapter in our life.

August:

In August we celebrated five years of marriage. We had planned on taking a weekend trip to Chicago to celebrate this milestone, but that never happened. We also celebrated Blaine's 7th birthday with a trip to the ball park in blazing hot weather. Zane had reached maximum speeds/destruction ability by this point in the year and we had begun to get use to the craziness that is being a parent to a toddler.

September:

As expected September was a difficult month as we remembered a year since dad had died. It was difficult celebrating Zach's birthday, but on our trip home for Anna's wedding we had a party on the 4th instead of the 7th to make things easier. We had a blast at Anna's wedding and were all so happy to be part of her big day, though I was terribly sick. I was on nights for most of August and September so these months are kind of a blur. 

October:

October included lost of fall fun. We carved pumpkins, played in the leaves, went to Oklahoma, went to a pumpkin patch, and celebrated the Cardinals 11th world series championship. On the 26th we rejoiced on the one year anniversary of Zane's heart surgery. We celebrated our happy, healthy, crazy little boy. We ended this month with Zane thoroughly enjoying his first experience with trick or treating and Zach and I loved watching it. 

November:

I feel like we were sick for most of November which is about normal for this month. Mom came up for a quick fall visit and we did manage to spend Thanksgiving with Zach's family. Even with all the illness it was nice to actually be with one of our families for a holiday. 

December:

December was full of holiday preparations. Since we weren't going to get to go anywhere for Christmas I feel like I made an extra effort to do Christmas activities and get excited for the holidays. My family came up early in the month to go to my cousin Rachael's wedding. Zane and I had fun through out the month with all our outings and baking. Christmas was quiet at home, but Zane loved all his present and understood much  more what was going on this year compared to last year.

That's the year in pictures. It was a great year filled with lots of love and laughter. The highlights for me were celebrating Zane's functioning heart, watching my best friend get married, finding out that Abbey was pregnant with her third child, and all the time spent with family and friends. We weren't able to spend any holiday's with my family this year, which is still difficult to deal with, but we were able to see them a lot, celebrating whenever we could. Tonight I will burn my regrets, eat pretzels, drink ginger ale, toast the year gone by, and count my blessings as we enter into a new one.