Highlights of 2012

Top 10 of 2012


Finishing our basement

Trip to Disneyland

Tracie completing 1 half marathon, 1 Tough Mudder challenge, 1 Warrior Dash, and 4 races.

  

 

 

 Connor turns 1

Surviving back to back Scout and Girls' camps.

Mingling with 100 relatives at the first Au Reunion. (Tracie's mom's side)

Pow wowing with the Ware clan.

Brooke starts preschool.

Troy completes the Tough Mudder challenge.

Troy receiving his FSA and spending a few days in Toronto.

 It's been a fantastically fun year.  We're excited to see what 2013 has in store for us.

Happenings!!!

We'll let the pics do the talking...

 Brooke continues to swim and is finally starting to go places in the pool.  Her favorite is to dive for rings.

Connor manages to be somewhat patient while waiting for Brooke to finish.  I'm sure he's thinking why can't he go in too?

The beginning of December we took Brooke out on a date to the D Bar for breakfast then off to Disney Princesses on Ice.  She was enthralled and wished we had unlimited amounts of cash to spend on the ridiculously overpriced "souvenirs".

Later that evening was our ward Christmas party.  We finally managed to get Brooke to sit on Santa's lap.  No tears or anything else.  Both kids were content hanging onto their candy canes.

I had my Christmas Recital.  All the kids and 1 adult did wonderful and I even finagled Troy into playing a duet with me.

Uncle Brett came out to spend a few days with us before he heads off to San Antonio for the next 2 years.

Brooke and Connor were spoiled hanging out with him.  Troy and I were too...we started a Super Mario Bros. marathon.  Made it to world 6...to be continued in 2 years.

Will, his family, and my parents came out for Christmas.  This is a first in all the 9 Christmases that Troy and I have had together that we've had family come to visit us.  I kind of like it.  :)  We celebrated my mom's birthday on the 23rd.  Connor blew out all the candles before we were ready to sing.

Christmas Eve was spent:

Making cookies for Santa.  Troy's super fast at rolling out the dough.

The girls were super fast in placing the cookie cutters.

Cozying up on the couch reading a good book.  I believe Will, Kristin, and I were even able to finish our books.

 Brooke and Sierra had a blast hanging out with each other.

 

 

Definitely fun taking pics of them and catching their silliness.

Christmas morning we were welcomed with a fresh dusting of snow.  In our 7 years in CO this is the first time it had snowed on Christmas day.

 The kids were greeted with Santa presents.

 Connor didn't want to be forgotten and hurried down the stairs.

Santa somehow managed to squeeze in a dollhouse in his sleigh.  Both Brooke and the cats were super stoked.

 Our house has officially been princessified.

 Connor got all the cars he could ever imagine and more.

 View from the top off all the loot.

 Managed to tear the kids away for a few seconds for the obligatory Christmas pic.

 The rest of the time my family was here was spent playing bey blades, dolls, cars, and the Wii.

 All in all this holiday season has been fun filled, relaxing, sweet filled, laugh filled and more.

Just in case you're all unaware, Denver has had a very kind fall.  We're way above average in temps which allows for great training runs.

 

We're 33 days out from our half marathon and I think we're ready to go.  We've loaded up on Gu and put in many, many miles in between the 2 of us.  I kind of wish the race was a little sooner.

With having the weather way above the average Connor's thinking "where's the snow?"

Brooke feels like she's getting short changed with no white stuff on the ground.  She's also having a hard time equating Christmas time with no snow.

Luckily, Connor has managed to keep himself entertained without having to rely on snow.

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Brooke has been wandering around the house singing "a turkey is a funny bird.  His head goes wobble wobble.  He only knows one funny word Gobble Gobble Gobble!"  (to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel)

She had her preschool Thanksgiving program last week and did mostly wonderful besides the 5 yawns within 5 minutes during the program.  She thinks the boy to her right is pretty cute.  Good thing the ratio is in her favor!

After the program, we enjoyed a feast of what the first pilgrims and Indians ate together-a veggie tray, grapes, apples, cornbread, and chicken nuggets.

Wednesday was spent running around in preparation for Thursday.  We ended the evening with the annual pie night our friends, the Steele's, host.  We baked a spiced apple-cranberry pie.  I think it looked beautiful even if we can't really do crust and it tasted yummy.

 Thursday was spent in the kitchen.  We had our friends, the Nelsons and Austons, and Jonathan over.  My goal for dinner was 4:30 and we all sat down at 4:50 to eat.  Not too shabby.

 Here was what was on the menu:

my annual dry-brined turkey with citrus pomegranate glaze
shallot and thyme gravy
potatoes romanoff
the ultimate green bean casserole with crispy fried shallots
sausage and herb stuffing
autumn chopped salad
ham
rolls
3 razzleberry pies
1 cherry pie

Jonathan was all tuckered out after feasting and playing with the kids.  I guess he wanted to call dibs on the strawberry shortcake remote control and car.

 The rest of the long weekend was spent watching football.  Connor was ready for the action.

We also put up our Christmas tree complete with half the ornaments we typically do.  With Connor and Squishy being curious and within reach we decided to put all the ornaments on the upper half.  You can't really tell, right????

We, meaning Troy, put up the lights outside too.  The first on our block.  Oh yeah!  This was all after running 10 miles.  Way to go!!!

For the most part we didn't partake in Black Friday shopping...except for this early present.  (hint: it's not the clothes.)