2011 Rewind

by Clint

It's easy to recap 2011 as I drink a 12 year single malt (a habit I picked up in 2011). God blessed us with an incredibly peaceful, fun year. We started the year with one word, "play!" The year exceeded that expectation, and we close the year adding the word, "feast." Feast in food and life. Every day brought new opportunities, explorations, joys, and reasons to rejoice. We enjoyed our new Beaugie. With his dimples and smiles, he made us laugh every day. Sawyer blessed us with his compassion and ingenuity. They brought us joy beyond words. We made time for each other and laughed every day. We had our share of melt downs and disasters, but 2011 will go down for the Aichele family much like it went down for the OSU football team.

We hit the ground running in 2011 with the beginning of themed weekends with "Cowabunga Night."

The funny thing about Cowabunga Night is that it set the tone for 2011. We became more intentional with our time, even if it was eating pizza and playing with TMNTs. The snow kept Beau and Mom inside, but Sawyer and I braved the elements to get some sledding in.

Health was a big theme for us, and we expanded our garden and spent more time outside in the spring.

In some ways, 2011 was about downsizing for us. We sold the Jetta, and that was interestingly sentimental for Melanie and I.

We spent a lot of time in "Smigelet." I will always remember driving Sawyer home from the hospital in Smigelet, along with many other memories. Oh well, we needed the money.

Camping brought us together closer than we thought possible.

After Melanie, Beau, Sawyer, Heidi, and I spent one night in the 2 man "Gunny Sack," we knew it was time to get a larger tent. The six man should buy us some time.

2011 reminded me how thankful I am for Melanie. She is perfect. Maybe not on details, but on all the things that really matter, like taking care of her boys.

Backyard fun.

2011 started out with record low temperatures and snow storms in Oklahoma.  Spring brought disastrous tornadoes some of which barely missed the lake house.  Summer brought record heat for weeks and weeks.  Fall brought earthquakes in Oklahoma.  We spent a lot of our evenings in the spring, summer and fall trying to stay cool on the porch swing.

With the heat of the summer we went to the lake almost every weekend.  Sawyer was quite the little fish.

 Speaking of fish, that was another 2011 favorite pass time. 

Fall brought OSU football and by the time December rolled around Clint and Sawyer found a new favorite way to play.  They discovered the fine art of coloring.  After printing so many coloring pages off the internet, running to staples to buy new printer cartridges became a new hobby for Melanie.

We definitely laughed, wrestled, colored, swam, ate, fished, hiked, camped, and adventured our way through 2011.  What a great year of rejuvenation.  

December 2011

December was pretty busy getting ready for the holidays.  The weather was fantastic, so we spent a lot of time out doors.  Overall it was a pretty smooth month.

Sawyer is obsessed with Volcanos.  Literally.  He asks hundreds of questions about them, wants every story told to involve volcanoes, watches documentaries and reads books about them.  Clint decided to do a science experiment with Sawyer once a month.  So naturally the first one was a homemade volcano.  It was a success!

We spent a lot of time outdoors.  I don't know what I would do if the neighborhood park was not literally in our yard.  We love having so much room to roam.

The boys had a great month as well.  They were both going through an incredibly sweet easy phase.  Not much testing the limits in December.  Of course I am completely aware that it can change in an instant.  Sawyer started speech once a week at the public school.  He qualified for the one on one speech with is probably not a good thing, but he has made a ton of progress.  His vocabulary tested out at an 11 year olds!  I guess all those books and stories paid off.  But Clint and I are the only ones who understand everything he says.

Beau is still our little talker and eater.  Nothing makes the boy happy like a tray full of food.  He completely turned into a paci and blankie baby this month.  He is still the cuddliest and started staying at church childcare without throwing a fit.  He enjoyed his new found freedom of walking and will escape to the outdoors if you don't keep an eye on him.  He really started to turn into a toddler in December.

Sawyer got a bike from Santa Claus.  We spend hours at a time riding bikes now.  Thank goodness we have a long driveway and sidewalks in the neighborhood.

With Beau becoming more mobile, the two boys have really become best friends.  They are very good together and enjoy each other more and more.

Christmas 2011 - Part 2

Christmas didn't exactly go as planned.  The week before Christmas we were supposed to celebrate with the Wright family.  Sawyer came down with a horrible case of bronchitis and we were stuck at home.  He recovered pretty quickly though.  The next round of celebrations was with the Aicheles.  Adam got sick so that was put on hold.  Clint had planned to take several days off of work for all the festivities and he went ahead and just stayed home with us.  Fortunately the weather was gorgeous.  We essentially spent 3 days just playing.  We went to the park every chance we got.  We made several Hastings runs to buy more Christmas movies.  We went on long drives.  The boys (Clint and Sawyer) printed tons of coloring pages off the internet and literally spent hours coloring together.  We just hung out.  It was very relaxing and special. 

 

On Christmas Eve, I carried on the tradition of having soup, salad, and appetizers.  This year I made lobster bisque.  

Christmas morning we opened our presents.  Sawyer got a bike for Christmas and we pretty much spent the rest of the day riding bikes.  We were so grateful for the beautiful weather.  My parents came in during the afternoon.  It was such a treat to have them for Christmas.  We started Christmas day with our annual breakfast casserole and included zucchini bread with zucchini for our garden.  For dinner I made a large organic ham from Whole Foods.  It cost my whole ham.  I also made brussel sprouts, rissoto, green beans and rolls. I made Bitters and Blanc for dessert.  

Sawyer really liked the stocking.  Clint totally spoiled me this year.  None of my presents were huge, but I got a ton of the most thoughtful gifts.  I was totally surprised by each one and they were incredibly perfect for me.  He also got me a ton.  I couldn't stop the tears all morning. 

Sawyer is guarding his presents.

By the end of the day, the kids had a ton of sugar.  This was our best attempt at a family photo.  We did make it to Stillwater after Christmas.  We had a great time hanging out with Grammy, Grandpa, GG and Uncle A.  Once again we were completely spoiled.  We also made it to the Stillwater Children's museum again.  We had a great Christmas and were sad it was over.  It will definitely be tough to top Christmas 2011. 

Christmas 2011 - Part 1

 

The Christmas season was great this year.  Sawyer was old enough to really get into everything.  Also both boys were going through such a happy fun stage.  Beau was excited to be walking.  Sawyer was just excited about everything because he is a three year old boy.  We loved it.

Ellie came for a special visit, and she and Sawyer made a gingerbread house.  They also spent an entire day making Christmas craft projects.

The boys won't sit still for anything, but I still attempted to get a picture in front of the tree.

I kind of combined the advent calender with the Jesse tree.  I had little treats in bags on the garland with the Jesse Tree ornament.  We talked about the ornament then hung it back up on the garland.  Sawyer was very diligent about not letting me forget.  Also we acted out the nativity story a lot with the Veggie Tales nativity.  We also have a collection of Christmas stories and movies we watch everynight in the month of December.  Clint is the driver of that.  He is obsessed with all things Christmas.  I am obsessed with cheesy Christmas pictures from JC Pennys or Walmart. I have quite the collection going.

 

I am not the best at Christmas decorations, but like I said Clint is obsessed with Christmas decorations.  I always give it my best shot.

 

We got to see Santa Claus at Woolaroc.  It is always great because there is never a line. Sawyer was super excited, walked up to Santa, told him he wanted a bike, then left.  Very short and to the point. 

I can't remember all of the Chistmas activities we did, but it sure seamed like a busy month.  We did quite a bit of baking.  I decided though that I was just going to have a cookie decorating party for myself.  And I did and it was a blast.  There are some things little boys (and big boys) don't appreciate.