A Year In Review: Top 12 of 2012

I am a little later than I wanted to be posting this, but I thought I'd look back over the last year and post my favorite/most memorable moments of 2012. 

12. Celebrating Savannah's first month-birthday! It was so exciting to reach a milestone with Savannah-her first of many to come.  We celebrated at my parents house by watching the Hogs bowl game.  [which at the time, we thought we did horribly, but looking back now we would love to have been there this season too!]

11. Celebrating Savannah's baptism on February 23rd.  Her dress, which 9 other of my family members wore, was so special.  Our family all together celebrating was humbling.  Promising that I will do my best to raise her to know Jesus Christ.

10. While this is not a favorite moment, it is something I will always remember and that is finding out Savannah's diagnosis of Hydronephrosis.  Super-Doctor/Uncle Aaron caught it so quickly and we are so lucky he's so smart and on the ball, so we don't have a lot of worries with this but it is still a thought in the back of my head all the time. Savannah goes for her 1-year-post-diagnosis-checkup and tests in February to find out if her condition has worsened, remained the same, or [hopefully!] gotten better or disappeared!

9. I returned to work in March and my mom came to stay with us during the week for 10 weeks! While I hated leaving my baby girl, I loved having my mom there to take care of Savannah and get to hang out with Birc and me too.  It was a special time and I am so glad we had it to spend together!

8. Having our parents and grandparents over to celebrate Easter Sunday with us! We love having everyone to our house for Easter and this year marked the second in a row, who knows maybe it will be a tradition?!

7. Having Cara Beth take Savannah's pictures at birth, 4 months, 8 months, and 12 months [did I blog about her 12 month pics? no? mental note I'll get that done].  I will treasure these precious pictures forever! She is so good at taking pictures and we were thrilled with how they all turned out!

6. Celebrating 2 years of marriage with my handsome husband! I can't imagine a better husband than Birc!

5. Going to my 10-year high school reunion.  It was a trip to see all the people that I grew up with and Melissa threw an awesome party! Such a fun night!

4. Going to the beach with Birc's parents! We probably wouldn't have chosen to visit at the same time as the hurricane, but it happened.  And the trip was super fun just because we got to all spend time together! Savannah was a cute beach baby for sure! And Birc and I loved all the yummy seafood meals we enjoyed!

3. Holiday Celebrations: I wish I could have a number for each holiday but I would run out! So I'll just say that some of my favorite moments of 2012 is just spending time with each of our loved ones and not having to worry about getting to work or checking the mail, or even blogging for that matter! I love just being with my family and holidays always make that happen. And this Christmas was so extra special because it really was a White Christmas! What a special memory!

2. Celebrating Savannah's FIRST BIRTHDAY! It was so fun to celebrate my baby girl and her first year with friends and family! I loved planning a party and eating cake and just having fun!

1. My most favorite thing about 2012 is just the blessing of getting to share life with Birc and Savannah.  I can't pick a favorite day or moment, but I have LOVED just getting to live in the middle of all the small moments that make life worthwhile-sitting on the floor of the kitchen playing airplane with our baby girl, swinging in the backyard, playing on the bathroom floor while Birc gets ready, changing blowout poopy diapers and laughing so hard at how horribly stinky it is, seeing Savannah roll over, crawl, and walk for the first time, going to church together,  crying until we laugh during all the colicky nights that Savannah had, hearing Savannah say her first words, watching Birc as a daddy, and many more I could fill up the rest of the blog with.

A few others that could have made the list but I didn't really have room are: going to Branson with Anna and Aaron, seeing Jimmy Buffett with my love!, spending 5 days straight at home in Searcy for Thanksgiving, watching my husband and daddy and brother [in-law] build Savannah a swing set for the backyard, and watching my kitty cats become 'big brothers' to Savannah. [they secretly love her but are trying to keep her at paw's length. hah!]  I hope and pray that 2013 is filled with joy and love for your family and ours too. 

Just a quick hello!

I'm working on a big "Top 10 of 2012" [which might turn into a top 12...?] post for later this week so I've just got some cute pictures today.  I am also still really under the weather and cannot seem to shake this cold or whatever I have.  Every night I feel like I'm getting the flu, I don't know what the deal is.  Anyway, here's Miss Cutiepants herself!

I was trying to get some cleaning done on Sunday afternoon, and Savannah got inspired:

Savannah is busy organizing her sippy cups and tupperware

And while doing so, she sampled every empty sippy cup to see what it had in it! :)

[Just for those curious, this was her finished product: sippy cups for everyone all the time! No need for cabinets y'all!]

We had our friends and their adorable baby girl Caroline over for dinner and this was the girls first time to sit at a big girl table by themselves! It was precious! [for about 5 minutes-hah!]

Savannah telling me all about what she learned in Sunday School after church.

I've also been busy working on some home projects I'm excited to post about in the next week. January always puts me in the mood to do something new around the house after all the Christmas decor comes down, don't you think?

Christmas Recap Part 2

Now I meant to say yesterday, but I wish everybody just had ONE camera that we could all share pictures from! I know I posed with my whole family several times but I don't have any pics of everybody in the Morledge fam and I don't think we have everybody in the Patterson side either...boo! Share your pics with me if you have some! [Anna, I know you have most of them and I have none of those!]

As I said yesterday, we drove up to Searcy on Christmas Day afternoon in some serious freezing rain.  Our car had icicles on it and there was slush all over the road.  Weathermen were predicting a blizzard! We made it just fine but glad we left our house when we did.  Mama made a SUPER AMAZING Julia Child's beef burgundy dish and it was Just Fabulous.  We had an early dinner around 4:30 and then opened gifts and saw what Santa left us from the night before.  During all of this we proceeded to watch it blizzard all over the state. Searcy got about 8 or 9 inches of snow, and LR got like 10-12 I heard! It looked like a snow tornado at times, the wind was gusting around the snow like I've never seen before.  Almost everyone in LR lost power but we were lucky in Searcy not to lose it hardly at all.  Some people were out 7 days! Ahh!  So the blizzard just confirmed our desire to all stay longer in Searcy and hang out together and we were there til the 28th.  It was so nice and relaxing!  So relaxing, in fact, that I didn't get out my phone or camera to take pictures at all basically.  boo.

Savannah's present to Anna: letting her rock her to sleep.  precious!

[Melissa T, don't die] My parent's new tree! It is a super huge fake tree and was completely full of ornaments and we were still able to get all our gifts in the den with them! It was nice and hassle-free with no watering or chopping down or dragging to the curb and we all enjoyed it just the same as our old cedar tree :)

sleepy people.

So I forgot to mention, Savannah HATED the snow.  It came up to her ribs,  I can't blame her!

It was so very pretty!

There's me!

I mean, just beautiful.

And that's all the pictures I have.  boo on me but I will get some from Anna and post again.

Christmas Recap Part 1

I'm a little late doing our Christmas Recap but it just got so busy with all the Snowpocalypse of 2012 that I just haven't had the time.  Plus Christmas cleanup, yard cleanup (we had several large branches out of trees that fell but we were lucky not to lose any whole trees), laundry, going back to work, fitting in time with my hubby and baby and I just plain didn't have or make time!

We started our Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve with Birc's family! We went to church at St. James, came home and ate a fabulous dinner, then read the Christmas story and put out cookies and milk for Santa.  Savannah had a great time with her cousins Anna and Aiden and just wanted to do everything they were doing! She also loves to play with Bon Jovi the poodle when she's at Nana and Gran's house so we did that too.  [some of the pics below are from the 23rd as well but I just had to include them because they were so cute!] We came back over the next morning to see what Santa had brought us all and had a wonderful time being with each other and eating, and Ann's brunch was tasty as usual! Around 2:00 we packed the car and headed to Searcy to celebrate with my family!

the kids table.  Savannah was not a fan of being separated from her mama and daddy.

sleeping on Gran, the "Sleep Machine" :)

right after church before dinner (at our house before we loaded up the presents!)

the WHOLE fam! Boysies included! [apparently I'm the only one excited about a family pic]

here's my mouth Mama!

Birc's sister and her family with us!

Aiden and Savannah watching a little tv together :)

We went home to sleep in our own beds since Savannah had a cold and this is how I found her the next morning on Christmas day right before I woke her up! ADORABLE booty in the air!

after arriving at Nana and Gran's playing with cousin Anna!

and doing puzzles with Melissa!

Cousins! Such a great pic!

the mass chaos after the gift-giving!

I'll catch up with the Patterson part 2 tomorrow! 

Another Happy Birthday!

Today is Savannah's cousin, Nate's, 2nd birthday! Happy Birthday Nate! Savannah is celebrating by working on her daily dose of 13,486 graham crackers as you can see below.  She thought Nate would find it an appropriate snack for celebrating. :)  [we took these pics very early this morning so we were all still in our pjs...but at least she's cute in hers!]

We hope you had a great day!

Welcome, 2013!

Happy New Year, from us to you!

We went out to eat with Birc's parents and his granddad and uncle at Graffiti's as usual-it's our yearly tradition! We had a great time and Savannah and I both had on sparkly outfits to ring in the new year! She and Ann both had on some white fur too so Savannah was matching everybody!

Sweet girl didn't make it to midnight of course, but Birc and I stayed up to watch the ball drop in our pjs and watched lots of TV too.  :)

I've had a wonderful break from work but have to go back tomorrow and am sad to leave my baby girl and my sweet husband.  I love family time, so I hate to see it go! BUT, I love my job and we are going to Chick Fil A tomorrow with all my kiddos so I can't complain too much! We wish everyone a happy and healthy 2013!

Happy Birthday, Grandad!

Savannah has a message she needed me to pass along:

Happiest of Birthdays, Grandad!

Wait, is that what this says, Mama?

It just says happy? But I want it to be his happiest birthday ever!

I bet if I fold this card up and give it to him that'll make it is happiest birthday yet! :)

Really, mama? it's just ME that makes this Grandad's happiest birthday yet? WOW I am special!

Grandad, I hope you had a great first day as a 60-year old.  I think you're just awesome and I love to play with your hair, let you walk me around on your shoulders, and get pushed in the swings by you.  I also love the sweets that you (and also my mama, let's be honest) let me eat, and coming to your house to play with all your fun toys.  I can't wait to see a magic trick and go swimming and go on a trip and learn to golf and help you rake leaves and play legos and who knows what else! Anything is fun with you, Grandad! I love you and Happy 60th Birthday!