2012 Year In Review

January - We celebrated 7 years of marriage on January 8!

Nicholas moved to a big boy twin bed on January 20 and we never looked back! He has slept through the night every night since and only came out on his own TWICE!!!

February - February started off as a hard month. Nana went into the hospital to get her medication regulated and in preparation for moving into an assisted living, which she did on February 10. She had a hard time adjusting, but has done great since the middle of the 1st week!

March - In March we took things much slower and enjoyed not having many plans. Nicholas got his 1st bicycle on March 17! I got a deal of the century at the consignment sale on it and he loved it

April - We had everyone over for Easter and Nana came over for the afternoon.

We celebrated our 31st birthdays on the 10th and 13th.

At the end of the month my dad and Michael spent 17 hours one weekend on Nicholas' early birthday gift...

 

May - In May we started cleaning out Nana's house and preparing for an estate sale. Let me just say, I came by my organized hoarding honestly!

June - Michael and I took a vacation without Nicholas for the 1st time. It was great to be alone, but we couldn't wait to see him. I don't think we will be doing they again anytime soon. It is too hard to be away from him!

We had an estate sale at my Nana's house. The hardest thing I have done in a long time. I had to give myself a pep talk before I could walk in her house that day. It's hard watching your childhood walk out of the door in someone else's hand.

Michael's sister got married the same day as day 2 of the sale. It was a simple, garden wedding and was very pretty.

July - we celebrated our sweet boy's 2nd birthday!!! He loved his Mickey party!

Also, Michael made the decision to close his business. It was a hard decision, but a wonderful opportunity opened and it was the best decision for our family. It was definitely a blessing in disguise at the time.

August - After 12 years of retirement and being out of coaching high school football, my dad returned to his 1st true love...coaching!

September - Michael and I went to Knoxville to see college gameday, which was something I've always wanted to do. I also got to see my high school best friend, Robin. It was such a fun day!

 

 

Nicholas went to his 1st football game and loved watching Pawpaw's team! Between excited to expose him to Pawpaw's love of football, being so happy for my dad, and just the excitement of the game, when they played Boys Of Fall over the speakers during warmup, I MAY have had a tear or two. :-)

October - The busiest month of them all! In one weekend we went to one of dad's games, pumpkin patch, and to see Disney on Ice! He loved every minute of it, but it sure did wear is out!

 

Nicholas carved his 1st pumpkin with Daddy.

We also went to his school carnival and had some friends over for trick or treating!

November - After winning 9 games (7 in a row!) Dad's team went on the road in the playoffs for 2 rounds. They got beat by the #1 team in the state and had nothing to be sad about. They went from 4-6 to 10-2 in one year!!!

We sold Nana's house and closed on November 2. It was a very bittersweet day for us. It was hard, but definitely the best thing.

I got a new car when my old one was going to require a lot of major repairs! My 6 year old Nissan was traded in for a shiny new Explorer and I love it!

We had a busy but fun Thanksgiving and
Nicholas definitely enjoyed himself! :-)

December - we started the month with everyone having the GI bug from hell. It took a week to travel through our house!

Nicholas sang and danced with his class in the school Christmas program.

We rode the Polar Express with Tate and his parents.

 

Nicholas LOVED Christmas!  He loved "Ismas trees", lights, and Christmas songs.

 

Nicholas had an absolute blast at Christmas! I LOVE this age and seeing his sweet face light up over everything about Christmas just warmed our hearts.

We had a very bittersweet, up and down 2012 and we are hoping for a much better 2013!  I am planning to slow down and have a little slower start to the year.  As you can see the last 3-4 months have been a whirl wind and I'm ready to slow down a little.  Happy New Year to all of you from The Ledford Family!

The Little Things

I've been thinking a lot about my New Years resolutions and along with the usual; eat better, lose 10 pounds, etc, I'm going to spend more time enjoying the small things in life. I realized during the busy Christmas rush that I don't take enough time to really enjoy everything going on. I spend too much time on social media, I spend too much time worrying about keeping my house picked up, and being frustrated because there is never enough time in my life to do what I want to do, only what I "have" to do.

I'm really struggling with the thought that Nicholas is almost no longer a toddler, but a preschooler. He is almost 2 and a half and that makes me sad. I can't believe how fast time is going. I have started to think about his 3rd birthday and wonder where the past 2 and a half years have gone. I feel like I miss so much by being at work 40+ hours a week and we have made a very conscious decision when he was born that we wanted to be with him as much as possible. I try not to schedule anything on the weekends that would take us away from him. I am so thankful that we have made that decision, but I want to be more conscious to be not only physically present, but present in every sense. Our family time is very limited and very precious to us.

I look forward to the next year and how much Nicholas will grow and change in that time. In just the past 6 months he is a different child than the one that turned 2. He has an extensive vocabulary, is almost potty trained at school (we are struggling at home because at school it is almost a peer pressure thing), and he has gotten so good about helping with chores and being independent. I love watching his sweet personality grow. It is such a gift to see it develop a little more every day.

I plan to make some changes to my life in the next year. I plan to do better at blogging to keep up with his growth and to not miss any milestones so it will be recorded somewhere. I plan to cut back on my twitter and FB. I want to spend more time with Nicholas and less time on my phone keeping up with friends. This time with him is precious and I want to get back to focusing more on him, my devotionals, and more time with Michael. I don't want to look back one day and wish I had spent more time enjoying the small things in life, not just the major moments. God has blessed me with an amazing life and I want to enjoy it to the fullest!

Christmas Home Tour

A little late, but better than never. :-)

I put up three trees and a little tree for our cards (next year it's getting upgraded to a larger tree). I LOVE decorating for Christmas and I tend to go over board. Ha! So, lets get started on the tour...

Welcome to our home!  Come on in!

In our foyer I have displayed my Nana's ceramic church and a few of my favorite Christmas Precious Moments.

In our living room we have our "main tree". We have a 9ft prelit spruce that holds all of my favorite, special ornaments. It is mostly decorated in red, green, gold, and brown glitter ornaments

My mantle is a little more simple this year and I love it. Just my candles, tree, and Santa pictures.

Between my living room and kitchen is a bar where I displayed my Nana's ceramic tree. I think it was Nicholas' favorite decoration this year!

My kitchen was simple and not much this year. I hung N's advent calendar and the card tree on his little table. I already have some ideas for a centerpiece for my dining room table for next year.
In the playroom we have a 6ft prelit tree with colored lights (I still can't believe I put this in front of the window!) with all of Nicholas' ornaments. I also thought it would be cute to run his geotrax under it.

In our room I have a 4ft prelit white tree with blue, brown, white, and green ornaments. I also put my Nana's burlap angel on there. It is so nice and relaxing when I'm going to sleep at night. (no clue why it looks so crooked here, other than the fact my angel won't stand straight! ha!)

That's pretty much it this year! Hope you enjoyed your tour! Stop in again soon!  

'Twas The Day After Christmas...

'Twas the day after Christmas and we had a lazy day.  Today was the last day Nicholas and I are at home before going back to work and school (for 2 days then another 4 day weekend). It was very cold and windy outside, so we played in our sweatshirts and yoga pants all day. :-)

Nicholas didn't nap yesterday, so he slept from 7:30-9:00 today! Sadly, Michael had to go back to work today. I spent my day playing cars and pirates. I think Nicholas missed his daddy! :-)

We also watched Jake and The Neverland Pirates and The Muppets Treasure Island on DVD.  Have I mentioned lately how obsessed with pirates he is?

Since it was a cold day with snow flurries all afternoon, I made a big pot of beef vegetable soup to eat tonight and for the next couple of days at lunch.  It also made enough to freeze a bag full to heat one night when I don't want to cook and serve with grilled cheese...score for Mommy!  I got my house mostly picked up and ready to return to normal when I take down our decorations this weekend.  It is amazing how much more I get done when I am home all day.  I could get used to this!

It was a good day to just stay home and enjoy a day with my boy!   I'm going to miss him tomorrow, good thing it's only a two day week for us!

Christmas Day 2012

We have had an amazing day!!!  This age continues to be my favorite and this Christmas was definitely one for the memories!  We started our day when our sweet boy woke up around 8:30 this morning.  Michael went in to get him and told him Santa came last night.  Next thing I knew he was running as fast as he could into the living room to check the tree!  He immediately went for his leap pad and then his Cars stuff. 

 He has really enjoyed open presents from us (Santa leaves presents unwrapped) and had a lot of fun seeing what he got. 

 It took him a minute to figure out his stocking, but once he did, he thought it was pretty cool and just kept digging for more!  Haha!

 The boys got me a few charms for my Pandora bracelet and a couple sweet cards.  Notice while I was reading cards my little helper was digging through my stocking! Ha!

 Michael got a TV a few weeks ago for his main present, but I picked up a few Polo items for him on Thanksgiving night at the outlet mall.

 After we opened presents and cleaned up a little we went over to my parents for Christmas with them and lunch with my extended family.  Gigi may have gone a little overboard when she bought for Nicholas...

 He LOVED his new tractor!  He pushed it all over their house for 30 minutes before lunch!

 I really think he favorite thing other than his Leap Pad that he got today was his Bucky ship from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  He has played with it for hours.

 Pawpaw has been dying to give him a football for about a year and decided this was a great time to do it since Nicholas has recently had an interest in it.  I'm sure this Spring and Summer they will use it a lot!

 My mom made a fabulous lunch!  I made another potato casserole, cherry fluff, and deviled eggs to bring.

 My Nana came from her assisted living and seemed to really enjoy herself and especially spending time with Nicholas.  She seemed to really like her calendar this year!

 Nicholas and Nana kept dancing to the music from his Bucky ship.  It was too funny!  He just laughed and laughed.  Those were the moments that made not being at home all day worth it.

 Here is our family today.  We had a casual, cozy day.  It was cool and rainy and I didn't feel like dressing up, so we just went in warm comfy clothes. 

We got home around 5:15, brought everything in and put everything up (except toys) and just relaxed.  Our tired, no nap toddler went down around 7:30 and I crashed.  It has been an amazing Christmas and I am so beyond thankful for this sweet boy and the joy and happiness he has brought to our family.  We love him more and more everyday.  I remembered those of you still waiting on your special blessing and prayed for you today.  I know how hard holidays are when you are still waiting.  I pray you all have your little miracles by next Christmas.