Sooooo, hi? Remember us? Anybody still out there? Yeah, so we unintentionally took like a little break.  A little break that lasted a year.  Sorry? We thought the New Year’s Survey would be a great way to sorta explain things and get us back on track with being on the interwebs again.  We don’t promise as many posts as we once had, but we promise more than we did in 2012. Deal?

Here’s 2009 , 2010 and 2011.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? I went back and re-read last year’s survey and this is sorta laughable at this point. So much has happened. Please see #7.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? HA!!!! OMG, so I just went back and re-read my resolutions from last year: Stay in shape, wear more red nail polish, read more books.  UTTER FAIL! I wouldn’t say I’m out of shape, I just didn’t get to exercise as much as I would have liked this year. Nail polish? On what nails? The nails I bit off?  Read more books…I can’t even count an issue of InStyle magazine here… Does twitter count?
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Der gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!
4. Did anyone close to you die? No, thank goodness.
5. What countries did you visit? None, and honestly we didn’t get any sort of vacation at all this year.  Even date nights were few and far between.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? Less hospital stays. 5-6 hospital stays with the little guy this year, one of which was 8 days.  Less of those, definitely less of those.
7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? February 9, 2012. The day we found out our 9 month old had hemophilia. We have no history of hemophilia in our family at all, so this was an utter shock. For those of you not familiar with hemophilia, it’s a bleeding disorder. Our little guy developed some rather large bruises that we couldn’t for the life of us remember how he might have gotten which led to an ER visit which resulted in a joint bleed. The doctors initially thought he had severe nursemaid’s elbow for which they put a cast on his arm for two weeks but was really a joint bleed.  We found that out on February 9th when a hematologist we’d seen called me while I was picking up my oldest from preschool that we were dealing with hemophilia and to not pass go and collect $100 but to come immediately to the hospital so they could begin treating, not for a dislocated elbow, but in fact a joint bleed.  And so our life changed forever.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Learning how to give my son the medicine he needs, along side my husband, without help from our home healthcare nurse. We are by no means medically inclined, I mean we come from software/web programming backgrounds.  If you had told us we’d be learning sterile procedure and sticking our son with a needle every single day I’d have been mortified. It’s very empowering to know you can take immediate action with a hemophilia kid if/when you need to.
9. What was your biggest failure? I was almost going to say we’ve had no failures this year, only learning experiences, but I need to document the 10lbs I gained since finding out our son’s diagnosis so it pushes me to lose it.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not me personally, but in addition to my son being diagnosed we’ve also had a few family illnesses that have popped up this year. We’ve been sort of a mess this year.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Our second iPad was a lifesaver on that 8 day hospital stay, as was the two seasons of Bubble Guppies purchased on said iPad. Those Bubble Guppies are the gift that keep on giving. What time is it? It’s time for lunch! Whoops, sorry I got sidetracked.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My family. My mom would come to the hospital with me and the little one and my husband was alternating between working and keeping up with our 4 year old’s schedule. My dad would alternate between all of us, shuttling things here and there. My in-laws helping out where we needed. And our friends keeping us sane and bringing us dinners or taking our older kiddo when needed.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? I’m going to go ahead and just say that one nurse that tried SEVEN times to find a vein on my child in the ER.  I will never forget.
14. Where did most of your money go? Medical expenses, a new roof, and a new A/C.  You know those really fun things! All in one year! Winning!
15. What did you get really excited about? Any and all nights that both children slept through the whole night–sleep is nice.
16. What song will always remind you of 2012? We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift. Our 4 yr old LOVES Taylor Swift and learned every single word to that song and damn if I didn’t become a fan of hers after that.  I mean that’s the problem you know? When your kid is singing something word for word and says he wants to meet Taylor Swift and have her go eat sushi with us on Fridays or come to his birthday party or go look at Christmas lights with us….after the year we’ve had….I say buy the boy all the Taylor Swift albums he can listen to! Shhhh don’t tell him he is going to see her in concert in May of this year 🙂
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a)happier or sadder? sadder b)thinner or fatter? fatter c)richer or poorer? poorer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Too many things to say here…exercise? date nights? gone to the movies? read books? There’s a ton of stuff that gladly took a backseat to learning a new normal. There’s always 2013 to do more right?
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? STRESS: stress eat, stress bite my nails. Have to SEE DOCTORS. Cry.
20. How did you spend Christmas? We had a surprisingly fantastic, free from medical intervention, surrounded by family Christmas. It was perfect and we are very blessed.
21. Did you fall in love in 2012? I’m the type of person that watches a show while I work out on the treadmill..preferably a tv series of some sort. So with that said, I re-fell in love with the Alias series. And let me tell you when Jennifer Garner starts running in those chase scenes, I apparently think that I’m Sydney Bristow on my treadmill and start running VERY quickly. This can be good and bad.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Parenthood and The Good Wife.  Those are the two shows that I watch live/real time, not tivo’d.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No.
24. What was the best book you read? Book? What are books?
25. What was your greatest musical discovery? “Long, Long Time Ago”-Bubble Guppies
26. What did you want and get? A new iPhone, mine was dying a slow death….thank you upgrade!!! I also got a couple of kiddos that love the pool and love swim lessons which made the summer so much more fun.
27. What did you want and not get? To keep my fantastic weight loss from last year off.
28. What was your favorite film of this year? I can’t at this point say Breaking Dawn 2 can I, that would be embarassing? Ok, then I’ll go with Life of Pi, that was pretty cool.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I think I did dinner with the girls? I turned 37. I’m officially old. Like old with wrinkles, old.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? less stress, more smiles and less tears, and maybe more episodes of Parenthood and The Good Wife.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012? Plaid shirts and jeans.
32. What kept you sane? My husband, my family, my friends, doctors and nurses.
33. Who was the best new person you met? We’ve met a lot of good people this year that have taught us that everything is going to be ok with our little guy.
34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.
35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Sometimes I’m afraid and I don’t feel that tough, But I’ll stand back up ~ Sugarland

Photo by Momma’s Gonna SNAP Photography

I hope that helps everyone partially understand why we haven’t been around. We’re coming back, I promise.

Last year I made resolutions, which truly hasn’t been my thing most of my life.  I made resolutions the year before and didn’t keep a lot of them, but last year…well, last year I kept them and I don’t think it was a conscious thing. I think I made a list that was actually feasible.  I was downright surprised when I realized while doing my survey this year that I had kept all my resolutions.  So I’m going to attempt the same thing this year, let’s see if this works…

1. STAY in shape. Don’t gain the weight back. I totally think this is do-able. I could stand to lose maybe 5-7 more pounds, but I’m not going to push my luck.  If I end this year the way I started it, weight wise, I’ll be happy.
2. Wear more RED nail polish. You think this is easy…however, it’s really not.  See…this year has been nutso, crazy busy and I didn’t get many manicures.  If I don’t get manicures, I bite my nails.  It’s as simple as that. I have no other solution for the nail biting besides manicures, it’s the only thing that has worked my whole life.  So if I’m biting my nails then my nails aren’t long enough for a color.  You may ask, what is long enough? I’m talking beyond the nubs people.
3. READ! I love reading good books.  I need to make the time. Somehow. Last year’s reading status was pathetic.

So there you have it! I think I can make that happen.  I’m going easy on myself this year because why not? I owe it to myself.

It’s that time of year again! Let’s put the year in review! Here’s 2009 and 2010.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?Lots of firsts this year…I learned to juggle two kids.  We had a brand new baby boy in May and our first born turned 3 in October.  And for those of you with multiple kids, you know, it’s just a learn as you go thing…will you give each of them enough attention etc, etc.  We seem to be doing alright.

   My husband and I had also started our own business about 2 years ago, but he also worked a 9-5 job as well.  This was the year that our own business took over and he no longer works the 9-5. Fingers crossed!

   Also, we entered the land of preschool! Very weird to take your child to a place and DROP THEM OFF and LEAVE and it’s not like my mom’s house or something…that took some getting used to!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
   It looks like these were mine from last year:Get in shape after having the baby-I DEFINITELY did this and am very proud of myself.  Both my husband and myself workout regularly, eat better…all the hard stuff that you do to lose weight. We both lost about 25-30lbs.

   Take More Pictures, specifically so the new baby has baby pictures-YES! I did take a lot of pictures of the new addition to our family…even though they may have just been iPhone pics. Note to self, use the better camera more often.

   Get craftier-YES! I had help but I did make the baby clothes quilt that I had in sight.  It took most of the year and I learned to sew by doing it! Once I had the sewing down I managed to make some of the other Tipsy gals clutch purses for Christmas and some fleece hats for the kiddos.

   Keep organized along the way-Yes and No. I organized little things along the way like junk drawers and butler’s pantry and stuff like that but I also had my closet get completely unmanageable and I had to do a complete overhaul.

   I think I will definitely make a couple for next year and see how that goes, maybe I’m on a roll.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?Me! And Sarah! And my sister-in-law!
4. Did anyone close to you die?We had to put our little Chihuahua, Weezie, down this year.  She’d been with me a while—pre-kids and pre-husband.  She was feisty that one. The vet told us that she’s definitely one he will remember. I choose to believe that was because she challenged him. ha!
5. What countries did you visit?None. But we did make a trip to Oklahoma to meet Danielle in person! We had a great time, thanks Danielle!!
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?Oh I would so love to move into a new house, we’ve completely outgrown ours.  We’ll see what the future holds.
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?Having another baby…for obvious reasons.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?Probably losing the weight, it was hard, but it was worth it and I want to be healthy for my family.
9. What was your biggest failure?This question depresses me. I mean we all do things/say things that we look back on and think of it as being a failure, including me…especially me because I’m sort of a perfectionist. But you live and learn right? Everything is a lesson.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?DUDE. So, since my 3 year old started preschool in August it’s like this whole house has been sick umpteen times.
11. What was the best thing you bought?We got an iPad this year and it has hands down been the best purchase.  Officially it’s my husband’s, but my son uses it a TON and I use it EVERY now and then…I’m thinking I kinda need one for myself.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?My first born…we threw a lot of things at him this year including a new brother, a new big boy bed, preschool, and potty training. I think dude deserves a party.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?People surprise you, take you off guard…but again, live and learn right?
14. Where did most of your money go?Health insurance and related baby birthing expenses.
15. What did you get really excited about?Introducing a new little guy into the world and seeing how nobody can make him smile quicker or bigger than his big brother.
16. What song will always remind you of 2011? Moves Like Jagger, Hey Mama, and anything by Pistol Annies
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a)happier or sadder? Hmmm I’m not sure? More stressed?

    b)thinner or fatter? THINNER! Yay! And not just because I had a baby, like thinner than before I got preggers. Let’s hope I can stay on this train…

    c)richer or poorer? The same? Or would that mean poorer because we’ve added a kid into the mix?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?This is going to sound super lame, but reading…I hardly read anything this year and that sucks.  Also, movie-going.  I do miss my pre-kids weekly trips to the movie theater.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worry. Stress about things.
20. How did you spend Christmas?Christmas Eve we combined my family and my husband’s and did dinner at our house.  On the menu that night: beef enchiladas (made by me), beans (made by me), cilantro rice (made by my husband), skinny margs (made by my husband). Christmas Day we did our gifts/Santa in the morning and then went to my parent’s house for our traditional breakfast and presents, then home for the kids to nap and then went back around 4 for dinner and brought my husband’s mom along with us.  It was a great day.
21. Did you fall in love in 2011?I always answer this one very cheesily…yes with my family! Our new little one is just super cute and chill and our oldest just gets cuter and smarter and more fascinating every single day. And I’m very proud of my husband on the business front, he’s doing a super great job and I just couldn’t have asked for a better guy.
22. What was your favorite TV program?I for sure continue to love The Good Wife. I definitely love Parenthood. And I’m totally addicted to watching Greek on Netflix streaming.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?It’s a waste of time to spend energy hating.
24. What was the best book you read?Like I said, I didn’t get to too many books this year. I did finish Black Heels to Tractor Wheels and Two Kisses for Maddy.  And then I started a few others but haven’t finished them: All That is Bitter & Sweet, Waiting for Birdy, Seriously…I’m Kidding, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  I’ll get to them, hopefully this year.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?I continue to love Miranda Lambert and definitely love her new girl group Pistol Annies. And Martina McBride’s newest album is definitely different for her and I love the change, I’m back to being a fan.  But in terms of greatest musical discovery? That has to be my 3 year old who has taken to singing and dancing and dj’ing for us nonstop lately.  It has got to be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen…especially when he picks a song from my iTunes list and says, “Mama, I think you are gonna like this one…”
26. What did you want and get?A healthy, happy baby boy.
27. What did you want and not get?Nothing else matters…everything comes in its own time.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?Without a doubt I loved Crazy, Stupid Love. And it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t throw in that I am still on the Twilight train and loved Breaking Dawn Part 1.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?Blah! I turned 36 and I had a dentist appointment. Though the next weekend my husband sent me on an all day spa day.  It was fabulous.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?Hmmm, probably more sleep, less stress and worry.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?Jeggings and Skinny jeans came into the mix! I’m late to the game…
32. What kept you sane?I have no idea. Maybe deep breaths and taking things day by day?
33. Who was the best new person you met?Well of course our new little guy.  It’s amazing how in some ways he’s so different from our first and yet very, very similar.
34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.“It’s important to remember that people are always doing the best they can, including you.”
35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.Like I said earlier, we rounded the year out with a new baby and going out on our own business-wise, so I think this pretty much sums that up…
    These Are the Days by Sugarland
    “…And we wake up wondering what might happen next
    Yeah, sometimes it feels like we won’t make it through
    But the hard times pass like the good ones do
    Baby, wrap your fingers and hold on tight
    I’ll be right here beside you tonight…
    …We’re making moments we won’t forget
    We fill in ones that haven’t happened yet…”

Last year I took an idea of Whoorl’s to showcase a year of iPhone pics, so I’m going to continue with that and show you pics I took with my phone along with instagrams. It’s a little longer this year, but hey, I love my family! I hope you enjoy it! And I hope everyone has a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!