2013 in Pictures

Before I wax rhapsodic about what I did and didn't accomplish this year, let's have the photo spam. My favorite pictures of 2013:

January
Our decision to get a vasectomy was the right one. Even if I still feel sad every time I think that I'll never be pregnant again. Because I am insane.

February
Three of the most delightful children I've ever known

March- a tie
SI and DD helping Aunt Genocide with the four questions. The first time we've had a Passover seder without my parents, and hopefully the last for a very long time

March- a tie
Grandma and Grandpa came to town for Easter, and we walked up to the chapel for services. It was a beautiful day, despite my panic fueled humiliation. 

April- a four way tie
People have told me since they were born that my kids should be models. Well, if I were going to send a picture of DD to an agency... it would be this.

April- a four way tie
I love everything about this picture. Everything.

April- a four way tie
That's one stylish guy I'm married to.

April- a four way tie
We went to New York City for my cousin's bar mitzvah... and if there's one picture that sums up everything about it that meant the world to me, it's this one- my daughter playing with my cousin, while my great aunt watches. My children had never met half of my family. Never. And of course, everyone loved each other instantly. I will never forget it. And neither will they.

May
Poppa, SI, Aunt Something Funny, and DD.
We went to Grinnell for my father to receive an honorary doctorate. It was amazing, and wonderful, and beautiful, and one of the best long weekends we have ever shared.

June- another tie
I finally got to introduce my children to my best friends, and it was magical and amazing.

June- another tie
The bride- a friend of mine for fifteen years- kidnapped my children and took photo after photo after photo with them.

July- another three way tie
We saw the Body Worlds Animals exhibit at the MSI, with our Spanish loaner teenager.

July- three way tie
DD steering the River Queen in Au Sable

July- three way tie
SI steering the River Queen in Au Sable

August
SI and DD were flower girls at the wedding of another friend.

September
DD and SI second first day of school

October- another tie
SI and DD turn four years old

October- another tie
Our family of superheroes

November
I don't care about how much happened in November. This is my favorite picture. Aunt Something Funny reading to her nieces. It just doesn't get better than this.

December
The three sweetest little girls I know.

Now- onto 2014!

Each year, I eschew the traditional "New Year's Resolution" in favor of a to-do list. But rather than a bucket list of things I want to do, I give myself a checklist every single day of simple tasks I'd like to accomplish to make my life better.

I've been doing this for years now.

I know how many paintings I painted and how many books I read, and nearly how many hours I played with my infant twins in 2009.

I can tell you ridiculously mundane details about 2010. For example, I read 21 books that year, three shy of my goal. I cooked on 239 days.

In 2011 I wrote on 321 days. I cooked even more often, and I read a whopping 28 books.

In 2012 I started focusing on more self care. I managed to eat two meals on 347 days. Yeah, I measure that.

So what about 2013?

Me, hard at work, writing a book

Goal: Wrote Daily (365)
Outcome: 293
I feel like I should be shocked I wrote so little, but then I consider what I DID write. I was published on HuffPo a dozen times. I finished a first AND second draft of an entire book. You know what? I might not have remembered to sit down and pen a haiku each day, but I'm very pleased with what I accomplished.

Goal: Ate Two Meals Daily (365)
Outcome: 336
This number went down. And while part of me wants to feel guilty that I did so poorly at feeding myself, I have to remember... I kept getting sick. I kept not being able to eat. And maybe I wasn't as good to myself as I should have been, but I feel better than I did a year ago. I feel healthier (cold notwithstanding) than I did a year ago. I'm going say I succeeded here too.

Goal: Maintained Hygiene Daily (365)
Outcome: 281
Yes, this is still totally unacceptable. But I did better than last year, horrifically enough. And every day that RH is more independent and each day that her big sisters are more interested in playing with her is a day where I can take five minutes to splash some water on my face and brush my teeth. I'm determined to bring my weekly shower average up to at least a two. I think I can do it.

Goal: Went Outside 6xWeek (312)
Outcome: 268
I know I could do better, but I'm pleased to know this number is going up. Plus, now that RH finally walks, I'm confident there are more trips up and down the stairs in the coming year.

Going to BlogHer and meeting this awesome lady?
(And lots of other awesome ladies?) Rocked it.

Goal: Had Alone Time 5xWeek (260)
Outcome: 238
I totally nailed this one. That said, I only nailed it because I enforced nap time so strictly. If this week is any indication, 2013 will bring a fairly dramatic change in nap time. Mostly, in that most days I'm not sure the big girls will take one. And that's a little terrifying. I'll have to find another way to get some time to myself.

Goal: Exercised 3xWeek (156)
Outcome: 123
Pretty damn close! Of course, the bulk of that "exercise" was grown up private time, which I recognize only counts if you're a) very athletic about it, and b) take an awful long time. So I recognize that I didn't *really* get as much exercise as I like to pretend I might have. That said, the new year will definitely have me sweatin' with Richard Simmons some more, so I'm hoping that 2014 will blow that number out of the water.

Goal: Observed Sabbath (as much as 52- but realistically closer to 35)
Outcome: 29
And you know what? That's not half bad. Considering the number of nights M and I had Friday dates, or were out of town on a Friday night... I'd estimate we lit Sabbath candles at home four out of five weeks. So I think I can do better, but I'm glad it's becoming so habitual. Which is really the point of all of this.

Goal: Finished Book 1xMonth (12)
Outcome: 9
This is where I really failed. Especially considering how many books I started. I have four unfinished books on my Kindle, and two on my shelf. If I'd managed to FINISH them I'd be really pleased with myself. Instead? I'm kind of embarrassed. This year- less WordFeud and more reading!

Goal: Made Art 1xMonth (12)
Outcome: 13
CRUSHED IT. Yes, I counted costumes and cards as "art," but let's be honest... it's a creative enterprise, and there are lots of post-modernists who would completely accept a gallery show of homemade children's Halloween costumes as a legitimate thing. So I'm taking it.


I'm only making two changes in my 2014 goals. Instead of "Made Art," it will be "Finished project." And I'm adding another one- "Sang."

It shocks me how little singing I've done recently, and I know I'm emotionally healthier when I sing a lot. So now, it's a daily to-do. So- you can expect there will be many more karaoke nights in 2014 than the last year saw.

Happy New Year, one and all!

Failing Wonder Woman

We're big superhero fans in this house.

I had dreaded that moment. I knew from the first time I heard the words, "It's a girl!" that the moment would come, and I prayed that somehow, magically, it wouldn't. That somehow my children would be impervious.

Yet there we were.

Looking up pictures online for Halloween costume inspiration.

An aside- I LOVE making costumes. And I LOVE making costumes based on existing characters. Here's my favorite costume I've ever done for M:

Naturally, I gravitated towards showing them my favorite kid-friendly comic book characters for their inspiration. They were delighted, exclaiming over every picture of adults in cosplay gear.

"Look! There's Batman!"
"Is there a picture of Superman hugging Supergirl?" Lo and behold, there was.
"What other Super Heroes can you show us?"

I pulled up a picture of a group of cosplayers dressed up as the Justice League.

"See girls? There's Batman, and Robin, and the Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman!"

SI shook her head. "No, that's not Wonder Woman. That's her sister."

I stared at the screen.

"Why do you say that?"
"That lady is too plump to be Wonder Woman.

Before I go on- I just want you to see the picture. The EXACT picture.

That woman? She looks amazing. And accurate. I stared at her and my heart fell.

"She's not too plump to be Wonder Woman. She looks fabulous! She looks great! She's a Super Hero!"
"But, Wonder Woman is... not so plump."

I stared at the picture again, and I bit my tongue.

I wanted to ask her if she thought the Green Lantern was too plump. Or Batman. But I didn't. I didn't want to drag my four year old into a conversation that involved criticizing people's bodies.

I wanted to tell her that drawings of people, like their beloved Disney Princesses or superheroes, aren't realistic. That people don't look like drawings, they look like people. But I didn't say that either. Instead I turned off my browser and announced it was bedtime.

While they brushed their teeth, I stared at the images of Wonder Woman that I myself had presented to them.

And I was ashamed again.

I keep Barbies out of my house for a reason. I don't want my children to believe that this is how people are supposed to be shaped. I don't want my daughters to believe that, because their thighs touch or their breasts swell or their waists exceed eighteen inches, that they are somehow flawed, broken, wrong.

I want them to look at their bodies with joy, acknowledge their humanity, and relish in the ability they have to use their bodies. In health. Not in shame.

But in my desperation to find female characters to share with them, characters of strength and courage, I have brought this into their lives. This expectation that to dress up like Wonder Woman, they have to match an invariably male illustrator's masturbatory ideals.

And it's not fair.

It's not fair to them, and it's not fair to me.

My twin daughters are four years old. "Fat" is a word that simply does not exist in their vocabulary. We say "plump" sometimes, and we occasionally refer to the baby's cheeks or bottom as "chubby," but we NEVER say "fat" in this house.

And I'm glad for that.

But I would like them to have some real women- not girls- to look at. Because while children associate themselves with other children, they look up to adults. They see adulthood as an end result- as a goal. They see the adults in their lives, real and fictional both, as benchmarks for success in life.

And as I wrack my brain to think of the female role models I've provided for them in books, and television, I am ashamed of myself for what I see.

Mary Poppins, heavily corseted.
Shelly Duvall, waif-like in her Faerie Tales.
Cartoon after cartoon of women with waspish waists and willowy limbs.
Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Super Girl...

And I ask myself- where is the diversity? Where are the short women, the broad shouldered women, the "plump" women? Where are there characters who represent beauty AND strength, and aren't meticulously cast as physically insubstantial?

And what messages are they getting, and where, that only forces them to see those inconsistencies with female characters? Because the male drawings of superheroes are JUST as absurd, JUST as unrealistic.

But they don't notice that.

All they notice is that Wonder Woman's sister is a little plump.

And already I have no vocabulary to explain to them that this is wrong. That their bodies, that every body, is capable of joy and activity, and equally worthy of whatever costume they choose.

And for the first time, I feel self conscious when they look at me. Afraid that when my children see my body, pouchy from the task of creating them, my children, they will dismiss it. They will deem me "too plump" as well.

And I am terrified that the voice in the back of my head that constantly says the same, that nagging voice we all have that wastes no time to point out our every imperfection, will shame me to silence.

And if I can't stand up for my own body, against the perceptions of my own children, they will only learn what they see.

Shame. Fear. Loathing.

I did this to them. Not just by bringing these images into our home, but by failing to point out from the first that these are FICTION. That nobody looks like Cinderella, or Tiana, or Wonder Woman.

I just hope there's still time for a little of the damage to be undone.

This is Halloween...

So this year our family costume was.... The Wizard of Oz!!!

Chistory, Elphaba, Dorothy, Fiyero, Glinda (the "Gah" is silent)

That's right, we all got in on it.

DD, RH, SI

SI was Dorothy- I am so proud of that dress!  I mocked that thing up in about twenty minutes.  Felt pretty awesome.

She was very upset at first that we didn't have a dedicated Toto.  But then I explained to her that she was really SI, and she was pretending to be Dorothy.  So the Pokey Little Puppy was going to pretend to be Toto for Halloween.  She was thrilled with this explanation.


DD was Glinda.  Well, she wanted to be a "pink princess with pink all over and a pink dress and a pink shirt and a pink crown and pink EVERYTHING!"  I wasn't having it.  I convinced her to be Glinda instead.  Basically the same thing anyway.  Her first dress WOULD have been better, but idiot that I am I cut her fabric for the top sideways.  Which means- no stretch.  Which means- no way it's getting on that kid.  So I had to do an emergency second dress.  And this is it.  Still turned out pretty good.  :)

The magic wand was icing on the cake, as far as she was concerned.



RH was... Chistory!  Okay, so if you're not familiar with Wicked, RH was a flying monkey.

I know, she kind of looks like a dragon.  And her ears are sort of sideways.  Give me a break, I made the costume in the five minutes I could count on the kids to entertain her once she woke up.  It was a slap-dash Halloween this year.


I was the Wicked Witch of the West!  (Or, you know, Elphaba.)

Yes, I *do* have the green facepaint, but I knew that if I painted myself green, something bad would happen.  I just couldn't bring myself to participate in that kind of mess.  So, sorry about that.


And M was the Scarecrow!  Or, for you Wicked fans, Fiyero!  Which is perfect, because... you know... Fiyero and Elphaba and whatnot...

...yeah, M kind of looks like Kung Fu Panda.  He needed a few patches on the shirt.  I forgot.



The girls had a blast.  We carved a pumpkin, and left it in our window for when we came home...

And of course, there was trick or treating.



I tried very hard to keep them warm without detracting from the costumes.  I think I did okay.

RH couldn't handle the excitement.

Sleepy flying (er, strolling) monkey.

And I know- you've been waiting for this week's dance party.  Fear no more!  Remember how I said I used to be in the Rocky Horror Picture Show cast?  Well, most years we did Thriller as a pre-show performance.  So, now you know what's coming.



I may not have time to do a weekly dance party anymore.  Now I have to dedicate my child-free moments to writing- not video editing.  Because... today is the start of NaNoWriMo!  So we'll see if I can do both.  If not, I promise you an AMAZING video to celebrate the end of the month.

Cheers!!!

New Year, New Neuroses, and the Best Pictures of 2011

Goodbye, 2011!  Hello, Photo Spam!

For those of you who haven't been following me for over a year, I have a tendency to take my New Year's Resolutions... very seriously.  I set myself an annual list of goals, and then I take notes every day of whether or not I succeeded.  Sound insane?  It is.

And I have to confess, it kind of works.

It doesn't work on a daily basis.  It sort of works on a weekly basis.  But it DEFINITELY works on an annual basis.  Each year, I take a few hours to tally up my results, and to find out where I really need improvement, and where I have achieved my greatest successes.

My 2012 checklist hardly varies at all from my 2011 checklist.  In 2011, I aimed to do the following:

1. Write every day
2. Cook a meal every day
3. Finish my homework every day
4. Leave the house every day
5. Eat at least two meals every day
6. Perform basic maintenance on my body every day (Yeah, I resolved to shower OR brush my teeth OR wash my face.  You try being a new mom of twins and tell me how you manage that one.)
7. Exercise for at least 20 min three days a week
8. Observe the Sabbath (that's once a week)
9. Finish two books each month
10. Make art twice a month

It was a nice round list.  And now I know how I did.

Wrote Daily
I wrote, either here, on my ideasforwomen.com blog, at one of my livejournals, or in my real world paper journal on 321 days.  On a great many of those days, I did several, and soemtimes all of the above.  For example, today I've written in my paper journal and scheduled two more posts at ideasforwomen.com.  So although I will have completed 4 separate writing activities, I only get to check off the box for one day.  And that's how it was for much of last year.  That means that on 43 days I did not write at all.  That's almost a month and a half in which I didn't even pick up a pen.  I must confess, I'm pretty ashamed of myself.  Even though I had specified to myself that I would write "at least seventeen syllables," I only wrote 11 haiku all year long!  Next year, I am sure I can do better.  I'm willing to give myself a little leeway- 10 days.  After all, we do enough traveling and whatnot, it seems really rude not to give myself the excuse of just plain being too busy being a guest or host or something.  And I probably won't be writing my first day with Baby X.  (Who am I kidding?  You'll probably be the first to know when Baby X is here!)  But the goal number for this year is 355.  I think I can do it.

DD is going to make banana bread.

Cooked Daily

I really nailed this one.  I cooked on 335 days.  Some of those days, all three meals.  This one has been made much easier as a result of a few changes- First, that the girls actually require a cooked breakfast.  No cold cereal for them.  We tend to go between four regular breakfasts a week, "green eggs," which is essentially an egg scramble with zucchini or spinach and smoked Gouda cheese, waffles, oatmeal with some fruit mixed in (preferably "purple" oatmeal with blueberries- my kids love them some color coded food!), and french toast.  It's frequently their healthiest meal of the day.  So every morning I'm home with the kids, I make breakfast at least.  Then there's dinners.  For Christmas last year, Grandma got me a bread machine.  Between the bread machine and the slow cooker, home cooked meals have NEVER been easier.  I can set the bread to time itself to finish right with the slow cooker, and then for dinner we have hot soup or stew and fresh bread.  Is it cheating?  Hell yes.  But it works!  And I love it!  That one month worth of days that I didn't cook can easily be explained by travel and my occasional illness.  I am totally comfortable with this number.  So satisfied, in fact, that it has come off of my 2012 list!

Completed Homework Daily
Not surprisingly, I kind of screwed this one up.  Last semester particularly.  I only completed my homework on 244 days.  For nearly a third of the year, I just plain didn't finish my homework every night, and that sucks.  That said, I still turned it in on time- when you have class on Monday and you don't do your homework on Friday or Saturday, that doesn't mean that it doesn't get finished before it's due.  So I don't feel that this one is necessarily as bad as it looks.  The fact of the matter is that when your homework depends on a totally dysfunctional group, there's no use stressing yourself out over this kind of thing.  It stays on the list for this year, of course, but I can basically forget it halfway through the year.  Because I'll FINALLY be graduating.  Oh, sweet joy of joys.  :)  And yes, if I had no homework to do, I counted it as done.  Might as well be kind to myself once in a while!

Even a trip to the yard is a good idea!

Left the House Daily
I did better this year than in 2010.  In 2010, I managed to get out of the house 269 days.  In 2011, it was up to 301.  I feel pretty good about that.  It helps to have kids who can get up and down three flights of stairs on their own steam!  Still, for basically two entire months of the year I never left the house.  And that's ridiculous.  My goal for this year is to keep it at least as high.  After all, with a newborn AND two toddlers I should cut myself some slack if we have vegging out days on a regular basis.  I'm sure three kids are more than a handful out in public.  That said, with the girls *hopefully* going to preschool, I'll be leaving five days a week to drop them off and pick them up.  And that will certainly help!

Maintained Hygiene on a Daily Basis
Okay, this is where I come clean (ha ha ha) about how crappy I can be to myself.  You see, when the first thing you hear every morning is the screaming of a miserable toddler, or you're dragging yourself out of bed after a long night of two kids with runny noses, or you just plain can't bear to see the sun until you absolutely have to, morning showers sort of stop happening.  And I don't know about you, but I hate showering at night.  It makes my hair weird.  So, I resolved to *at least* wash my face OR brush my teeth every day.  No exceptions.  This is without a doubt my biggest failure.  If you can handle learning how incredibly disgusting I am, here it goes...  I only did the bare minimum to care for my own body on 251 days in 2011.  You read that right.  For over 100 days last year, I was un-bathed, un-washed, and my teeth were un-brushed.  And that is just plain gross.  This year, I am DETERMINED to do better.  And in order to do better, Grandma and M both got me presents that are going to help.  M got me a WaterPic flosser- SO COOL!  It's fun, it's effective, and every time I see it I'm like, "Ooh!  I can floss my teeth!"  Just not in front of the kids.  They get very jealous, and they make an unholy mess with the thing.  Grandma got me a telescoping, wall mounted, lighted shaving mirror.  Let me tell you, NOTHING will motivate you to keep your face clean like looking at it every day in 700% magnification.  You have no idea how many blackheads you actually have until you're compulsively squishing your nose at every angle.  Amazing, and disgusting.  That's what I call motivation!

Grubling yoga!

Exercised At Least 20 Minutes Three Times a Week
For those of you not so quick with the math, that means my goal was to get some exercise 156 times.  At least.   I got darn close.  My total for the year was 143, only 13 shy of my goal!  That's just not so bad!  I must confess, my "exercise" was frequently a lot of walking, or having sex with M.  Which, to be fair, is pretty darn aerobic.  (M?  Are you blushing yet?)  But I do count it, and I will continue to as frequently as possible. (M?  Are you blushing again?)  And honestly, if all the exercise I got was doing the horizontal tango with my main squeeze just shy of three times a week... well... I'm pretty darn happy with that, too.  I just can't keep my gross little hands off of my studmuffin of a husband.  (M?  You're definitely blushing, aren't you?)  I guess that's why our family is getting a bit bigger in 2012.

Observed the Sabbath Every Week
I totally bombed this one again.  You see, I cheated.  I counted attending shul for things like the High Holy days as "observing," even if it was a different religious obligation.  So if you count all of my religious observances (not counting going to Church with my in-laws- wrong religious observances!), I "observed" on 41 occasions.  There are 52 Sabbaths in a given year.  So, I did WAY better than in 2010, when I only observed Shabbat 10 times (probably including Yom Kippur).  But I can do better, and I will.  Again, I will excuse myself for lighting candles when we're out on a Friday night.  I can be realistic about this one- if M and I head out on a date I'm not going to bring the candles to dinner OR light them at home with a sitter.  Unless the girls ask me to.  So if I manage the same number, NOT counting other religious observances, I think I'll be pretty pleased with my improvement.

SI and DD reading with Poppa

Finished Two Books a Month
This one I did an okay job of accomplishing.  But only for two reasons- First, I averaged out my success across the whole year, even though I finished three or four a week in a few months, and second... I counted every graphic novel I read.  Including trade paperbacks of the Walking Dead.  This meant that since I started off the year by basically spending two weeks sick in bed (yay gall bladder!), and then repeated that feat in the fall, I managed to read a whopping 28 books this year.  Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the amount I read.  I'm pretty pleased to have read the things that I did.  But I would like to read more.  That said, I'm going to keep giving myself the break of counting things like trade paperback collections of comic series, like Walking Dead and Fables... my two current favorites.  I think I just need to up my monthly quota.  So in 2012, rather than average two books per month, I'll be aiming to finish three books a month.  Top of the list are the Phillip K. Dick book I'm in the middle of, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," "Summerland," which Poppa can't seem to stop recommending, and then something more substantial.  I haven't read the Brothers Karamozov in about eight years, might be time to go back to it again.  Of course, new trades of Walking Dead AND Fables came out last month... so...

Made Art Twice a Month

They had a better track record on art than me last year.

I succeeded.  BARELY.  I only counted completing a work as "making art," which I feel the right to grumble about because I have three currently unfinished paintings in my studio.  All three are wedding portraits for friends who got married in 2011.  So in addition to being a lazy artist, I am a bad friend.  But they will be GOOD paintings, and all six of the subjects are going to absolutely love them, I'm sure.  I just have to FINISH them.  That said, I completed 24 works of art last year, including my holiday cards, the girls' birthday cake, and the girls' toy kitchen.  I also counted each completed Becoming SuperMommy comic- of which there are probably half a dozen you haven't seen.  I'm so sorry I haven't scanned and shared them yet.  But you can rest assured, there will be more Becoming SuperMommy comics in the near future!  I've even come up with a whole theme, DD always has a big dot on her clothes, and SI always has a single stripe.  Get it?  DD= dot, SI=stripe?  That's how I used to handle it at family events when people wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  :)



And that is what I accomplished in 2011.  My list for 2012 has hardly changed, I've just removed my cooking requirement (it's officially a given) and upped the ante for my reading.  I'm feeling pretty darn confident.

I have two more abstract goals for the year.  The first is to actually edit more of my posts.  (Yes, Poppa, you've officially shamed me.)  I can't really quantify this one, because I know that my writing time is limited (which is why it's the 4th and I haven't written this yet), and my windows in which to write are short (generally the length of a nap- which means any minute now my window closes).  Still, I'm keeping that one in the back of my head.  Now that I have a growing number of subscribers who get my posts immediately via email, this seems more and more important.  To those dedicated readers, I am so sorry you get every single typo emailed to you.  I will try to do better.

All things considered, I'm kind of awesome.

My second abstract goal is to be less judgmental of myself.  I have no idea how to do this, but I would like to stop acting as though I have somehow failed because there is always a heap of laundry to do AND to put away, because the living room STILL hasn't been swept, or because the kids have eaten PB&J for lunch every day in a given week.  I know, fundamentally, that I'm doing a darn good job.  I need to stop acting like I've somehow shamed all the mothers that have come before me.  Again, no idea how to quantify it.  I'm just going to try to remember.  I'm a busy lady, not a failure.  They're actually kind of the opposite, right?



As I feel I set a good precedent last year, I will reward you for sitting through my ridiculous self evaluation with the best pictures of my children from the entire year.  Enjoy!

January: My children begin the year by learning to be mischievous, thus setting the tone for 2011.

February: Two little towel-monsters.  :)

March: DD is such an enormous ham.  This might be the cutest picture of her ever.

April: my little angels in their Passover dresses at Aunt Genocide's house

May: with the spring, my little loves donned their overalls and began to enjoy the outdoors properly.

June: a tie!  Snapped by Michael Courrier at the Chicago Slutwalk.

June: a tie!  Regular playtime in the back yard with a kiddie pool, sprinkler, and of course a red wagon.

July: No matter what else happened that month, this was going to be my favorite picture.  :)

August: another tie.  My bathing beauties playing on the beach at Lake Huron.

August: another tie.  My gorgeous flower girls.

September: the girls start helping me out in the kitchen.  Cake is the gateway baked good. :)

October: a three way tie, the month was just too much fun for one photo!

October: Just after the girls turn TWO, we take our first real family outing.  Just the four of us.
...Yes, I was already pregnant.

October: The girls go Trick or Treating for the first time dressed as fairies.

November: SI and DD snuggling at bedtime.

December: another tie.  Maybe my favorite shot of SI ever.

December: the girls in their holiday dresses playing the piano at Grandma's house.

So that was my 2011!  I have no doubt that 2012 is going to be an even better year.  Things just keep looking up for our little family, and I can't imagine that Baby X will change that at all.  Hope to see you all again and again this year!  Hooray 2012!