Days with the Dorans

I am so excited to finally be doing this post because it means that I can finally start working on my BLURB book (aka putting this blog into a hard-bound book for my family to enjoy for years to come). As I look back on the year there were so many things that happened, but here are some of the tops! Joe (finally) started losing teeth ! He lost his first tooth while we were on vacation in Elk Rapids (with the help of some Charlevoix taffy). Joe also had a fun year in baseball. They had a great season and ended it by being featured as the Detroit Tigers " Team of the Day ". Joe played soccer but it wasn't his favorite... The second half of 2011 had Joe going into second grade and second graders are cool... He's eating up books now and continues to love writing. He does fine in math but he'd rather not put in the effort which is a bit annoying for his teacher folks. Ali became a dancer this year. She did a great job in her ballet recital and in the fall of this year...

New Year's Eve didn't happen the way I had thought (or hoped). The plan was to have our wonderful friends, the Stewarts, over to ring in the New Year. The kids were so excited too. They kept asking when Dr. Jason, Ms. Courtney and Zoe were coming for the sleepover. I woke up early and got so much done: cleaning the kids rooms (needed some down-sizing after Christmas), laundry, changed all the sheets... The only problem was Al said she didn't feel well. I told her to lie down and take a nap (the Bigs were up late the night before with other friends who were visiting). A few minutes later she was throwing up and I knew it wasn't a simple "tired" feeling that Al was having... I texted Jason in hopes that Al's "bug" would pass but after some time we spoke and I had a feeling that it wasn't just something Ali ate. She spent most of the day/night lying on my lap and moaning. She didn't even ask for something to eat or water so I knew tha...

The day after her birthday, I took Ali Jane to the doctor for her well-visit. Joe and Sean also needed shots (Jeff had taken them to their well-visits back in October, but said they didn't want their shots, so he waited until I could do it... lucky me!). When I told Joe that he was going to need a shot he got really mad at me. I had told him that he was done having shots before he went to kindergarten and he was very excited about that. Now the offices are doing shots for Hepatitis A, so he and Al both needed them (the Littles have already been getting them in their "shot cycles"). Joe went really green and whined quite a bit at the thought of having to get another shot. Since I was taking three to the doctor, I thought, "What's one more?" so I ended up taking all of the kids with me, giving Jeff time to play with his guitar without distractions (I am such a nice wife). The kids were great in the waiting room and even Sean was pretty good just going fro...

I remember 7 years ago like it was yesterday~ my dad coming to my house to watch 15 month old Jonasen and Jeff driving me the block or so to the hospital. I cried the whole way there. Poor Jeff was trying to cheer me up, but even then I didn't know why I was crying... I could feel the baby kicking within me. Maybe my tears were for that last time, maybe it was because this time I knew in my heart that it was going to be OK. And it was! Ali Jane's delivery was amazing, everything about it. It was so bright! There was laughter! There were baby cries! There were happy tears. And I finally could say I had "babies" at home. Something I had been dreaming of saying since losing her big brother, Andrew. And now here we are seven years later and it sometimes blows my mind how much she has grown~ the things that she says, the sweetness about her. People have said she is my "mini-me" (my guess is because of the way we look) but our likenesses go far behind our thin, ...

My brother went with a "Western" theme this year when it came to my gifts which was perfect since we are both WMU alums! One of the things he and Steph got for us was tickets to see the Broncos play at Ford Field. Jeff and I met at Western so it was great watching another football game with him by my side! It was fun being back at Ford Field. This trip was my second time being to the stadium and ironically, the last time I was there, I was also watching our Broncos play! My dad came with us (after all a lot of his money went to the university). Steph was also there and it was perfect because we were playing HER alma mater, PURDUE! You may wonder why a little MAC school would be playing a big school like Purdue... I was too (I don't follow football much). Apparently Purdue is horrible and Western was doing pretty good. Danny actually went in thinking we were going to beat his bride's school and for a while it looked like we were going to win! WMU scored the fir...

Christmas continues for us on the 26th as we travel to Saginaw to celebrate with the Dorans! It was great to see the Gillespie gang and get some time with them too, as it seems we have missed them our last few visits. The kids had a lot of fun playing and after a wonderful dinner, it was time to open presents. Again, my camera is still missing and so my iPad substituted and didn't do a great job, but it was better than nothing! Ali got to play "Santa" this year and pass out the gifts one by one to the cousins. This year we did things differently and the kids each chose names and only bought for one cousin. I have to admit that I loved this as it saved us some money, time and worry (I never know what to get). Grandma got the kids each a gift, too. I noticed a theme with the boys this year... NERF GUNS! Our house went from 2 Nerf guns, to 8! It has been a very mild winter (no snow... SOB) so the boys headed out the door and were out playing Nerf Guns as soon as the last pre...

It has been so hard for me to blog lately... Not because I have nothing to say, but because I have so much to say and so many pictures to choose from. All of these pictures are from my mom (still no camera) and so I stole them from her (thanks mom). She made a slide show which I put at the bottom with many more cute pics of the kids (including my niece and nephew) but because others may be reading this, I didn't want it to be too long... (I will put more pictures in my soon-to-be book). After our family Christmas celebration and playing, we headed over to my folks' in the afternoon to celebrate with them and my brother and his family. Seany dove right into the presents (not because he was excited to open them but because diving into them probably sounded like fun and I have to admit... it did look fun!). Us "big kids" opened our stockings first (we are the only four that get stockings). They were full of dollar store goodies that my dad found including some jalapenos ...