Catching Up: All of the things I didn't write about when I really should have written about them

Hey there! I know, my time for doing the 2011 Year in Review posting was soooo two weeks ago, yet here I am leaping onto the bandwagon. Or perhaps I'm just stumbling after it.

Only time will tell.

The children have all gone back to school today - Caitlin to her last semester in Elementary school and the twins to their last semester in Pre-school. Come fall I will have one child in middle school and a pair of kindergarteners! How crazy is that?

Certifiable, that's how crazy!

We went on a tour of Caitlin's Junior High Middle School last night, she and I, and I was markedly impressed. I am hereby remarking upon it. I'm hoping she loves it as much as I suspect she will. So many programs and clubs!

Anyway, last year...was a whopper. There were a number of very good things about it and some seriously miserable things. If you've been following along, you'll know of what I speak. I'll try to focus on the good stuff instead of sniffling over my keyboard.

Perhaps reverse order?

Xmas 2011 was very close to being a wash. Turns out that someone around here needs to start taking her vitamin D pills starting in September so that it has a chance to build up in her system. You know, in case you want to avoid a serious case of the Bah, humbugs! by the time Christmas rolls around again. I didn't get cards done or mailed packages to family. Let's just say I take after Dad on this one. Who's up for Christmas in July?!

The family came through for us on Xmas. There were all kinds of things from the cousins, grandparents, aunts and such. I didn't feel bad that we didn't add to the insanity other than a book apiece and a single DVD. Well, if you don't include the stockings. Those were full of chocolate this year (Plus the traditional apple and orange, although I subbed a Clementine for a regular orange. Must more kid friendly.). Which everyone ate while I was still in bed, as you can tell from Little Miss Chocolate Face right here.

Logan gravitated to the largest box under the tree.  Turns out it was a Lightning McQueen springy tent thingy. He loves it. He jumps on it. Love and mangling go hand in hand, don't they?

I only asked for one thing this year. Well, other than no whining and fighting. Eric came through with a 50mm 1.4 lens! Woo! Here is a lovely shot of my test subject.

I'll have to play with the lens more in the new year. I look forward to more sexy bokeh!

This year's Spelling Bee fell on Eric's birthday, which doesn't actually explain why there are no photos of the tiny dinner party we had for him, but there it is. Caitlin didn't win the Bee this year, but came in 2nd place. She was undone by the word "laborious" by adding an extra "u". I was sad the Bee didn't go on longer because I really enjoy when you're down to the last two contestants and the words start flying back and forth, getting harder and increasingly esoteric. Ah well. She's got 3 more years of Bees, if she still wants to go for Nationals! We applied prescription levels of ice cream and all was right with the world.

During the first weekend in December, I shot my friend Susan's baby boy's first birthday party. Tiny red heads are so cute!

Perhaps I'll get back into the swing of photography again this year? At some point I'll have to determine what I want to do with myself once the twins are in school full time. I'm debating going back to school, the only question remains, for what?! That, however, is a discussion for another time. Deep, dark, soul-baring discussion.

In seemingly typical me fashion, I have pictures of the bread I made for Thanksgiving, but no pictures of Thanksgiving festivities. I fail the acid test of diehard scrapbookers. Clearly I'm not a scrapper.

Three versions of braided bread. Left: 6 strand braid; middle: 3 strand braid; right: 2 strand braid.

But...! But the bread was really good!

In the middle of November, still on the bread theme, I was testing out the differences in retarding my sourdough overnight versus baking it off the same day it rose.

Bread on the left retarded in the brotform overnight in the fridge. Maintained the shape better, but had less oven spring and grigne than the one on the right, which I baked the same day as final fermentation.

Either way, it was delicious.

In early November, we made a "surprise" trip to KS for Val's 40th birthday.

Except for one small problem: she wasn't surprised. Turns out her boyfriend can't keep a secret to save his life! I offered to pummel him, but he declined.

On Halloween, we got dressed up and took the kids Trick or Treating, but then completely forgot to take pictures of them in their outfits! It it wasn't for Misty requesting photos of her ultra cool Raven costume, there wouldn't be one of either Eric or I in our Archer/Lana Kane outfits either. Whoops!

In mid-October I finished the dining room painting and hung the floating shelves with Eric.

The finished art cabinet is in the corner. Keeper of all things paper, paint, and crayon related.

My String of Pearls plant won't survive the winter outdoors. Turns out that it can't survive my care indoors, either. Sadly, most of the succulents pictured here are dead now. I'll have to some up with an alternate display!

Wall of succulents brought in before the weather got too cold. 

I'm so glad I finished painting the main floor. It makes a huge difference in how I feel about the house. In early spring I'll work on the rest of the painting. I need to be able to keep the windows open. Even low VOC paint has fumes that make my head spin in enclosed spaces.

In late September, the twins turned 4 and we had a party. Not that you noticed, since I didn't post anything about it in Blogland. Nope, skipped over it entirely on the blog, but posted pics on Facebook for my mom to see.

The big cousins, plus Marlena.

The cupcakes. This is as fancy as I got. Chocolate cupcakes with mint frosting, pink sprinkles for Emma with princess toothpicks and red sprinkles for Logan with Cars toothpicks. Tah-dah! Decorated! No balloons, no matching tableware and a whole lot less to throw away at the end of the party. Somewhere in Canada, my kid sister is stunned by how undecorated it all is. We have opposite birthday talents: she's amazing at decorating. I put all my energy into the food.

Emma shows off her princess cookie. Those were my goodies for the goodie bag: a single enormous sugar cookie with Royal frosting and pink or red sprinkles. Once again, "simple" and without a lot of trash or little plastic bits to get vacuumed up later.

We had our very own in-house facepainter at the party! Grammy Linda has taken on a new career as a facepainter and was doing up adult and child guests alike. Jenni makes a lovely butterfly.

Emma and Logan made a new friend at preschool: Asher.

King for a day!

Logan shows off his car cookie chomping skills.

The twins still love it when everyone sings. It's much more difficult to take pictures of them when they're no longer held in place by highchairs!

In between ferocious painting episodes, I stopped on occasion and enjoyed my hummingbirds.

Other than losing weight (Or, to be honest, just temporarily misplacing it since it seems to have found me again...), gaining muscle and then falling off the horse again (hard), the rest of the year was all related to Dad. The big drive cross country. Family. I still have yet more pictures from Canada to edit, which I'll get to this week.

I know, it's only been 6 months!

Whoops! Better go get the twins from pre-school! Ciao!