Another 2011 Recap

It seems like all of my friends have done their year recaps already, so I thought I'd do mine.  First thing, my three goals.  I don't remember exactly which order they went in, but they were:

1) Move out of my parents' basement.

2) Submit something for publication.

3) Lose a pound a week for an average weight loss of 52 pounds.

As many of you probably know, I accomplished 2/3 this year, and that's not bad.  I didn't lose 52 pounds.  It went really, really well at the beginning of the year and in the first two months or so I lost 15 pounds.  Then in March I fell off the wagon and over the course of the summer gained most of it back.  Thanks to morning sickness, I'm down to about where I was again, but now that I'm in my second trimester, I'm pretty sure that will be changing.

Here are some of our monthly highlights:

January: In one month, I wrote about 98% a 75,000 word novel.  I've never been prouder of myself as the moment when I typed "The End."  Of course now I have plans to rewrite from the bottom up, but I think we can safely say that one's first full-length novel, no matter how bad, is an accomplishment!

February: Not much happened.

March: Still not too much going on.

April: Will and I decide that it's really time to move out.  He calls his old boss in Utah who says, "Sure you can have your job back."  We celebrate Easter and Joci's first birthday early because Will left Ohio a few days before both.  I spend the rest of the month packing, getting ready for a garage sale, and relying heavily on my parents for help with my kids.

May: After about three weeks which consisted entirely of packing, garage sale prep, and more relying on my parents to keep me sane, the girls and I boarded a flight to Utah.  Even though I thought Joci would be the problem, Chaela's handful of drop-to-the-floor, scream-her-head-off tantrums proved me wrong.  Thank goodness for kind fellow travelers.  When we finally arrived and I saw Will standing in the airport, I literally cried with relief.

June: We settle into life in Utah, reacquaint ourselves with the area, and reconnect with some great friends.  Thanks to the fact that most of our stuff is still in Ohio, we live a fairly spartan lifestyle, and for the first time in my life, I keep our apartment clean all the time.

July: Not too much goes on.  The girls and I head down to SF reservoir with Rosalie and hang out with her a lot.  She is a life saver while Will works those 10-14 hour summer days!

August: More hanging out.  I talk to some other women in my ward and we organize a Joy School (a small pre-school taught by the moms).  Had an INCREDIBLE girls' night/sleepover with some old friends from high school.

September: Chaela begins Joy School, which is her favorite thing in the world.  Pretty sure it was around the beginning of this month that Joci finally began to walk at 16 and 1/2 months old.  My parents brought out all of our stuff, and Kristin, Lindsay, Rosalie, and families all came out to help.

October:  This was the month I accomplished my goal to submit something for publication, which also earned me my first professional rejection letter, which I may frame.  At the end of the month, when I found out I was pregnant with baby #3!  For Halloween I made the girls some pirate costumes and we had a ton of fun trick or treating with Rosalie and her kids!

November: Chaela turned four, which she seems to think means she's an adult.  She had a fun little party with her friends and I had a fun little party with their moms.  Saw some of Will's family for a pre-Thanksgiving weekend, awesome!  For Thanksgiving itself  we visited my sisters and discovered that Kristin could, indeed, cook a turkey.  Also during this month, morning sickness ruins my life.

December: More dealing with morning sickness, but mostly preparing for the holidays.  We had a great Christmas and were thrilled to see family, not as thrilled to see them move out-of-state.

So that's pretty much year.  It's been fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Baby #3!

I posted on facebook a few days ago, so I'm guessing everyone who reads this blog knows, but we found out a few months ago that we're expecting baby #3 next June!  I'm excited, even though for the past ten weeks it's been difficult to feel much but sick.  I'm hoping that will clear out within the next two weeks, though, and we can get back to normal around here.

I've told the girls.  Chaela is pretty excited, but every time we ask Joci if she wants a new baby in the house she says, "Uh-uh baby!"  I think she'll be a great big sister, though.  She loves all the babies she sees at church and she's getting a new cousin about two months before our baby is born, so we'll use him as a sort of practice-run for her (sorry Kristin, ha ha).  Chaela is an old hand at being a big sister now, so I'm not worried about her, she's really a loving and helpful girl.  I will probably keep our bedroom door shut for the first few weeks the baby is home, however, because when we brought Joci home from the hospital, we woke up the next morning to find Chaela in the pack and play with her.  It was both terrifying and amazingly cute.  

We don't have names picked out yet.  I looked a lot at first, but sort of gave up for a while.  We have plenty of time, and now that I'm past the first trimester and S-L-O-W-L-Y starting to feel like a person again I'll probably restart the hunt.  It's such a pain trying to find something Will and I agree on.

I also put up a ticker under Joci's picture on the sidebar.  I know some people think this one is creepy, but I love seeing a representation of what the baby actually looks like.  And I would love to hear name suggestions in the comments; it's always fun to hear what people say!