2012 in Retrospect

"Every three years I have a really good year," my big brother Adam told me.  And then I thought about it for a while.  Is it every three years?  I don't know really, it's not that the other years are not good, or sub par in some way.  2012, however, was a really good year.  Just a really fantastic year.

We had so much to celebrate this year with Jared coming home, Nathan getting married, Cody and Audra moving, birthdays, and what not.  We blew our financial goals out of the water (more doubling our savings goal).  Which means nothing to a lot of people, but it was our first year with a real steady income and we're pretty proud.  However, Brandon has new confidence and has doubled our goal from last year. :-/  But it was the trips that made the year, we did so much fun stuff, I can't even believe it..

It really was just a wonderful year.. so here it is, 2012:

• In January partied with family celebrating a late Christmas and then partied again my mom for her birthday
• In February we went to big bear, celebrated Valentines day, and soaked in the sunshine.
• In March Sterling turned 18 months.
• April brought Easter, the beginning of swimming season, and a trip to Grandma's house for a seminar.
• May came with wedding bells, and we enjoyed warmer weather; celebrating babies with friends.
• In June Chandler turned five, Chandler took swimming lessons, and we celebrated 6 years of marriage.  By now, we were running our AC all day, and swimming three days a week.
• July was a blast.  We almost died on the boat, and celebrated Chandler's birthday, shark style.
• August started out with Sterling turning two,  a trip to the San Diego Zoo, we celebrated Nathan's wedding with an open house, and ended the month with the first day of kindergarten.
• September marked one year in Las Vegas, and we decided the summer wasn't too bad.
• In October I turned 26, and unsettling age.  We carved pumpkins, ate cake and celebrated Halloween.. and took the kids to DISNEYLAND.
• We celebrated Thanksgiving early in November with Brandon's mom and her husband.  Then packed up the kids, took a trip to Park City, drove to California for another Thanksgiving and a trip to six flags.
• December is my favorite month, and it did not disappoint.  Grandpa Dave joined us early in the month, and we enjoyed to wonderful Christmas parties before Sterling and I headed down to California to reunite with my little brother Jared.  Later Brandon and Chandler joined us for a wonderful, always eventful, Tate family Christmas.

A Very Merry Christmas

As always, our Christmas was fantastic!

 Grandma read us the Christmas story.

 Everyone got new PJs...

 ...except Grendel, but she looked mighty fine in her new sweater...

 Sterling and Chandler wrestled Nathan.

 We hung our stockings and went to bed.  

Santa came.

Sterling ate every single Cheerio from his hunt.

Chandler rocked his hunt..

And all was merry and bright..

Merry Christmas!!!

Park City

We spent the weekend before and first half of the week of Thanksgiving week in Park City.  It was spectacular.

Because it was early in the season, a lot of the ski lifts were closed.  So we drove up and went sledding on the ski hill.  The first day it was snowing really good.  (Brandon and Chandler climb the hill to go sledding)   

(Sterling wears uncle Adam's ski goggles)

 (Grandpa and Chandler)

Sterling really hated the snow.  He kept trying to brush it off his legs when it was falling, and just cried and cried the whole time.

Woooo!

Gobble, Gobble

I want to update about our wonderful Thanksgiving, but I didn't bring my camera on any of our wonderful adventures.  Instead I used my moms, which means I won't have pictures until I can get a hold of her sd card.

I did take 3 pictures while Brandon's mom and, her husband, Eric were here....

Hopefully I can get pictures from my mom's camera soon, because we really had a fabulous Thanksgiving.  Meanwhile, here's a letter I wrote to my brother Jared the day after Thanksgiving.  Jared comes home from his mission in Taiwan in 19 days!

Gobble, Gobble Jared,

Today (Friday) we ate pie and turkey and stuffing and delicious things.  We gave thanks for the wonderful things in our life.  There are too many things to be grateful for; we would be sick from eating too much candy corn if we named them all.  I assume they don’t have thanksgiving there(?).  Maybe the mission president celebrates it?  

Yesterday, Adam, Brandon, Natalie and I spent the day at six flags.  It was fantastic, and we all wondered how anyone can not like roller coasters.  The weather was perfect, and the lines were short.  Adam thinks it should be a Thanksgiving tradition.

We spend a good amount of our time speculating about how weird you will be when you come home.  But, general consensus is that we are all excited for you to be home.  I recently bought my ticket so Sterling and I will be there when you get off the plane.  How weird are you?  Just a little bit weird?  Brandon says I should not talk about you coming home, but I am not very good a writing these letters. 

Brandon wants to know what it’s like to AP, and Dad wants to know all the secrets of working closely with the mission president.  Does he really use a map and darts to pick which area missionaries will go to next?  Natalie says "Tell him he's a poo-poo head."

Time moves at a rapid pace in my life, and I can’t believe we are already jumping feet first into the holidays.  It’s my favorite time of year, and I am excited for the rest of 2012! 

See you soon!!!

Bethany

Happy Halloween!

This is a Halloween photo dump:

Grandma and Sterling at the trunk or treat @ my parent's ward:

Chandler and his "girlfriend"/"she's not my girlfriend!" at school:

On Halloween night we had dinner and went trick or treating with our friends...

Bones with blood sauce...

Now, for the "everyone line up on the wall", inside, at night, horrible lighting pictures...

The kids went by themselves to the doors this year!

Sterling and Scarlett tried to go inside...

Later, the wachs came over for a short visit...

Here's Chandler being hilarious..

I love Halloween, and it's 8,000 times more fun with kids.  We had such a wonderful time, and I can't believe it's over.  Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins!

While driving home from California on Sunday Brandon said to me, "Disneyland was it... the beginning of the end of the year."  He was right, the holidays are upon us and we are about to be a lot more busy.

Chandler has been begging to go to the pumpkin patch with the big toys since they put it up next to Walmart weeks ago.  We've been planning a trip, and then postponing it for quite sometime now.  Yesterday, I realized that we didn't have enough evenings before Wednesday for us to go to the patch with Dad and carve pumpkins with Dad.  So, I took the kids alone.

They rode on the train....

...and on the spinny ride..

....and they sat in the pumpkin patch...

 .... and Sterling didn't really understand the put your head in the hole and smile concept....

....and they held hands without me asking them to...