unblogged

I figure this is the day to do my Review of 2011 post where I go back through my archives and photo albums and tell you all my favorite things we did this year.

All our lovely family bonding experiences.

All the fun and educational activities I did with my children to enrich their lives.

All the life lessons I've learned.

All the best that 2011 had to offer.

Except I'm not going to.

Today you get all the stuff I didn't blog about.

Some pictures I took. Sometimes intending to blog about them. Sometimes not. Who knows? Most of the time I get ideas and then little people and fatigue get in the way of my computer time and stuff just goes unsaid and unshared.

So here it is.

2011 Unblogged (except now it is blogged so I guess that's not an appropriate title...too late)

From the top (that means starting in January, duh.)




Countless bath pictures and stories did not get shared. You're welcome.

Red, white and blue sandwich cookies I made for President's Day. Boring but kind of nice to look at.

So many pictures of Cate in her tutu (that no longer fits) walking around the house pushing dollies in strollers. The life of a little girl.

We got a new garage door in March. The old one broke 2 Februaries earlier. Yep. Broken door for a year. Sorry about that, neighbors.

Polka dot bums. I'm not sure why that went unblogged.

Dan dug up a monstrous dead tree root system (something like that) from under the swings in the backyard. I was pretty sure someone was going to fall off the swings one day and get a traumatic brain injury with that thing lying there slightly exposed. Those were some big honkin' roots.

Danny denied Cate's kisses too many times to count. Who wants to blog about that? Not me.

I was called to be the Young Women's president in May. Yeah. Me as the leader, teacher,mentor and overall awesome example for a bunch of teenage girls at church. Scary. It's been fun and challenging. My first big activity was scraping paint off an old house with the youth. Unblogged, until now.

In June Danny gave Grama Bama a lick of the frosting off my birthday cake and I didn't even blog about it. What is this world coming to?




One of my favorite unblogged pictures from July. I call this one "Monkey See, Monkey Do" and I can't look at it without smiling a little. She's just adorable. Have I mentioned that before?



Oh, August. What happened? I blame the heat. So many things unblogged.

The biggest and most memorable (at least that's what I'm hoping since I am still planning to post about it) was our road trip from Alabama to Utah with Grama Bama and Grandpa. I blogged about the other parts of our summer vacation. Just not the 4 day trip home. It's coming. Some time before next August. I know you don't care about it anymore but I sure do. I want to be able to click back in my archives some day and remember that I'm a survivor! (And Dan is too since he survived listening to Cate's Oswald DVD for 4 days straight.)

We came home from the high school reunion trip and I immediately had to get out my yearbook and remember what these people used to look like. I honestly didn't remember some of them. That first one is my senior picture. Look at all that hair. I have no idea where it went.

Cate saw the picture of the guy on the opposite page from my picture and said, "Dat's Daddy!" Eek. If I squint real hard I can see the resemblance.

Marisa commented on this post many months ago and mentioned that I should blog about my shoe hooks. I figured maybe I would so I took pictures of my shoe hooks. There they are. I got three of them from a cute little shop in town. Then I decided I wanted more but the next time I went back they were out. I looked online (from the tag on the hooks) and found them here. I want more because I have big plans to make a coat/backpack hanging spot near my back door. Don't go ordering a whole bunch and making them be out of stock, please.

Then I figured if my shoe hooks are blog worthy then so are my cupboards. Pretty cool, right? They're supposed to be the kind that you load cans at the top and they just roll down. Like at the grocery store. My grandpa built them.

I don't use them for cans. They hold jars and empty honey bears and baby wipes and sacks of extra flour. I think they'd be an awesome method of food organization if I'd just use them for what he intended. I think can sizes have changed and they don't work perfectly. Or I'm just lazy. See, that was a good one to leave unblogged.

Princess Cate with a kazoo.

We got a new roof for the back porch next to the back garage. The demolition stuff always makes me feel kind of sad.

The kids piled up all the stuffed animals and all the blankets onto Danny's bed one day and watched a movie together. Why did that go unblogged? That's breaking news, people! Miraculous things are happening over here and I don't tell you. I have no excuse.



Remember how Christie took some family pictures for us this summer? A whole bunch of them got left unblogged. Not because I don't love how they turned out. I do. I got distracted and stuff happened and those pictures just sat on my computer. Here's one of my favorites though. Better late than never. And it serves as a good reminder to me that I had quite the farmer's tan.



Lots of unblogged recipes. These mini pizza things were a big hit. Very tasty. And super easy. The recipe states that they're only 66 calories each. Only 66! That's just dandy unless you eat 10 of them in one sitting. Not that I would ever do such a thing.

And then there's the apple pie. We were at the store one morning and Cate asked for apples. Danny heard her and asked if we could make apple pie. I said we could, thinking to myself, "wow, i'm such an awesome spur of the moment mom. look at us. we're going to just head home and make us some apple pie. nobody even planned it. just doing it for the fun of it." So of course we bought some boxed up pie crusts and went home. I let them watch me cut the apples. Then they stirred a little bit until somebody wasn't careful and stuff flew out of the bowl. I stuck it in the oven and didn't even mind when nobody even wanted to taste it when it was done and cooled. These crazy kids of mine.

And then that very same day I read this post about this awesome mom who made apple pie with her little kids too except they picked their own apples, grated their nutmeg fresh and looks like they had homemade crust to boot. I felt bad at first but now I just figure we all try in our own ways. Plus, her kids probably ate their pie.

Cookie jar I found during back garage clean up time. I really love it.

Vintage ribbon and bead barrette that I probably wore all through high school. Any takers? I'm wondering how much I could get on eBay for it. It's vintage.

A beady purse of Grandma's I found out there too. Wondering if I should let Cate use it for dress up or if it's vintage too, like my barrette.

Old Yahtzee score cards and Absentee Report Forms from the same clean up session.

Why is this cherished wedding gift not hanging in my house right now?

Another recipe. One of my favorites. Rice krispie treats for grown ups. There's peanut butter in there.

Me in the mullet. I told Danny that if he'd let me take his picture in it, I'd let him take mine. There's a reason that one was left unblogged. Actually, there's lots of reasons that one was left unblogged.




I know I shared this one before but I love it. I feel like it gives me a glimpse of what Danny would look like as a cute little girl.



Cousin Andrew got married in October and the whole shindig went unblogged. So here's 9 pictures to make up for it.

Danny being whiny and complainy while we waited outside.
Cate and Dan checking out each others tonsils. Cate's are huge by the way.
The happy couple from the back.
Cate eating all of Aunt Suzy's breath mints. Poor little girl was starving.
Danny being tortured by his other big boy cousins.
Cupcakes!
Posing with Cousin Billy.
Cate with two big girl cousins. Grandma had a 16 year break (filled with the births of lots of little grandsons) between baby granddaughters.
Danny being extremely uncooperative.



The cousins, big and small. The small tend to not like to stand still all at the same time for one really good picture so we get shots like this instead.



Did I blog about how cute Danny is with Ray Ray? Maybe so.

I found my Girl Scout jacket during clean out the closet time. Oh, the memories. Danny was mostly impressed by my badge that had a rocket ship on it. He said, "Wow! How did you get that one?" Maybe a trip to space camp? I don't remember.

Danny was not very happy to be posing in Grandpa's old jacket from high school. That's why I didn't blog about it.

I don't know how this one got left out. First drawing of the blue sky at the top of the page and the green grass at the bottom. And don't forget the big red ball of fire in the middle. I really was very proud of this milestone.

A mess. Who blogs about messes? Not me.

Danny's birthday cake. Unblogged. That's a cupcake though.

My favorite ornaments. Unblogged. Because really, who cares besides me? That's what I thought.

The damage Cate did to the wall in her bedroom. Unblogged because I'm not very happy about it. Who wants to remember that kind of thing? Not me.





Here's our tree on Christmas Eve. I took a picture of it because it makes me happy. In years past I've been so frustrated with the lights. Really. I just felt like there weren't enough and I didn't do a good job putting them on. This year. Perfection. The tree's still up and the lights are still on. I'm having a hard time taking it down because it took me so long to get those lights just right. It'll be coming down on Monday.



Also unblogged, the time I let Cate put on blue eyeshadow while I was doing my hair. She was a cute mess.

Cousin Kris' birthday cake. He wanted red. I decided I'd have to use too much red food coloring or else it would just look pink. So I convinced him to pick a different color. He picked yellow. I didn't have yellow. He got green. I aim to please. I just fall short sometimes.

Cate playing with her little people in the morning sunlight.

Then one night Cate and Ray Ray got into the soap in Aunt Judy's bathtub. Cate rubbed it all over their hair. It was a slightly damp bar of soap so a lot of it got stuck in their hair. It was not a pretty sight later that night during bath time when the soapy water from that mess dripped into her eyes. Not pretty at all.

Another bath unblogged. You're welcome again.

Dan and his siblings at his mom's house on Christmas. Dan's grouchy and I had to chop off Uncle Tim and Aunt Suzy so they'd fit in the square.

Danny got some Tinker Toys for Christmas. The first thing he made were light sabers. The red one belongs to Darth Maul and the green one is Qui-Gon Jinn's. Obviously, the attempt to expose him to other toys and steer him away from Star Wars didn't work.

I love Yoda.

My fancy hairstyle I never blogged about. Three buns. The three little bunnies.


And one last picture of the whole gang. How could I not blog about these cute little creatures? Aunt Cindy made them for Danny and Cate for Christmas. She'd be happy to know that they were in a puppet show a few days ago. Danny's idea.



So yeah.

There's 2011 Unblogged.

I promise to unblog all the boring stuff in 2012 too.

You're very welcome.