2013- The Year of Jonah!

2013

What a SWEET and SURPRISING year!!!  I'm 8.5 months late writing this summary of our 2013 year and considered just skipping writing anything about it at all.  But then I started thinking, "What did happen in 2013?" and after a tiny bit of thought, realized that it was too important of a year to miss.  So albeit brief, mostly due to my memories fading over the past 8.5 months, here was our VERY IMPORTANT 2013 year as a family!

Jonah.  Joe and I started out the year with a parents-only-cruise for one full week around the Caribbean.  We had a fabulous time with my sister and her husband and met lots of new friends!  It was such a nice get away for us!  That was the trip that also weaned Juliet from nursing.  My baby!  Well I should have known better, but that trip was also partly responsible for the conception of our Little Jonah Boy!  Jonah makes our 2nd Valentines week conceived baby.  2nd!  From this year forward, Joe or I will leave town for the entire week of Valentines Day.  Seriously!  So I spent 2013 pregnant.  It was a great pregnancy, filled with 40lbs of weight gain, water aerobics, waddling, feeling baby kicks, and in the end, high blood pressure that resulted in an induction, 6 days before my due date in a hospital.  His birth was unmedicated, although I had enough tubes and monitors hooked up to me to make you think otherwise.  He was my easiest birth yet!  And PERFECT!  Absolutely PERFECT!  And a BOY!  Sweet from the very beginning and totally in love with his family!  So this year began with Jonah, and ended with us all cooing over his little newborn sweetness!

In other news....  This is the year that Juliet took dance!  And loved it!  She went to Dragonfly with her friend Gram and spent lots of time at Nana's, including her first sleepovers at Nana's house!

Loralai took Gymnastics and learned to hula-hoop!  And started 1st grade with Mr. Stuemke!  Her reading and writing really took off this year!

We also gained another family member, Ms. Darby Penny Shaw, born April 15th, 2013.  Our sweet little Chug puppy!  So as you might guess, lots of this year was also spent cleaning up messes and throwing out chewed shoes and toys and going to training classes.  We love her SO!!!  And she loves us right back!  All of us!  Loralai smothers her with cuddles, Bean hates for her to get anywhere near her play things, and Jonah thinks she's a riot and loves to grab her ears!  She is my constant companion and lap dog, and she doesn't listen to anyone as well as she does Joe! 

Somehow, amongst all this, I managed to break new records with my Real estate business and sold over 5 million in properties!  My best year yet!!! 

We joined the mini-van club, and love it!  Total luxury and ROOM!  Although, I am aware that our cool points have gone down.  But we can afford to spend some cool points to have a sunroof and heated seats!

We had my little brother, Cody stay with us for the summer and took a family vacation to The Smokey Mountains for 2 weeks (see prior blog posts).  And had a mini Prosser reunion and spent lots of time with family!

We took lots of mini trips with friends to Enchanted Rock and Fredricksburg, TX, and New Orleans!  We spent many evenings at our neighborhood lake, or over at friends or family's houses.  The kids played and grew and swam and cried and laughed.

And those are the highlights of our 2013.  It was an amazing, family defining year!!!