Anderson Family News: Farewell 2011!

Well, 2011 has come and gone, even faster than the year before, so it seems. It was overall a very busy but good year for our family, with many happy memories made. It was also the year that I experienced the loss of a grandparent, not once, but twice. After almost 3 years of searching and saving, Chris and I found and bought the perfect home for our family and we have been enjoying it so much. The boys are both growing and changing so fast, so we do our best to savor every minute! An idea that I have seen from other blogs is to highlight each month of our year in pics (and we all know that I take enough pics to do that!), so here goes! (I will warn you, I had a very hard time narrowing down my fave pics from some months, so this is quite a lenghty post!)

The Anderson's 2011

January

Early in the morning of New Years Day, Grandpa went to heaven and we started our year with heavy hearts, mourning the loss of a very great man and wonderful grandfather.

While we dealt with losing Grandpa, we also took turns sitting at Grandma's hospital bedside as she fought serious illness and was on a ventilator. January wasn't the greatest.

February

We had record-breaking snowfall in Northwest Arkansas this month!! It was pretty awesome for about the first day. Then it got old and we were pretty much snowed or iced in the rest of the month. I couldn't wait for Springtime!!

Also, Grandma turned the corner and began making a full recovery! Such an answer to prayer!

March

Ayden got bronchitis and was the absolute sickest he had ever been in his 3.5 years of life! It was a rough few days tending to my sick big boy and keeping the germs away from baby brother...but we did it! Ethan thankfully remained healthy all winter.

Ethan turned 6 months old and the boys became increasingly interactive with each other. It was so fun seeing my boys playing together.

April

My brother got married and I gained a new sister, Brandy! Ayden made an unbelievably cute ring bearer and Ethan was just cute :)

We celebrated Easter the next day, and I took advantage of one of the first chances to dress the boys in matching outfits.

Preciousness!!

May

Chris and I decided we were ready to buy a house and the serious searching started! We knew what we wanted and only had to look at 3 houses before we found "the one". We put in an offer and were beyond thrilled to have a closing date of June 24th! Also, the warm weather we had been waiting for finally arrived and we started spending lots of time outdoors!

I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a mother of 2!

Later that month, we took the boys for their first trip to Silver Dollar City.

June

Summer arrived and we started spending lots of time eating snowcones and getting wet! We were so excited to discover our city's splash park downtown!

Ayden started swim lessons at the Walmart Fitness Center!

Chris celebrated his first Father's day as a dad of 2 boys!

Then...we bought our home!

Three days after the excitement of closing on our new home, my Papa passed away in his sleep at the age of 91. We were grateful for his peaceful passing, but so saddened to have lost both grandfathers in a 6 month period.