Goodbye 2012!

We did it!!  We survived 2012!!  I'm still surprised :).  Just kidding.  Actually, it was a very eventful year!!  If I was the Christmas card writing type, I would love to make a list of the big things of the year and send it to everyone, but instead I will just do it in a blog post.  What everyone did:

Jack was born!  Pretty big for him :)  Not much else can compare :).  He has lighted our lives, and made the rest of the year so much fun!

Erika potty-trained herself completely at the beginning of the year!  We were so lucky to be out of diapers for the first time in 10 years!  She actually grew a ton the whole year, hitting all kinds of milestones.  She is our little Princess.

Noah made some big moves this year as well.  His biggest one was starting Primary!  He was so brave and by the end of the year was going all by himself with very little trouble.  he also learned to stop sucking his fingers!

Luke finished his first year of school and decided he doesn't love it but constantly gets rave reviews from his teachers!  He's a good kid.  He was probably the biggest proponent to the new trampoline and spent a lot of the summer on it!

Bradley did the big turning 8 thing and chose to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It's been neat to watch him grow spiritually and practice following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  He also started his first session of basketball and wowed us all with his amazing skills!  And not just because he was the tallest one on the team!

Kelly made it the whole year going without candy, sweets and soda.  She earned $300 doing it!  She got one of the starring roles, the youngest daughter, Gretl, in her school play Sound of Music!  She can't wait to start practices.  She also won first place in her reflections category for her dance to the song Firework!

Charity got her dog this year!  Buddy has been an interesting addition to the family, and Charity has been so good at learning to take care of him!  She also started babysitting for us this year!  She does a good job and makes some good money while she's at it :).  She continues to surprise us with her abilities.  She can now type 57 wpm.

Nate CERTIFIED in April!!!!  YAY!!!!  This was HUGE, and even more exciting than I ever imagined it.  He became CPC a Certified Professional Controller! Nate also went on a fishing trip with his Dad and some of his brothers in Flamin Gorge.  He also got called to be in the Elder's Quorum Presidency.  And finished his second year of no candy and first year of no sweets!  He's amazing.

I spent most of the year being pregnant (aka: sick, ornery, tired and moody).  Then gave birth to our seventh child.  I spent a lot of the year as the First Counselor in the Primary Presidency and as a Ward Organist.  I loved my callings, hopefully they will let me back in to a calling soon.

As a family we:
bought a Suburban to fit the growing numbers
went on our own Vegas Vacation
went camping in Payson Lakes
went jet skiing on Grandpa's new jet skis a couple times in Pineview
celebrated 11 years of marriage!
looked for a new house
had lots of movie nights and lots of popcorn!
went on lots of walks around the neighborhood

It was a pretty good year.  I don't think we could have asked for a whole lot more! We look forward to 2013 and what it holds!