2009 Recap

I can't believe it is already 2010! I remember the days of Y2K and remember celebrating 2000 at Toomers Corner in Auburn as we all braced for what could happen when the days of 1900's ended and now we have spent 10 years in the 2000 with very few hiccups. It has been a great decade and I don't really have time to recap the past 10 years but I would like to recap 2009 especially since I did not really start this blog until late in the year. I can't take credit for this idea as I got it from another blog I read and thought it was a great way to sum up our year!

January

January we spent packing up our first home, tear :(, in Mobile and moved to our new home in Fairhope. We love where we live now but we have so many great memories that were spent in our first home that will always hold a special place in our heart.

February

Was spent trying to settle and celebrating Mardi Gras. James attended his first Mardi Gras parade and it wasn't all he expected it to be...

March

We celebrated 2 special birthdays in March. March 5th we celebrated uncle Chase's 21st birthday in Las Vegas!! Our first big trip without James. We missed him terribly but it was a wonderful getaway. March 20th we celebrated James' 1st birthday!! James also started walking this month and has never looked back :)

April
We attended our good friends' Claire and Wes beautiful wedding in Dothan. It was so much fun spending time with old friends. We also celebrated Easter and held our first Easter egg hunt even though James was the only hunter...it still counts, right??

May

We made our first trip to the beach for the day. James did not love the sand but by the end of the summer he was a huge fan. This is the month I started reading others blogs and became inspired to try new things. Making homemade breakfast more often was first on the list. James didn't seem to mind his blueberry waffles and gave me the official thumbs up approval.


June

We celebrated this dad by making him work in the yard and make some additions to our landscape. We, and by we I really mean Chad and Chase, planted these pretty trees below. They looked like that for about 2 weeks before a major drought and significant heat wave hit our area and their life was short lived. I really wish someone would have told us June is probably not the best month to plant large trees...

July

Chad and I celebrated 3 years of marriage! And then once it "cooled" off for a little bit we made a few day trips to the beach and discovered that James will nap near the ocean. This was a great discovery!!

James sat on a horse, aunt Kim's horse Gracie that is, for the first time during July and seemed to like it...

My best friend Lorie and her daughter, Ashlyn came to visit the end of July and we all had a great time. We spent the weekend constantly laughing!

August

Brought more visitors and more beach trips. My best Jeanna came to visit for the weekend and got me motivated to start walking again for a brief 2 weeks :) We visited the Pink House in Grayton again with all the girls which is always fun. James loves it too because he usually gets most of the attention being the baby of the group.

This is one of my favorites and I felt needed to make the blog at some point. It may even make another appearance at James' future rehearsal dinner unless he deletes it first :) James was wearing this ensemble one day when I picked him up from daycare. Yes he is wearing a sleeveless Nascar shirt and yes he is not wearing pants. He apparently messed up the other 2 outfits so they had to come up with something. It didn't seem to bother him one bit but Chad and I couldn't stop laughing!

Brooks and James finally got to spend some good quality time together when our friends Jennifer and Patrick came to visit...and little did we know Jennifer was expecting Brooks' brother-to-be!

September

Sautter family beach trip to Caribe and Arley had to make an emergency exit :)! This month I
started another new thing...The Stracener Scene!


October

Brought beautiful hot fall weather and this cute little Pirate for Halloween!

November

Yes I turned 30 and celebrated my birthday with my 2 favorites boys and then spent a fun filled surprise weekend at the beach with my favorite friends! We also made a trip to Auburn for the Auburn/Alabama game. Even though we ended up losing it felt so good to go back and reminisce.

December

We celebrated 3 specials birthdays. The birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, the birth of my mother and the 30th anniversary of the birth of this man.

Yes Chad finally turned 30 and after 57 days of hearing how I am the "older" woman in his life I was glad! Even though I wasn't able to surprise him as well as he did for me, I still think he had a great birthday. I bought him a sky caddie, a golf navigational system, that he has been wanting but now I am starting to rethink since it may mean he will be playing more golf in the future. We spent his actual birthday at home. I ordered a mini German chocolate cake (his favorite) that apparently did not have a strong foundation as you can see...it did not look like this when I picked it up.

And then we celebrated his birthday with some great friends New Years Eve in the concrete jungle of Birmingham where the lights will inspire you and make you want to put 2 hands in the air for the Vulcan! For those that do not recognize the song, Empire State was theme song for the night. We rang in the New Year with a delicious meal and great company! Unfortunately I do not have any pictures from the night and some that Kristin took were left in her camera on the table...

So that sums up 2009 for the Straceners. It was a good year with many blessings and we can only hope 2010 will be even better! As for my New Year resolutions...I am never good at these but I want to spend more time with my camera, exercise more once it warms up a bit, read more books and teach James how to use the potty!

Christmas Craziness

We have survived another year! Don't get me wrong I absolutely love the Christmas holidays as I said before but with Christmas comes chaos. Trying to make sure we see ALL of our family within a weeks time is just about impossible. Well actually it is impossible because we are having Christmas with my mom's side of the family the end of January this year...ha! James handled the days very well and had so much fun playing with all of his cousins and opening all his presents. He was so excited about Christmas and I know next year will be even better as he will understand more! We are so very fortunate to have such a large loving family and Christmas just would not be the same without all the chaos. I have included several pictures from the holidays. The first several are from Christmas with my dad's who came to Fairhope this year!

Christmas Eve at the Straceners' before heading to church with the Sautters.

I hoped I could take the place of the monkey above but getting James to "pose" for a picture these days is very difficult.

So I opted for one by myself :) We tried to get a family shot too but it ended up being a picture of Chad and I...that one was on KK's camera.

James Christmas morning with Goofy and Mickey and his new Harley. This will be the only motorcycle he will ever ride by the way!

He loved my new belt!

How can you not love this guy? He is so excited about his new vest. Obviously he is not trying to make a fashion statement...

These were from the day after Christmas with the Sautters. That look of concentration and determination he gets from his daddy.

I loved James' stance here...lets just say he loved his new guitar!

I can't decide who was more excited about this new toy...James

or daddy??

And Papa had to purchase this VERY large Mickey for James. He loved it!! But little does Papa know this Mickey has found a new home at his house and will not be making it to Fairhope...haha only kidding Papa. We will get it...eventually!

Merry Christmas!!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!! We are headed to Birmingham tomorrow and looking forward to seeing everyone over the next several days. We had Round 1 with my dad's family this past weekend at our house and it was so much fun! It was great to spend a little Christmas at our home for a change. It was also nice to not have to worry about packing bags!! Thank you so much Nana, Papa B Kevin and Kim for coming to stay with us!! James loved his presents and loved spending time with you all!

James LOVES opening presents in general! He was so proud he could do all by himself. And he HAD to help all of us open our presents too! I am thinking Santa should wrap empty boxes to put under the tree no need to spend extra money on actual toys, he has the best time ripping the paper! Last year he loved playing with empty boxes this year he loves unwrapping them! I have a feeling each Christmas with James is going to get better and better.

Pictures to come once I have time to download them :)

Clarification

As Chad was reading the latest post last night he began to point out my misuse of words and all of my grammatical errors. I just want to make sure everyone understands that I am not the best speller and completely rely on spell check when I remember to use it and I tend to type fragments or run on sentences or sometimes leave words out (kind of like this one). These are just my thoughts and please try to overlook all of my mistakes :)

Below are a couple of pics from our Christmas Card photo session. The 3 of us headed down to the bluff in Fairhope. My vision was I wanted to get a picture of James with the bay/pier in the background since we moved to Fairhope during 2009. Next year I will not have a vision because I think when you do there is just too much pressure and it becomes a tense environment. Chad was such a good sport to come along to help but after an hour of photo taking and an outfit change he was done. Plus earlier in the day we had driven 4 hours home from Birmingham.

This picture I think would have been perfect however you cannot see his face because my flash did not turn on. Not very happy about that!

All in all I was pleased with the way our card turned out and just hope Chad forgets about this session by next year so he will be willing to help again!

I'm Back!

Ok so I know it has been awhile since the last post but we have been kind of busy. I love the holidays, the smell of Christmas trees, the extra decorations, Christmas dinnerware, the Christmas lights in peoples yards, the family gatherings just about everything. However I tend to get a little stressed :) So many gifts to buy and then wrap, picking out the perfect tree, decorating the tree, ordering Christmas cards, addressing Christmas cards and the list goes on.

Additionally the number of cars on the road seem to increase significantly, available parking at any retail location is scarce and people tend to lose all patients, including myself :) I will say I was in a complete tizzy this time last week but after this weekend I feel 1000X better. Our house is completely decorated, Christmas cards are sent, almost all of our presents are purchased and most are wrapped! Now I can begin to enjoy the season! Plus having a young child seems to make the holidays that much merrier. James still does not understand but he is loving Santas, snowmen, and Rudolph as long as they in books or pictures. We attempted seeing Santa this year and it wasn't as successful as last year. For the pic this year we all 3 sat in Santa's lap. The pic is quite comical, both James and Chad had lost all patients after waiting in line so you can only imagine. Here are a few pics below of our house and James with the tree

This is James' favorite ornament. It is a pic of Chad and I on our wedding day. Every day he goes straight to this ornament and pulls it off. Thankfully it is not breakable :)

And then he tries to put it back on...he has not mastered that one yet. The ornament usually ends up on the floor.

Kind of a random picture but this is James watching Curious George Christmas. I thought it was too cute that he was propped on the pillow laying down watching a movie.

Reading with Daddy...wanted to have his arm propped up just like him

Lately James has been obsessed with Mickey Mouse. Loves him. So this past weekend we were at Lowe's and James spotted this little friend and he never made it out of our shopping cart. We were suckered in. This Santa Mickey sings Deck the Halls and James sings along during the Fa la la la part and it was just too cute not to purchase. It may be the cheapest looking Mickey you have ever seen but watching him sing along was too cute to pass up.

Now that we finally have presents under the tree it is hard to explain to a 21 month old that you have to wait until Christmas to open them :) He has already attempted to open a few and I do not feel like rewrapping!

Merry Christmas!!