It's a New Year

'Tis the new year!  And, as usual, I'm stealing a round-up idea from my friend Emily at Life {Im}perfected, who thought that stream-lining the year's collage was a much easier task than creating 12 monthly collages. (For the record -- she was right -- though Erik will tell you that this took me a considerable amount of time, too.)  So, here you go... our 2014 (featuring Jacob).

It's been a whirl-wind year.  Looking back at pictures, it's weird to just see how Jacob has been losing that chubby baby face -- and his hair is getting so much darker.  He's becoming more child and is less and less baby.  Which, obviously, is going to happen.  But it's sad.  When he turned two, it was like a whole new world of things opened up.  He talks more, forms longer sentences, says things that not only make sense but are also relevant to lines of conversations, and he tries desperately to do things that he's sure will make us laugh.  These last few mornings of break, he comes into our bed and wants to talk about colors.  "What is orange?  What is red?  What is green?"  It brings me back to my 10th grade English class, when my teacher asked us "What is green".  Of course, that was meant to be philosophical.  Jacob's line of questioning is more literal.  What is orange?  His toothbrush.  Pumpkins.  It's his favorite color.    Unfortunately, his other favorite question is "where."  Where is our house?  Where is babcia and dziadzia's house?  Where is mimi and pop-pop's house?  Where is the store?  Where is the gas station?  And simply saying "down the road a ways" or "just a little further" doesn't satisfy the questioning.  He can be charming, but definitely has a shy streak that runs pretty strong.

This year found us taking an awesome vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  It was an amazing experience -- and probably one of my favorite trips.  We became an aunt and uncle twice over this year -- our niece Emily was born in April, and our nephew Andrew was born in October.  Our neighborhood library re-opened after being closed for a year for renovations.  Jacob loved the constant parade of construction vehicles up and down our street.  We've been trying to find a single-family home.  We found a few we liked, put in offers, but have come up empty-handed.  We're going to work a little harder on that in the next few months.

So the theme for 2015 will probably be "patience."  Something tells me I'm going to need it.