JenErik Family: 2012 in review

(late I know...we just got internet a few days ago and things have been crazy busy here...click on the links to see the original blog posts and more pictures. it's crazy to think that Jane was still a baby 1 year ago and now she is a big toddler...)

January

Janers turns 10 months

We got snow in Seattle! This was Jane's first real exposure to snow since MN wasn't snowy over Christmas. See pics here and here.

February

Erik traveled to San Luis Obispo, CA for work. Jen and Jane went along. It was a fantastic trip and so fun to be back in our old CA town! Dave, Karen, and Judy also met us there for the weekend. See pics here, here, here, here, and here.

Janers turned 11 months and learns to stand alone

We are told we will be able to set a closing date on our house before the end of the month. We start packing.

March

Janers turns 1!!!! Pics here, here, and here.

Jane starts walking ON her first birthday and my parents and Parker come to Seattle for a visit

April

We take a family trip to Bend, Oregon to attend our friends' wedding.

Jane was really into Easter this year and Jane turns into an artist (and here)!

May

Still no word on the house and feeling antsy, so we take a weekend road trip to the Oregon Coast (and here) over Mother's Day weekend.

Jane becomes interested in looking at the animals in the zoo and our little artist continues to create (and here).

June

Jen is pregnant! Woop Woop!!

July

Jen and Jane go to MN and spend a week at my parents' cabin.

Erik went to a conference near Mt Hood, OR. Jen and Jane tag along.

After nearly 9 months, we received bad news about the house--the sellers' bank REJECTED the sale. I was crushed. We were back to house hunting. It sucked!

August

We looked and looked and didn't find an existing home that we liked. And of course the market recovered slightly since we started looking a year ago. It was so discouraging to look at houses that were 20-30K more in worse condition and in locations that were less than ideal than the place we waited on for so long. We found a new home development that we LOVED and decided to build. It would mean waiting several more months for a house, but the builders said it would be likely that we would be in before Christmas and guaranteed a closing date by the end of the year. Below is a picture of the foundation, taken from the back of the house. I didn't blog about the progress because I was so worried something would go wrong. Building pictures to come.

Jane and Jen went to MN again to meet Katie's new baby. We also spent another long weekend at my parents' cabin.

September

We find out that we are having a BOY!

October

Erik's travel really picked up in September and October, so my mom came to Seattle to keep Jane and me company.

Jane was the most adorable little elephant (and here) for Halloween. She LOVED picking pumpkins, carving pumpkins, and trick or treating!

November

Erik travels to Australia for 10 days, leaving Jane and me home to fend for ourselves! Erik turns 30 (in Australia); we celebrated before he left.

We spent Thanksgiving with Erik's family in San Diego. I never did get around to blogging the pictures due to space issues with blogger (which I solved thanks to Erik's coworker!). We had a great time--we went to the beach, spent time with family, visited Sea World, explored the zoo...