Unglesby Family: I'm Back!

Happy New Year to you! What a fun and blessed year 2011 was. We have much to be thankful for! We look forward to the new year and seeing what 2012 has in store for our family. One of my new year’s resolutions is to get back to blogging, scrapbooking, and documenting our family memories. In an attempt to keep my resolution alive (or at least to not totally fail on the first day of the year), I thought I would do a little recap of the past year starting in March where I left off (what a total blogging slacker I have been!)

In March, we had a great time at the heart walk! We sold over 90 t-shirts and raised lots of money to benefit the American Heart Association. It was so much fun to walk (or waddle in my case, as I was pregnant at the time) in honor of Emma Kate and Julianne!

In April, we celebrated Easter

and Emma Kate as she was chosen star student of her class! Here she is showing off her crown and star student pin. I think she’s quite proud of herself.

May was a big month for us! We sold our sweet house (many tears shed on my part!!), moved to my parents’ little guest house, and started building our new house. One Sunday afternoon the boys were able to sneak away for a little private plane ride with a friend from church. This was while the Mississippi River was REALLY high, so they were able to get a great view of the flood waters and the new Mississippi River bridge. There’s my dad in the pilot seat, landing the plane. Looks like he’s still got it!

In June we went to the beach with a group of sweet friends! It was so much fun, but Emma Kate did not love the beach this trip. She did however, LOVE the lazy river. And so did her big, pregnant momma!

Emma Kate also got her first real haircut this month. I had trimmed the back several times, but it was time for the real deal. Thanks Brandi!

In July we did LOTS and LOTS of this:

swimming.

It’s not a lot of fun being pregnant during the Louisiana summer. Can we say HOT?!

My sisters also threw me a diaper shower at the end of July. So. Awesome. Thomas is almost 5 months old and I haven't had to buy the first diaper. And I still have several boxes to go. Thanks friends!!

Moving on to August...Our church has been working this year on starting a Special Needs Ministry. We’ve been making slow but steady progress, and I cannot wait to see what the Lord will do with this ministry. Partnered with Joni and Friends, we hosted our first Disability Awareness Weekend, and everything was great. We met with our pastors, had a youth night, a congregation wide educational seminar, a brunch for the families in our church that are affected by disability, and ended the weekend with testimonies from members of our church.

We also had fun going to the new house everyday to check out the progress. Our house FLEW up in no time. It was complete in three months. Everyone said there was no way we could be in before the baby. They were wrong. Thank goodness. We actually thought we had a few weeks to spare, but SURPRISE,

Thomas came three weeks early. It was quite an exciting week: Disability Awareness Weekend Thursday through Sunday, we moved in on Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend,Thomas came on Tuesday, and Emma Kate started school that Friday. Whew!

In September, Emma Kate’s school had the most adorable fund raiser I’ve ever seen. They had a tricycle trail ride, and members of the community made pledges for each lap the child completed. Here’s my cute cowgirl riding her horsie…

In October, we had so much fun going to pumpkin patches. Yes, Patch-es! I went once with Emma Kate on a school field trip. Here she is with the scarecrow. She wasn’t so much a fan of Mr. Scarecrow as you can probably tell by the way she’s holding onto my hair for dear life.

And Thomas had his first trip to the pumpkin patch. This has kind of become a tradition with a sweet friend of mine.

We also went trick-or-treating for Halloween. Emma Kate was a pig, and Thomas just dressed up as a really cute baby!

In November we celebrated Emma Kate’s fourth birthday with family! What a blessing she is to us. We just love her to pieces!

We also celebrated Thanksgiving, and unfortunately this is the best picture I got. It really makes me laugh though! Our thanksgiving was actually much better than it appears in this picture.

I blinked and December was gone! We went to the Christmas Tree Farm twice this year. Once to get our tree (It was extra special this year, because the farm where we always go to cut down our tree is closing, and this was their last year. I’ve been going there every year since I was a little girl. I don’t know what we’ll do next year, but I know that it will involve a real tree and a saw. No fake trees for this girl!), and once for a field trip with Emma Kate's class.

Emma Kate’s favorite part was the hay ride!