2011 a year in the life of the Fabulous Baby Striblings

I have seen this over at Mandy's Blog, and thought it was pretty neato, so I decided to copy it. Plus, it WAS a great year. My babies went from one to almost TWO!!! It's kind of neat that they use their whole year as their age year as well (they turn two on Jan 8).

Anyway, here is a look back at our uber fabulous year:

JANUARY
January was a fun month for us! We turned one, and had a super fun Elvis Birthday party. I ended our monthly pics (sniff), I made some New Year's Resolutions, and we played in the snow!

FEBRUARY
In February, I started doing Weekly Photo Projects, couldn't figure out what to feed my "now toddlers", had my peeps help me with what to do with all my pictures, and started getting super excited about consigment!

MARCH
March was fun! It was starting to get warm again! We started doing Mommy and Me Mondays (which I need to start back), I posted about consignment sales, celebrated St Pattys Day, and I did a DIY tutorial on photo canvases!

APRIL
April was Easter - yay! We met the Easter Bunny, and I did my first Steppin Out Saturday. We got our one year portraits back, we went to the Masters, and I did another DIY on Bow holders.

MAY
Shoo - I have a super cute little boy. I realized poor Jules will forever be my little mini-me :). I celebrated my "line-aversary", and  we celebrated my second Mothers Day!!










JUNE
In June, I posted about a "day in the life" with the twinnies, and decided it was time for a bigger car.We surprised Jake in his office for his birthday, which was fun, and we also looked back on his 30th birthday! Jules wanted to be a diva for lunch, and she is also a super cutie. We celebrated Father's Day, and I started having to think about outfits for their 18m photoshoot. Worst thing? My harddrive crashed and I lost everything that was on it.

JULY
I went to the super-awesome U2 concert, and discovered how awesome the Dollar Store is when you have 18m olds. Josh and Gus became BFFs, and we had a pretty fun 4th of July. I remembered when I was really cool and ran the Country Music Half Marathon and also blogged a bit about what it was liking owning your own business.  

AUGUST
We hit another milestone and moved up to big girl and boy car seats.I pondered if I was a photogaholic, and  the little blog was a favorite over at Circle of Moms! Jake's sister got married, and I flashed back to lots of pictures from my past. I also went to the beach, and also participated in another surprise wedding!

SEPTEMBER
Football season kicked off, and I had a birthday! I talked about how I am obsessed with Musical Theater, then wrote a bunch more posts about college football, which I'm sure noone really cared about, lol. I also looked back on my maternity fashion, and we got our 18 Month photos back.

OCTOBER
The Nashville Heart Walk happened, and was fun. Jules cracked me up. We went to many more football games. I did a tutorial on a DIY growth Chart, and looked back on my trip to Paris last year. We celebrated another anniversary, and I looked back on our wedding! I started posting about decisions I have made as a mom, and I also did another DIY tutorial on Tutus! Um, and the babes were Mickey and Minnie for Halloween, and super cute.

NOVEMBER
I traveled to New York and to Las Vegas in November, so didn't post as much. I was super thankful for lots of things, and also did a Holiday Home Tour of La Casa


DECEMBER
I started a 25 days of Christmas posts (although didn't quite make it, oh well) Among the fab ones were The DIY tree topper, the Advent Calender,The opryland Hotel, and  my Christmas Card Display. I also showed off my Christmas Cards. I also recapped on Christmas in these three posts. It was SO MUCH more fun this year with the babes!

I hope your 2011 was as much fun as ours was! Thank you so much for reading my blog and keeping up with the Fabulous Baby Striblings! we love sharing our lives and our journey with you!

Flashback Friday - We'll Always Have Paris

This week's Flashback Friday post is all about my trip one year ago to Paris. Although I posted a little bit about it back then, I never shared any details of my trip or the beautiful pictures I took (a photographers dream). Here is my trip recap in a nutshell:

1. If you are a reader of my blog, you know how OBSESSED I am with all things French. Love the culture, love the atmosphere, love the fashion, love the food (and wine), and love the decor. I have never been overseas before, and by far and away if there as any city to make me get in a plane for 8 hours, it would be to go to this dream city.

2. It was eh. Oh how I wanted to love Paris more than anything. And while we had a few FABULOUS days, there was some major headaches as well. (Paris transportation strikes were going on - couldnt' get ANYWHERE, went to this ridiculous cabaret, I got food poisoning so couldn't eat for at least 24 hours, etc - we left there saying that Paris, France kicked our a$$). I would love to go back and just explore the city instead of doing all the tourist stuff. Our favorite day was strolling around Montmarte and just experiencing a Parisian city a bit on the outskirts of the tourism.

3. I was still breastfeeding. No joke. I carted my little Medela backpack all around the city. It actually worked out quite well, because I was able just to carry that, some incidentals, and throw my money and camera in the backpack. I would pump in the morning and evenings and keep that. During the day was pumping in restrooms and dumping it. Why didn't I just stop breastfeeding you ask? I have no idea, lol. The babies were only 10 months old and I was determined to go a year. And I did. And I missed my babies so bad you can't imagine!

4. There were things I wished we did instead of the things we did do. I didn't make it to the open air markets, which was one. there were sometimes we just wanted to buy some wine, cheese, and croissants and call it a day, but we didn't. I also just wanted to go into as many home decorating and furniture shops as I could, but didn't go to any. I did buy authentic created Parisian perfume, which was a goal of mine.

5. The food was just eh. Desserts were fab, of course. But while they are famous (or at least in American I learned) for their cheese, paninis, bread, etc. The actual "meals" there were not great. And let's just go ahead and say that I mistakenly ordered a cold duck liver salad my first night.

6. You don't have to speak the language, and as Americans we are selfish of that fact. I knew a bit of French before I went, but the majority of them spoke both French and English. And let me go a step further is saying they spoke more than two languages. Like 4 mostly. They said because you "country hop" so much over in Europe, that you grew up learning multiple languages, because most countries are a different language, which I thought was fabulous. I mean, we just know English. How selfish is that??

7. We also took a day trip to Venice, which was a beautiful tiny little area. but, this is when I had food poison, so you try to imagine paying $1.50 each time you needed to use the public toilets when you have food poisoning.

8. Versailles was fabulous. I didn't think I even wanted to "waste" a day and do this, but it was SO worth it. Just absolutely breathtaking and just awe-inspiring to know all of that happened hundreds of years ago. Very interesting to learn about it.

9. My new Nikon camera was only a month old, and I got it at the perfect time. As I said, Paris and Venice is a photographer's dream,and for sure caught the bug while over there. (the photography bug, not said stomach bug)

10. I would go back - probably NOT when they have transportation strikes going on. Literally, we counted it up and we wasted an entire day and a half (probably more) in train stations trying to get places. Flights were cancelled, etc. It was a nightmare. but, it was BEAUTIFUL. And like I said, it was my dream city, and I refuse to accept that trip as a depressing memory. So, I will vow to go back. I feel like it was the way I experienced New York the first time - we did all the tourist things. Now, NYC is my favorite city of all time, and we do NOTHING touristy when we go. So, I think Paris is like that.

*warning* Photo Dump ahead:

We rented a Parisian apartment during our stay. Loved it. The bathroom was teeny!

At Versailles

Versailles

Still at Versailles, now at Petit Tresor, Marie Antoinette's home

I only took about 1,203 pictures of the Eiffel Tower, so you are lucky I'm not showing them all to you.

Us to top of the Tower. The people in front of us in line had the whitest shoes I have ever seen. Photo worthy, no?

Notre Dame and Champs Elysees

Night cruise along the Seine and the Arc de Triomphe

Parisian street,  lots of emply wine glasses, the famous windmill at Montmarte, and an American we met who lived there. We though he was super cool until he recommended us going to see the Au Lapin Agile cabaret. (Frommers does too) OMG (do not go- it is ridiculous)

Sacre Coeur, the Red Light District, and more Parisian streets

Moulin Rouge, natch

On top of the hill close to Sacre Coeur. LOVED this! Lots of local artists and cafes and restuarants. We had the most fun here, dranks loads of wine and had a blast. The waiter loved us.  

Leslie didn't make it out to the Lourve (see pics above) so Mom and I did it solo. There was a group of students taking an art class inside the Lourve. How cool is that? Mona Lisa is tiny and overrated.

The Seine River

Venice: TALL buildings and narrows paths: Not a good combo when you arrive to a deserted city at 1am (plus with said food poisoning). Also San Marco square.

Beautiful canals and gondoliers.

The famous Rialto Bridge in Venice

Back in Paris. At Le Deux Magots (famous writing spot of Ernest Hemingway). Also went to Père Lachaise Cemetery. Among those buried are Jim Morrison. People wrote all over the tree next to his grave. I think those people sitting next to his stone are smoking cigarettes, no?

If you love Paris, or love my babies, please take a second to vote for us!



Linking up to Flashback Friday, Jenni From the Blog, and Social Parade