2011 In Review

What an incredible, life-changing year this has been for our family! One I will always look back on as one of the best of my life!  So much excellence packed in. Here are a few of the highlights…

JANUARY

Either nothing really eventful happened or I just don’t remember.  January feels like such a long time ago!

FEBRUARY

We enjoyed the snow! Unfortunately, I ended up in a ditch on the way to work for the first time ever. Thus began my phobia of driving in the snow lol!

Joshua and I had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. He surprised my by taking me to Spa Essencia at the Langley Inn for a hot stone massage followed by a fancy dinner at my favorite restaurant. It was an epic date night.

MARCH

We marvel at Benjamin’s development on a daily basis, however, one of the most noteworthy things to happen in March was the beginning of Ben’s joke telling. Not only is it hilarious to watch him crack up at his own jokes, I love seeing him use his imagination! The knock knock jokes he comes up with are priceless!

APRIL

We took the kiddos to see the tulips! Benjer had a great time tromping around and Elli got to spend some time with Luci and Wyatt. It was such a treat to have all the kids together!

Also this month, Ben’s vocabulary took off! He started saying all kinds of new words- and big ones to boot! My favorite? “Bubbles”

MAY

May is a special month for Joshua and I. May means Sasquatch! It was my first time to go and it was amazing. We had such a good time and made some lifelong friends including Levi- who flew out from San Francisco to perform our wedding for us. Although we missed Benjamin something awful (it was the longest we’d ever been apart- 5 whole days!!) we got to talk to him every day and we made some great memories. Ben made some memories of his own at Great Wolf Lodge with his cousins, his Mimi and Auntie. 

JUNE

We celebrated my 28^th birthday! In contrast to my “Stache-tacular Mustache-Themed birthday party from last year (which I thoroughly enjoyed!), this year I wanted to celebrate “Pushing 30” with a quiet family dinner. Momma made my favorite (her homemade spaghetti!) and we followed up with ice cream cake and dominos. Of course, to ensure that I was completely satisfied with my birthday celebration, Joshua (in true Joshua style) surprised me with tickets to see one of our favorite bands, The Mountain Goats! We had an excellent time going to the show together- it was one of the most memorable shows I’ve ever been to.

JULY

 In July we had the great joy of spending some time with my extended family. The first time we had all been together since the early 90’s! It was so wonderful to spend some time with the family I miss so much! Seeing our children play together brought back so many memories of the wonderful times I had during my childhood.

The biggest event to take place this year happened in July. We eloped! It was a perfect ceremony- it was so “us” It was such a special day. I still smile every time I think of it. Smiling right now. Like a winner. Betcha wish you could see my cheese grin.

AUGUST

In August we headed out to Colonial Creek for the first annual Farnworth Family Camping trip! Benjamin had an excellent time hiking, playing in the water, roasting marshmallows, generally running amok… Uncle Bibby (the honorary Farnworth) joined us and we had such a fun time together as a family. I was pleasantly surprised at how great Ben slept during the trip. It was such a relaxing time and a great way to “recharge our batteries”.  I can’t wait to plan the trip for 2012!

In addition to taking a weekend+ to go camping, we also both took a week of off work for a “staycation”. We did some work around the house and just enjoyed having some time to spend together. Joshua is always planning these amazing getaways- and I enjoy every single one- but it was also nice to just get some time to be at home.

SEPTEMBER

September brings about another Farnworth Family tradition- Bumbershoot! Once again joined by Uncle Bibby we headed to Seattle to enjoy a few days of music and a ton of artwork. Although we were a little disappointed in the line up this year, we got some really great pieces at Flatstock and Josh got to catch up with his friend John of The Lonely Forest. We let Benjer hang out with his Mimi this time- deciding he was still a little too young to have fun. This coming year I am so excited to bring him along! While he did miss out on Bumbershoot, he did get to attend his first concert in September. At the suggestion of his Auntie, we went to see Caspar Babypants at the Freeland Library. He loved it! I loved watching Ben dance and have a good time. Every moment I look at that guy, I feel so blessed to be his Mommy.

OCTOBER

October is a big birthday month in our family. October 3^rd is my dad’s, Grandma DD’s and Joshua’s birthday. Joshua had been talking about wanting a kitty ever since I’ve known him so for his birthday we welcomed Charlie Sheen into our home (“Winning!”).  It was an adjustment for our Marley-girl but now they’re pals and we can’t imagine our family without the little furniture-ruining turd nugget. We couldn’t just stop at the cat, of course. We also headed out to one of our favorite spots, Rock Box for a night of karaoke with friends to celebrate the birth of my squishy.

I crossed another item off of my bucket list when I went to see Frank Turner with Matt and Jenna. It was such a great show. Of course, I got another epic T-shirt to add to my ever growing awesome-bands-we’ve-seen-live-shirts-that-I-wear-around-the-house collection.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Every year Josh and I have so much fun coming up with our family costume. We have to enjoy while we can- pretty soon Benjer will be choosing his own costumes! This year Ben was Officer Awesome and Mommy & Daddy had matching jailbird outfits. We skipped trick or treating this year (Ben had a cold so we wanted to keep in inside) and instead went to the CES Carnival. Daddy & Benjer had fun handing out candy at home Halloween night and I enjoyed listening to the descriptions of the ghouls and goblins who came to haunt our doorstep from my cozy spot on the couch.

NOVEMBER

My husband is so full of awesome, every time he plans an event I always think he’ll never be able to outdo himself. I am consistently proven wrong. In November he planned a “Mystery Date” which included a shopping trip, dinner, a trip to the casino, a romantic night in a penthouse suite with a private hot tub, breakfast at what is now one of my favorite restaurants and a spa day for me and Mom. The reason for this lavish getaway? Just ‘cause. Seriously. Aside from all the amazing things he does for me, I feel like the luckiest gal in the world. Joshua is constantly showing Ben and me how much he loves us not just with words but with his actions. I am so thankful for him.

 

DECEMBER

Last year for Ben’s first birthday we had a family party at home. Everyone was sick off and on and we wanted to stay home and enjoy him. Since we didn’t have a big party last year, I may have gone a little overboard this year. We let Benjamin choose what kind of party he wanted and he chose Yo Gabba Gabba. Mimi and Granddaddy were gracious enough to let us use their basement for the event. We had a candy bar, coloring station, way too much food and all kinds of fun decorations. Friends and family came to celebrate our little one turning two. We all had a great time and Benjamin got so many great gifts we had to clean out his room to make space!

We also hosted our first Tacky Christmas Sweater party this year. We had so much fun making our sweaters and spending time with friends.  I had a lot of fun decorating the house for this. Tacky on purpose?! Heck yes! It’s really hard to screw that one up. 

 Christmas was amazing. Everyone was spoiled. I got something I've been especially wanting- more on that later!

As 2011 comes to a close, I can’t imagine what 2012 has in store. I feel so blessed and undeserving of the life I have now. The last couple of years have brought about some wonderful, life-changing events. I thank God every day for the consistent happiness. Not every day (much less everything) is perfect, but I am happier than I have ever been and the best part is- I get to feel like this every day! 

WHOOPS...

Totally just realized I let a good six months go by without posting anything. Oops. What can I say? Life is certainly busy. Work has been crazy busy for me (but it's paid off- I just got a raise and a promotion, wahoo!) and it seems like the only thing I want to do when I'm at home is hang out with my boys. I'm working on rounding up some photos of the last year so I can sum it all up- if only for myself :)

Since it's going to be a minute until that happens, I leave you with a conversation Joshua and I had the other day in the car. I laughed so hard I can't even come up with a good metaphor about how hard I was laughing...

Has anyone else noticed the striking resemblance between Bruce Vilanch and muppet monster Sweetums?

So, Yeah... We Got Married!

I really wish I would've blogged about this sooner before I started to forget all the little details. Better late than never though I suppose. The way Joshua and I decided to elope was pretty spontaneous. We had been planning our wedding for MONTHS (since before we were even engaged, lol). The only thing preventing us from setting a date was my divorce being finalized. I never imagined it was going to take more than two years and with things continually getting dragged out we were hesitant to set a date not knowing what was going to happen next. The day I became legally single, during our celebrating Joshua was holding me tight and asked me when I wanted to get married. I said "This weekend" and he said "Let's do it!" so what was originally an off the cuff remark made out of excitement quickly turned into some serious scheming.

Joshua planned just about every detail. Miraculously, I was able to keep the whole thing a secret from almost everyone. Jenna, Lacey and my Papa were the only ones I spilled the beans to aside from my work family, who had to be in on it in order for us to pull it off! In the span of a little over a week we planned our entire ceremony and the phony story to lure my parents to Seattle, bought my wedding dress, had a veil custom made (thank you, Yashmeen!), rented tuxes for the boys, arranged to fly our friend Levi up from San Francisco to officiate and dozens of other little details (like "borrowing" some of my mom's jewelry without her knowledge or consent lol).

We took my parents out to a fancy dinner to celebrate my newly singlehood status. Little did they know we got our marriage license the day after my divorce was finalized, haha! Joshua had booked all of us in a beautiful hotel and I told my parents we were going to head to the Space Needle to take some family photos but I wanted to change before we left. Josh, Benjer and I got out of our dinner clothes and into our wedding clothes and headed down to my parent's room. I knocked on the door and stood in the hallway with my finger over the peephole for what felt like forever before my mom opened the door, immediately burst into tears and said, "Thank you, Jesus" My dad, who was on the phone at the time just stared for a minute. I promptly told him to hurry it up because we had a wedding to go to.

When we arrived at the Space Needle's observation deck, I spotted the rest of our small party. Our officiant, Levi and Josh's two best friends Jim and Adrian (also known as crazy Uncle Bibby) were all sporting amazingly awesome fake mustaches. Completely surprised by this detail, I turned around to find that my groom had also put on a mustache.

Levi opened our ceremony with the priest's monologue from my favorite movie, The Princess Bride. You know the one. "Mawwaige. Mawwaige is whot bwings us togeva today..." He even did the speech impediment. It was epic. He had prepared the sweetest opening speech as well. He spoke about Joshua and I being "independently awesome" which I loved. Josh and I wrote our own vows to each other. Mine was two paragraphs. His was two pages. While I was sure he was the one that would cry, I ended up being the one needing the tissues. I barely got through my two paragraphs. Luckily, his vows were heartfelt and hilarious- an excellent combination!

We also wrote our own vows for the exchanging of rings and the I Do's. I won't share the whole thing, but I will tell you it ended with "until death or the Zombie Apocolypse parts you". We planned on getting these really awesome custom wedding bands that have each others fingerprints on the inside of the band... but with a week to plan, there was no way they were going to be ready. Instead, I got Joshua an octopus locket ring and he got me a very obnoxious, extremely loveable white owl ring (I still wear it!). Once again, another quirky and tacky detail that made the day so uniquely "us"

We ended our ceremony with the perfect kiss and a less than perfect dance to our favorite Mountain Goats song. It was joyful and uncoordinated and so much fun. It was a little like getting married in a fish bowl. We had people watching from the other side of the glass laughing and cheering and one even crying. It was a wonderful, wonderful day.

I especially enjoyed Benjamin's reaction to the whole thing. He spent a large part of the ceremony flirting with and waving to passers by. It was so cute. And although he's been calling Joshua "Daddy" since he started talking, it was almost like he knew something was different. Joshua graduated from "Daddy" to "My Daddy" which he still calls him.

I couldn't have asked for anything more special or memorable. I can't imagine a more appropriate way to have married my best friend.

"Thank you, Jesus" indeed!

Happy Father's Day!

Supposedly kids all go through phases where they prefer one parent over the other. One area that has stayed consistent for Benjamin is bed time. For Valentine's Day this last year, Benjamin's gift to Joshua was a new bedtime book called I Love My Daddy Because... 

Benjamin has been pretty insistent that Daddy reads him the "Daddy Book" at bedtime. In the event that Daddy is not around and Momma tries to read it? Not the same. He gets this look on his face and shakes his head at me like, "Nice try, Momma." The book is so well loved it's getting worn down a bit and Benjamin knows it by heart. Each page shows a daddy and baby animal of some kind and Benjamin and Josh do the animal sounds together. At this point, Ben starts making the animal sound on the next page before Josh is even finished reading the sentence on the current page. So for Father's Day I re-created the book with the same text, using pictures of Josh and Ben. A few of my favorites are as follows...

I love my Daddy because he takes naps with me.

 He makes me laugh.

He plays hide-and-seek with me. 

All said and done, the book is about 40 pages of Daddy and baby activities (he reads me stories, he sings me songs, he teaches me to be brave, etc.). I had a lot of fun sorting through pictures of my two best gentleman together. I am so proud of our little family and feel so incredibly lucky to have found this man who is so amazing. Even as I'm typing this with Ben on my lap, he periodically points to the screen at the pictures and says, "that's Daddy! love Daddy!" It's very sweet and makes me a little misty.

So, Happy Father's Day, Papa Bear! We love you more than I can say.

The Last Year...

Life has been extraordinarily busy. Spent weeks gearing up for Sasquatch, went and had a fantastic time and we're just now starting to feel recovered. I haven't even entirely unpacked my suitcase yet. More on the festival later. Last night we went to see one of my favorite bands, The Mountain Goats and had the most incredible time! The show was AMAZING. One of my favorites we've seen. This morning, while driving to work and wishing I was either a.) still at home sleeping or b.) dead I got to thinking about all the amazing bands we've seen in the last year. Some of my favorites?

Bright Eyes

David Bazan

Death Cab for Cutie

Flogging Molly

Foo Fighters

Iron & Wine

Jenny & Johnny

Modest Mouse

People Eating People

Rise Against

Sharon Van Etten

The Bouncing Souls

The Decemberists

The Head and the Heart

Weezer

I've always loved going to shows and feel so, so, so lucky that my man friend not only shares my passion for live music, but always seems to find a way to make going to shows and festivals happen. I think have seen more bands in the last year than the previous 10 combined. It has been so fantabulous. So, on that note. I still feel like absolute death from shaking my bootie into the wee hours of the morning and getting about 3-ish hours of sleep, but it was worth it! Looking forward to having the weekend to relax and recover and SLEEP

Who Rocks the Potty?

I got pooped on last night. Again. Literally. Poor Benjamin. Bless his little heart. We have been working on potty training for a while now and although he will tell us when he is going, and knows what the potty chair is for, he still prefers to go in his diaper... and on me, apparently. This is the second time I've been pooped on this month!

Benjamin loves Elmo. I mean really, that kid LOVES "Melmo" So when I saw this potty chair at Kmart, I scooped it up... until I saw the price tag. Almost $30! So I put it back. The very next week we were back at Kmart for something else and I saw the same potty chair with a little red tag on it. So I looked a little closer. Then I looked again. Then I put it in the cart. It was marked down to $4.99! Heck yes! Ever since we got it, it's been sitting in our bathroom. Benjamin will sit on it, but will not go potty on it. Ah, parenting.

Gearing Up for Sasquatch!

Holy Hannah! This month has FLOWN by and we're less than a week away from Sasquatch! We have been ridiculously excited about this. I requested my time off from work all the way back in December and Josh bought the tickets right when they went on sale. During our long car rides to Seattle and back we've made lists of everything we need to bring (of course I have NO idea what happened to the lists!) And now we're down to the wire and totally unprepared! Well, I guess not totally... we did buy a couple of things for camping (now I just need to find where I stashed them!). So this weekend will be eventful. Laundry, packing, shopping, getting the house ready for the housesitter, moving a ton of stuff... As much as I'm looking forward to our mini-vacation, I'm a little stressed out about getting everything ready in time. That being said, I am so stoked to cross another bushel of bands off of my bucket list! The lineup is pretty incredible. I'm sure we will come home happy and exhausted, and maybe a little bit sunburned (that reminds me- I better remember the sunblock!). Even more so than the live music, I think I'm most excited to get to spend some quality time with my best friend. With both of us working full time, even though we see each other every day... I feel like I never see him sometimes! With as busy as things are leading up to our departure, and as busy as we'll be as soon as we get home, it will be really nice to have a few days of down time.