Year in Small Review

This is the last of four posts that I have written in the last two or three days. I backdated them so they wouldn't all show as posted on New Year's Eve, but it's killing the journal writer in me to lie about the dates. Sigh. So, I had to confess my lie here so at least I know that two were actually written on the 31st and two on the 2nd. Like it actually matters. And you can know to scroll down and see what you might have missed!

Major Highlights of 2010

I was going to flip through old pictures to remember specific things that happened each month, but I decided instead to see just what comes to mind now. That would make them more significant, right?

January

Chris started his job at L-3 and moved to Salt Lake. The girls and I stayed in Logan and started our single-parenting adventure.

Jane turned 2!

February

Um...nothing comes to mind. Apparently it wasn't a particularly exciting month.

March

Michael and Amanda got married. Yay!

Chris and I each had our birthdays. Yay!

April

Amy and Chase got married. Yay!

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

Chris and I took a week-long couple-only trip to Disneyland.

May

I finished my third year of teaching fifth grade at Providence Elementary and officially quit to be a stay-at-home mom.

June

We moved into our new house and finally lived all together as a family again. Hooray hooray hooray!

July

I started Weight Watchers.

Megan had major invasive surgery on her bladder and kidneys.

August

All I can remember at the moment is that we had our house warming party... that was good.

September

Chris and I celebrated our 4th anniversary.

Chris and I each started attending the Salt Lake temple once a week. I'm happy to report we're still going strong!

October

Megan turned 1! And shortly thereafter learned how to walk.

November

Is it horrible that I can't really remember anything that happened during that entire month and it was only one month ago?

December

Wampler Family Christmas at our house

It was certainly a dramatic year, with living apart, buying a house, starting new jobs and leaving behind old ones...

Here's to hoping 2011 is less dramatic but just as interesting.

Christmas 2010, Wampler style

My family lives in Salt Lake, Chris's family lives in Idaho, and until this year, we lived between them in Logan. When Chris and I first got married, we agreed that we would switch off Thanksgiving and Christmas...we spent our first married Thanksgiving with my family and our first married Christmas with Chris's family, then switched the next year. For our first four years, that system worked very well.

I threw it off this year, though, when I informed Chris that I wanted to spend Christmas at home, being our first year as official homeowners. I just really wanted to have Christmas in my own house--now that I actually had a house. Chris in turn informed me that we couldn't ditch out on his family's year, so we invited them all to our house. Yep. All of them. We had the two of us, two parents, two brothers, two sisters, two sisters-in-law, two toddlers, and two dogs. Talk about a full house.

One precursor to Christmas Eve...


I don't like to risk having my kids open their presents early. Let's not even go there. So, right up to Christmas Eve, all presents were kept well out of reach on top of the entertainment center. I actually thought it looked pretty cool.

Once the girls were in bed, obliviously awaiting Santa's visit, all the presents were moved down to be actually under the tree.


Then Santa came and filled everyone's stockings.


Well, kind of. Not everyone actually brought stockings to our house, so he made do with what we could find...

Whatever works!

And Christmas Morning, in all its pajama glory:


For some unfathomable reason, both girls seemed much more interested in reading their new books than actually opening presents. As a mother/teacher, I know I shouldn't complain, but I thought they were taking too long. I wanted them to see what they got!

Jane's most exciting present was her princess dress up clothes. She wears them constantly.


Chris's most exciting present was a Fry Slicer for potatoes. Unfortunately, it actually broke the first time he used it. Sad. We are officially on the lookout now for a better Fry Slicer...maybe one that costs a little more than $6.


Megan provided our side adventure for the day.


She woke up Christmas morning with pink eye. Ugh. Luckily, Janet's brother-in-law Sean is a doctor. One call to him and he wrote out a prescription, his wife spent an hour hunting down the only open pharmacy in the valley, and Chris headed off to pick up the all-curing eye drops. Family is a wonderful thing.

Once the excitement of presents was over, there was a great migration into the kitchen to prepare our hopefully-now-traditional Christmas Day feast: spiral sliced ham, made from scratch mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, jello, crescent rolls, and sparkling cider (thank you, Michael and Amanda). And olives. Can't forget the olives.


The best part of having so many people at our house? I don't think I actually cooked a single thing in that entire meal... Awesome. And man oh man, it was tasty.


The rest of the day was spent playing games and just hanging out. Good times.


Thank you, Wamplers, for coming to our home for Christmas. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did (even with the dogs). And I hope everyone else had a delightful Christmas with your families, too!

The "P" Parties of Christmas

Petty Party

For matter of family record, as I am now the officially designated family get-together photographer and blogger, here come the Annual Petty Party Pictures...


I think a very wise decision was made this time around and we all met at Grandma's church instead of at their house. All told, we fit much better.


New this year--the Nativity story acted out by the Petty great-grandchildren.

Joseph and Mary


The Angels


The Wiseman


The Shepherd


Last but not least, the Sheep

Uncharacteristically, Jane avoided being the center of attention and absolutely refused to participate. Sad.


The party closed out with the tradition $5 gift exchange. Everyone joined the gender-appropriate circle,


Grandma Karrie read the "Right Left Story",


and we all dutifully passed our presents at the mention of each directional word.


Then we opened them. Megan didn't really get the point. I started that one corner for her and all she did was try to fold it back together.


Dalton caught on pretty quick. In fact, once he discovered that there were fun toys under the shiny wrapping paper, he promptly went home and started opening all the presents under the tree.


And this was just cute. Dad and Grandpa were leaning against the wall and Megan just had to join in.


And... I don't really know what this was about.

Pyper Party

It's nice sometimes to live in Salt Lake now, when we can actually regularly participate in extended family functions, including the annual Pyper Games, Puzzle and Pizza Christmas party. I was admittedly disappointed when we arrived at the church only to realize that I had left my camera at home. I was distraught enough that we got grandparents and aunts and uncles to watch the girls and Chris and I drove all the way back home to get it. And then I never took any pictures. Lame. Sorry all! I totally dropped the blogging ball on that one.

Phillips Party

I just realized that all three parties in this post start with the letter P. Ha.

Anyway, at our annual Christmas Eve bash, we all sat around and talked. Like we do every year.


We did have some super extra excitement in my mom's present to my dad. Any guesses?

Side note: How do you like Jane's shoes?

This rifle belonged to my grandpa's dad. It was the Army issue rifle from the Spanish American war, used only during that war and then discontinued. It was passed on to my grandpa when he was a teenager and he used it for deer hunting for many years. In 1996, he passed it down to my dad. Unfortunately, it was temporarily lost and damaged when left outside for almost three years. My mom brought it to my house during a mock inspection with day care licensors. One of her co-workers said that her husband was a retired gunsmith and would fix it for the cost of parts.


It looks amazing now. It still has the original leather strap and hand-carved cherry wood. The gunsmith's only requirement was that it forever be stored properly, inside the new case. Done and done.

After the rifle excitement, the little kids opened their presents from Great Grandpa Phillips and Grandma Georgia.


This is just a random picture of a random baby I found on my camera. I was actually really confused for just a second, until I realized it was the side of a box. Ha at me.


Party on, dudes.