Review of 2014- Part 1

For us, 2014 was an amazing year. We had our second baby and Kevin's short story collection came out! We saw our families regularly, and our moms were both healthy. That's pretty great if you ask me. Rereading my old posts though, one thing that stands out is how amazing our friends are. Thank you guys for being awesome and for letting me blog about how awesome you are!

January
We started the year with New Years Day Brunch with Sarah and Lukas. I made a ton of New Years Resolutions- some of them I actually kept!

My friend Anna had her fourth child, Maxwell. James went sledding for the first time after "Snow Storm Hercules." We celebrated "Little Christmas" or Epiphany with Nana.

I posted about being 6 months pregnant with Miranda, and Kevin posted about me complaining about him buying me gourmet cupcakes. (TMWCA #27)  Kevin wrote an article in The Airship called, Who Owns Walt Whitman?

Casey visited, and then Pete visited.  Grandma visited for the weekend and so we were able to go to a Neutral Milk Hotel Concert with Nick, Emily, and Briggs.

February
James loved all the snow we got last year. He loved sledding, making snowmen, and even shoveling the driveway! We had so many snow storms that the Weather Channel made up crazy names for them and by February we were up to Maximus, Nika, and Pax- and Kevin even got a snow day from work!

The snowman is bigger than James!

I was 7 months pregnant and calling Miranda "Itty Bitty." Since I was pretty big, we kept Valentine's pretty low key and just took James out to dinner with us. James even made me a Valentine in his Tiny Tot's class!

James had a fun playdate with Regan's beautiful girls Morgan and Payton, and Regan gave us a bunch of stuff for Miranda. For Kevin's 34th birthday, Lukas and Sarah came over to celebrate and we had more snow.

Kevin also wrote an article for The Millions about creative writing that lots of people read! The Law Order UK people even tweeted it!

Probably the best part of the month was Girls' Weekend in DC with my college friends.

 

My college buddies and my big pregnant belly

March
Nana visited and Kevin and I went on a fun date for soup dumplings in Flushing. I was 8 months pregnant when Kevin and I picked out a baby name (Miranda!), and I finished updating the nursery so that James and Miranda could share the room.

I celebrated my 35th birthday with a solo sushi date with Kevin and an outing with James and Grandma Kathy.  We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with Cory and Robin. Brady also came to visit this month.

St. Patrick's Day 2014!

We had a babymoon in Atlantic City, and we took James with us!  We spent a lot of time at the pool and even took him out to dinner, but Kevin had to go gambling by himself. (He didn't mind.)

 

Swimming at the Borgata!

Kevin wrote another article for the Airship about how the stories of Lydia Davis are great. My little buddy Max C. was born.

Things were going pretty well, when James got his first vomiting stomach bug ever. I got it too and decided I should go to the hospital when I started having contractions! Luckily, Sarah and Lukas were awesome and watched James while Kevin came with me to the hospital. I made a quick recovery once they got fluids into me.

April
I was 9 months pregnant and getting pretty big! Here's Miranda dancing inside my belly. The hospital was renovated with a new maternity wing after I had James, so I took another hospital tour and packed my hospital bag. I was very uncomfortable, so Kevin wrote a post to make fun of me for complaining about pillows. (That's a funny one.)

My childhood friend Cate had her baby girl Anna!

We celebrated James's 3rd birthday early with the help of Rachel, Tim, Isaac, and Eleanor. I also blogged some of his more amusing quotes to remember what he was like before turning 3.

 

James's 3rd birthday!

Ash came to visit and help me through a few of the last days of my pregnancy. Kevin and I took James to get his photo with the Easter Bunny.

James loving up on Ash

I was 9 months pregnant and getting closer to the due date! Miranda was due on the 24th, but I started having contractions on the 19th!  I had an emergency c-section on the 20th, and Miranda was born on Easter!

 

Miranda born!

I wrote about our first days in the hospital, my mom taking care of James while I was at the hospital, and going home for the first time. We took her to her first doctor's appointment and celebrated her turning 1-week old!

Miranda's Grandma came to visit right after Nana left, and my grandmother Daisy  and brother David came to meet her too. Our friends came to visit too! Not to be forgotten, I did an interview with James to remember his deep 3-year-old thoughts.

Kevin's short story collection, We Were Flying to Chicago came out to rave reviews! Kevin also had an article in Tin House about what a genius Denis Johnson is on the sentence level.

Miranda: Before and After

May
I blogged when Miranda turned 2 weeks old, 3 weeks old, and a month! I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a mother of two with my mama! Sarah, Donald, and William came to visit us and meet Miranda. Rachel came to visit too.

 

Mother's Day 2014

Kevin had his first reading of We Were Flying to Chicago at Stony Brook University. He also did a "book swap" at the Astoria Book Store, where Miranda made her Queens debut. I was super sad I couldn't go to his KGB Bar reading, but I had to stay home with the kids.

We spent Memorial Day with a ton of family: Grandma Kathy, Uncle Andrew, Aunt Katie, and Nana! Sadly, Nomar the cat passed away this month.

My friends Josh and Anna had a baby boy, Maxwell G.

June
Kevin wrote Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #9: Eating. We celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary by just being with the kids all day, but actually we're planning on retroactively celebrating alone this month. (Better late than never!) Father's Day was more of the same (though Kevin went hiking the day before).

Our 5th Wedding Anniversary

Kevin kept getting awesome reviews and opportunities for We Were Flying to Chicago, and I finally got to go to one of his readings at Brooklyn Book Court. We even had friends come in for out of town for that reading! Michele even spent a little extra quality time in Long Island with us.

Nana visited and we took adorable pictures.  Miranda turned 2 months old and still wasn't doing anything too exciting.

We took a long trip to Cape Cod so that Grandma Ruth, Grandma Catherine, and Kevin's Aunt Mary and Uncle Dickie could meet Miranda. We even got to spend some time at the pond, nd with Casey, Laurel, and Oliver. Kevin also did another book reading at Epoch on the Cape. We visited the Cape Cod Natural History Museum, and were still there for the weekend! On the way back, we visited Pete's family.

Getting in the kayak.

Stay tuned for July-December!