In 2012, Benjamin started 1st Grade and had Ms. Henry as his teacher. Benjamin was pretty lucky. Between Dave and I he was able to get a ride to school each morning as his overprotective mother thought it was too far for him to walk to the bus stop without sidewalks.
While, Ada was in Preschool and Mrs. Hoffer was her teacher. We are pretty lucky that the preschool teacher comes and picks her up for preschool. If Mrs. Hoffer wouldn't do this I don't know if she would have been able to go to preschool.
Dave, Uncle Corey, Benjamin, and Ada were able to do a little fishing which they loved (Kids more than Dave)!
A few months after Cora was born Dave's mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. We made many visits to the hospital here in SD and Dave went to Arizona a couple of times to be with his mom and family. She fought hard but lost her battle in January 2013. She was a very giving individual and continued that even into death as she donated her body to science. It was a rough year of "firsts" without his mom. It wasn't easy and we have accepted that she is no longer with us but the emotions are still pretty raw.
We celebrated Cora's Baptism on October 14, 2012 at St. George Catholic Church. Cora's Godparents are my brother Corey and Dave's sister Connie. Father David Desmond officiated. We had a great day and were able to have our Baptism lunch after the ceremony at the church as our apartment would not have held every one! Cora's Baptism was held before we broke ground for our "new house". I made a simple cake for the celebration. Welcome to Christ sweet, sweet child!
Halloween 2012 brought these little monsters!
Left to right, Ada was a witch, Cora was a kitten, Benjamin was a dinosaur, and Gunnar was a crocodile (watch out if you call him an alligator!).
That same fall of 2012 we started to build our new house. We started out with this little lot of land:
And started to create the much needed space that we needed and desired! Since we were living in an apartment we would take weekly and sometimes even daily trips out to see the "new house" which would give us strength and motivation to go back to the apartment knowing that this was just a temporary situation for us. But how we were so excited for all that new space!!
Building our house was a lesson in compromising with one another. Dave was concerned about the cost/price of things while I was told to pick out what I liked. It was not my fault these stores didn't have price tags hanging on every item! For whatever reason I was always drawn to the more expensive items. A suggestion for those who would like to build or do a serious remodel project: Make sure and get plenty of sleep (if you have a newborn or young children) before you make decisions or meet with your contractor to discuss important things/steps needed in your building project as lack of sleep will hinder your decision making process or you will make decisions you don't remember making!
