New Year's Eve: A 2009 Kindt Summary

I'd like to reflect on our past year (in terms of my old blog posts), in an effort to thoroughly appreciate 2009 before it's gone! Thanks for the idea, Jillian; I'm totally copying you! Hehe :)

January 2009:

The birth of Hunter. The start of a brand new, crazy busy, super love-filled change in our family! That kid is turning one next month!

February 2009:

Sawyer's third birthday, with a party, while Mom was still recovering from a c-section. Dad did a great job putting that together!

March 2009:

Joe's moped was recovered after being stolen in JUNE of 2008 in North Carolina! Unfortunately, instead of getting back any of the money we'd lost, it actually COST us money to recover it from the impound lot & put it up for sale. Lesson: If you own a bike, you must buy the wheel locks/weights!

April 2009:

Mom & baby finally start getting out! We attended a Notre Dame basketball game, took Sawyer bowling for the first time, visited Chicago, and I even took both kids to the last Notre Dame football game (Blue & Gold game)!

May 2009:

BIG MONTH! Joe graduated from Notre Dame with his MBA. We saw President Obama, as well as the weeks of insane protesting all over campus. We found out we were moving to Atlanta (and I took a trip down apartment hunting). We visited the beach at Lake Michigan, went to a Notre Dame baseball game, and started saying goodbye to many of our favorite Notre Dame friends! :(

June 2009:

We visited family in Wisconsin for two weeks, and Joe & I took our 5 year anniversary trip to Vail, CO (awesome)!!!

July 2009:

We said goodbye to Notre Dame & all the friends we knew & moved down to Georgia! Good thing it's beautiful! :) We did a lot of swimming in our new pools!

August 2009:

Hunter started crawling at 6 & 1/2 months! He could now officially inflict pain on Sawyer by crawling all over & wresting with him.

September 2009:

All the crazy Atlanta flooding you probably heard about! Luckily it didn't affect us much, except a leaky kitchen ceiling. We went to a Falcons (NFL) game, the Atlanta Zoo, and Stone Mountain. Fun month!

October 2009:

Rob Thomas Concert! Fabulous! We visited Amicalola Falls up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We also dressed up Hunter as Superman for Halloween, and Sawyer as an army guy. Dad was a robot & Mom was an angel.

November 2009:

We had Thanksgiving in Savannah! Beautiful! I ran my very first race ever, a 5K in downtown Atlanta! Sawyer also ran the kids' run that day after me!

December 2009:

We visited family in WI for a week, introducing Hunter to a few of his aunt/uncles! We had a fabulous time having a snow-free winter in Georgia (so far)! Hunter's about to walk, and Sawyer's having a double ear infection (poor guy)!

*****Overall we've had a fantastic year, full of new experiences and lots of health & well being! It almost makes it a little scary to start a new year... can it get any better? :)*****

Christmas in Wisconsin!

We had a great time visiting Wisconsin this year, seeing all our family on both sides. We spent the first half of our trip with Joe's family in Oshkosh. On Christmas Eve we performed the Nativity (well, I was the scripture reader, Sawyer was a shepherd, & Joe was the donkey).

Christmas Morning!

Christmas afternoon we headed down to my parents' place, where the boys were, once again, very spoiled! :)

Joe and Sawyer had a great time riding my Dad's snowmobile! Joe even let Sawyer work the throttle for a little bit, which was awesome!

This was the first time Carrie's brother & sister-in-law (Mike & Jenny) met Hunter. I love how fast he warmed up to them! And, of course, I love when grandmas get their grammy time!

Family Christmas Traditions

Our traditions may be few, but we sure love them. This past week we made our mini gingerbread houses (graham crackers). I started this last year: making individual little houses early in the day (so they dry), then each person getting to decorate their own. It proved to be so much fun last year, that we decided to keep this tradition going!

Sawyer DEFINITELY impressed this year! The only part he asked for help with was lining up the mini M&Ms for his 'door'. He did the rest, sitting on his own having a blast!

Sawyer's, Joe's, Carrie's:


I have full discretion on decorating the home for Christmas, but Joe requests to just help decorate the tree. It's great to do that part together as a family, since it's the most enjoyable! We blared the Harry Connick Jr. & made our tiny tree our own!

Christmas in the Park

Last Saturday night we went to one of our favorite parks (East Cobb), where they were having a special Christmas evening. There were several live performers on the stage, they lit their big Christmas tree, and had Santa roll in on a huge lit-up sleigh.

All bundled up! I think it was our first night getting down into the 30*s!

It's cold, but the hot chocolate helps!

Around the House...

Sawyer was excited when we pulled out the winter clothes from storage last week. Can you tell? He's wearing 3 different Notre Dame hats to nap. I couldn't resist this shot with his teddy snuggling on him & his tummy poking out AND his arms behind his head!

This was just a cool picture the babysitter took of Sawyer jumping the other night. I love that cameras can capture that!

Rosie

Last night Joe lost his wonderful grandmother to leukemia. We are so grateful for the beautiful presence she had in our lives. She was a very genuinely loving, sweet woman, who will be very much missed.

Rose Kindt, with great grandson, Hunter Kindt, June 2009; Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Savannah!

We just had a fantastic Thanksgiving vacation in Savannah! We figured we didn't live anywhere near family to attend a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, so we took advantage of the 4 day weekend to take a trip. We made a great choice! We all found lots of fun stuff in Savannah! Here's our first day, walking down on River Street & watching the monstrous cargo ships roll in (also notice the old time stairs, probably from 200 years ago; they're as tall as Joe's knees!):

A ship on display for touring:

We headed out to Tybee Island in the afternoon, and it was SO refreshing and relaxing to hang out on the beach again! We realized how much we really loved and missed the ocean (from living by it last summer). It was in the 60's, so too cold for swimming, but we still played and had fun being by the crashing waves!

There was a Christmas street festival on Saturday. The Christmas car we saw was much brighter and flashier in person than this picture gives credit for! Sawyer just loved it!

We have NEVER seen Hunter smile so much in his life!!! He was absolutely in heaven on the beach!

Father and son. Man, they have fun together doing rough & tough boy stuff!

Hunter Looks Like Daddy...

So I was a little concerned that Hunter didn't look like anyone in our family. But I pulled out these old childhood pics of Joe & check it out! I definitely see Hunter boy in there! Hopefully he'll keep growing up to look like handsome daddy!

Then just for fun I compared me and Sawyer (sorry I don't have any close-ups of my toddler self). I'm pretty sure toddler Sawyer is looking more like me than Joe.

I just hope Sawyer stays masculine and doesn't look TOO much like me when he's older...

Kennesaw Mountain

THIS is our mountain: Kennesaw Mountain stands at 1,808 feet, and is about 20 minutes NW of us. It's a national battlefield park, so we were able to learn some Civil War history while there as well as enjoy the fall leaves!

From the top you can see all of Atlanta, and can also (barely) see Stone Mountain on the other side of the city. It was a great little family trip! Those boys sure love NATURE!

Race Day!

Spring of 2008 I had a post on here about my goal to learn to run & do the 5k at Notre Dame in the fall. The longest I'd run before that was the mile runs in gym class, a looong time ago! A couple of months into my training, I learned I was pregnant; and was completely knocked out sick for the summer. There went that goal!!! Oh well!

After having beautiful baby Hunter & recovering from my second c-section, I reinstated my goal to successfully run a 5k in the fall. I finally had my 5k yesterday, and I WAS successful! No stopping, no side stitch, and I passed a LOT of people, especially at the end when others were slowing down and stopping to walk! Woo hoo! Now the only problem is that I want to do another one & get a better time (this one was 30 minutes).

I chose this race at Turner Field (Atlanta Braves) because they also offered a 10k at a separate time for Joe, and a kids' race for Sawyer. Joe did a great job on his 10k, which was more of a 'fun run' for him compared to his marathon & the impressive training he's putting in (I get to brag about him when I'm the one writing this). :) Sawyer LOVED having a race & a race number AND a race SHIRT!

Fantastic day!!! Does anyone else think it's weird that Coca-cola sponsered the event and had soda at the end, next to the water and Powerade? :)

P.S.- I'm still giddy that it was 75* & sunny... on November 14th (and 15th, actually...). I definitely belong down here!!! :) :) :)

Robot Recycling

Joe's use of the robot: 1.5 hours

Sawyer and Hunter's use of the robot: 45 hours

The Old Paper Mill!

We went with our fantastic friends Brittany & Tommy to the old paper mill ruins on Sope Creek (about 15 minutes away). We brought our cameras and attempted some family portraits! I think we got some winners, even though Hunter never smiled. But, that's just Hunter, I guess! We really need to WORK to make that boy smile!

Yay, a smile from Hunter! I guess it makes it THAT much cuter, when we have to work so hard to get one!

My favorite part of the photo shoot? It was November 8th & 75 degrees outside. Oh boy, do I love it here!

Pumpkin Patch

I forgot to post taking the kids to the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. It was a wet, cold, muddy day, but it was worth it to see Hunter lick a huge pumpkin!

Happy Halloween!

We were an odd bunch this year, but we sure had fun with it! A robot, an angel, Superman & an army soldier.

This was way too funny watching him get bent down:

The hardest thing I've ever made from scratch. It'll be awhile before I attempt spandex and satin again! But it seemed worth it seeing what a great Superman he made!

We had our church Halloween party last night & it was a great time! This was probably the warmest Halloween I've ever experienced, so it was funny having so many Georgia natives call out: "Your feet must be freezing!". It was easily in the upper 50's to low 60's (by the COLDEST part of the night, when it was pitch dark). Haha :) We sure are loving this climate!

Amicalola

We made a fantastic day trip to Amicalola Falls, about an hour north of us in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Amicalola is a 729 foot waterfall; the largest in Georgia. It was a simple paved hiking trail for about half a mile, and then 175 stairs. The rain held out, Sawyer was strong & walked by himself, and we had a fantastic day!

Those boys sure worship Daddy!

Hunter loved it more than he puts on in this picture: