Highlights of our year

2011 was a good year for Neyville.  It was a year that I will look back at and smile when the memories fill my mind in the years to come.  Since I tend to use my blog as a diary of sorts for our family I thought it would be fun to capture some of the highlights so in a few years when I decide to sit down and read thru years past I would have this post to reflect on. 

Shyloh and I entered the last half of our pregnancies together in 2011. Since Shyloh was only 10 or 11 she used to tell me, “Mama, you just have to keep having babies until I get old enough to be married so we can have one together! To which I would reply, Um, no Shyloh, that would just be weird! When I found out I was pregnant, only a week after Shyloh found out she was, I think she was more excited for me being pregnant than herself! I was in a bit of shock as I “thought” we were done. How glad I am that the Lord had other plans for us! His plans are ALWAYS better than ours!

Bodey Zadok Truth Bauman entered our hearts in August of 2010 but he made his grand entrance into our lives on April 22, 2011.  It was an incredible experience to be there with Shyloh and watch my baby have a baby and enter into her new role as Mama!  I can’t even describe the emotions that flooded me being there with her.  It was the most amazing, peaceful birth I have ever seen.  Bodey was birthed at home under a blanket of quiet praise music in a warm pool of water. Bodey is starting to give us a glimpse of his personality and let me just say, put the boy in a loin cloth and feed him some locust and honey! lol His name means “Messenger of Righteous Truth” and I think he will wear his name well!   He is a funny little guy and words can’t describe how much we adore him! Who knew having a grand baby was this grand?

  Not to far behind Bodey (19 days to be exact), Shiro River, made his entrance. His birth was incredible and healing to me on so many levels. He is a sweet, sweet baby with such a gentle personality. He has brought such joy to our whole family. I think being an “older” mom now with #10 I see things much differently than I did when I first entered this wonderful career called Motherhood. I tend to major on the majors and minor on the minors, I hold my baby longer and closer, and realize that he like all my babies before will out grow my lap way to soon for my liking. There’s not much I enjoy more than snuggling his soft fuzzy head and smelling him! I will certainly miss this season of my life when the Lord decides I’m done having babies! For now I will strive to enjoy every minute of it!

After Shiro was born Duane took family leave for 6 weeks. We loved this time with him home!! We really didn’t have money to do anything or go anywhere, but something much better was going on…family time. This is the third time he has done this after I have had a baby and each time we love it and are so sad when he has to go back to work.

Our Shadd was also baptized this year. He was still a little young to fully understand what this meant when the first 5 children decided that they wanted to be baptized so he had to wait a while. It didn’t matter to him though that he didn’t have any siblings getting baptized this time, he was ready.  It was a very sweet thing to watch!

Take me out to the ballpark!…Shayden and Shannen played baseball this year for the Crusader’s. It was so much fun to watch them play ball and root them on. They played for the same team which made it even more exciting. Our family has made the decision to only allow one team sport at a time. We don’t want to go in all different directions and we want to support the child who’s playing as a whole family not one parent at one game while another parent is at a different game or practice with another child. Having the boys on the same team made it possible for both to play but without sacrificing the togetherness we strive for. This year it’s Shaylah’s turn for us to go hoot and holler for!!

Our annual Ney/Brawley/Bauman camping trip was another fun highlight of our year. This was our 3rd annual trip with everyone. Even my mom comes along! We look forward to this trip more than any other trip during the year. This year it rained while we were there so we huddled under a make shift cover our ingenious men made for us and played charades. We enjoyed a weekend of fishing, campfires, smores, telling stories, yummy food (we all voted that Aunt Nette’s breakfast was the best!), and lots of memory making!

We decided to do a double dedication for Shiro and Bodey.  This was a day that will always be etched in our minds.  Shyloh and I both realized that we were given an amazingly special gift by the Lord to be pregnant at the same time and have our babies only 19 days apart. I never could have imagined how wonderful this experience would be.  We are all so thankful for this gift and will cherish the memories from it forever.

In 2011 our family did quite a bit of fishing. Duane and the kids have always enjoyed it and he tries to take a child or two out in the boat we inherited from his parents as often as he can. We all wished we could find a spot that we could all go and fish off the bank and actually catch something.  When our neighbor told us of a place to try we went the following weekend. It was great! It had a playground for the little ones, grass to lay blankets on, and fishing off the bank where you could actually catch fish!  We have spent many days here fishing and even when nothing is caught we all come away saying, “it was good day!”

These are a handful of the memories that I will cherish from 2011. The Lord was so gracious to our family and blessed us in so many ways. The year went by quickly so I am grateful to be able to have memories and photos to look back on when this season of our lives is far gone. This new year one of my goals is to simply stop, slow down, and slow time by fully being here, in this place, with all these wonderful people that I’m so blessed to call mine!