What a busy year for my family! I can’t believe that 2016 is here already and it feels like just yesterday, I was welcoming 2015. Let me take a bit of time to recap my year and talk about something I’ve taken away from it all. So, I kicked off the beginning of the year by totaling my car in the snow and well, that was horrifying! It taught me a few life lessons and also some car safety lessons, like not leaving huge items in the car unless they’re immobilized!

After shaking it off and getting a new minivan, my husband and I headed for our first ever vacation alone together and partially to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary! We went to Orlando, Florida and stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel on the Universal Studios grounds. We had a beautiful pool, complete with slide, immediately through our window and coasters not far behind! Several days filled with rides, butterbeer, and the best company I could ask for! I re-live our vacation in my mind all the time, I’ll remember it forever. Later on in the year, we managed to get alone long enough to visit the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire and take a weekend trip to a bed and breakfast and meet some of the cast of The Walking Dead. Not many people combine a romantic B&B with zombie interaction but we’re a special kind of couple!

Literally on our way home from our Orlando vacation, we found out that we were expecting again. I decided to keep the gender a surprise for us until birth and my husband went along with it. We saw our little one twice on ultrasound and I never even felt tempted. It was fun to have no idea who we were having and it made meeting her such a bigger surprise! She was born peacefully at home, right into my hands. Finally, 2015 became the year our family was officially completed. My husband got the special surgery just to make sure, ha!

This year was my first year attending a dance with any of my kids. They held a “Parent Child” dance at my daughter’s school and I love that because there are so many that specify “Father Daughter” but I want this experience with them too! They’re only this small for so long and I want to make as many memories as we can. We had such a great time!

The weather was normal enough that my Mother’s Day gift from last year, an apple tree, actually grew apples. That was exciting for me, okay?! My children also had a visit from family that lives all the way in Florida and went to the beach with my grandma, their great grandmother, where we drank homemade strawberry lemonade and shooed away seagulls. For Independence Day, we watched a magnificent show of fireworks on the beach. We all held brand new, barely one day old baby goats for the first time when my friend’s goat gave birth. My second daughter started school for the first time and she and her sister looked stunning while attending the Girl Scouts holiday ball with their daddy.

The movie theaters in our area ran an event all summer where, on specific days, they showed children’s movies for only $1 a ticket. This was perfect for younger kids or testing out if your child is ready for the movies. It was also extremely fun and a really cool bonding experience with my kids. I brought all four of them with me and a friend with her son, to see How to Train Your Dragon 2.

My mom and I took our first mini-vacation with my kids. We went to Dutch Wonderland and shopped Amish Country in Pennsylvania. We learned about how the Amish live… you know, when the woman said that the Amish have many children and that they usually birth them at home, my mom loudly asked in front of the tour group, “Are you sure you’re not Amish?!” It’s okay though, she was just getting me back because she “sneaked” a water bottle in Dutch Wonderland and told me not to say anything, so I proceeded to yell that she had a water bottle and point out that nobody actually cares. What’s family without some good ribbing, right?! We had such an amusing time that we decided to get away just us and the kids at least once a year.

We had so many new experiences this year, spent so much time bonding and learning, having a ball. What did I take away from this year? Family. All of my best moments were spent with my husband, my children, my mom, my family. I want to do so much more of that in 2016. I want to make sure I keep setting aside time to really enjoy and appreciate the people I love because those were the best moments of my year.

How was your year?