Year in Review: 2016

It's been awhile since I've done a full look at our last year - in fact - it was the first year we started the blog.  Can you believe it?  That post was in 2012!  A lot has happened since then and 2016 has sure been a whirlwind.  I'm not much of a crier but I won't lie...I teared up quite a bit when I set my photo filter to 2016 and started sifting through every picture I've taken since January (and I take a lot of pictures).

So here it goes - 2016 in a nutshell.

• On New Year's Day I started painting the trim and doors in what is now Lily's bedroom.

• I left BDO to start what I thought would be a long lived career in teaching.

• Coco had a baby!

• We did Disney!

• This little one turned FOUR.  Ugh.  Time slow down.

• We took our first boat ride in March.

• Mike celebrated 9 years in remission.

• Lily finally moved into her new room the first week in April.  Yikes.

• Baby Jane arrived!

• I participated in my first ever graduation ceremony (and last).

• We did some pretty decent exterior projects.

• We lived up the summer on the water as best we could with a boat that only ran when it felt like it.

• Lily had her first dance recital.

• Lily and I had the time of our lives for two summer months.

• My brother got married.

• My bestie got married.

• We talked about having another baby and the next second I was pregnant.  Ready or not.

• We celebrated 7 years of marriage.

• We went to our first Sparty game.  Yup that's lemonade in my cup.  

• We did Hawaii!

• We took our last boat ride in November.

• My bestie turned 30.

• It snowed.  A lot.  Then it all melted.

And that my friends - is our 2016 in short.  Happy New Year!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Lily sat on Santa's lap for the first time!  I know, I know - she's nearly five years old - but we're guilty, we don't have the obligatory screaming infant on Santa's lap picture.  Standing in line for that joyous moment was just never high on our list of holiday to-dos.  Last year at Disney was her first time within 3 feet of the guy - even then she wouldn't sit on his lap.  But this year on a quick stop at the mall for some Christmas gifts I couldn't get off Amazon, Santa was apparently calling to her.  Lily marched right up to him, climbed into his lap, and told him she'd been extremely good this year.  All smiles, no tears.  Check that off her bucket list.

Lily had her last Christmas program at Appletree - next stop Kindergarten!  As much as I hate to say it, I'm glad it's finally passed.  You'd say this too if you'd been listening to her belt out Christmas tunes since Halloween.

Since Christmas fell on a weekend this year, we literally spent over a week celebrating.  Our tradition is to celebrate with the Hoy side the weekend before and my side on Christmas Eve/Day.  And now that my brother is married, we delayed our celebration with him and Jacqueline until the morning after.  As always, the family time was plentiful, the food was delicious, and it was nice to finally have a WHITE Christmas.

We had the opportunity to make a quick trip to Grandma Wanda's on Christmas Eve.

And then Santa came!

Oh.  And we got our new car just in time.  Still not sure baby girl would fit in here....