Word of the Year: 2015 Edition

Since we're at the end of 2015, I thought it might be a good time to get in my Word of the Year post.  It seems appropriate for this crazy year to have it crammed in at the last minute since that's how so much of life went this year.  

I started the year with another word, and now I couldn't even tell you what that word was, but I did keep thinking it wasn't quite right.  I had a lot of time to think about these kinds of things walking back and forth to the dog kennel in the freezing rain and snow over the winter months.  One day we had a surprise showing--because for some reason, people only decided they wanted to look at our house an hour or so before coming out, and if you've ever tried to get 3800 square feet of house show ready in that amount of time, you'll know how I was feeling.  Anyway, I had been to the dentist and was getting ready to take the kids swimming and to PE and several other things when Jay called to let me know we had a showing.  And I panicked.  Big time.  We drove home as fast as we could and the kids and I started cleaning like crazy and then my friend came and got the kids and took them to their things while I finished.  In the end, I got done 20 minutes before the people were to arrive, which was good, because that's when they showed up.  I was a mess by then, but the house looked fabulous.  

As I was walking the dog over that evening, I thought that it had been a really, really awful day and that I wasn't sure how I was going to keep doing this, but at least today my kids had worked hard and today my friend had done us a huge favor and today we had gotten through it.  And that's really how I had to look at most of the year:  What good things happened today?  What do I need to do today to get through this?  Because if I had always tried to look at what I needed to do to get through until we were in the next house, I would probably have been institutionalized sometime around March. 

This was a really, really hard year, but we made it.  Today we're in a tiny, messy rent house with no realistic hope of ever having things organized while we're here.  But today I planned our New Year's Eve party and I can leave up the decorations as long as I want because we don't have a showing scheduled January 2 like we did last year.  (We literally spent every holiday either showing the house or getting the house ready for a showing the next day until July 4.)  Today all I need to do is get some pants ironed before bed.  Today is pretty good.

December

 Here are all the random pictures from December that didn't make it into other posts!

 

 While Alice was in art class, Jack and I enjoyed the museum.

 We ordered pizza for dinner when we went to Oklahoma City.  After calling around and finally finding the right Pizza Hut that would deliver to Bricktown, I was told it would be a two hour wait--putting dinner at roughly 11:00.  Thankfully they delivered it within about 45 minutes!

 This picture cracks me up!

 And so does this one!

 Boris is learning to make peace with all of Alice's stuffed cats.

 They've started our house for real!  (Actually they're quite a bit further now, but I already had this picture in the folder!)

 A friend from high school wrote a book and came back to town for a reading and discussion.

 After ice skating, Alice decided to try rollerblading.

 She did well enough to win the limbo!  (Jack was the last of the tall kids to get out--you just can't compete with those little short kids!)

 Miss Fashionable

 Lights!

 Introducing my grandma to the selfie stick on the way to see the Christmas lights at Honor Heights.

 After that, we went back to her apartment for a sleepover!

 We don't have our little tree up this year for the FIAR ornament exchange, so we taped the ornaments to our map so we could see where the senders live.

 We made monkeys from Caps for Sale.

 Homeschool art class for the big kids!

 They had an ugly sweater party at youth group one week, so we made the ugliest sweater we could!

 Sweet boy!

 We took a quick trip to Bentonville last week.

 Alice made winter hats!

After who knows how much rain over the weekend, we finally got a little bit of sleet and snow.  Alice was so excited, even if the yard was so muddy that she had to make her snow angel on the driveway!

Painting Fun

 The week before Christmas we went to paint ceramics.

 The kids each chose something Christmasy and something just for fun.

 I made an ornament for Hobo!

 We've been doing this a while now!

I can't believe they're so big already!

Merry Christmas!

 We had several days of Christmas celebrations.  Hobo got to join in our first party--he didn't know what to think about being in his old kennel!

 Tuesday we visited our old neighbors and opened presents.

 Hobo was pretty well behaved for his first ever Christmas party!

 Thursday evening we went to our annual Christmas Eve party.

 When we came home, we got everything ready for Santa.

 Not too bad, especially considering the shambles the entire house is almost always in!

 Christmas morning the kids were ready to go early!

 We told them they had to wait until 7:30 and I was hoping they would sleep in, but no such luck.

 Jack's big gift--which is now assembled in my living room.

 Alice's big gift--She had been saving her own money to buy one and when she opened it she said, "Oh, good!  Now I can throw away that money I was saving!"

 Hobo got a giant rawhide!

 Christmas afternoon we celebrated with my side of the family.

 Saturday we celebrated with Jay's side of the family.  Jack spent lots of time loving on Penny!

 A drone!

 Pretty princesses

Cousin time!

I hope you had a great Christmas!

Girls Night Out

 Last Thursday (while the boys were seeing a certain movie) Alice and I had a girls night at the museum.

 The gardens were all lit up and they were beautiful!

 Inside they were having a screen printing event and it was crazy!

 Alice and I both made bags.

 The inside was decorated, too!

 My sweet girl!

 

 On the way out we spotted one of the museum cats hanging out on someone's car.  We were parked nearby and I didn't realize how lucky we were to get that space until we left.  The entire neighborhood was a traffic jam from all of the people parking on the streets!  I'm so glad we didn't have to add a hike to our night out!