New Year's Eve

Another year has come to an end.

Another chapter in our lives. 

2015 was good to us. 

• We bought our first home! So grateful we could do this and settle down and be D.O.N.E. with moving. 6 times in 5 years is plenty for me. We love our new place and have some great neighbors and hope to stay here for a while. 
• We've had a roller coaster of a ride the whole entire year with potty training Andrew. Yep! We started last January and we are still working on potty training. I knew this would be a long journey. It went from being mostly potty trained after a few months and only having maybe 0-1 accidents a day to regressing and wanting nothing to do with going potty and wanting to wear diapers again. Then slowly back to trying but not self-initiating AT ALL. Then after working with his mobility specialist at school we were able to make some accommodations here at home which helped a ton! Then the last few months have been very up and down with not much progress. I seriously  thought the girls would be potty trained WAY before this kid. Well, while he was home for Christmas break he just decided he could do it. And he did.  He's pretty much done it every day since. He had maybe two accidents over the entire 2 1/2 weeks off of Christmas vacation. Wahoo! Totally self-initiated and totally in underwear all day! Going back to school has been a tough transition, but it will come.  Best Christmas Present EVER!
• We've had a handful of visitors this year and loved seeing lots family and friends. We figured 6 out of the 12 months we had someone coming to visit us! We love every minute of it! 
• We saw a lot of firsts for both Kathryn and Olivia in 2015. From first giggles to crawling to first steps and first words. 
• Its been a year of growing for both Stephen and I. We had a few really big decisions we've had to make with regards to our little family. Those are never easy. And sometimes although you move forward with what assuredly feels like the best decision, life becomes even more difficult and more stressful and you wonder why was this the best decision. But that's when you grow and when you put your trust in the Lord, that he knows far more than you.  
• We are so grateful it's been a medically a low-key year for us. It's the first year since Andrew's been born that we have not met our deductible AND our out of pocket expense. Next year though, will be another story as we are prepping for another surgery for this kid. But we'll take it this year!  
• We've been able to really see and do much more this year here in Georgia. Our first year here was kind of crazy with being in the hospital 2 1/2 months and having newborn twins. I'm starting to really have a love for the south and the southern culture here in Georgia. We've seen some neat things, met some wonderful people and now it feels like home to us. Andrew is even starting to get a little southern accent from being around all his teachers during the day. It's pretty cute!
• We survived our first year with twins. I've talked to a lot of twin mom's and I'd have to say we are blessed with two very easy going girls. I'm so grateful for them.  A lot of prayers answered. They make being a mom easy to two babies at once easy. Although....we are now hitting the toddler years and then next comes the terrible two's....and then three was so much harder with Andrew than two was....so we've got a few years before we're out of the clear. 

Our New Year's Eve celebrations ended up being a really fun night! This was the first year that Andrew really got the whole concept.

Starting around 4-5pm we got our entire family in our pajama's and had a family pajama New Years Eve party. Stephen and I had blown up a bunch of balloons and we wrote different times on them. Every 15 minutes, starting at 5:00pm we popped a balloon as part of our count down. We ordered a little Chinese take-out for dinner and played a night of family games. Andrew was in heaven. We played his favorites like Don't Eat Pete and Hide 'n Seek and some of the girls favorites like Ring around the Rosie and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. We also played a few simple minute to win it games put a new puzzle Andrew had gotten for Christmas together. Then at 8:00pm we found the Netflix countdown and rang in the new year with horns, crackers and a little bit of silly string. Then up to bed and just like that they were all asleep.

our cracker crowns

Then Stephen and I watched a movie and had a bit of our Martinelli's. We stayed up until about 10:45 (guess we're getting old)  then headed up to bed. Our neighborhood sure celebrated though. Starting at about 10:30 we had non-stop fireworks from our next door neighbors. I mean the big mortars that shoot into the sky. We had the perfect view from our bedroom window. I couldn't fall asleep so I found my book and stayed up until almost one when the fireworks finally died down. 

Happy 2016