Happy New Year, friends! I hope your holiday season has been a good one. I can't believe it's 2025. We're home an extra day today because we got a lot of snow and ice! It's been nice to have the bonus day off.
2024 was a great year for our family and my instagram Top 9 was accurate at capturing the highs and lows of the past year.
The biggest milestone, maybe moment of the year, was that Leo and I both went to school full time. I returned to the classroom after 11 years as a stay at home mom. Leo went to school full time after being home with me full time. It's been a shock to our system waking up so early and no longer being the boss of our days, but we are both thriving. It turns out that kindergarten is the perfect age, Christian education is really great and kindergarten is FUN. I love my job and my coworkers. Leo wasn't so sure about school in the beginning, but he's grown to LOVE it so much. He is learning a ton and tells me he can't wait to go to kindergarten with me next year. It's been such a blessing to be at the same school as the boys this year. Fletcher is doing so well in his new class, too. God opened some big doors for our family and we are so thankful.
We celebrated birthdays with bundt cakes, our 20th anniversary with some fun trips and got to celebrate Kevin's 20th reunion with a weekend stay on campus at Notre Dame. Our travel and big family milestones were a big highlight of the year. Kevin is doing great at his job with some new opportunities in the new year. Olive is crushing it in 6th grade with another quarter of all As.
The boys were camping in the backyard and spotted The Northern Lights! We all ran outside to enjoy the light show in our backyard. It was AMAZING. That's my kind of camping - enjoy a bonfire, smores and a view of the starts - and then head inside to sleep in my own bed. Leo has big dreams of joining the boys in their camping adventures. Olive and I are happy to skip out.
We were so sad to lose our sweet cat Topher unexpectedly this year. Thankfully, we had 15 wonderful years together and added Mr Mittens to the family last year. He's the cutest and the girls are warming up to the idea of having a frisky kitten in the house.
2024 will go down as a wonderful year for our family, but rest assured, my Top 9 didn't capture the hard moments of juggling life at home while working full time. You don't see an instagram post about the days I forgot to send things to school or the nights where I stayed up way too late trying to get everything done for everyone. It also didn't document the loss of a loved family member or stressful weeks of trying to figure out how to balance child care + set up a classroom and being a teacher mom. Or the week that the kids said they'd had too much Chick-Fil-A and were tired of it. So enjoy the highlights and know that there were hard moments, too. Thankfully, the highs outweighed the lows and 2024 was filled with lots of happy moments. Big hugs to you if you had a hard year and are ready to start fresh in 2025. I'm cheering for you!
