A family recap is always a necessary blogging piece, right?  Even if it’s just for me to look back on?  Here’s our 2016 in a nutshell.

We celebrated milestones.
Louis turned SIX YEARS OLD and we celebrated his birthday with an epic Harry Potter party.  Bennett turned the big 3-0…and we held a pretty fun party, despite him being insanely sick and feeling like maybe thirty was his final moment of life.  I rang in my 31st year of life, by being a dork and making new clothes for myself.  Louis graduated from preschool AND became a full-time student in Kindergarten…be still my heart.

We celebrated holidays (and remembered to capture some of them…)
Louis’ class was treated with some adorable puppy masks and cards for Valentine’s Day.  We went to the White House for Easter again.  We got all red, white and blue for Independence Day.  We dressed up as classic Halloween monsters for Halloween.  We spent Thanksgiving at home for the first time in ten years.  And we chopped down our own tree again for Christmas.

I made all the things.
And blogged about my favorites HERE.  So that one is covered already.

We watched Thread & Grain grow and change.
We sponsored a runway show.   We had a booth at the Arts & Culture Festival.  We ventured up for a booth at Oglebayfest for three days this year.

I got to pretend to be a star for an evening.
An absolute favorite highlight of 2016 was anything related to Dancing With the Ohio Valley Stars.  It was something so special and I’m so thrilled that I get to check this off as an accomplishment of mine.

We spent time in and outside of our city.
My Mom took my sister, myself, and our kiddos to Indianapolis.  We made sure to “Celebrate” along with Louis’ school for a 20’s themed fundraiser.  We went to ComicCon and had THE WORLDS BEST experience meeting the real C-3PO.  We spent an afternoon in Wheeling’s own Centre Market.  We cooked and served and ate chili at the Wheeling Feeling Chili Cookoff with the Wheeling Young Preservationists.  We fed animals at the Living Treasures Zoo with my Momma.  We spent a weekend at a cabin in the woods with the Kinseys.  We spent a week in New Jersey with the McKinleys at the beach.  We went Irish Road Bowling.  We went to Michigan and celebrated Lincoln’s 1st birthday.  Louis decided to become a YouTuber and created his own channel.  And we did a lot of Pokemon hunting.

2016 had it’s own set of challenges and accomplishments.  We met all of them as a threesome and I’m pretty sure came out on top for the majority of it.  Happy New Year’s Eve, friends!