2016 in Review and Our Special Calendars

In the past, I have done a big and intense review of our year.  With so much going on right now, I just don't have the energy to add any more on my plate, but I wanted to share some special pictures.  In recent years since having kids, I have abandoned my old hobby of scrapbooking.  I do create digital photobook scrapbooks of some big events in our lives because I still love preserving memories this way.  I also like to prepare a yearly calendar from Shutterfly for us to look at through the year, and I utilize this calendar as a yearly scrapbook of the highlights of our year.  When the year is complete, I cut the pages out and put them in our family scrapbook.  This method just works for me and is a fairly quick and inexpensive way to catalog our memories aside from here on the blog.  I do like to have something tangible for us to look back on although I still hope to one day catch up on printing this old blog.  I loved this year's calendar, and I think it does a good job of summarizing our year.

Of course, my favorite family picture of the year included my beautiful Mattie. 

We loved celebrating the New Year together and getting a little snow. 

Valentine's Day has become a special holiday for us to show our love to one another.  Plus, I just love dressing my littlest Valentine's up and taking their picture.  We also enjoyed our little trip to the mountains to play in the snow. 

March is a big birthday month for us, and we loved celebrating Mattox's first birthday. 

I love Spring and Easter and dressing up for pictures.  We also celebrated Evan's 9th birthday and Brody's 5th birthday.  

Mother's Day was extra sweet this year with Mattox's dedication ceremony. 

We celebrated Father's Day, went to the beach, and celebrated our beautiful Mattie's 3rd birthday. 

We continued our tour of North Carolina with Daddy and visited Biltmore Estate again and explored Atlantic Beach. 

The boys actually started school in the beginning of July.  They have both had a great school year so far. 

Lots of big family moments happened.  Brody started losing his teeth, Mattox got his first haircut, Evan advanced to Webelo in Cub Scouts, and we got to see our precious baby Grayson. 

The Fall is always a fun time, and we enjoyed dressing up for Halloween together and visiting a corn maze. 

Family is so important, and we enjoy getting together with our extended family for special holidays like Thanksgiving.  We are thankful!  The boys also finished up a year of soccer and football. 

Christmas was extra sweet with our precious Grayson joining us.  

In addition to our Shutterfly calendar, we also received a special present from Brody for Christmas that he made at school.  This little calendar he created will truly be treasured forever.  He is becoming a wonderful little artist, and I hope I can nuture his abilities as he grows.  His class worked on these all year and were able to incorporate so many lessons.  They learned about holidays and seasons and months of the year and shapes and colors.  If you are a preschool or kindergarten teacher, you may be interested in a project like this one.  I can't imagine another project that incorporates so many of these core lessons.

What a perfect snow day with a snowman and sledding down some hills. 

A special Valentine. 

A beautiful rainbow for March. 

A rainy day in April. 

A picture of Mommy and Brody for Mother's Day.  This may be a picture of Evan since he has red hair. 

Brothers playing ball together in the summer. 

The flag and some fireworks for July. 

Summer isn't complete without the beach. 

Apple picking is fun in September. 

Watching the leaves change colors and picking pumpkins in October. 

A Thanksgiving turkey. 

A beautiful Christmas tree and presents and even some snow falling outside the window.