Keeping up with my annual tradition of looking back at the past year, mainly focusing on the good stuff and keeping a thankful heart.

So many people have disliked 2016 and are eager to see the back of it - and while I was recently chatting with someone who mentioned about how difficult this year has been for us, especially in the area of my family's health, I realised that without the amazing medical treatments available these days, we would not have had the life saving surgeries and treatments that we are blessed to have to keep our precious family together.

So in my eyes, despite the difficult times that we've seen in 2016, there have been some... actually many amazing moments.  We are so thankful for so much - so here's my farewell to a great year, a year that was so much like a roller coaster ride.  I am looking forward to what 2017 holds!

Adventures

This year held a lot of Change with my eldest finishing his last year at school, miraculously getting full time work with an amazing company the day after he finished school, a first car and drivers licence.  Woah - they say time goes fast and it sure has!

It's been a year of random pets, with some not quite working out as planned (ie. the pet frogs eating each other - seriously, who knew that frogs did that!!??!!).  We've moved from pet frogs to axolotls to tropical fish.  So much for my "only 1 dog and 1 cat" house rule.

My eldest girl and I went on an awesome Big Weekend Away (Number 3) adventure together at the start of this year.  It was so much fun, and with only 1 girl left in the family to plan one of these adventures for, I might make up an excuse to do this more (just for fun) in the future.  The boys and I have been talking about a "Mum 'N Sons" road trip one day.  I'm so keen.

A lot of medical stuff happened this year beginning with Symon's Knee Surgery (that hasn't seemed to work!), plus so many other family members having surgeries and treatments this past year.  I don't want to go into details in this space, but I'm praying that 2017 will be a year of miracles and good results!

Other adventures this year  included the fact Symon & I Celebrated 20 years married!, Symon and my eldest boy going on a mission trip to Fiji with our church and my parents taking our whole family on a Gold Coast Family Holiday - best adventure ever!!

Making

Sadly, there hasn't been too much making this year, but when I look down the page a bit at our renovation adventures, you can understand why!  This year, the main creations were my White Retro Granny Square Blanket, a couple of softies and a Slouchy Beanie.  I love my blanket!!!  I'm still working on a mustard granny square blanket, which will hopefully be finished in 2017!!

Although someone else made these, I want to include them in the awesome 'makings' of 2016. Chelsea Mae drew a beautiful portrait of our family and also did this Upcycled Art for us.  Love her work!

Another favourite thing made this year was our son Jasher's Real-Life Street Fighter video (and I'm also loving his mate's Isaiah's vlogs here).

Renos

For some reason, this year felt extremely busy and stressful, then on looking back at what we've been up to I realised we have fully renovated 5 rooms (not including fixing up another and doing a lot of landscaping)!!!  No wonder we feel exhausted.  Pretty awesome to look back and see the progress so far.

Renovations completed this year included...

Teen Bedroom Makeover

Woodland Themed Girls Bedroom

Boys Bedroom Reno

Our Kitchen Renovation

Baking

I realised I've hardly shared any recipes this year - but then I remembered I didn't have a kitchen for half of the year, so it all made sense.  These things were still yum though... Easy Salsa, Favourite Lemon Recipes, Simple Meringues, Easy Christmas Treats.

Lessons Learned

Quite a bit of pondering has been happening during the year.  I've written a few blog posts for our church site, as well as learning lessons while on adventures to the farm and wondering why I'm always Hanging out for the Weekends.

Even if your year was a complete disaster, if you come away with some lessons learned, nothing is wasted.

So here's to 2016 - a year of learning... learning to trust God when things seem a bit crazy, learning to foster hope, learning to forgive, learning to enjoy the season my family is in, learning to push through when renovations seem too overwhelming or situations seem too hard.  Learning is good right?

I am ending this year with a thankful heart - thankful for precious friends and family and an amazing God.

Happy New Year to you all and may it be an amazing one! xKristy

To check out past Year in Review posts, click here.