Let's hit it.
Holy cow, January dumped 34" of snow on us. Our kids played outside twice a day from January until March, and we didn't lose a single one of them all winter. I'd say that makes us pretty good parents.
Since it was cold and tundra-like outside all winter, it was constantly a mess in our house. Then there was that rotten February break from school when all the kids who don't ski just wreak havoc at home for a week straight. And oh yeah, we tried to combat the water leaking through our roof with ladies' pantyhose and my post Why I Make My Kids Go to Church went viral with over 85,000 pageviews in two weeks.
As you can imagine, all that snow melting in March caused some problems. You'd think this was a pond or small lake of some kind, but no, it's our driveway. The blog moved to its own domain name and I published my first piece on the Huffington Post.
In April my preschooler discovered how to "take pictures for her blog," so from this point forward 60% of the memory on my camera was occupied by blurry pictures of the dresser and weird upside-down selfies. We also replaced a car stereo and totally failed at Easter egg hunting in a timely fashion.
Phillip and I managed to get away for 6 days in New York City in May (that's 5th Ave in the background.) I was a little shell-shocked when we got home and saw with fresh eyes how nuts our daily life really was. In other ridiculousness, our toddler camped out in our bathroom for most of the month, and I got this semi-flattering email suggesting I'm some sort of style expert. (If you're new here, trust me, I'm the opposite kind of blogger.)
In June my toddler showed us that sometimes you're so tired that you Just. Can't. Even. My kids FINALLY got out of school and we spent the summer drawing with sidewalk chalk on the driveway, going to the beach, taking a fake trip around the world, and not doing the summer reading program at the library.
July was a beautiful month for hiking, running 5Ks (for Phillip, not me, silly), and more going to the beach. A friend took our family out on his boat and I accompanied Phillip to a fancy-pants awards dinner at work that only had one bug in the food.
August was the month when the oldest two kids jetted off to visit their grandparents, we took the littles to a kids' amusement park, camped with friends by the ocean, and went sightseeing in Washington, D.C. for cheap. Lest this sound too glamorous and perfect to be true, I'll mention that there was some amount of projectile vomiting as well.
For the blog's 1-year anniversary in September, Unremarkable Files got a facelift and the world's ugliest birthday cake. The older kids started back to school and I learned that I was pregnant with Evans #6.
In October the toddler and the preschooler took full advantage of my pregnancy-induced exhaustion and made enormous messes all around the house. (If anyone needs to know how to get Turtle Wax out of EVERYTHING, just email me.) I fully intended to make Halloween costumes, but luckily Phillip's mom saved the day by doing it herself.
In November we lost a national treasure, and by that I mean my daughter's pet crayfish Flippy died. I'd actually begun to wonder if it was immortal, since it lived way longer than I'd
We may have dropped the ball at observing Advent and our gift-wrapping skills leave a little something to be desired, but all in all December was good to us. We saw the Nutcracker, baked a bunch of cookies, and startled our toddler by sneaking in a tree and decorating it while he slept.
Looking back at your year makes you realize that all the craziness is worth it, and that time your toddler figured out how to use the water dispenser on the fridge and flooded the kitchen is totally funny in retrospect. Happy New Year!
