The Crawdad Chronicles: 2018 Year In Review

As the saying says, "the days are long but the years are short." 2018 was definitely filled with lots of long (sometimes very long) days but it flew by!!! I can't believe how big everyone is getting. My "babies" are all growing up. 😢 I also can't believe how much school we missed between the huge ice/snow storm and hurricane Florence!

January

We had more snow days than I ever want to have again!

Bitter cold, snow on top of ice. A and K HATED it! We were all going crazy from being stuck in the house.

First season of basketball for H (even if he only played two games) and another season for J

We took a long weekend trip with my mom to the happiest place on earth. I wanted to squeeze it in before Harrison started kindergarten that fall.

February

We continued with twice a week speech therapy for A and K at 8 a.m. It was a stretch to get James to school on time and us all to speech but we made it work! One of the blessings of speech is that it gave me and Harrison special alone time together.

James finally lost his first tooth!

March

Ryan's new Litholyte business was off and running and it's been all hands on deck helping ever since.

Harrison got a major haircut!

We got to tag along with Ryan for a conference

With a side adventure to Legoland

This picture summarized this stage with Andrew and Kate. It was not pretty, nor easy, and there is no amount of money that you could pay me to relieve it. Twin two year olds are no joke. BUT we survived!

We had a great Easter weekend with our cousins and Nana and Pop

April

Milestone moment over spring break- all six kids (even Vivi in her baby car seat) watching a movie at the same time happily for the very first time. Not seen in this picture: Greer and I eating dinner and marveling at the moment

Tia gave Andrew his first hair cut

I registered this sweet boy for kindergarten. Sooooo bittersweet.

May

Mothers' Day- I still cannot believe I get the blessing of being their mama

Ryan went to his first big conference to promote Litholyte. So proud of him! And also proud of myself for surviving solo for six days.

Last day of preschool ever for Harrison

June

Our solution to Andrew climbing out of his crib each night. I'm happy to say it works!

We had a super special overnight trip with some of Harrison's buddies to see Paw Patrol Live as an early celebration for his birthday

5 years old!

We kicked off summer at the beach

July

We had so many wonderful memories together over the summer

Even the memories that started at sunrise were worth remembering

We threw in a couple of fun camps

And time at Harker's Island

Summer memories are the best!

August

We had a chaotic double birthday party at Chuckie Cheese #neveragain

We went gem mining

To celebrate this sweet boy turning 8

First day of school for the big boys

First day of kindergarten and 2nd grade

September

First day of preschool for the two year old room

Just when I was thrilled to be settling back into a routine Hurricane Florence came and wrecked our sweet hometown. After a mandatory evacuation for our town we took an unplanned but much needed vacation to the mountains.

During the hurricane craziness these precious miracles turned 3!!!

Big thanks to the grandmas who came through with a party, cakes, and presents since their party back home had been canceled.

We finally back it back to New Bern but the hurricane devastation lingered. The kids ended up being out of school over 5 weeks and even now months later there is still so much recovery work to be completed.