The End of 2015 (Things I Meant to Blog About But Didn't)

Even though I feel like I either napped or wanted to nap throughout the last few months of 2015, we still had a lot of fun and excitement that is absolutely worth sharing. 

In early December, my mom and I went up to Buffalo to visit my sister and her precious children. Traveling with my mom is always the best and what made this trip even better is that my sister was under the impression that I was the only one coming. We surprised her so good by having my mom hang back and come down the escalator a few minutes after I did. It was so great. I was able to get the whole surprise on video and if only I could figure out how to get it from my phone onto the blog post I'd share it with all of you because it is the best. I also got to tell my sweet sister in person that I was pregnant which was super special. We came up with a sneaky surprise for this too -- which I also got on video and it is priceless. I really wish I knew how to get those dang videos on here...

Our timing was perfect because we got to attend this cutie's third birthday party. This kid loves trucks and tractors like you wouldn't believe so my sister threw the cutest construction-themed party - hard hats and all!

A few weeks before our trip, I saw a picture of my sweet nine-year-old niece making a duck face and I made it my personal mission to put a stop to this as soon as humanly possible. Here is just one of many chats where I was explaining to her that wholesome, happy smiles are totally in right now. 

I love these sweet weekend visits to give me a little dose of these guys and knowing we get to see them again in March made leaving them just a little easier this time.

I wasn't even around enough in November to share that we decided to get a goldendoodle puppy. On Thanksgiving weekend, we went and picked out this angel....

...and we got to bring her home for good just before Christmas -- quite the perfect little Christmas gift for us this year.

Her name is Abby and she is now 12 weeks old and full of energy and sweetness. The great thing about all this is that Taylor cat is actually adjusting pretty well to her new sister. I can't say she is thrilled with the whole situation, but thankfully it's going much better than expected.

Like I said, Taylor isn't thrilled as you can see by her facial expression above, but she is hanging in there.

We did the usual Christmas activities like going to pick out our tree, walking around our town to see the lights and taking too many photos of our pets near the Christmas tree...

We celebrated Christmas day at my parents house, hosted a small NYE celebration at our house and proceeded to enjoy our annual New Year's Day ritual of doing absolutely nothing.

Thankfully Abby went along with our lazy New Year's Day plans for the most part. Other than a few spurts of spastic energy, she was quite the snuggle and nap partner.

On January 3rd, we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. It was our last day before getting back into the swing of things with work and whatnot, so we had a low-key day at home and went out for a nice dinner that evening. With a little babe on the way, I couldn't help but think of how much will change in our third year of marriage. We have lots of decisions and changes on the way but I couldn't be more excited to experience it all with this incredible human being. 

The tail end of 2015 was a whirlwind and we certainly started 2016 feeling hopeful and excited about the new year. I hope yours is off to a happy and healthy start!