Reflecting on 2016

It seems like 2016 just flew by. It's hard to grasp that it is actually 2017! That thought came to me as Bug was having a round of appointments this week and we had to update all of our paperwork for 2017. Just writing 2017 seems odd.  

This year my beloved and I celebrated 26 years of marriage. I feel so blessed having such a wonderful man who loves the Lord with all of his heart. He is my spark plug. 

My Bug turned 14. She has changed so much the last year. She is becoming a young lady. She is almost as tall as me now. She can wear my shoes also! She thinks that is pretty cool being the same shoe size as her mom.  She still loves all things glittery, princesses, and of course insects!

Despite all the set backs she had this year with her health. My daughter inspires me. Her zeal for God is contagious. When she hurts- I hurt when I see her in pain. She is a trooper and doesn't let it drag her down. 

Medically we have learned more about her arthritis. Her old Rheumatoid Arthritis doctor retired. We really like her new doctor. She was diagnosed with scoliosis and ocular migraines. We thought we were done with medical surprises. That means we are back to having more appointments added to our schedule.

Little Man turned 11. He's still my snuggle kid and that makes me happy. He's starting to have more of an opinion about what he wears and the style of his hair. He is getting to be such a handsome young man.  

He loves riding his bike around town and going to a few of the stores to buy things all by himself. We didn't let him do that before we moved.

He is also very responsible and has been a bigger help this last year with his big sister. He takes his sister around town to all the playgrounds. We got him a phone so he can call us to pick her up when she can't walk back home or is having a meltdown.

He is still doing Tae Kwon Do and is a green belt currently.

Both kids are still involved in 4-H and we changed groups to our local 4-H. They are the only ones in the small group that doesn't do some sort of live stock. Lots of the kids do cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and the horse project up here. A few of them are in foods and nutrition and photography. 

Bug is still doing an amazing job in entomology and now has two boxes and 300 insects in her case. Trust me she has lots of other insects pinned and ready for the next level.  She has 3 beehives currently. She won  an award for KAP this last year. 

She still does several fund raisers with her honey for a couple of different organizations. She was able to get her lip balm into a store in Wichita. The sales keep increasing with her lip balm. She currently has 10 flavors. She is working on another place to sell her lip balm at.  We are still working out the details.

She made her first bread this year and won purple at the county and state fair. She was completely surprised at winning a purple ribbon.

She still likes photography and did good at the county fair and took a photo to the state fair in which she received a blue ribbon.

Little Man is an amazing photographer. We are learning together except I think he is more of a natural taking pictures. His photo went to the state fair this year and he received a purple ribbon and his photo was chosen to go to the 4-H Foundation and will receive a spot in the 4-H calendar. He received a KAP award for photography.

He got a blue ribbon at county fair for his rocketry. He struggled with the decal this year as it gave him a lot of trouble. 

He did a arts and crafts project that he did in school and recieved a purple ribbon at the county fair.


We  moved to a small town of around 2,000 people. The city is 30 minutes away from Wichita. We are surrounded by farm land. Its been an adjustment living out of town. Our small town has everything we need like a grocery store which, is actually very nice and reasonable. We are also 20 minutes away from a larger chain which we go there every other week due to not having everything we like. We have post office, pharmacy, hardware store, a couple of restaurants. WE love it here. It is so peaceful and my kids can be kids and run around town.

We have done a lot of remodeling with our house. We re-gutted or main bathroom literally it was that bad when we moved in. It was a lot of work but, I am pleased with the final results. The bathroom in our bedroom we redid the flooring, toilet, lighting, and painted.

We replaced the main electrical boxes, water heater,  put in lights, replaced switches, pulled out carpet, painted the outside of the house, painted Bug's room, hanging shelves for storage, re-sodded our front yard, made a large flower bed, cut down over grown trees and brushes, pulled countless weeds, replaced the roof, and lots of other things. I have de-cluttered and got rid of a lot of things as we moved into a home without a basement. Storage is limited and I love that I have to keep things at a minimum. We still have things to do like paint the inside of the house and other odds and ends but, it's nothing major. 

The only bad thing with our new house is that we had to move Bug's three beehives as the city wouldn't allow them in town. They are at my in-laws home now. Which makes for a lot of work and has been hard for Bug.

We are loving our new congregation. The people and the leadership are kind and loving. My husband is still adjusting to not being as busy with not being in a leadership role. He is a busy body and that is odd for him after being in some form after 23 years. He has started to teach again and has been doing security/ushering. We still minister to people on an individual level. We have more family time and spend time together without interruptions.

I have been involved with the monthly pot lucks, helping out with the Purim carnival for the second year in a row, I do nursery twice a year, and have been blessed to make the weekly challah bread for the congregation. So as you can see we still keep busy it's just in a different capacity. That is okay as long as we are doing what God wants us to do. 

Homeschooling this year is coming together nicely now that we have all the chaos of moving and major remodeling behind use. We got behind with all the moving and remodeling, and the year of change before we moved to our small town. You can read about that with this post and also this post.

I'm going to be part of the Homeschool Review Crew for 2017. This will be my fourth year. I'm excited to be around some amazing homeschoolers that pray together and are very encouraging. We have some new vendors this year that I'm  not familiar with and some old favorites coming up. I'm excited to get going again with reviews. 

Now, for a new fresh year ahead of us. I look forward to 2017. I'm  not a goal person but, I hope that 2017 draws me closer to Yeshua (Jesus) and that I can have more time to spend in prayer and reading my Bible. I want to see my kids draw closer to Him.

I hope to blog more this year. Last few years have been difficult for me. I plan on doing more this year with blogging.

Don't forget to stop by some other amazing bloggers to see what they have to say about 2016.