What Worked and Didn't Work in 2016

I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy (JUST KIDDING. After almost 10(!) years of blogging, I still don't know how to link up with other blogs) with what worked and what didn't work in 2016. 

What Didn't Work::

1. Wasted Evenings

Turns out I can't have a spotless kitchen, read a bunch of books and watch 3 hours of TV every night.

2. Dying My Own Hair

I'm embarrassed to admit that I tried and I should have listened to the many people online that screamed at me through my computer screen to not touch my hair with dye. After a few visits to my lady in SC, Annie, and mucho dinero, we're somewhere back to normal.  Lesson learned. 

3. Preschool Fun

I had grand plans to do fun learning with Caris this year (A letter every week! Apple pie to celebrate the letter A!) and I never quite followed through with it. There's still time though...

4. Small Group 

Without divulging too many secrets, we started a "Hey! There's a cheerio stuck to my butt too!" small group- families with young kids- and over time we lost our free babysitting and then our group was hit by the Baby Boom of 2016. There were 4 ladies in the group, including me, and the other three of them had babies within 3 months of each other. WHATISHAPPENING. We slowly dwindled and this semester I think we won't meet altogether for a bit. 

5. Not Critiquing Kent's Driving

UGH! Fail! No amount of spiritual pep talk or biting my tongue has kept me from making comments as the co pilot (He's a decent driver, too) so the big development in our marriage in the past few weeks has been...Kent making me drive when we go places together. I know.

What Worked::

1. Hosting Play Dates

I'm deeming 2016 the year of the Play Date! I hosted numerous ones- both one on one and larger groups. After I clean like a wild woman, it's really quite easy.. "Please come and destroy my play room and don't worry, we'll clean it up later." I've gotten to know some ladies from our church a lot better through them. 

2. Limiting My Phone Use During the Day and Social Media Altogether 

I found myself thinking, "HOLD ON LIZA I'm finding the perfect emoji to go with my text to Gigi!" a lot less this year. winkyface

3. Mom's Night Out

Without realizing it, I'd let out a long breath when I sat in the car to leave and even just a couple of hours each week helped me feel like a real person. I think this year I'll have more Mom's Nights In (where I sit in my bedroom and am off limits, but am unable to spend money on dumb things) and it will be almost just as awesome.  

4. Arriving Earlier to Church 

This was fairly easy- I made our "leave time" way earlier than I needed to (say, 9:30 for a 10 AM service and we live 5 minutes away) and I factored in 10 minutes extra for the commute. 5 minutes to get in the car without sweating or getting flustered and 5 minutes to get out of the car. More time needed if when Liza takes her shoes off in the car every.single.time.

5. Outings with the Girls 

The girls are at a magical age where they both have a decent attention span and Liza can keep up with Caris. We've hit our weekly stride with enough outings between the YMCA, parks, library story time, Disney, bible study and The Orlando Science Center to stay entertained, but not over exerted? Stimulated? Tired? Spoiled?  It's a lot of fun!