The Best of Bio Girl: 2016

Well, this post will definitely be shorter than the last NINE years of Best of Bio Girl posts! That's right.  Nine.  Which makes this one NUMBER TEN. TEN ENTIRE YEARS OF BLOGGING. I do realize blogging has been nearly nonexistent over the last six months or so. Apparently I have finally found a job that simply does not allow brain space for blogging.  I used to feel that I had to have this space to clear my head.  I still feel that way sometimes.  I miss it here, and I hope to eventually find a rhythm that allows myself a little more time to write in this space, but for now, I have accepted that this type of writing is on the back burner.

But that doesn't mean there weren't some decent blog posts this year! I mean, I had to write SOMETHING worth reading, right?  Let's dive in and see, shall we?

• First thing's first, here is an actual good blog post (like, a REAL blog post.. not just a picture post) of me telling the story of how I fell INTO the yard waste dumpster.  It reminds me of blog days of old, and is totally worth a (re)read. 
• Here is another good one, this one on the Olympics.
• And here I wrote about my post election thoughts.
• Ah, here is a post about Henry and I reading the first Harry Potter together. Man, this is great.  We are currently reading Chamber of Secrets and loving it as well. I am not sure there are many things in life better than sharing something you love with your child and having them fall in love as well. 
• Oh, and it looks like we were still talking Harry Potter in February, which is FINE BY ME.  
• And another one from February, this one right after the anniversary of losing Missy. Sometimes reading these posts take my breath away, but I always feel a little closer to her too, which is I guess why I continue to read (and write) them. 
• In March we attended Henry's Green Eggs and Ham play, which includes a video of the kids dancing, which might be hard to watch because I was shaking/laughing so hard.  Blogging at it's best.
• Okay, the posts I am picking pretty much from this point on might not be quality blogging, but they keep making me smile, which I guess is all it takes to make the top list these days.  Along those lines, here is some art work from Henry's first grade class. 
• And then on to some tball ball fun with Henry's game ball winning game in the spring. I know I am insane over baseball, and I am okay with it.
• As always, the Birthday madness must be documented in the year end review. Here Henry's Harry Potter party post, which I will always be proud of! And here is his annual birthday letter and birthday picture slideshow.  I know, but why mess with tradition?
• Let's see... we are now really into a slew of picture posts, but some of them I like! Like this one, from summer/baseball madness.  And THIS one from Disney World, and THIS one from vacation, and THIS one from Candice and Lucas's wedding... lots of great pictures have been taken this year. 
• I finally had a chance to take Henry to a midnight release party for a Harry Potter book, and it was everything I hoped it would be. 
• And in this one I discuss my new job, which is still exciting.
• In this post Henry enters Coach Pitch with a bang (also known as a triple on his first at bat)
• This may not be the best blog post, but it is a great memory of me taking Cici to Girl Scout Camp! (Also, Henry's giant tooth)
• We wrapped up the year with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, all which seem worth mentioning :) 

And with that, the year in review is done!  The number of true quality blog posts may be down, but there were still a lot of great memories shared throughout 2016.  Come back by tomorrow for the traditional reviewing and renewing of resolutions.  Spoiler alert, one of them may be to spend a little more time blogging next year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Merry Christmas! (Just Five Days Late...)

Better late than never might as well be my new blogging motto!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their family.  Ours has been amazing.  This year's video is a little shorter than normal, but still pretty great.  I guess short isn't that bad when you are asking people to watch a Christmas video on December 30th :)

The photos were actually pulled together the day after Christmas, but we had a hard time picking a song this year.  We did go back and watch the last seven videos in order to hear the songs we have used before, and it was AMAZING.  And inspired me to take more video/pictures in future years.  Nothing like a good binge watching of Christmas past to rejuvenate my picture taking obsession, right when it was finally dropping down to a more reasonable level.

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Enjoy the video and come back tomorrow for the annual Best of Bio Girl post.  I may not be posting much, I DO take traditions seriously...


If you would like to walk down memory lane of Bio Girl Christmas past, you can find all the previous videos on YouTube HERE. At the very least, you should watch the videos at the beginning of 2010 and 2011. Be still my heart.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Good Lord, it's four days until Christmas.  Three days, really, because we have Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve, so everything must be ready by Friday.  And actually, I am feeling pretty on top of things!  The last few presents are on their way from my beloved Amazon Prime.  All that are here are wrapped and ready to go.  The Christmas baking is done (Thanks Mom and Boo!) We have had our Christmas celebration with my Dad's side of the family and are getting together with my Mamaw today for lunch.  Henry is out of school and all of my students have headed home for the holiday...

Dare I say it... we are READY!

And, I guess as always, I am really looking forward to Christmas with our sweet boy.  He is SO into Christmas this year, and I just can't wait for the excitement of xmas morning.  And of course, I can't wait to be off work until January 3rd. That always makes this time of year a little more magical.

Anyway, I have of course been taking some pictures over the last month, which have not been shared here, because I am a crap blogger these days.  I figured now was as good of a time as any to drop them off and wish everyone a Merry Christmas!  I will be back after the holidays with plenty of pictures from the big day :)

The tradition continues!

 And then, back a few weeks ago, we went to Shaker Village for dinner and their Christmas festivities. Nice pictures wee taken :)

Last weekend we had the annual candle lighting, which I didn't do here on the blog, simply because I am not blogging as much as I used to, but it was lovely.  It was also very hard on Henry, which made it very hard on us all.  We miss her so much.

 And then, on Friday, Henry had is 2nd grade class party. It was great!

Love these two

 And as the last update, we had Christmas with my dad's side of the family last weekend, and it was great! Here are Henry and Cici with Great Nana

 The great-grandchildren who were able to attend (Minus little Emma, who had headed home for the night)

 The grandchildren who were still there when pictures were taken (Sorry Mark!)

And here is my Nana with her four children. I know a lot of you kept my Aunt Jan in your thoughts and prayers at this time last year, so I wanted to point out how amazing she is doing :)  It was a true blessing to be able to be together this holiday.

And with that, I will just add that I hope you all enjoy the holidays!  I will see you soon(ish).

 

Welcome Back (to me)

So thank you to everyone who noticed the blog was down last week and notified me!  The thousands of emails I received from dedicated readers were amazing.  Okay, it was three emails. BUT STILL  YOU NOTICED!  I must admit, I myself did not notice, which is shameful, but apparently  I somehow let the domain registration lapse.  In my defense, they had only sent about a dozen emails over the last three months telling me the card on file was expired and I needed to update.  I mean, WHO ONLY SENDS A DOZEN EMAILS?? 

Also, I highly recommend reading emails. It's a good life practice.  Rather than, say, seeing an email is from your domain carrier and ASSUMING it say they will charge your card, same as every year, and just deleting it without reading.  Anyone who does that deserves what they get. Unless what they get is the deletion of then years of their writing and all of their kids baby pictures. Nobody deserves that.

ANYWAY, we are BACK. And thank goodness. My heart could not have handled 2016 ending with the abrupt deletion of this blog.

To celebrate, here is a random picture of Henry after he got some surprise Pokemon cards in the mail from his Nana.  Just imagine what he is really celebrating our return.

Thankful

We have so much to be thankful for. I thought maybe I should narrow down the number of pictures, then I just decided to post them all. No such thing as too many, right?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!