hello 2015

I recently saw a quote that said "A lot can happen in a year" Not too profound, but extremely correct. This year nothing life changing happened really. Before I fell asleep last night(but more like this morning) I was thinking back on things that would have happened in the previous years. 2010-I started my new life in Christ, 2011-I got baptized, 2012-I graduated from high school, started college, and got a job, 2013-I made the decision to quit college and just work. 2014-really I have nothing too exciting except for starting full time at the bank, which in all honesty did not effect me too much. A lot of small things happened though. I am thankful that it was a calmer year. One of the biggest lessons I've learned this year is surrender. I'm so much of a planner, and surrender is not easy for me. I like to know what's going to happen. Honestly, I pretty much have how I want my life to go planned out in my head. I have to constantly remind myself that God knows better than I, and His ways are far above ours. I get chastised a lot when something doesn't go the way I had planned and it starts stressing me out. A lot. I have a friend who is always like you don't like change when it doesn't go your way. It's true. And that's where I have to learn to surrender. And it seems I never learn. The blessing of surrender is so great, yet I am unwilling to surrender so often. I'm thankful for God's grace and mercy for it is something I greatly need. I am not one to do New Years resolutions and such, but at Christmas with the Endress family Grandma always makes us write down our hopes and goals for the coming year and then someone reads last years hopes and goals. I try to think of something ahead of time(my planner side coming out) and the only thing that I really wrote this year was to have a greater dependence on God in the coming year. If that's all I learn this year, I will be thankful. The beginning of a new year is always exciting to me. So much unknown(why am I excited about that?), so many things that can happen. It's just all so exciting. The possibilities are endless!

And here's a little recap of the end of my year. A lot happened since my last blog post but I haven't done a very good job of capturing everything. I've decided it's just better to enjoy the moment than trying to document it.

 Taffy pulling after a Bible study at Jim and Marlene's.

 My dad was so proud of our thanksgiving turkey. He cooked in on our Traeger. And it was the best turkey I have ever had. We had the Berchtold's at our house for Thanksgiving this year.

 Christmas HOPE 2014. I'm thankful my presidential duties are over. This was one of my favorite years of HOPE because I decided to do just one more year of secret sis and so last year I drew Rhea's name and decided to keep it. It was so fun to watch her open presents from me and she just thought they were so great. She was so confused who had her and so it was fun to watch her find out that her own sister had her.

 For Holly's birthday, we ate at One World Cafe and then went to the Nutcracker Ballet.

 Later that evening, I went with some of the Princeville girls to Bishop Hill.

 The next day, Sadie, Kristin, and I hosted a surprise birthday party for Holly. We successfully surprised her and there may or may not have been a few tears from shock:)

 Such a fun group of girls:)

 Sophie had her first Sunday of Sunday school. sniff.

 Watch out. Dave's in the kitchen. Making his annual batch of caramels. He finally perfected the recipe.

 Ellie

 Josie

 Corbin said girls can't do push ups, so his sister had to show him up.

 The sun finally came out. Oh glorious day.

 Uncle Curt and Aunt Marybeth hosted Berchtold Christmas. I only took two pictures unfortunately. This was one of them.

 And the other one is my dad holding a puppy….

 Masking off the living room for present opening.

 Tessa had Claire for Christmas and felt bad for her because she had the least amount of presents, so she wrapped up and apple for her...

 Sophie's favorite gift.

 Christmas dinner. Yum.

 Endress Christmas was held at my grandparents new house.

 These are the 1 year olds. Ellie, Josie, Caleb, and Sierra. Grandma bough them all new pajamas.

 And of course the 6 fuzzies. That's what they call each other. The fuzzy cuzzies.

 Sierra thought she needed to be in the picture also.

 From the top: Kylie, Kaiya, Lexi, Aubrey, Sophie, and Autumn. Sophie is the 2nd oldest out of all of them, but is officially the smallest now.

 And we tried to get a picture of all the grandkids sitting in order of age. It was quite the ordeal and this was the best we could do.

 The next day, we went to Bureau Valley High School and played volleyball, basketball, and pretty much burned up all the food we ate the day before.

 And my dad flew his helicopter which I bought him for Christmas. He was sure excited about that gift.

 And this is the men playing an intense game of basketball.

 Apparently the teams were the old guys vs the young guys...

 And that's a wrap folks. Goodbye 2014 and hello 2015.