First and last day of school today for our eldest daughter Shemayah (3rd child).

Those years have flown by - I honestly can't believe it. 

I remember her first days of school... It actually took her months to settle into school!

And here we are - crazy. 

So thankful for all of her amazing teachers who have sown love and kindness into her life while teaching.

Here's a few of the things I've been loving lately...

Enjoying the last few weeks of summer as we feel it slowly slipping away and the cooler weather arriving (yay!).

We loved celebrating our youngest daughter's 12th birthday with an Apple pie "birthday cake" (her request!) and of course an amazing Loft bed bedroom transformation. We love this girl so much! 

My amazing sister & brother in law made our wildest dreams come true by surprising some of us with tickets to see the Aladdin stage show at The Civic in Auckland. We were so blown away - an absolutely amazing show!! Thank you Robyn & Rex! ♥️♥️♥️

Meanwhile Ripley & her kittens are all happily settled into their new homes. Ripley will not be having any more litters, and we are enjoying the two girls we kept, Malla & Vesper. I must admit, I'm enjoying having 3 cats, even if they're not quite what we had planned! 😂 

We kicked off The Party last month which is our monthly youth service at our church. It was one of my favourite youth services ever! Can't wait for it again this month. Check out a snippet here. 

My eldest son's best mate got married this last weekend! Jasher was his best man and I got to make the guys breakfast on the wedding morning and watch them prepare for the big day (not in a creepy stalker-ish way though). An awesome group of guys I've got to see my son grow up with! It's crazy when your kid's friends start to get married! 

My awesome Dad turned 70 yesterday! We are celebrating this coming weekend with a few extra friends but enjoyed a small family celebration last night. Love my Dad soooo much! I can't believe he's 70, but yay for free parking!

We've also been enjoying school sports days, teaching my Nana how to dab, coffee breaks, hanging with friends and more. 

I'm learning to try to say no more and make time for what's important in life, grabbing the still moments to rest and refresh and taking one day at a time. 

Way back since 2009 I've had the annual tradition of looking back through the blog for the year and remembering the year that has gone by - celebrating the wins, and acknowledging the highs and lows.  This space is usually only a highlights reel of my life - a place where I like to capture the good stuff to remember and savour years later.  It doesn't usually include the tears and trials of life, and this year has had its fair few.  But another year has passed, we've survived and in fact, we've even thrived through it all.

So I'm celebrating the year that has been, and looking forward to a new year ahead, like a fresh blank piece of paper, waiting for adventures and stories to be recorded, I know 2019 will be a good one.  And as it always is with life, some of the stories written won't be the ones I planned or chose to have included, but whatever comes my way, I will chose to grow and thrive with God's help - because life is not about your circumstances, but how you choose to respond to them.

I want to keep a sweet heart, a spirit of adventure and have a stronger faith than ever before in the goodness and faithfulness of God.  I'm so thankful for the past, but looking forward to the future!

This was the first year I ever used the app "1 Second a Day" and believe it or not, I actually collected a whole years worth of seconds!  It's amazing when I watch through it how I can recall each day.  Such a great way to catch a snippet of the year to preserve, and also realise how every moment and day in your life counts.  The individual ones are stored here, and if you're game enough to watch a whole year of seconds go here. 

So here we go as I look back at some of my favourite highlights and memories from 2018...

Adventures

Our adventures this year included many road trips and beach trips.  Here are a few of my highlights:

We absolutely love taking some of our church team down to Life Conference this year.  Always an amazing and inspirational time.

We had a wonderful family holiday this year close to home.  Always so good to hang out together as a family...

We loved going to Armageddon this year, especially getting to meet Rhys Darby!

Apart from the many various road trip adventures this year, my friend Nina and I embarked on anther type of crazy adventure this year... secretly fundraising for some friends of ours.  We wanted to help an amazing family who had been through quite a bit fundraise some money towards their new business. Our goal was to raise around $800... but somehow we raised $7,000!!  Check out the awesome video here if you haven't seen it already.  SO MUCH FUN!

Renovations

In April this year we started renovating one of the smallest rooms in our house... our ensuite.

Nine looooong months later, and we still haven't officially finished the room - but we are nearly there! The room we thought would be one of the smallest, cheapest and quickest to renovate has taken the longest, caused the most issues and gone way over budget.  I'll write more about it in the new year when I do a blog post about it with some before and afters, but believe me, it's felt so disappointing only having worked on 1 room this year when in past years we have nailed multiple rooms.  Here's hoping 2019 is a bit different in the renovation department!!

Family

I shared a blog post early in the year about how quickly the days fly by with raising your kids, and it's really made me value each moment with our family and friends.  I've learnt to cherish each moment, rather than constantly hark back to the old days or look forward to the future. I want to cherish each season.

Our family lost 2 beloved pets in the same month - Barney our 13 year old tabby cat and Boo, our 13 year old Staffy.  Both of these pets were so loved by our family and are still missed.

Our kid's school did their first school production and it was amazing!  We were so impressed with them all and can't wait for next year's production!

We also had a new addition to our family - Ripley Drake, our Ragdoll Birman cross.

And a few weeks before Christmas had 5 gorgous kittens arrive!  Not quite the kittens we'd planned, but we love them so much!

Our daughter had quite an adventurous stay in hospital this year which was slightly scary for a while there but ended up all good in the end!!

Our eldest has a lovely girlfriend in his life 😍❤️ who we are loving getting to know!

Makings

I started my Twin Peaks inspired Zig Zag blanket for my eldest son..

And thankfully finished it!  It took me so long but was so worth it.

I made this delicious Rich Chocolate Cake (flourless)

and a super simple Doctor Who Tardis Cake.

I had heaps of fun making crochet shopping bags...

I love these Coconut & Date Bliss Balls - so easy to make and delicious!!

I had heaps of fun making a few softies again this year.  I do love making softies when I have time and am hoping to make more creations in 2019!

These Apple Turnovers were so delicious and super easy to make...

Along with food & crafty makings this last year, I started writing the occasional article for our local newspaper's faith section.  You can check them out here, here and here!

Symon even caught the crafty bug this year and attempted and nailed his first ever cross-stitch!!

Celebrations

This year Symon & I celebrated 20 years in ministry (as youth pastors and senior pastors) and along with that our church celebrated its 41st birthday, and was relaunched as Renew Church.  Change isn't always easy, but it's the end goal that we have kept our focus on and it has been so worth it.

We also celebrated 20 years of youth church with a night of old school songs that we used to sing (all homegrown originals written by our guys).  It was an amazing night and so awesome to have a mini reunion with some of the guys that came out for the night, along with our old youth pastors over the years.  Such a legacy!

Our son Mykah got to go to his first school ball this year.  They looked awesome and had an awesome time.  He also got his restricted licence!!

There were many birthdays this year that were celebrated, along with Mother's Day where we got to take some family photos...

And Father's Day!

Whenever there is a themed dress up, we are there ready to go.  This year included Star Wars themed dress ups, Old People dress up, Jem (from Jem & the Holograms), a Bay Watch lifeguard, the Bearded Lady from The Greatest Showman, Sebastian from La La Land and Jean Valjean from Les Miserables.

This year Symon & I celebrated 22 years married with some time away together.  Best holiday!  Best guy!

We loved celebrating the team of people that serve at our church, and this year had our first ever Volunteer Awards Night.  Heaps of fun!

As I mentioned a couple of blog posts ago, our Christmas didn't quite go to plan, but we still had an amazing one!

What a year. Happy New Year to you all and may you dream big for 2019! Xkristy



To check out past Year in Review posts, click here.