A Look Back – 2025

Here we are – Day 365.  As the final hours of 2025 tick away, I find myself looking back.  It’s always been interesting to me that some events seem like they happened yesterday, while others seem like they happened more than a year ago!

I spent the last couple days looking back at the year.  It was a year full of wonderful memories.

January

Sitting through a three hour dance recital to watch Ella for roughly 6-9 minutes – worth it completely! 

Until Ella, I had only only dealt with boy stuff.  Watching my little girl in her first recital was so fun.  Those little kicks and simple moves brought so many smiles.

Hosting my own “feature” was fun to do.  It was a bit more work than I anticipated and difficult to schedule so it didn’t overlap with other monthly features hosted by other bloggers.  It was interesting to see which books struck a chord with my other blogger friends.

February

Believe it or not, Ella is already excited about this coming year’s Daddy/Daughter dance!  She found out that Wicked is the theme. 

Last year it was all about Barbie.  There was plenty of pink around.  There were fun activities and photo ops that she loved to do, like this one.

It was a lot of fun to do an interview with my friend and actor Eddie Deezen.  We’ve been social media friends for some time and he has so many wonderful stories.  I sent him a bunch of questions and told him he could answer a few or however many he felt he wanted to.  He answered them all!

Normally, I’d send him a Christmas card, but this year, we didn’t send any.

For Ella’s 5th birthday, we went to Build-Bear. She got to pick whatever she wanted, and chose a kitty cat.  She has such a wonderful day.

March

I tried again to host my Share Your Nostalgia feature.  This time it was about Cartoons or Cartoon Characters.  With the variety of participants and where they are from, there were quite a few neat submissions.

Some have asked me to do another round.  I really haven’t found a topic that I felt might be worthy of doing.  There’s always a possibility of one popping up soon.

April

I stepped out of my comfort zone in April and said I would coach Andrew’s soccer team.  Not knowing a lick about the sport, luckily I had someone to help.

I had a lot of fun, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.

Ella did T-ball.  Sadly, I never had the chance to see her because of my work schedule.  They days that I did take off to do so, things were cancelled because of weather.

May

The start of one of the biggest fiascos of the year happened in May. Our dryer stopped working and I thought it would be an easy fix. 

Getting all the parts to repair it, I replaced it all with YouTube’s help.  However, it still didn’t work.

This led to us ordering a new dryer, sending that back and a long wait for the correct one to show up!

This year marked my 55th birthday.  Since then, I’ve noticed my back hurts more than it used to.

June

A second dance recital for Ella.  Watching her pop out of a bathtub that was turned into a yellow submarine was just one of the highlights.

For Father’s Day, I had a day with all my kids.  The highlight was dinner at Applebee’s and ice cream afterwards.

I feel like I have lost track of hospital visits and surgeries between the kids over the past couple years.  In June, Ella has to have tonsils out. She was such a brave girl and we got matching hats.

July

The new dryer finally arrived. As I attempted to install it, I ran into the normal “Keith” problems.  Thankfully I had a guy at the local hardware store to explain how to flang the gas line for hook up. 

No more trips to the Laundromat!

Another hospital visit – this time an MRI for Andrew. He has brought about more medical questions that I care to remember. Thankfully, the majority of his test results over the years have been good

August

How do you make a parent feel old?  Start Kindergarten.  Time will do nothing but speed up from here. 

She loves school and is super smart.  So proud of her.

We did our best to take advantage of days off during the summer, but work schedules and doctor visits made it hard.  We did get to spend time at the zoo, however.

September

School means any type of extra activities just make life busier.  Ella loved seeing Andrew play soccer, so she wanted to do it too.

She had fun, when she was on the field.  I think she enjoyed socializing with her peers more.

Who doesn’t love the Homecoming parade?!  Ella got to walk with her school.  I wound up carrying her on my shoulders for the majority of the parade.

October

Andrew started preschool and is doing much better than we had hoped.  He can spell and write is full name.  His teachers love him.

My brother came up for a Halloween visit.  We had a real nice day with the kids in Frankenmuth.

Ella and Andrew were invited to a fri nds birthday party.  They had it at a bowling alley.  Ella had only bowled once and this was Andrew’s first time.  They both had a blast.

We did a couple Trunk or Treats this year, and then walked the neighborhood.  He was a member of the SWAT team, and Ella was a fairy princess. 

I remember the days where the person at the door just put the candy in your bucket.  It seems like a lot of them offer voices now.  I used to be able to go in and swipe the candy they didn’t like for myself.  This year – not one Almond Joy because they never picked them. Grrrr

November

We had our first snow before I had the leaves raked up. 

Despite my hesitation, Sam brought home Mabel.  She is out St. Bernadoodle.  She’s so much fun and is truly mom’s pup.

December

No family pictures this year due to a conflict, but kids got to visit Santa!

The ridiculous elf came to work with me and reeked havoc.

Andrew can’t get enough of his riding mower

Ella LOVES her American Girl doll

A rare Christmas visit from my brother

And soon the year is over. 

I hope you are able to look back at the year and smile at the wonderful memories made.  

I seem to use this quote every year but it is true…

“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”

See you next year.