Well, here we are again – the last day of another year.  They seem to be getting faster – anyone else having that experience?  As much as I love looking ahead to the blank slate of the year to come, it’s usually a little bittersweet to say goodbye to the old year.  And before I bid the old year auld lang syne and whatnot, I like to take a look back at what I’ve done and thought and blogged over the past twelve months.

In January, I set ambitious goals for the year, showed you around some of our favorite Buffalo dining spots, trained for my second half marathon, and warmed up with a re-read of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series (a childhood favorite that I enjoyed just as much as ever).

In February, the biggest event was Peanut turning eighteen months old!  And walking and talking and generally unleashing more adorableness on the world every day.  We also enjoyed plenty of family fun – like “Take Your Child to the Library Day,” and a wintry stroll through the charming village of East Aurora.  Oh, yeah, and I ran (and crushed) my second half marathon.

In March, I accepted a job offer and headed back to the office, ending my stint as a stay-at-home-mom.  It was bittersweet, because while I was excited about the new opportunity and glad to contribute to the family income again, I loved having that time at home with Peanut and I wish it could have lasted forever.  I also shared my comfort reads and worked on loving winter, and we took the first of our seasonal hikes through Tifft Nature Preserve and we visited the Buffalo Botanical Gardens for a third time so that Peanut could continue to commune with the koi pond.

In April, I continued to enjoy being back to a working routine, while making plenty of time for family fun.  We dressed Peanut up and celebrated another Easter.  I also participated in my first readathon and shared some of Emily Bronte’s poetry for National Poetry Month.

In May, it was all about biking and running.  We started the month with a trip to New York City, where I joined my dad, brother, and my brother’s then-girlfriend (keep reading – now she’s his WIFE!) in riding forty miles through the NYC streets for the Five Boro Bike Tour.  That was the highlight of the month!  But I also made time for running, including dominating the second leg of the Buffalo Marathon Relay on a team with some friends from Stroller Strides… and then I bookended the month with another epic bike journey: the Skyride, twenty-nine miles through Buffalo, including over the famed Skyway.  I also celebrated my second Mother’s Day and took some time to enjoy my amazing kid.

In June, I continued putting miles on my feet.  We took our spring hike through Tifft Nature Preserve, I traveled to Albany for work and ran a 5K (that really wasn’t a 5K) with my dad, and I crushed my third half marathon with a thirteen-minute PR!

In July, we had plenty of local fun, including attending the Taste of Buffalo and hiking at Knox Farm State Park, but even more fun was travel at the beginning of the month.  We attended a friend’s wedding in Central Massachusetts, spent a day at my parents’ lakeside cottage on the way home and – the best part of all – climbed our first two Adirondack high peaks!  Oh, yeah, and we got some big news (that we kept under wraps for a good long while after)… our family would be growing by one Nugget in 2015!

In August, incredibly, Peanut turned TWO YEARS OLD.  Seriously, the time is just flying.  We celebrated with a family party in Chestnut Ridge Park and it was a blast.  We also went to the Erie County Fair and I participated in The Color Run, which was a wild and wacky good time, and in the Biggest Loser Half Marathon, which was not as good of a time.  We also finally made it to Letchworth State Park with our friends Zan and Paul.  And, oh yeah, we celebrated nine years of marriage and closed on our house ON THE SAME DAY.  We moved in on the very last day of the month and started the long process of unpacking, settling in, and dealing with broken household appliances – ah, home ownership.

In September, the big event was my brother Dan’s wedding in Camden, Maine.  Dan and Danielle were married on a schooner and it was personal and lovely and so very them.  We were honored to celebrate with them and I know they are in for a long and wonderful life together.  We also squeezed in our third seasonal Tifft hike, getting our summer walk done just before the Equinox and the official end to the season.

In October, it sort of felt like everything fell apart.  Peanut broke her finger at school, and my car died by the side of the road as I was driving her home from the emergency room that same day, which just seemed like a big cosmic joke (and not a very funny one at that).  Meanwhile, we dealt with a host of other issues around the house, mainly in the form of broken appliances.  My favorite month of the year wasn’t much fun in 2014.  But we did get in an apple-picking excursion, our fourth seasonal Tifft hike (with Zan and Paul!), and a trip to the pumpkin patch to celebrate Halloween – so there were some good moments mixed in with all the stress.

In November, I was mostly hanging on for dear life as we continued trying to fix all the broken stuff.  Hubby took a trip out of state to help care for a sick friend for about a week and a half, and my parents came to keep me company while he was gone – and they spent much of their visit helping me unpack and break down some of the boxes that were still littering my house.  And while they were here, my dad and I ran our first cross-country 5K together!  When hubby returned we dealt with some family stress, got hit with six feet of snow during “Winter Storm Knife,” and I mused about cultivating a feeling of gratitude even during a difficult year.  I closed out the month by running the Turkey Trot and then returning home for a Thanksgiving “smalliday” with hubby and Peanut – it wasn’t the holiday we’d expected, but we focused on Peanut and how grateful we are to have her in our lives.

In December, it’s been more hanging on for dear life as I’ve had a crush of work deadlines to wind up the year.  But we escaped to my parents’ place for a wonderful Christmas week, during which we had a blast watching Peanut experience the joys of the holiday, seeing friends, celebrating my baby shower, and even squeezing in a date night (thanks for babysitting, Mom and Dad!).  Recaps to come starting next week.

And now, onward to 2015… I wonder what this year will have in store for our little family.  I don’t suppose it’ll get any quieter, with another kid in the house!  But I hope it’s a good one, full of laughter and learning and love… and I hope the same for you, too.

And just like that, fall is over.  It’s definitely over, and winter is here with a vengeance.  From everything I hear, this winter is going to be even tougher than last winter – ugh – and last winter was no joke.  My usual winter survival methods involve lots and lots of fresh air and enjoying the outdoors as much as I can, but this year, even that is going to be difficult, because

Yeah, so I’m benched from a lot of my favorite winter activities.  Downhill skiing?  Dream on, mama.  Ice skating?  Don’t make me laugh.  I had wanted to try snowshoeing, but when I looked into snowshoes for my Christmas list I realized that my little passenger will be big enough to put me in the next size up.  I want to get good snowshoes, and I don’t see the point of spending that kind of money on a piece of equipment that will – I hope – be too big for me next winter.  (Rather just wait until next year and get something that will fit for a long time.  Although I could always rent snowshoes, and I may look into doing that this year.)

But I’m still determined to enjoy winter as much as I can, even though I’m expecting to be pregnant for most of it (and I’d better be – Nugget, you’re not expected until the very tail end of winter, and you’d just better stay put until then).  So here’s my winter list, in all its half-baked glory.

• Clean out and decorate Nugget’s nursery!
• Hike at Reinstein Woods – the first of our seasonal hikes for 2015.
• Have friends over for dinner.
• Build a snowman with Peanut.
• Eat lots of citrus.
• Knit a baby blanket for Nugget and a pair of cozy socks for me.
• Cook up a freezer full of meals for the first few sleep-deprived newborn weeks.
• Go cross-country skiing, pulling Peanut along on her red sled.
• Buy, assemble, and organize shelves for Peanut’s playroom.
• Visit the Botanical Gardens so Peanut can hang with her besties in the koi pond.
• Bake an olive oil citrus cake.
• Plan a garden to plant with Peanut this spring.
• Get my books unpacked, finally.
• Take a winter hike at Knox Farm in East Aurora.
• Have a date night with hubby – we’re long overdue for one, and they’re going to be even harder to come by with two kids.

There!  Fifteen things to do this winter.  Think I can do all of these?  Yeah, me neither.  But I’m going to try.

What’s on your winter to-do list?

Well, fall has been and gone – gone sooner than I had hoped it would, thanks to six feet of snow dumped on our area the week before Thanksgiving.  (Weirdest storm ever: we were snowed in for a week, then we had a 61 degree day and almost all of the snow melted.  So strange.)  And now we’re in the in-between time better known as The Holidays, and soon we’ll be deep in winter.  But before I completely close the book on fall, I need to revisit my fall list and tell you how I did on it.

The short answer: not great.  I knew my list was a bit ambitious.  Still, I had hoped to get through more of it than I did – but thanks to weird weather, unexpected travel, and everything breaking, I mostly just hung on for dear life this season.  Still, I checked off a few items on the list:

• Hike Zoar Valley.
• Visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Greycliff – I wanted to get here over the summer, but I’m sure the house and grounds will look spectacular in autumn colors, too.
• Re-read Anne of the Island, my favorite of the Anne books and a perfect read for back-to-school season.  Done.  I always love a visit with Anne.
• Bake fall treats – apple coconut family cake, pumpkin bread, cinnamon scones, and cranberry-studded oatmeal cookies all sound good right now.  Can I call this done if I made homemade applesauce and an apple-cranberry pie for Thanksgiving?

• Visit Tifft Nature Preserve for our seasonal hike – this one will bring us full circle!  Done.  We had so much fun hiking Tifft in every season, that we’re going to continue the project – at a different nature preserve – next year.
• Knit a pair of warm socks.
• Make a dent in some of the unpacking; living in a sea of boxes gets wearing.  Done, thanks entirely to my parents, who spent a weekend unpacking, organizing and fixing things around the house.  We still have a lot to do, but a major dent has indeed been made.
• Go to Maine for my brother’s wedding – the event I’m most looking forward to all season!  Done – recap coming very soon!  The wedding was lovely, the bride and groom were radiantly happy, and Maine is beautiful.  I have a post with all of our weekend adventures coming to you on Monday.
• Make apple butter.  I’ve always wanted to try.

• Find Peanut an adorable Halloween costume to wear to school.  Done.  She was the cutest little Afghan princess ever!  Now the challenge will be topping this costume next year.  It was a genuine Afghan girl outfit, purchased by Aunt R in Kabul, and there’s no way we’re going to find something nearly as unique ever again.
• Spend some time in Fairacre with my favorite teachers – Miss Read, Miss Clare, and Mrs. Annett.  And Amy, of course!  Well, I did re-read The Fairacre Festival, which at 103 pages isn’t exactly anyone’s idea of a doorstop, but I guess I can call this one done since I looked in on Fairacre for a few hours.  It wasn’t as much time as I’d wanted to spend there, but who ever gets enough time in Fairacre?
• Discover a new local hike.
• Take Peanut to visit Cornell, Mommy and Daddy’s (and her future) alma mater.  LET’S GO RED!
• Drink hot apple cider as much as I can.  And make roasted pumpkin seeds.  My two favorite seasonal treats.  I drank hot cider exactly one time, so can I call this one at least half done?  I never got around to making roasted pumpkin seeds – bummer.  I look forward to them all year and I’m furious with myself for letting the opportunity slip by me this year.

• Run for fun – a few 5Ks and, of course, the turkey trot with my sisters-in-law.  Done – one 5K, anyway, and the Turkey Trot.  Running with a passenger is not easy, but I’m glad that I’ve been able to stick with it this far into my pregnancy!
• Pick out a pattern and start working on Peanut’s Weasley Christmas sweater.  Done.  Peanut’s Weasley sweater is almost finished, thanks to a week snowed in at home, plus a long weekend for Thanksgiving.  I’ll definitely be done in time for this one to be under the tree.
• Read some Dickens.

If you made a fall list, how’d you do?  If you didn’t make a list, what was your favorite way to celebrate fall this year?