End of the Year 2016

JANUARY 

The day after New Years, we were all sleeping in when I heard these kids running around downstairs and saying, "Where is everybody?" I don't think they remembered that we had stayed up till 12 the night before. ;) The first thing Benjamin said to me was, "I'm going to marry you one day, Caroline."  He used to tell me that all the time and it was so cute!                                    

I loved capturing this shot!

Look at those chubby cheeks!

And of course, no one can forget about all the wedding planning that happened during that time. Every single day, we would think about the wedding and do a little to prepare for it. 

Getting our bridesmaid dresses and jewelry was so exciting!

Our microwave stopped working so we took it out and stuck these decorations there instead...

Ice skating with friends!

FEBRUARY 

The beginning of February saw us taking a trip up to Mt. Baker with friends for a day full of sledding! We also brought chex mix that these wild birds wanted to eat as well....(Yes, that is my hand that the bird is on.)

One random day when Sparky got into some flour. He looked so guilty with it all over his face! It was so funny...

Dwight learning to walk!

Our church made a new directory this year so we had to take a family picture. As you can see, the guys were goofing off a bit so it made it hard to find a nice one, but thankfully we did end up having one....

I told Emily that I was going to give myself bangs before the wedding and she said, "No Caroline! Do it after!" so that night (she was at the Balvanz's) I faked these bangs and sent her this picture saying, "Do you like my bangs?"  and she freaked out a little. Haha :)

Emily's bridal shower! (Janeal and I were singing a surprise song for her in this picture)

MARCH

The beginning of March was the women's retreat at our church! Wow, that was such a fun weekend! I'm so glad I was able to go to it! Plus, Ceder Springs is a really beautiful place... :)

The 2nd day of the women's retreat, Taylor and I hiked up to this look out and it was so pretty! We were pretty tired out at the end of it, but it was worth it.  :)

More bridal showers!

Doing Emily's makeup! 

My big job for the wedding was making the slideshow. This was the last picture I had in it...

Wedding plans were so many during the month of March! We had boxes of stuff every where...

APRIL

The first day of April was Nikki's 18th birthday, so Mom and I took a day off  from wedding work and spent the morning shopping and going to the Olive Garden with Nikki and Aunt Marlene. It was so much fun!

Entering the wedding week!!! This was Monday night when we went to rearrange the chairs to form a center aisle coming from one of the  doors. 

On Tuesday, Emily and I got our nails done all fancy!   

Thursday was when everything came together! It was so much fun. The sun was shining, everyone was all excited, and it was just such a good day. 

Nikki's favorite part of helping that Thursday....stringing the lights on the little trees! Except, we had to unstring them a little later....Hahaha (So it was actually her least favorite part probably ;)

Rehearsal dinner!

The wedding day!! That morning at home was so fun!! Everyone was running around getting everything together, and then us girls headed off to get our hair done. 

We brought an extra freezer to church that day for all our frozen dessert...don't ask me why those two had to put their helmets on!

The wedding day was so gorgeous! The sun was shining and it felt so warm! Janeal and I got back from our hair appointment, did our makeup while listening to Star Appear by Adam Young, (we listened to that song on repeat one the entire week so now whenever I hear it, it reminds me sooo much of this week!) and then we got our lunch and sat on William's tailgate to eat it.  That was definitely my favorite memory of the day. It was like the calm before the 'storm' :)

Bridal party pictures

And this picture just for fun. We have a couple pictures of us and the B's when we were younger all lined up in age order like this since it goes every other, so for the wedding day, we had to take another one like this! 

And then the wedding was over like that and everything was put back away....

After the wedding, it felt like we could all breath again since we were so busy with all the planning. This was my bouquet of lilacs that I picked and put right there so I could wake up every morning to the wonderful sight and smell of lilacs. 

Dwight got cuter every day!

Softball games....

The homeschool conference with Paul Washer as the main speaker was so good! He was such a great speaker. The VanderHeiden's were there for this whole conference too so I had a blast hanging out with all of them. 

MAY

May is such a pretty time since everything is green again

Little Mr. Serious

                                   

One of my famous jobs this summer along with mowing the lawn....weeding the gravel. :)

This year you could often find me up in my room or the school room, writing away!

Dwight was feeding me his cheerios here. :) 

 I love this picture for the fact that Tommy's feet aren't on the ground at all....Haha (He's running out to say hi to Emily who came to hang out with us since it was Memorial day)

Memorial day found me doing a photoshoot for this family!

                                                                              JUNE

Last piano lesson for me!!

A surprise party for Pastor Steve with ice cream sundaes! 

I was able to do a summer webinar with Girl Defind which was a fun highlight every Wednesday night. (I even won a give away once! They said, "The winner of the giveaway tonight is Caroline Arnhart!!" and then  theyshowed my Instagram picture to everyone. It was pretty fun. :)

Sparky always wants to get in my selfies too...silly dog

Spring piano recital! 

I actually was able to take some butterfly pictures this year! I always wanted to, but I could never find any to photograph, so whenever I would see one flying around, I would chase after it with my camera. :)

Hiking trip with Zach and the twins. (We went down to the river behind Michael's house, then we went back to 'Nana and Papa's house' to eat Strawberry short cake. That's my kind of camping!)

I always had so much fun hanging out with these kids....(and yes, Alexander is wearing my glasses..the goof! ;)

Go Mariners!!

Friends!

Janeal's birthday!

We celebrated Papa's 91st birthday with a fun trip to Eastern Washington....

In this picture, we were trying to see how many people we could fit in a Panorama..... Oh the things we do to entertain ourselves! :)

Berry picking....

Softball games  are always the highlight of every Monday night during summers!

We had a surprise birthday lunch for Tommy at his work! 

JULY

July 1st, all us siblings plus our cousin, Kyle went to another Mariner's game! This one was so much fun with a patriotic themed firework show afterwards! I felt so in the 4th of July mood after that game! :)

Red, White, and Blue! 

We had a small 4th of July party at our house and I loved decorating for it!

Happy 4th of July!

Zach's 30th birthday! 

I love this picture of Dwight

Is it just me, or does Sparky look like he owns the world in this picture?!

Whenever Dwight would come over, you could always be sure to find him by the blueberry bushes! He loved blueberries!

Alexander is learning from a young age how to photo bomb! :)

Benjamin wanted to play hide and seek so this is one example of how everyone hid. Hahaha, it makes me laugh!!

Tommy was able to go on a missions trip to Honduras for a week. (He was pretty proud of al his orange luggage...)

I was able to take team pictures at the last softball game of the season...

This was such a fun, full day! At the end of it all, I was so tired, but I had had so much fun that day that it was worth it. 

Love these three!

AUGUST

The beginning of August was the church campout! There are always a lot of good memories made those days....

Watching the Olympics!!

I live in such a beautiful place!

Gender reveal party for baby FG. I wore the right color that night!! I'm so excited for my 1st niece!! 

Going to the river on hot summer days was always such a fun memory! This day was especially fun since we found a nice little swimming hole. Michael, Tommy, William, Jeffrey, and I were all swimming in the water and Emily was getting all nervous that we'd get swimmers itch, Thankfully, we didn't. :)

The fair!!

Random evening spent at the lake were always a highlight. 

                                                 

All us kids wanted to give Dad and Mom a sibling picture for Christmas, so we were able to pull of this surprise. (They never even knew we were taking these pictures until we told them when they opened their Christmas present!)  I laughed so, so hard that night! Jeffrey was there with us and he was making it impossible to take any normal pictures since we were all laughing so hard at his goofiness! 

I had to take a screen shot on the day I finished my Bible reading plan of the summer. I  did the  'Read through your Bible in 90 days' during the summer. I'm so glad I did too! It was so neat to read through my Bible that fast.  

We always spend lots of time during the summer at the river! And of course, we always have to try building rock art :)

Corn day!

                                             
                                                                SEPTEMBER

Some Swiss relatives came to visit. It was so fun meeting them all and hearing them  talk Swiss! 

This was a big highlight of my year! I was a little nervous flying by myself Saskatchewan, but I had so much fun once I got there!!

This was a pretty good memory of my Canada trip. Nikki wanted to go running, so I followed behind on the quad since I definitely didn't want to go running with her. 

This sign made me laugh!! 

The last day I was there, I did Nikki's hair and makeup, then we went to have a photoshoot. That was a ton of fun  since I love doing hair, makeup, and photography!!

And that night, Nikki and I watched the Duggars and ate waaay to many Reese...

Once I got back home, I had to get serious about school starting and get my sign language class figured out.

Starting my last year of school!

This was a fun celebration for Emily's birthday, but also a very sad day since that was the day that Zach and Karin made the decision to move to Montana.

                                                                 OCTOBER

The work parties began once at Zach's once again, but these ones were so much harder than the ones we had when they first moved here. 

The month of October, we did so much with Zach, Karin, and the boys. We took every opportunity we could to be with them since we knew our time was limited!

This was such a relaxing evening. The twins were playing 'Candy Land' with Tommy and William and I was in the kitchen making cookies....good memories.

Walks with these kids! Dwight definitely didn't want to take a walk that day, but he didn't really have a choice. ;) 

Reflection

A 'Daddy-Daughter dessert' at our church! (The dress I'm wearing I had bought just a little earlier that day. It was so fun because Janeal and I quickly went to Ross and we found this pretty dress! I felt like such a princess in it!! ;)

I loved all the different faces Dwight would always make!

Voting for the first time! (don't tell anyone, but I voted before I was actually 18... ;)

I miss Dwight holding my finger! 

It's not fall until you carve a pumpkin!! These parties are always very fun.  

Dad's birthday spent with all the family! Zach got him this wig and the twins thought it was soo funny!!

He knew he was getting all the attention whenever he came over, so maybe it's a good thing they moved when they did since we were starting to spoil him!! :)

NOVEMBER

My 18th birthday!! We started the day with a big family breakfast, then had a surprise lunch with friends, and finally a fun dinner with Emily and Jeff. It was a wonderful day and I felt so special at the end of it!

This picture was taken on Nov. 8th.....election day! Mom and I were getting all nervous and wanting to watch the polls, but Tommy didn't want to look and get discouraged so we all had to play 'Five Crowns' with him. I went to bed around 11 that night and then woke up around 2:00 to see who won. That was such a big surprise, but wow...am I ever thankful.  

I was trying to teach these two about all the different presidents since that was kind of a big deal the beginning of November! 

I miss these kids soo much!!

Dwight and his faces!!

And then we had to say good bye. This was such a sad night, but I'm so thankful for the last two years  we got to spend all together as a family. 

Nikki and Aunt Marlene came to visit the week that Zach and Karin left, so that was fun to have them here during that time. 

Thanksgiving dinner....

...and Black Friday shopping!! This was such a fun morning! I found so many great deals which made it pretty great. :)

                               
                                                            DECEMBER

Christmas tree hunting....

Haha, my sign language teacher cracks me up! These two were having a staring competition here and all the rest of us students were laughing watching them.

Basketball games...

William and I were able to sing in Handel's Messiah again which was a big highlight of my Christmas season!

                                   

Christmas caroling to our friend, Cherish! I thought this was so fun to do!

Emily, Jeff, and I decorating Christmas cookies.  :)

This snowfall was a total surprise to lots of people! We made a party out of it and went to the B's for a snowball fight. :)

The yearly tradition of going to Grandma's for Christmas cookies baking! Dad came along with us to work on projects, but he bought us coffee so good thing he came with. ;)

Christmas Eve 

We had a beautiful white Christmas this year! 

Janeal and I were able to help out with a friend's wedding on the 30th. I helped with sound for the ceremony and then I helped serve the head tables for the reception. It was such a fun time! 

And we rang in the new year with these people!!

Happy 2017!!!!!