Meet the Shaneyfelts

2024 Year in Review: Part Two!

Today I’m going to recap the rest of 2024. I ended up having to break it up into two parts because it was past my bedtime while I was writing part one (which you can read here!).

August

Harrison started kindergarten (cue me crying because I could not believe he’s old enough to be in kindergarten). Part of him being in kindergarten means that he rides the bus to my school with other kids whose mom works with me. He gets to my classroom a couple of minutes before school is over and my 7th period now looks forward to Harrison coming in the door every day haha!

The babies also started “school” so my morning now consist of dropping off at two places on opposite ends of town. Both babies have excellent teachers!

My nephew Wiley (my sister’s son born 4 months before Merritt) is in the classroom next door to Merritt so they got their picture together on the first day!

September

Harrison played soccer and was on my friend Maribeth’s team (her son is Harrison’s friend). We had a GREAT team full of great kids and parents and I think we only lost two games the entire season?

These two went to a bunch of Alabama home games this fall…

…while we cheered from home! We can’t wait for the day when the five of us get to go to the games!

October

I celebrated my 37th birthday with my family at my house. Here’s what I’ve decided as a mom to small kids–I’d rather celebrate my birthday at home vs eating out because I can’t relax at a restaurant right now. I know moms to small kids understand haha!

We had a rainy Halloween and only Dustin and Harrison went out for candy for about 30 minutes before the rain poured, but we all dressed up to get pictures! Both babies are wearing Harrison’s old costumes!! I told Dustin the money spent on those costumes was well worth it haha!

November

One of the Thanksgivings we went to was at my aunt’s house and my sister and cousin (who grew up like a brother to us because we were always together) got a picture with all of our kids who were born so close together! So far Merritt is the only girl in this group and I’m sure she’ll be bossing these boys around in a few years.

We did a walking night at the Galaxy of Lights this year instead of doing a driving tour like we’ve done since Harrison was born. The last time we did a walking night was before Harrison was born and we agreed that they’ve really upped their game on the walking tour and we’ll never drive the garden again! Walking the lights was magical!

December

We had Santa pictures made and Harrison was the only one to look at the camera and smile.

We dedicated Merritt at church and had a celebratory lunch back at our house! I also wished I wouldn’t have had Christmas cards printed already because I would have totally used this picture since everyone is smiling!

We were also sick a lot of December with parainfluenza, RSV, and the flu–yuck! (We currently have the flu at our house while I type this)

Harrison sang at church for our church’s 9 Lessons and Carols night!

We had a great Christmas this year even though we missed Christmas morning with my aunts and dad. Merritt had a cough and runny nose and we didn’t want to get the newest baby sick–turns out Merritt had RSV and then Harrison and Banks came down with the flu a few days later (along with my sister and nephew).

It’s been a wild 2024. Very exhausting and I’ve felt constrained to the house a lot–taking a quick trip to the grocery store isn’t as easy as it used to be. But it’s really been full of lots of cuddles, hugs, and kisses, and cheering each other on.

I remember being asked how many kids we wanted by our fertility doctor and Dustin said probably two and I said three thinking it would never be possible–yet this year proved differently. What a blessing the three of them have been and I am excited to watch them grow in 2025 and become even better friends!

2024 Year in Review: Part One!

I almost started this post out with saying Wow, what a year it’s been! But I’m pretty sure that’s how I started off last year’s yearly review LOL. Both years have been WILD and I really would love for 2025 to not be so wild :).

When I think about 2024, I think about how much God has blessed me and how much He sustains me.

Let’s recap the first half of 2024!

January

I started off the year 7 months pregnant. If you’re new here, this pregnancy was a major surprise :). I was still going full steam at this point keeping up with a very active 4 year old and an almost 1 year old who wanted to be held all the time haha

Banks turned 1 on January 24th! The week before his birthday, we had a huge ice storm (literally had an ice storm right after Banks was born and got stuck in Dallas due to the ice–also praying there isn’t another ice storm for his 2nd birthday) and I was afraid his birthday party would have to be postponed, but enough ice had melted off the roads in time for his party! We just had to push it back a day 🙂

February

Merritt’s baby shower was mid-February when I was 35 weeks pregnant and I loved opening up all of the pink gifts! While blue is my favorite color, I’m fully embracing pink everything and loving every moment of it.

Harrison turned 5 on February 27th and he got to pick out his breakfast! (He also had a tummy ache right after eating those donuts haha). I ended up taking off work on his birthday (I wasn’t planning on it, but something terrible happened to a friend the night before and it changed my perspective) so we spent the day together as a family celebrating. We went to Let’s Play to let the boys play for a while and then ate supper at Taco Mama–Harrison’s pick!

March

We had Harrison’s birthday party the first weekend in March, and he wanted a Paw Patrol party at a local gym. Sign me up because I knew I couldn’t host a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds at my home at 36.5 weeks pregnant. Also, this is the point in my pregnancy where I really had to start slowing down.

Merritt was born March 27th–almost a week after her due date–at 8:48 PM. My labor experience was the best and I am so grateful it was. I shared her birth story here and Dustin even gave his perspective after mine.

April

We were in the newborn bubble in April and adjusting to life with 3 children (2 babies, really). Lots of naps whenever we could and wherever we could!

Harrison also signed up to play baseball for the first time and it was an adventure getting a 5 year old, 1 year old, and newborn to the ballpark for games if Dustin was still at work. Let me tell you, I could not have done it all without lots of help from my mom!! I also still wasn’t supposed to be picking Banks up during this time, so I had to be really careful.

May

Lots of this… I also went back to work for the last two weeks of May so we all spent as much physical time together haha

My first Mother’s Day with 3 kids!

Harrison graduated from his little preschool program he attended part time. It was the sweetest graduation! Each child had a song they sang that they learned during the year (Harry sang a math song) and the class each voted for each kid to get a special award. Harrison’s was a leadership award 🙂

June

This sweet little girl smiled a lot this month!

Banks gave Merritt lots of hugs

I think this is when I started taking their Sunday picture on the couch together. And if you’ve seen them on my IG, you know sometimes Banks cooperates and sometimes he doesn’t haha!

This is pretty much our entire summer summed up in one picture! We were outside every single day. Later in the summer when it got too hot for Merritt to even be on the back porch, we’d come out during one of her naps. But it was really important for me to get the boys outside playing at least once a day. In June when it wasn’t super hot yet, we’d come outside twice a day to play in the water.

June was also the month that Dustin started his new job!!! He went from working 5:30a-5:30p on a swing schedule to M-F normal office hours!!!! I have literally never been happier because his new job has allowed him to be home more and he’s now off every weekend instead of working every other weekend.

July

We celebrated the 4th of July!

More Sunday pictures…see Banks likes to do his own thing sometimes haha!

We went to our library each week for the summer reading program and sometimes we went with friends!

LOTS of this :). I’m burping Merritt and Banks is on me in some way. As I write this at the end of December, it’s still like that pretty much now haha

We also celebrated TEN years of marriage!! We were supposed to be celebrating ten years with a trip to the Dominican, but since Merritt surprised us, we celebrated ten years with supper out and my mom babysitting!

Our Christmas Cookie Decorating Tradition!

Today I wanted to share a cookie decorating tradition that we started a couple of years ago. I used to make Dustin decorate gingerbread houses, but once Harrison was born, I wanted something he could participate in as a toddler. So I changed our tradition to decorating cookies–which is much easier for a toddler!!!

Last year I moved over to using the Sweet Lorens sugar cookie dough since I found out I had a gluten allergy. And this worked out well this year since it’s also dairy free for Banks! I just press the cookies down with a spatula once they come out of the oven and we all decorate circle cookies. Not the most fun, but the best we’ve got with two food allergies.

I also make homemade buttercream icing and used food coloring that was made with vegetables and not the artificial dyes–so the colors aren’t like the conventional ones.

Regardless, we all had a great time and even Banks had fun decorating! Next year it will be so much fun with Merritt decorating cookies, too!! Oh, and next year I’ll have piping bags for all of us instead of knives and toothpicks LOL

Banks did really good decorating for a 1 year old, and then he got to eat a plain cookie once he was finished. He doesn’t like his fingers being messy, so I didn’t have to worry about him licking the icing off of his finger. Instead he held it out for me to wipe icing off of each time he got icing on his finger ha!

These are Dustin’s and he was still decorating long after we left the table haha. I was most impressed with his cookies that had a water nozzle and water spraying out of it.

Merry Christmas!!!