Normally, on Monday nights, I would feature a guest poster for Great Expectations. And next week, we’ll start up again with another one.

This week, however, since school starts back up for my big two in just over A DAY, I thought I’d take this opportunity to look back on my expectations of the summer of 2012 and how it turned out for my family.

You may remember that we made up a Bucket List this year, and I intend to do it every year from now on. I did expect to do everything on the list, but we didn’t quite mark off every last thing.

We did make a lot of memories, though. The kids spent time with all of their grandparents AND great-grandparents.

The kids rode bikes, played in the sprinkler, took swimming lessons.

We planted a garden of veggies, herbs, and flowers.

We potty trained Essie (and yes, we all worked together on it). Hallelujah!

We went to the movies, and the zoo (but still have one trip to make).

We watched a movie outside (but haven’t made it to the real drive-in yet).

We definitely had the most Bucket List Momentum in the beginning of the summer (even crossing some things off before school was officially out), and as it got hotter, the activities got fewer and farther between. Which was good, I think…we didn’t feel pressure to do a lot before school started again.

I love how involved the kids were with making the list, and helping to check things off as we did them.

And, we did a lot of fun things that weren’t on the list, like attending a tea party,

going to a hot air balloon festival,

and adopting two kittens.

Next year, Ervin will be able to participate in more of the activities, too. He got left out of a lot, being a one year old and all. I don’t think he was too put out, though.

I’m not quite ready for the big two to start school again (kindergarten and first grade, you guys!!), but I do feel like we made the most of the summer of 2012.