101 in 1001 Year End Update

I started my second round of 101 in 1001 at the end of September and amazingly, I have already accomplished quite a few of my goals! I'm be updating the list as well, but I thought it would be nice to do an update of everything I've completed in the last 3 months.

48. Have maternity pictures taken.

We had our maternity photos taken the last weekend in November and we received them very quickly too! Our photographer, Addison Hill, is probably one of our favorite people to work with and we are always so happy with how our pictures turn out. It's amazing to me how much our little nugget has grown in the month since our pictures. I barely looked pregnant in our photos, even at 8 months. A month later, at 9 months, I look like I ate my husband and am having two babies. Only 4 more weeks until McKinley is finally making her appearance (fingers crossed).

58. Complete my Master's degree.

Can you tell it was super bright outside?

At the beginning of December, I graduated with my Master's degree in Early Childhood Education. Teaching is one of the few jobs where you definitely need an advanced degree in order to advance your career (and paycheck). This was something I started in August 2015 so to have this behind me finally feels awesome! Now I'm just trying to get all the information into the licensing committee so I can get that fantastic pay raise that comes with getting my Master's before baby girl gets here.

65. Buy my first car.

Other than growing our little baby, this was probably the highlight of my year. I had been driving a 1998 Toyota Camry, my very first car EVER, for the last 10 and 1/2 years. The plan had always been to drive my car until it just wouldn't work anymore (we did the same thing with Brad's car until he got a new one a couple years ago). However, at 18 years old with only 170K miles, my car just wasn't dying. We finally decided that even though my car was still perfectly functional, we wanted something a little bigger, newer, and safer to drive our little lady around in. So, we spent basically an entire weekend at the car dealership and finally walked away with a new 2016 Honda CR-V. I have been loving having a mommy mobile and am so thankful to my hubby for finally biting the bullet and getting this for me.

As for 2017, there are definitely a few more goals that I would like to accomplish. 

Some of the biggest goals I want to work on in the new year are to (5) volunteer at an animal rescue, (12) find a church home, (27) catch up on/ print out our dating anniversary photo albums, and (63) find a teaching job in my home county or a private school.