Barnyard Dance will forever be our favorite Sandra Boynton book. All of my kids have adored it and my oldest loved it so much as a toddler that we had a Barnyard Dance themed first birthday for him.

I used to put gifts out as they were wrapped/arrive, but my kids have no restraint, so now I've started waiting until Christmas Eve!

No rug and our floor is littered with crumbs and all sort of food! Even my oldest at 7 still seems to spill half of his meal!

I love having professional pictures done of my kids. We've had newborn photos taken with every child and also photos around Christmas and at 1 year birthdays. I'll slow down once they're older!

Agreed. My youngest just turned 2 and I've been saying goodbye for months now (if I ever didn't?), but she is also a barnacle, so there's no chance she'd ever be distracted before I actually left! On the flip side, I barely say bye to my 7yo, because he's so excited for the sitter.

I'm impressed with everyone; I don't have it in me to add another holiday ;) I do think it's cute that the kids always make leprechaun traps at school though!

I also started leaving gold dollar coins after the first high payout. My son seems happy!

My in-laws are in Germany so we've been there multiple times, but only once since we had our third child - my 23 month old. It's definitely tough and I think I'd wait until our kids were older if I had that option, but we survive! I have many friends that travel internationally regularly though.

My 7yo reads to himself now, but we still read together on occasion at the beginning of the year, so I kept it up with him until he turned 7. He's an advanced reader though, so I would imagine if it was more challenging for him to read himself, he may have been more open to continuing to read with me. Some of my fondest memories are reading longer stories with my parents before bed, so I hope one of my other kids will indulge me!

I've been much more conscious of my social media use since I stopped working. I'm not sure if I actually spend more time online or if I just notice it more because I otherwise wouldn't be sitting on a computer/phone. As I see my 7yo's obsession with his iPad, it definitely makes me want to model healthy behavior and put my phone down more!

I also followed that approach and waited until 6 months. My kids were all preemies, so with my youngest, we even waited until closer to 7 months because she still wasn't sitting up well at 6 months!

Timely post, Amanda! My second son is nearing 5 and no sign of being night-trained yet. With my oldest, we just waited until we was consistently waking up dry, which happened shortly after he turned 4, and then it was a seamless transition. My almost 5 year old sounds like your son; he's not waking up and he always pees in the middle of the night. I've also been told that it's developmental and some kids just don't have nighttime bladder control until they're older.

I'm embarrassed to admit that we never ever make the bed, so my children definitely don't. I'm a super neat sleeper though, so my side of the bed basically looks made, because I just fold the covers back up after I get out!

We'll require a sport/physical activity and music/instrument. I agree with Alex that learning an instrument has many benefits and I think physical activity is important to everyone. We're lucky that at this time, kids aren't limited to traditional soccer/baseball etc for physical activity. My boys are both doing yoga and swimming right now, and they've done tennis and karate in the past.

Every time! I feel like my second son always looks a bit disheveled because he mostly wears his brother's stained stuff...

This is amazing and how wonderful for your son! My parents used to made reindeer "hoof prints" on newspaper using soot from the fireplace. They'd also knock over furniture and scatter crumbs around. I still remember how excited I was to see what the reindeer had done on Christmas morning!

Use less technology is basically my every day resolution. So far I have failed to implement it, but maybe this is a good time to try again!

My husband thinks it's crazy that our 7yo still believes in Santa, but I'm all about keeping the magic as long as possible!

Yes! The year we gave them the little roller coaster, I had it already set up, because I didn't want to wrap the huge box and it seemed exciting to have it sitting there when they woke up.

That's an excellent idea! Socks every year too ;)