My Best of 2025

I looked through all our purchases from this past year and found what was worth sharing!!! These are the products that stood out from all our purchases in the year 2025. After moving to our new home at the end of 2024, we spent a lot of money slowly filling our new home. We also welcomed a baby in 2025.

These shoe stackers were a game changer in our closet organization. I already stacked my shoes to save space but they would fall over or tilt into the other pairs. Not to mention the domino effect if I grabbed a pair that some how ended up bearing the weight of all others. The shoes would come out smashed, which you can actually see the white mules have some permeant damage from my old ways! These racks changed it all and the are adjustable to accommodate different styles of shoes!

This is my fourth year buying this planner. Since I of course had to purchase the 2026 planner during the year 2025 I get to talk about it in this blog! Hands down the best planner. I have read the reviews and some say it makes them feel amateurish, but cause it expects too much of them. Not sure how you get scolded by a planner, but I can tell you I personally do not feel bad when I do not accomplish some of the planner tasks. I will say though, when I do stick to the home management suggestions things run more efficient and my house stays clean! It also has a vacation checklist, host checklist and spring cleaning checklist. There is a page for the Christmas season and pages to track bills and budgets! I will always be a pen and paper kind of gal so I put my whole life onto these pages!

I finally found blackout curtains that actually “Black” the room out. What I found does have the tacky metal rings at the top for the curtain rod to go through so I just purchased them longer so I could sew a loop in the curtain for the rod and the metal rings do not show. (They are the white curtains pictured here). We have these in every bedroom in our home. Minus the primary bedroom because it is currently not decorated and no one is sleeping in it right now (It doesn’t have a bed in it yet).

Originally I found this at Costco, jumbo size of course, but then started spotting it other places with more flavors available. I literally ate this by the spoonfuls (some self control was lost when eating this). What it is is spreadable granola. Allergen-friendly (top 8 allergen-free) • School-safe • Gluten-free. I tried a few other Oat Haus flavors but I personally think Cookie Dough is the best!

This started as a collaboration with True Nature Meats Co. We loved it! the meat selection had great variety and it made for quick and easy dinners. The meat is antibiotic free, hormone free, gluten free and soy free. It is preseasoned and precooked. 2lbs of raw meat equal about 1.5lbs of cooked meat so one order would feed all four of us (husband, myself, 5 year old, and 1 year old). One busy nights I pick out a canned or frozen veggie then grab my meat of choice (sometimes straight from the freezer and I thaw it quick in our hot water kettle). It takes 3mins to heat up the meat for dinner. I can not recommend the ease of this enough; along with flavor and a quality meat!

I do still have a code with them: GETDRESSEDMIDWEST15

I have been reading this series since before 2025, BUT book 3 was released in 2025. I purchased it right away so now I get to talk about it and all the other books in the series! I actually do not know how to talk about it without spoilers so all I can say is SOOOO GOOOOOOOOD!! You may have already read it as there is a huge following for romantic fantasy books right now. If you haven’t you need to! If you are resisting the fantasy train, just give in for this series. (I get it, I have not read ACOTAR series because I don’t feel like following suit). FOURTH WING IS DIFFERENT! You want this series and there are plans for this to be a TV series in 2027.

This was a gift Santa brought our 5 year old. It is a hide and seek game with Bluey. One person hides Bluey and while the other friends are looking for her she makes noises. They listen for her giggles and squeals until her sounds lead them to her hiding spot. My daughter loves this game. Her and I play it often and she loves playing it when her friends are over too! My one year old just likes pushing Bluey’s nose for the dance party at the end.

Why did I not have this with my first baby!? This was my most used breast pump and most effective. There is all this chatter about hands free breast pumps, which I also love, but this one needs to be on every registry. The manual pump is so convenient. It gets a lot of milk out quickly! I could use it just to relieve my breasts or I would do a full on pumping session in minutes.