As 2016 comes to a close (do I hear a “hallelujah?”), I thought I’d take a look back at what I accomplished this year.

I worked on Corgi Corral

I started off 2016 six months pregnant and working obsessively on my little hobby project. Between January and March, I transformed Corgi Corral from a prototype made out of circles to an actual iOS game with art, basic menus, and sound effects. I also learned a TON about SpriteKit and GameplayKit.

I had a baby!

On March 15, my life changed forever as I welcomed my son Charlie into this world. He’s 9 months old now and blesses me every day with his sweet smile. I spend almost all of my time with him which prevents me from getting much else done, but I know these days are fleeting so I’m trying to soak them in one by one.

I released an app

In early May, I got the itch to learn some new stuff and tackle a coding project. I was annoyed that there was no way to rotate Live Photos in iOS 9, so in the course of a month I put together an app that did just that. LiveRotate only spent a few months on the App Store, (I removed it from sale when iOS 10 was released to the public) but I learned so much in the process of creating it!

I released a sticker pack

After WWDC, I knew I wanted to have an app on the iMessage App Store. Several people suggested I make a corgi sticker pack, so I spent several weeks turning doodles into vectors for Sploot the Corgi. Despite appearing high on the list in searches for “corgi,” Sploot hasn’t sold as well as I’d hoped. On the other hand, I was able to buy a pair of AirPods with the proceeds which is pretty awesome!

Overall, it was a good year for me. In particular, my confidence as an iOS developer increased to a point where I at least feel capable of learning whatever I need to know in order to tackle whatever problem I want to solve. That’s huge for me! Just two years ago I felt way too dumb and inexperienced to ever be a successful developer.

I have several big ideas and goals for 2017, but I’ll save those for a separate post. I hope you all enjoy ringing in the new year!