Ep. 391: 2025 Wrap-Up: Our Biggest Laughs, Struggles and What We Didn’t See Coming
Big Fat Positive: Pregnancy and Parenting (BFP)
Laura Birek, Shanna Micko
4.7 • 531 Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As 2025 comes to an end, Laura and Shanna reflect on their last 12 months of parenting with honesty, humor and insight in the special segment "Year in Review." As they look back on 2025, they share their biggest laughs, unexpected wins and surprising realizations, including the hilarious thing Laura's kids taught her this year, the shocking incident that sums up the vibe of Shanna's year, their favorite shows of 2025 and more! Also, Laura reports on her family's recent trip to Hawaii, and Shanna talks about how she got her kids involved in Thanksgiving meal prep. Finally, they share their BFPs or BFNs for the week. Shanna's kids are 6.5 and 9.5 years old, and Laura’s kids are 6.5 years old and 4.5 years old.
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Taking a family trip with kids (the good, the chaotic and the realistic expectations)
- Thanksgiving routines that feel doable instead of overwhelming
- Letting kids help more at home, especially during the holidays, and why that matters
- "Mommy Magic" and making the invisible work visible for our kids
- Looking back at 2025 and reflecting on what this year actually felt like
- Small parenting wins that didn’t feel like a big deal at the time
- Things our kids taught us this year (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not)
- Finding ways to have fun again as adults, not just planning fun for our kids
- Navigating change, transitions and feeling pulled in a million directions
- Media, shows and pop culture that brought comfort, laughter or escape
- Looking ahead to the new year with intentions about how we want to feel
- A vacation activity that will create a core memory
- A fun board game to play with your family
Products, links, resources mentioned in this episode:
-Pasadena's Celebration of the Young Child
-"Your Friend, Nate Bargatze" special on Netflix
-Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (aka Frequency Illusion)
Past BFP episodes mentioned in this episode:
-Ep. 362 - (Shanna gets a concussion from a soccer ball)
-Ep. 381 - (Laura hosts a booth at the Pasadena Celebration of the Young Child)
-Ep. 221 - (Shanna and Laura go to a rage room)
-Ep. 378 - (Laura adopts her new kitten, Pumpkin)
-Ep. 355 - (Shanna tells her daughter about the Leprechaun and Santa)
-Ep. 356 - (Where Shanna tells her daughter about being a "Rainbow Baby")
Connect with Us
- Follow us on social: Instagram, TikTok or Facebook at @bfppodcast
- Join our Facebook community group for support and camaraderie on your parenting journey.
- Visit our website: bigfatpositivepodcast.com
- Email us: contact@bigfatpositivepodcast.com
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Big Fat Positive: A Pregnancy and Parenting Journey is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko and Steve Yager.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shauna and Laura. |
| 0:05.0 | On this week's episode, we have our weekly check-ins. |
| 0:08.0 | We have our special segment Year in Review, where we find out how soccer fits into my overall |
| 0:15.0 | year vibe, the amazing things Laura's kids have taught her this year and so much more. |
| 0:21.7 | Let's get started. |
| 0:24.6 | Hello, everyone. |
| 0:29.2 | Welcome to episode 391, our last episode of 2025. |
| 0:30.3 | Hi, Laura. |
| 0:31.6 | Hi, Shauna. |
| 0:32.6 | Hi. |
| 0:36.7 | Why don't you kick us off for this episode with your check-in for the week? |
| 0:39.5 | What did you and your family do this week? |
| 0:41.3 | Oh, nothing. |
| 0:47.3 | We just flew all the way across the ocean to go visit a tropical paradise. |
| 0:51.7 | I had a feeling you did something. |
| 0:54.0 | Oh, my God, it was your Hawaii trip. |
| 1:01.5 | It was our Hawaii trip. And, oh, it was so fun. It was wonderful. I mean, no notes. Just we had the best time. I mean, obviously, there's lots of details to share, but I'm going to just give you some broad strokes. |
| 1:09.4 | Please do, because I've been dying to know how this |
| 1:11.5 | trip went. I haven't spoken to you since you got back. And I'm like, did it go well? Did it go back? |
| 1:16.9 | What happened? What happened? What happened? No, it went great. So, okay, there was a bit of a rollout of who was |
| 1:23.5 | on this trip with us. So my mom flew into L.A. the day before we left. And then we all went, |
| 1:30.1 | my mom and the four of us, to Maui. So then two days later, my friend Alia and her family came. And |
... |
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