2020 Review

2020. I mean, am I right? I figured I would try to do a recap of our 2020, and when I started grabbing my favorite pictures from this year, it made me SO HAPPY (and I had a really hard time only choosing a few). I’m just going to break it down Month by Month I guess… SO, I apologize because this is going to be LONG.

JANUARY

January started with, hand foot and mouth disease, and LOTS of cleaning.

Lots of time was spent just me and the kids, because Ryan was travelling SO MUCH, and was gearing up for a full year of travelling.

I got a lot of Viv snuggles, and we managed to get her on a really good sleeping schedule, even though it kind of felt like we would never see the end of all the sleepless nights.

Winter in Michigan always encourages lots of snuggling, so I’m all for that, especially with these 3 snuggle butts.

Also in January, I started working out again, Jonathan started Learn to Skate & I painted the vanity in the bathroom!

FEBRUARY

In February, I discovered my obsession for Oat Yeah creamer, and had fun playing with my new Tombow markers.

Lots more Viv Snugs.

Vivienne still stealing the show with her cuteness.

Ryan and I went on our only date of 2020. I did some workouts with the kids, and Ryan was able to touch his toes for the first time since grade school.

Ryan went on a couple more business trips, and we spent some time outside in the snow.

Jonathan started really progressing in his learn to skate class, we started planning the girls room remodel, and Verona told me she wanted to start going on the big girl potty. (But I wasn’t quite ready)

MARCH

Ryan went on his last business trip, Vivienne turned 8 months old. Jonathan was still in Learn to skate. The kids enjoyed some outside time… and I did another small project in the bathroom.

And suddenly we were issued a stay at home order, Ryan had to work from home, and we started doing more painting projects with the kids.

We started making art in our windows to put a smile on the face of everyone who was walking by. Jonathan lost his first tooth. Verona was potty trained. And we didn’t leave our house for two full weeks.

Lots of couch snuggles because we all got sick. (Not with covid)

APRIL

We enjoyed a lot of time at home. Lots of cleaning. Lots of sanitizing of everything, mail, packages, groceries. Lots of snuggles.

We were not able to attend Easter mass, or spend it with family, so we made it work. And did some baking.

We switched out the rug in our living room, and cleaned up the kitchen and purged a lot of our cabinets.

We learned to love all the time we were given to enjoy each others company.

MAY

The trees started to change & we finally started having warm enough weather that we could go for hikes.

Jonathan’s grandma finished making his quilt for his bed, and he finished preschool. And I took them for a drive around town just to get out of the house.

We really really learned to love our backyard. Slip n slide, and enjoying the sun.

So. Many. Walks. Almost every night when the weather permitted.

Memorial weekend was beautiful and we were able to enjoy the pool at grandma & grandpa’s.

Also, planted our flower pots and the garden!

JUNE

June came and I decided blogging would be a good idea. I had continued to progress with all my working out, and even started running. At the end of the month we FINALLY had our brand new air conditioning hooked up.

More outside time. More pool fun. More sun. More time just the five of us.

JULY

July came and brought birthday’s for all three babies. Verona turned 3, Vivienne turned 1 & Jonathan turned 6.

We FINALLY felt brave enough to go on an out of town adventure, and spent time with Ryan’s family.

More pool time.

My kids have a lot of personality.

More walks, watching sunsets, & lots of ice cream.

AUGUST

With August, brought my 33rd birthday, and our 8th Wedding Anniversary. We celebrated in Traverse City with hikes in the woods and some late nights by the fire.

Also LOTS of beach time at our very secluded favorite beach along the shore of Lake Michigan.

We had the chance to go blueberry picking with grandma, and we are still enjoying the fruits of that labor.

We were able to make it back up north for one final weekend in Traverse City for more beach time. I can’t even begin to explain how special this time with our kids was at the beach.

It’s truly something I will hold close to my heart forever.

We switched out our oven, and FINALLY finished our girls room renovation.

SEPTEMBER

September brought about MORE walks & hikes in the woods.

You guessed it, more time enjoying our own backyard.

Jonathan started his first day of kindergarten, at his amazing “pod school” in town.

I ran my first (and maybe my only) 1/2 marathon. 13.1 miles of pain… if I ever do it again, maybe I’ll train.

More Hikes, a field trip, and lots of precious time with Verona while brother was at school.

OCTOBER

October brought Ryan’s 34th birthday and lots of love from his daughters.

Yup. More hikes.

WE. GOT. A. PELOTON!!!!!!! And I promised Ryan I would use it EVERY DAY. I’m still obsessed with it.

Finally being braver and going out in public more. Life feels weird. Masks are our reality right now, and one day I’ll look back on this and laugh.

We enjoyed some baking and made Halloween treats.

Finished off the month with trick or treating with masks at a few houses in our neighborhood.

NOVEMBER

We had a week of unseasonably warm weather, and we enjoyed EVERY SECOND of it!

Last walk of the year.

Snuggles with my girls, and attended my nephews baptism and enjoyed some MUCH NEEDED time with my family.

More working from home for Ryan. Had our first Thanksgiving at our house.

And finally got the house ready for Christmas. Hung lights outside and embraced the weirdest year of our lives with going all in on the Christmas decor.

DECEMBER

December came and I got all my ornament orders completed and shipped out. We got our house completely decked out with Christmas, and more Christmas projects!

The kids all got sick, so lots of snuggles.

Once everyone felt better we made Christmas cookies with grandma!

Was able to have a wonderful gathering with my family for Christmas.

Enjoyed a beautiful Christmas eve & day and weekend at home. And felt extremely blessed by all that God provided for our family this year.

We had an AWESOME snow day, and enjoyed it as a family!

Per usual, Viv bringing the cuteness.

And then we finished the year with an epic nerf gun battle, the “ball drop” at 8pm with the kids and Ryan was asleep by 11:45pm.

And there we have it… A couple hundred photos of our year. If you made it through that, thank you. I don’t really share a lot of photos on social media platforms because I wonder if people want to see it. But this is us. Our crazy, simple, modest life we live here in Michigan.

In 2020, I learned…

• I can handle a lot.

• I still adore my husband, possibly more so because he is incredibly helpful.

• How to cut my husband and son’s hair.

• That I can go a really long time without coloring my hair.

• Stores with Drive up are my favorite.

• I don’t need to eat take out, and McDonalds just doesn’t sound good right now.

• Working out is SUPER addicting and makes me a better mom/wife/person.

• Wearing makeup keeps me motivated.

• Not seeing family sucks.

• Ryan CAN work from home.

• Our backyard isn’t as bad as I thought.

• Homemade dairy free ice cream is actually really good.

• People are going to say hurtful things. Be Kind anyway.

• I really really really miss going on a date with my husband.

• My house needs a basement.

• I learned a lot about myself. I unpacked a lot of pain from my past, and even if it wasn’t addressed with the people who hurt me, I learned to forgive myself.

• Communication is EXTREMELY important.

---

To say this past year was so hard for so many people would be the understatement of the century. But I choose to focus on the blessings of this year, because they have taught me sooo much about resiliency and appreciating what is right in front of us. I’m praying that 2021 will bring continued Joy to our home even in these uncertain times.

No, I Don't Want Zantac...

It started late one night, I woke up in extreme pain, telling Ryan I couldn’t breathe while clutching my right side. Being six months pregnant with my first baby, I was very confused about what it would feel like to go into labor, but I had a pretty good feeling, this wasn’t it. I called the on-call nurse and she told me I needed to go straight to the hospital to be monitored.

After a 30 min drive to the hospital, an hour of monitoring, and being told “You’re not going into labor, the baby is fine. Drink water & Try to rest.” And I was sent home with no answers. This happened five more times, each time with no answers. Flash forward to after I gave birth to Jonathan, and I was up late one night breastfeeding. That intense pain came over me again & I could barely even function. Before I would get some relief by taking a hot shower and letting the water beat on my back, so I handed the baby off to Ryan and jumped in the shower. I was laying on the floor of the shower crying and praying when it was almost like someone said it clear as day “look up gallbladder attack symptoms".

DING DING DING. We have a winner folks. I called my doctor in the morning and she scheduled me for an ultrasound of my gallbladder. And I wasn’t surprised when they told me it was full of gallstones and that they would recommend removing it. “There are RARELY complications with this surgery, so you should be able to resume normal life after this.” the surgeon told me after surgery, and so I did. I went back to eating all the same stuff I was eating before… lots of greasy food, soda, ice cream, sugar, heavy food and spent the next year and a half popping imodium, gasX, lactaid and the last straw being prescribed Zantac.

Is your stomach hurting yet? I was haphazardly diagnosed with “dumping syndrome” or “Possibly IBS” but there is no definite answer, and then prescribed a daily zantac. I don’t fault my doctor for giving me a prescription in order to fix my problems, because it seems like that is what MOST people these days are looking for. They don’t want to dig deeper and find the root of the problem, they would rather take a magic bullet that would quickly make them feel better. But all the Zantac did for me was (To put it delicately) give me constipation, and then I would eat food I knew would send me to the bathroom just to find some relief. Rinse. Repeat.

I was gaining weight at an alarming rate, I was a few pounds away from being the weight I was when I gave birth. I was bloated. My face was puffy. My skin was awful, and the exhaustion was OUT OF THIS WORLD. I knew SOMETHING needed to change, I just didn’t know what. But I knew that taking Zantac wasn’t the solution.

And then I realized something pretty important… and if you take anything away from this, take this… “Just because something is made and is available for you to consume, DOES NOT mean it's actually safe and healthy.”

Don’t get me wrong, I make unhealthy choices all the time, but the frequency in which I was consuming pop (Or soda), candy and other processed foods, was pretty amazing. For me, it started with being mindful about WHAT I was actually eating. I decided that I would start by cutting out ALL POP. Small steps. After a few days without stomach issues, I realized that I was on to something.

The next month, I decided to do a complete detox from gluten, dairy, soy, legumes, alcohol, refined sugars and caffeine. It was tough. Like seriously tough, especially because for a full week of that detox I was out of town staying in a hotel with my almost 2 year old, as Ryan finished out his Master’s degree. But I set myself up for success and found safe snacks and food. After the detox, I added back a few things, but realized just how good I felt and that was something I wanted to hold on to.

Have I stayed completely devoted to a gluten and dairy free diet? Nope. Since that detox, I’ve added two other humans to our family, and those restrictions went out the window as I survived pregnancy, post partum & breastfeeding. But it is something I easily come back to because I know just how much better I feel when I stick to a (mostly) gluten and dairy free lifestyle.

Is this for everyone? Nope. Is this going to fix your own personal stomach issues? Maybe? It’s hard to say THIS is what is wrong, and THIS will fix you, but it has worked for me. And I’m such a huge advocate for doing YOUR OWN RESEARCH. My doctor was giving me a prescription to fix the problem I complained about, but there was a much bigger problem that she couldn’t have know because she wasn’t in my kitchen when I drank another can of coke, or in my car as I stopped for my 2nd mcflurry of the day. She saw a “Thin” person and assumed I ate a well balanced diet, and out of my own shame, I didn’t correct her.

Which leads us to today. I spent all last weekend in sweatpants, feeling uncomfortable, because my stomach felt bloated, my body felt sluggish after a month of enjoying the holiday treats. Here we are in January with another sweets addiction, snacking on anything and everything, not giving my body what it actually needs. (More water and nutrients). But with the crystal clear realization that it’s time to make some better choices. Be an advocate for yourself. I’ve spent the past 365 days doing the best I can to take care of myself but the biggest thing is I don’t feel like I’ve deprived myself of ANYTHING. But more on that another day.

Finding My Focus: Why I do What I do...

“What do you do? And Why do you do it?” Two questions I’ve been sitting down with a lot lately. Outside of the obvious “I’m a mom, and I love my kids” it’s really getting me thinking on a bigger scale.

This year for Christmas, Ryan bought me a book that was on my amazon wish list, and instead of just buying one, he bought two so he could read it right along with me. In true Ryan fashion, he had to vet the author and make sure she was good and someone he would enjoy reading, and after realizing that a lot of her messages align with his current favorite author, Michael Hyatt, he was intrigued. For those curious, it’s The Joy of Missing Out by Tonya Dalton.

Let me preface this with saying, I’m not someone who enjoys reading. If I have a spare 10-15 minutes, I usually waste it scrolling instagram or amazon looking at random things I don’t need. I couldn’t even be motivated in high school or college knowing my grade depended on it. It’s just never something that I’ve given myself the mental space to do. So when Ryan told me he would do this with me and we could discuss the book together, I was excited for another thing for us to talk about. A little look into me and Ryan’s relationship, we talk a lot, we discuss certain topics, we are very much involved in each other’s lives. If you were to see us out on a date in a restaurant (you know, pre-covid), there are no phones at the table, and we are usually talking or laughing.

A couple nights ago, after finishing a chapter, I put down the book and started talking about the questions that the author posed. “What do I do? Why do I do it? What am I passionate about? What makes me great?” Ryan and I tossed around a couple ideas, and he told me things that he thought I was good at, and I brought up a few things I enjoyed. Outside of motherhood, one big constant for me in all my years, I’ve always loved connecting with people on very personal levels. Almost allergic to small talk, I don’t want to talk to you about the weather, but rather something that is on your mind. Something deeper than that. Something you aspire to do, something you’re struggling with. Or I want to talk to you about something deeper that’s on my mind, in order to connect with you and show you another layer of who I am.

If you’ve known me for any amount of time, and have had a real conversation with me, you know that I don’t fake the funk. People who know me in real life, and follow me on social media know that they get the same person no matter what. (I may curse a little bit more in real life, but that’s only if I know there aren’t children present.) But THIS is me. And one thing that I brought up to Ryan as an answer to what I’m passionate about, is that I don’t like knowing people feel alone. Whether it’s in life, in motherhood, in their health, in their struggles, in their joy, I want to be able to use what God has given me, who He made me to be, and bring those struggling a glimmer of peace and to feel seen.

Okay, so all that to say, how am I going to put this into action? Honestly, I’m going to keep showing up. I’m going to keep talking about my life, our struggles, our wins because that’s what I love. Maybe it’s here on the blog. Maybe it will be with people who send me direct messages. Or with friends I get to sit down and have coffee with. But my one prayer for 2021 is to continue this life of living with intention, not buying into the lies that THINGS make us happy, motherhood is always awful and hard, being healthy means you have a perfect body, and that a good life should always be easy and without obstacles.

I feel like I declare this over every year, but last year I blogged 19 times over the course of a year, which is WAY more than I did in 2019, or 2018 combined! So here I go again, trying to be better at this, and setting a goal of AT LEAST once a week, which feels completely manageable at the moment. Happy first week of January!

Finding Joy Right Where I'm Planted...

We’ve all heard the quote “Bloom Where You’re Planted” And if this year has taught me anything, it’s simply that. If you talked to me four years ago, I could tell you a million things I wished we had… things that I wished we could change about our house, our life, our financial situation. I was busy looking left and right and eyeing up all the things I didn’t have, and the lives of others on instagram, wishing for a home that felt “instagram-worthy” and perfect. I’m not generally someone who covets what others have, but I could easily get consumed by petty jealousy and play a mean game of comparison.

In the last few years, I’ve worked pretty hard on this. I’ve become best friends with the “unfollow” button, or the mute button. I’ve stopped picking up magazines, stopped looking for things I want, and focused so much more on what we need, and let everything else fall away. Social media is very good at feeding us a lie that tells us that what we have is never enough and what other people share about having is what we also need to have. Living a life of excess, having an over abundance of stuff, a new wardrobe every season, blah blah blah… but I realized it’s not what is going to bring you happiness. Maybe it will in the moment, but long term, you can’t sustain that. Instead, you need to find the joy right where you are. In your current moment. Look around and pick out a couple things that make you smile. Count the blessings.

My life is far from perfect. My home… far from perfect. Are those homes I see all over Instagram beautiful? You betcha. Would it be nice to have a little more space for our family to spread out a little? You betcha. But I am so proud of the home we do have. I love that we own a home that when people walk in, they feel cozy and welcomed. 2020 was the year we all stayed home, and the fact that I can say, I still love everything about this house, flaws and all, is saying something.

I wrote an instagram post this morning about instead of comparing my life to what others have, I talked about the joy I felt when I made my bed and saw the new Christmas quilt and red pillows. Seeing so cute and put together, I remembered that wish i made three years ago that “one of these years I’m going to bring the Christmas decor to our bedrooms, in order to bring the holiday magic to the whole house.”

Last year, I invested in two very small and inexpensive trees for the kids rooms. Slowly, but surely, I’m creating the dream I had for us with the limited budget we have, but creating something magical for my children has become more of a priority for me than getting likes or follows on instagram.

Yesterday, as Jonathan looked around the house, he told me… “Mama, Christmas is my favorite time. This looks so magical.” I could feel the lump in my throat, and it made me realize that THAT is what it’s all about. Creating magic in the every day. And for me, there is nothing more magical than a home at Christmastime.