Looking Back at 2015

Happy New Year everyone!
It’s know it’s a little belated, but we’ve been having some ice and snow here the past few days (which means activities get cancelled and no driving since Portland isn’t really equipped to handle that weather) and as a result, I feel like I haven’t quite gotten back to our normal routine yet.

Anyway, as much as I love the holiday season, I always really look forward to the clean slate and fresh start of a brand new year. I’ve got all these different goals for the year buzzing around in my mind, and I’ve been busy making lists of to-dos and trying to purge clutter from the house. I just really love all the extra motivation and focus that January brings, and I’m really excited for the year ahead.

But before we get too far in to 2016, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2015 because it truly was the best year yet! Watching Henry grow and change so much over the past twelve months has been incredible (you can see all his monthly updates here) and we’re so thankful for the joy he’s brought to our lives. Cameron and I have also really enjoyed growing into our new roles of mom and dad; there’s definitely been some adjustment with me transitioning to staying home full time as well as some changes with Cameron’s job where he’s now working full-time out of a home office, but overall, things are really good! We by no means have this parenting thing figured out, but I feel like we’ve really settled into life as a family of three (well four, counting Lola of course) and it’s a nice feeling!

In the past, I’ve done a ‘year in review’ post where I’ve linked to all my various posts from that year. But because I haven’t been posting quite as regularly, I thought I’d just give a quick overview, along with a few photos from my phone, since that’s the camera I used to capture most of 2015 🙂 

January

We were still very much adjusting to life with a newborn at this point, but started to get in a groove with things a little more. Cameron had to go out of town for his work trip post-Henry, so my mom came out to stay with us and I feel like I really got a lot more comfortable taking Henry out of the house. Plus, it really helped that we had some nice sunny weather so we were able to get out for walks quite a bit! Here on the blog, I shared Henry’s birth story, along with a recipe for some cookies I was making to help boost my milk supply.

February

Henry went on his first flight and had his first vacation in San Diego! There were some other firsts like Henry’s first Valentine’s Day, our first date night post-baby, and my first girls night out. We made a day trip to the Oregon Coast and I went to my first Hike it Baby event, which it made me realize just how many moms there are here in Portland! I also shared Henry’s newborn photos on the blog 🙂

March
We took our first trip to visit my family in Michigan! Henry met lots of my friends and relatives and that trip took up a big part of the month. I also talked about my decision to stay home with Henry and shared his birth announcement.

 April

  We celebrated Henry’s first Easter, and we also took a family trip to Seattle and Vancouver. I attempted to get back into working out, and we had some friends come visit from Michigan and enjoyed showing them around Portland and the surrounding sights like Multnomah Falls.
 

May

Lots of nice weather and time outside in Portland, and I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. We took another trip back to Michigan for my sister’s bridal shower, and Cameron also started building the deck on our house!

June
 We took a day trip to Astoria, OR for our anniversary (which I sincerely was going to post about but the camera card with the photos got deleted before I had a chance…whoops!) and we went on some hikes in the Gorge. At the end of the month, we left for our trip to Europe! Our first stop was Paris and we had a great time exploring the city, Henry was a champ 🙂

July
We traveled from Paris to Strasbourg, France for my sister and Ben’s wedding! We had a great time getting to see my brother-in-law’s hometown, Strasbourg was very charming. Their wedding was beautiful and the reception was so much fun. After the wedding festivities, we traveled to Lake Como, Italy to finish out our Europe trip. (Also I realize I never shared any Europe pictures on the blog. I honestly meant to but I had soooo many photos that it seemed kind of daunting and then the rest of the year flew by. But who knows, maybe I still will?) Once we got home, we summer fun stuff like hiking and swimming in the pool, and we also took a weekend trip to Bend in Central Oregon.

 August
Enjoyed the produce from our garden spent time on our deck. We also had some family photos taken. My parents came to visit Portland and we went down to wine country and the Coast 🙂

 
September
My sister and brother-in-law came to visit Portland over Labor Day weekend for a quick but fun visit. Henry and I did our first Hike It Baby 30 Challenge, which is where we made a goal to hike over 30 trail miles in 30 days, and so spent a lot of the month out hiking, including Oneota Gorge which had been on my list for awhile. Henry experienced his first Oktoberfest and we also traveled back to Michigan for another trip to visit my family and see friends.

October
I started going to a mom’s group at church and we created a play area for Henry in our kitchen. Henry got to experience the pumpkin patch for the first time and he dressed up as a monkey for Halloween. We also ended up taking an unexpected trip back to Michigan for my grandpa’s funeral.

 November
Henry and I completed another Hike It Baby 30 Challenge, and managed to get outside quite a bit. We traveled to NYC to spend Thanksgiving with my family which was a really fun trip. I also attended two other Friendsgivings, plus we had a Thanksgiving with Cam’s family when we got back from New York, so all in all, four Thanksgiving meals!

December
 I celebrated my 29th birthday and Henry celebrated his first birthday! We had a party for him with family and friends (and I am going to be sharing those pictures really soon!) and it was a lot of fun. Shortly after his first birthday though, Henry got Hand Foot and Mouth disease (I guess it’s at an all time high right now in Portland) and then Cam and I also got sick. We spent a lot of December laying low inside the house, but thankfully we were all feeling better in time for Christmas. We had a nice Christmas morning at home with just the three of us, then we spent Christmas Day with Cam’s family. (I also shared our Christmas card on the blog too!) This was one of the first years that we didn’t travel over the holidays and it was kind of nice to have some relaxing time at home!

 For me, 2015 was a year full of lots of new friends, play dates, and keeping up with our very active baby boy, who seems like less and less of a baby every day. Looking back, I definitely prioritized putting more time and effort into growing my relationships with friends in real life vs. spending as much time on this blog as I have in the past, which is a choice I’m happy with. That said, this blog isn’t going anywhere! It’s definitely something that I still get a lot of enjoyment out of and so it’s something I plan to continue in 2016. I greatly appreciate those of you who still read my posts, even though they are much more sporadic, and I’m hoping to get some of my blogging mojo back in the coming year 🙂

I hope everyone’s new is off to a great start!