Going into 2016, I realized that if I’m going to continue blogging, I need to adjust my expectations about what this blog is to me. Before Henry was born, I had a lot more time to put up recipe posts and restaurant reviews, I took lots of pictures with our DSLR, and tried my best to document every little thing we were doing. Last year, I felt like I was mentally still holding myself to those same standards in terms of the content I wanted to put out, and then I’d feel bad that I wasn’t able to post as much as I wanted to. I felt like we were doing all these different things with Henry that I “should” blog about, but wouldn’t have the time, and so then I felt like I couldn’t just sit down and write a more fun random post until I got through all the things I thought I should be posting about. And as a result, I just wouldn’t blog at all. In contrast, I felt like I used Instagram WAY more last year than I ever had in the past because it’s so much more convenient to share things we’re doing on the fly using my phone.
So, here we are in 2016. I’ve decided that, moving forward, I’m not going to hold myself to any rules about what I “should” post or trying to post a certain number of times a week or a month. I’m just going to post about what I want, when I want. I still read blogs very regularly, but these days, I read them almost exclusively on my phone. Going in to this year, I started thinking about the blogs I read on a regular basis and what they have in common, and it made me realize that the bloggers I like the most aren’t necessarily the ones that post super often. (Although some are!) The blogs I’m most drawn to (at this point in my life at least) are the ones that I feel have interesting content, don’t seem forced, and I can hear the writer’s genuine voice coming through. So even if their posts are sporadic, these are the blogs that I get excited about seeing a new post from. And it made me realize, that’s what I want this space to be. I want it to be a fun place for me to come to and to put out posts that I would actually want to read…if I weren’t the one writing them? You know what I mean…ha 🙂
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about having a blog is having a way to document important moments in my life; however moving forward, I’ll probably be putting less emphasis on trying to do that here. I just realized throughout last year that doing recap posts with lots of pictures detailing every little thing we do is just not feasible right now. Plus, I personally get more enjoyment out of reading posts that provide some sort of information that I can use, which is why my more recent posts have been on things like traveling with a toddler and my favorite beauty products. If we have a really special event (like Henry’s first birthday party, for example) or take a trip, I am going to try to post about it here on the blog, but otherwise, I’m going to try to keep most of the documentation of our day to day life to my Instagram feed (@inthepinkandgreen). I post there pretty regularly (and occasionally my captions rival mini blog posts, ha!) so if you’re interested in what we’re up to, definitely follow me there! (And no, I don’t have a Snapchat. I know it’s super popular but I’m holding out because I decided I don’t need another reason to be glued to my phone!)
So while Instagram is going to continue to serve as my space to share my day-to-day life and this blog is going to be my fun outlet for me to write about whatever, whenever I want, for documentation purposes, I felt like I wanted to at least share one post a month with some photos and a quick recap of the month. For as many photos as I share on Instagram, I probably have 10x as many on my phone that never get posted, which is kind of sad because there are some really cute ones! (But I try not to be that mom that posts 20 pictures of her kid a day…even though it’s hard!) I thought it would be kind of fun to do a little phone dump at the end of each month and share some photos that never made it to social media, while also filling in some of the gaps my Instagram posts might have left out by sharing a little bit more about what I’ve been up to the past month.
(Plus, it will help make my year in review posts much easier…ha!)
(Plus, it will help make my year in review posts much easier…ha!)
Sound good?
Cool.
So without further adieu, here’s what we’ve been up to in January…
I mentioned in Henry’s twelve month update that he got Hand Foot and Mouth Disease in mid-December, and then unfortunately I got sick and then my husband got sick too. (Luckily I didn’t get HFM, but Cam did and it was way worse for him then for Henry!) So we started off January still recovering from all that, and then right after New Year’s, it snowed in Portland. Which is a pretty big deal because it’s fairly rare that it happens here. I took Henry for a walk in the snow and I think he was a little confused as to what was going on…ha 🙂
Speaking of walking, I also signed up for the Hike It Baby 30 Challenge for January. You can find out more about HIB here, but basically the challenge is just a way to try and encourage you to get outside with your kiddo and put in at least 30 miles of walking/hiking. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite make it to our goal this month, but we did get to go on some good hikes and spend quite a bit of time outside.
We hiked to Dry Creek Falls and it was so gorgeous! I’m biased, but Oregon is pretty beautiful 🙂
Cameron and Henry on the trail 🙂
Family selfie in front of the falls!
(And like I said, this is a phone dump so not all the pictures are going to be the best quality…ha!)
(And like I said, this is a phone dump so not all the pictures are going to be the best quality…ha!)
It rained quite a bit this month, but we still managed to get some time to play outside.
Henry also went on his first “toddler-led” hike with Hike It Baby and it was so much fun to see him actually hiking on the trail like a big boy! One of the HIB Portland photographers, Tais Kulish, snapped these photos of him and I just love them 🙂
In the middle of the month, Henry and I took a week long trip to Michigan; we saw my family in New York at Thanksgiving, but since we didn’t go back to Michigan over the holidays, I thought it would be nice to be there fore my mom’s birthday in mid-January. The timing of my visit coincided with the baby shower of a family friend, as well as some of my other friends who live out of state being in town, so that was awesome! And for only being there a week, we actually got to see a lot of friends and family, which was great!
Henry playing in the snow at my parents’ house…but don’t let that smile fool you. He kept sticking his whole face in the snow and then crying when he realized snow is really cold. Ha.
The baby shower I went to was with family friends that we used to go camping with in the summer when I was younger, and it’s neat to be in the season of life now where everyone is having babies!
My little wheel-obsessed boy 🙂
Celebrating Grammy’s birthday!
Spending time with his Great Grandma
Henry also got to spend time with his cousin Luke and it’s so much fun to see them play together. Luke is a year older than Henry, so it will still be a little while before they can really “play” play together, but they were having fun running around my Grandma’s house this visit. I snapped these pictures of Henry feeling pretty pleased with himself after taking Luke’s cracker and not gonna lie, they sort of crack me up. But we really do need to work on sharing slash not taking other people’s food. (Insert awkward cringing emoji here)
Laying on my parents’ floor after bundling up again to go into the cold Michigan weather. LOL.
Henry did get his first haircut when we were in Michigan and he did so well! But it helped that the place was SO CUTE. If you’re near the Ann Arbor, Michigan area I’d highly recommend it!
Once we got back from Michigan, I got to go skiing with some of my mama friends, which was the first time I’d gone since before I was pregnant! It felt good to be back out on the mountain!
My friend Kari and I
In other news, we finally switched Henry out of his infant carseat, a change that was long overdue! We went with the Maxi Cosi 85 and so far, so good!
We ended the month by going to an awesome event on Sunday for Momma Bear Magazine! (I didn’t take many pictures during the event, but I’ll probably be posting some more on Instagram soon!) I actually helped out with putting this event together, and I’m looking forward to hopefully playing a bigger role on the Momma Bear team this year to help it grow. The magazine is the passion project of my friend Mary, and her vision for wanting to put out a beautiful publication that represents just how amazing motherhood is really resonates with me, so that’s why I’m excited to contribute as the magazine grows! You can check out Momma Bear Mag for more details 🙂
Overall, January has been a good month, filled with getting together with friends and getting back to our normal activities after the holidays. Cameron got a ton of home projects done while Henry and I were in Michigan and we’re both excited to keep making improvements to the house this year. The only not so great thing about January is that last week, Henry’s cough (that he’s had for awhile) suddenly got worse and he came down with a fever. After taking him to the doctor (and going to the hospital to get a chest X-ray to make sure he didn’t have pnemonia, which he doesn’t thankfully!) it was determined that he has bronchiolitis caused by a virus that should resolve itself on it’s own. I feel like so many of my friends and their kiddos are sick right now, and it’s just that time of the year where there are so many germs going around. I’m still adjusting to the whole concept of how often little kids get sick and how frequently plans have to be rescheduled because either Henry or someone else’s kid is sick. As someone who is more of a type-A planner, it’s a little frustrating to get used to, not to mention the fact that seeing your kid sick is seriously so sad. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to spring/summer and being able to be outside more so everyone could stop passing all these germs back and forth!
Finally, I realized last week that I literally hadn’t pulled out our actual camera since I took pictures for Henry’s 12 month update back in December…whoops! So last week when Henry was still feeling somewhat under the weather, I ended up snapping a few quick photos while he was outside in his pajamas getting a little fresh air. It’s kind of crazy to me how much he looks like a little boy now 🙂
His beanie is from H&M (not available online) and his boots are Bogs, just FYI 🙂
Poor little guy was still not feeling well here, but thankfully he’s much better now!
Ok, I know this first monthly review post has been kind of crazy long, but I’m looking forward to hopefully keeping these posts up in the months to come! I do have some other posts in mind for February, but I also wanted to see if there was anything you’d like me to do a post about? I’m always open to suggestions!
I hope everyone had a great January and that your February is off to a great start!