Happy New Year! 2025 is here. I always love taking some space to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the next one. You can read last year’s reflection here.

2024 was my year to be steadfast in all areas. And I think I was. This past year, felt hard and overwhelming at times (my first full year as a mom to 3 boys). It felt like a lot of juggling and being stretched in ways I wasn’t used to. Training for a marathon starting in July definitely added an element of exhaustion. I had a lot of days where I wrote in my prayer journal how exhausted and overwhelmed I felt. I needed to rely on His strength to carry me through.

Even in the exhaustion, I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I stayed steady. I set early alarms. And ultimately stayed committed to the goal I set (run the NYC Marathon). I put the work in and super proud to have ran a 3:05 in one of my most draining seasons of motherhood.

Along with accomplishing the marathon, here are a few of my highlights from 2024:

• Turned 30! I feel so much older but that’s what happens when you get married at 21 and start having kids at 24. We had a special getaway to Hotel Del Coronado. Felt very loved and celebrated and can’t wait to see all the good this next decade will hold.
• Along with this trip, we got to travel a good amount as a family. In early June, we road tripped to Northern California to celebrate one of my best friend’s weddings in Saratoga. It was a beautiful weekend celebrating her and we also got to celebrate Hudson as his birthday fell on same day as wedding. Later in summer, we had an awesome family trip to Kauai visiting Uncle Happy and swimming with sea turtles. And finally, in the fall we had our NYC trip for the marathon. Some years, we don’t travel much at all, this was definitely more of a travel year. We are in a season where it’s HARD to travel with young kids, but already I am able to look back on these trips and have a lot of good, warm memories from them.
• The year still felt scattered with sickness (including a stomach bug that hit all 5 of us), but Hudson getting his tonsils and adenoids out back in June was a huge help in getting him to be SO much healthier and no longer snoring at night. It was a hard couple weeks of recovery and very scary when we had to rush to ER due to scab falling off and causing bleeding. We got through it and confident that this surgery drastically improved H’s health and overall well-being. It was so fun to watch him thrive in both baseball and soccer this year.
• I enjoyed starting some at-home learning with Thatcher. We started my ABC Toddler Curriculum. Life got busy and he started preschool in the fall, but maybe we will finish it this winter! He is getting so independent and smart. He is loving preschool and has made a really good friend!
• Thatcher learned how to ride a 2-wheel bike before turning 3! This was our goal since Hudson hit this milestone at same age. Woom sent us a size 2 bike and it was the perfect lightweight bike for him to learn on. This was such a huge confident booster for him.
• I stepped outside of my comfort zones and taught two pop-up toddler classes in the park. This had been an idea floating in my head for a while and with the encouragement from Lance, I decided to just go for it. The classes were fun and I felt at home teaching toddlers. I only ended up doing two, but I think in the future I might bring it back.
• Summer
• This year also felt like the year of celebrating with parties. We threw 3 parties. One for each boy. It felt like a lot. This coming year, I think I will take a year off from throwing birthday parties and we will celebrate with experiences. For Thatcher, it was a Buzz Lightyear party with just a couple friends. For Hudson, it was a baseball party at the park with all the boys in his class. And for Declan, we had a cute little pumpkin themed party at the park to celebrate him turn one with family! Hudson practiced a ton and read Little Blue Truck’s Halloween to Declan before the cake smash. It was very sweet. Proud of Hudson for doing something brave for his brother.
• Halloween was the day before we left for NYC. We had fun trick or treating in our neighborhood with another family with two young boys. T was committed to being an astronaut, so we had Declan also be an astronaut (obsessed with this baby astronaut costume from Pottery Barn). H had no interest in being an astronaut so he was the Mandalorian from Star Wars. I’ve decided to let go of trying to always do a family costume and let the boys choose what they want to be.
• December
• With each passing year, I am continually amazed with how my TpT curriculum continues to sell well + blog visitors grow too. This year marks year 6 of creating this blog. I feel like with each passing year, I get a better vision of what I want this corner of the internet to be. Blog growth has definitely been slow + steady, and it is fun to see it grow with me. This year, I wrote much more. 24 posts! It was fun to share marathon training and travel recaps. My hope is to keep regularly writing on here for 2025.

One of the major lessons this year taught me was being steadfast is not always the glamorous road; often it is hard and requires a deep sense of faith and patience to keep on doing good even in the ordinary, mundane days. And ultimately trying to be a steady person that always holds it all together will eventually lead to burn out if not relying on the ultimate One who is always steadfast (God).

2025: The Year to Nourish

I always choose a word for the year and this year, I was debating between “fun” and “nourish.” I ultimately went with nourish, but definitely hoping to have more fun this year too. Lance and I went to a concert a few days after Christmas to see Donavon Frankenreiter. It was so not like us, but it was a lot of fun and I definitely want more of that in my 2025.

I chose nourish for a few reasons. I want to focus on nourishing my body with more cohesive meals and be more intentional to make sure I’m getting enough calories. I am guilty of just eating the scraps from the kids’ breakfasts and lunches. It can feel like a lot to make the kids all a meal and to also do it for myself. It’s not always going to be a gourmet meal, but I want to take a little more care in feeding ME. So far that means making protein shakes in the morning to help with extra calories and protein. It’s making sure I always pack myself a snack, along with the kids’ snacks. It means putting “eat breakfast” on the to-do list and actually sitting down to do it.

Today was the first day back from winter break and both older boys were back to school. This gave me a little extra time to myself. After getting Declan down for his nap, I heated up my lunch (we don’t have a microwave so takes a bit more time and intention). Often I’m so crunched on time, I just eat cold leftovers. I enjoy my food so much more when it’s warmed up. I took out the skillet and heated up the rice and shredded in chicken and added a bit of soy sauce. I then sat down and just ate my meal in quiet. I didn’t pull out my phone or even a book, I simply focused on the nourishment right before me. This is a picture of what I’m hoping to cultivate more of this year.

I also want to focus on nourishing on a soul and relational level too. The past year, I got into the habit of just reading a daily devotional and not diving into the Word. Nothing wrong with devotionals, but I can tell spiritually I am ready to dive a little deeper and spend more time reading the Bible.

I want to pour in and nourish relationships that are especially on my heart. This means check-in texts, offering up help more freely, and doing more inviting. This also might involve a bit of letting go.

So really this intention to nourish all things well, goes beyond food. It is approaching each day with a sense of care and love, understanding that these little actions matter.

Here is to 2025! Just a few days in and something just feels different. Ready to see what the Lord has in store for us.