A year in review: 2015

 Brent always loves when I write my "Year in Review" posts so he can remember what we did last week. I know I spend more time on them than I should, because I know no one else really cares. This year I decided to just pick one or two pictures for each month, and then highlight a few things I wrote about during that time. Everything in italics is linked to an older post that you can read or re-read.

//January//

I wrote about a day at the spa [ha], and a story my wedding ring told me. 

And I wrote about trusting the mess and the grace in my days at home with the girls.

//February//

I decided to get in the boat more with the girls. We said good-bye to a life time neighbor and I reflected on what it really meant to be a neighbor. Oh, and I wrote some letters to women I see everyday. 

//March//

Blythe turned THREE and had a party and I wrote her her birthday letter.
I also gave a detailed how-to for having a phone conversation with your sister.   

I even busted out a little poetry to honor my old My Little Ponies.  [and still get teary eyed when I read this….shhhh]

[I wrote a lot in March, apparently, and I would be remiss to not also mention I wrote about a hawk flying around my house as a child and I also wrote an open letter the high chair which I am so sad I will have to bust back out…]

//April//

We took a trip to Kentucky and I wrote about what worked for us with traveling with little ones. Blythe left a BandAid on for nine days and it made me wonder what my "BandAids" are.  

I turned 29 and finally realized my identity. << [this was one of my biggest lessons/reflections from the year].

//May//

Our sweet Becks turned ONE and had a party and I wrote her her birthday letter. 

I also went out on a limb and shared my first round of dirty pics and everyone's response was awesome.  I pondered if texting or parenting while driving was more dangerous, and learned to give myself twenty minutes. 

//June//

I wrote about the power of the person in front of us, and I took a girls for a walk by myself for the first time ever.  Brent ran another half marathon, no big deal.

Oh, and I started praying that Jesus would get "stuck in my mouth" and I had my first garage sale meaning Blythe had her first lemonade stand. 

//July//

My writing began to slow down, but I took time to think about what it takes to create authentic community. I FREAKED the heck out and read Harper Lee's NEW/OLD book in less than five hours then wrote this review.  I thought about fences in my life. 

And because it was church camp season, I wrote 8 reasons you should send your kid to church camp: Part I and Part II. 

//August//

I started a new job, and softball season, and got pregnant [though no one knew yet], and took a lot of pictures for people. I barely wrote. 

And we had to say goodbye to Grandma Pat. 

//September//

Well, in September I just didn't blog at all. But I took A LOT of naps and coached A LOT of softball.

//October// 

We finally made our big announcement, and I shared the piece I actually wrote on August 3rd, the day we buried Grandma Pat and the day I found out I was pregnant.

And I hung up my coaching hat and said goodbye to being a part of a team. 
We also took a super quick trip to Iowa and hit up my old college and did a pumpkin patch with the girls.

//November//

I took a ton of pictures and started writing letters to baby number 3.  

Brent ran 30k for his 30th birthday, which I just realized I never blogged about. Maybe I'll do that.  We also went to Nashville for a week, and I never blogged about it.

//December//

I shared how I am trying. I really am. Not so much on the "real pants" thing though.

And I realized how thankful I am to have a good, good Father who continually calls out the good in me. [this was another big lesson for me this year]

I wrote our "Christmas Letter", and even managed to get a list up of the books I read this year. 

…..

And SCENE.

A full year. A year of growth, as I hope every year is. Donald Miller once wrote:

…everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like the seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing... Everybody has to change, or they expire…. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently. Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning.

And we did that, little by little, in 2015. And my prayer is that we'll do that even more in 2016; that we'll allow God to move us away from the people we were a moment ago and move us toward Him in bigger and better ways.