Best adventure, travel, or trip: By far our trip to Ocean City, New Jersey was the best trip we took last year. We had the most relaxing, enjoyable time. We had rented a house that was a few blocks to the beach. I was about 24ish weeks pregnant and we took everything very slow because of that and it just made the time very enjoyable because we weren’t trying to push ourselves to do anything just because it would have been “fun”, if that makes any sense.
Best book: My favorite non-fiction book was definitely M is for Mama. This book was such a breath of fresh air and helped me realize how much I was doing because the internet said so. It was full of practical words of wisdom and I honestly may read it again soon. My favorite fiction book was probably The Younger Wife. Sally Hepworth can do no wrong honestly.
Best TV show: Probably A Million Little Things would have to be my favorite this year. Or This Is Us. Or Ted Lasso.
Best movie: Honestly, much to my husband’s despair, I don’t really like movies. We rarely ever watch new movies. The only ones that I can sit through are ones that I already know I like, haha! We watched The Grinch quite a few times and Tommy and I rewatched The Princess Diaries and that was really fun.
Best album, song, or artist: I also don’t really listen to much new music, but my favorite artist is King’s Kaleidoscope. They make the best Christian music. Their new song All The Emotions is my new favorite.
Best new podcast listen, newsletter subscribe, or blog follow: I really enjoy Ashlee Gadd’s newsletter. I honestly love all of her writing and really look forward to reading her newsletter’s each month.
Best kiddo milestone: Watching Riley become a big brother! He surprised us all and handled it so well. He’s absolutely in love with his baby sister and it’s been really fun to watch them together.
Best faith grower: We switched churches last year and it was such a great decision for our family. I think I’ve talked about it a little bit on my Youtube channel but this church is so much smaller than our last church. This switch has really grown my faith and showed me practically how the church is really meant to function as a family and not as a list of rules to “get right”.
Best beauty purchase: I would have to say this serum. It’s been so moisturizing and I’ve really enjoyed it a lot. Ever since Melly was born and I’m breastfeeding again, my skin is so dry and it helps it feel so much better.
Best new tradition: I wouldn’t say you would call this a tradition but starting homeschool this past year has been such a gift. I’ve had a lot of fun spending lots of one on one time with Shane and am really thankful that I get to be the one who teaches him (so far anyway).
Best habit you created: I’m not sure if this is exactly a habit but I would say choosing to read more this year is something that I want to grow even more in in 2023. It has been really great to choose to read more and spend less time watching videos or on social media. My goal in January since I’m taking a month off of Instagram is to read a book a week. I’m already a quarter of the way through my first one and it’s been really refreshing to read a book on my phone instead of scrolling social media.
Favorite blog post written: Definitely my birth story of sweet Melanie. I love that I have each of my kid’s birth stories written out on here.
Best life or mom hack: Finding the app, Tumblebooks and letting Shane “watch” books on my phone when he wakes up earlier than I want him to be, haha. He’s just listening to someone read him books so it’s not really screen time and he loves it.
Best mama moment: Definitely meeting our sweet Melly girl! She brings so much joy to our family!
Best home improvement: We technically started this project at the end of 2021 but have (sort of) finished it in 2022, we renovated our bathroom and it has made the house feel a lot more cohesive which has been really fun.
Best little luxury you’ve enjoyed: Getting my hair done for sure I’ve been getting my hair dyed at a salon ever since August of last year and I’ve enjoyed it so much more than I would have thought. It definitely feels like a luxury every time I go.
