A Look Back at 2015

Wow, oh wow. Twenty fifteen was an absolutely fantastic year for us. The main reasons being that we welcomed little Madilyn into our family, my husband didn’t deploy, and I made myself a priority.

I thought today would be fun to recap this year, so keep reading to see my top nine photos of the year, my top-read posts from 2015, and how I did with my goals for this year…

From left to right:

My number one picture was taken about an hour after Maddie was born. Such a wonderful day!
Madilyn came down with a case of RSV when she was 9 days old, and was in the hospital for a week. this is a picture from the first day she came back home.
Baby feet. Wrinkly, long, munchable baby feet.
Those early “gassy” smiles. (Although, to be honest, she’s such a happy and smiley baby, that I doubt those early grins were caused by gas)
See? More smiles! She smiles all.the.time! Here she was napping with her Papa.
One of my maternity photos taken by Brooke Ashley Photography (if you’re in Savannah, you MUST use her!). I love this picture.
I was about 50 weeks pregnant here, but I love how much Julia loved her sister before they even officially met.
Matching outfits for sisters are the best! So are cheesy grins, and yay for me being in the picture with the girls!
Julia wanted to help with everything when we brought her sister home. Actually, she’s still pretty helpful, which is great!

So, my goals for this past year were pretty realistic…for the most part. Here’s a look at my 2015 “to do list” as I called it:

Project 365.
Fail. I think I got to February 14 (the day after Maddie was born) before that went down the drain.

Lose the Baby Weight.
I did it!!!! I made it all the way down to my pre-Maddie weight, and I was THREE pounds away from my pre-Julia weight…and then I went home for two months and I’m still yo-yoing back and forth trying to get back down. On the bright side, I’ve kicked it back into high gear this past week, and I’m finally losing again. It’s amazing how just upping your water intake can help flush out things.

Read 10 books.
I did this!!! I ended up reading 12 books this year, which is about 11 more than I actually thought I’d read. I’m excited to read more books in 2016!

Make a Cleaning Schedule.
Um, not so much. I had good intentions, but besides picking up the trash and taming the living room from looking like a tornado hit it, we mostly just did big clean-ups on the weekend. Our housekeeper is still my Godsend, though.

Intentionally Make Time for Myself.
Did this, and it was wonderful. Things got a little crazy towards the end of the year, but I’m so thankful I’ve been able to do things I like to do. Being a SAHM is wonderful, but it’s not completely who I am. I like that I’m still a writer, and that I have deadlines and commitments. I’m thrilled that I’m doing Pampered Chef, and that I’m having fun with it. I’m excited to continue to make time for myself in the new year.

Spend More Time with my Husband.
We did okay with this, but not great. I could make excuses (mostly dealing with Maddie and how she doesn’t sleep through the night or take a bottle), but we could do better about dating each other and spending quality time together. Heh, guess what! Today is the 10th anniversary of when we met!!! We’ve decided to be more intentional about this next year, so I”m excited to see where it goes.

Read my Devotional.
I feel so ashamed to say that I failed at this, but in full transparency, I didn’t do well. My devotional is still bookmarked on February 21, the day Maddie went into the hospital. Life got crazy after that, and I never did a good job about carving out time for God. I hate that I just said that, but it’s true. I can only pray that next year will be better and that I will intentionally make time for Him.

Keep up with the blog.
Ya know, I did this. I’m actually impressed with myself since people told me once I had kids (especially two), I wouldn’t be able to be on here as much. It kinda goes hand-in-hand with mking time for myself. This space, as I’ve said before, is important to me, so even if things aren’t consistent lately, I’m still happy I kept up with it.