2025: A Great Year Ahead

A new year has arrived. I can't believe 2025 is here already. I have some big goals for the new year- less/more goals:

Less stagnancy, more action- 

I want to move my body more, take more trips, go on adventures, say yes to spontaneity, get outside, play more.

Less negativity, more joy-

Spend time with people that breathe life rather than toxicity, truly and thoroughly enjoy my children, spend more time in prayer, surround myself with people and places that spark joy.

Less Consuming, more creating-

Learn a new hobby/art, plant a bigger garden, can more and buy less, get off social media and into more books, bake and create.

I don't always like setting new goals in the middle of winter, but this year it felt like a good time for a reset. 2025 is going to be great :)

And speaking of resets, Michael and I were able to have a major reset both for our marriage and our own mental healths. For the first time since having kids, we took a trip away, just the two of us. For the past 6.5 years I have either been pregnant or nursing babies. It's really hard to leave your kids when you are their food and comfort source. And they were so little and it was just never the right time. But after 1,550 days of breastfeeding and about 920 days of pregnancy (I did the math), I was ready for a trip :) And I'm happy to report Michael and I still very much like each other. Sometimes parenting can put us into survival mode and apathy, so having a chance to be together was really nice. After a decade I can say I love him more than I did the day we got married. We've been through happy moments like the birth of our children or the excitement of new jobs and opportunities. We've been through hard moments like our miscarriage and loss of people/pets we love. And although marriage is hard and every day is not all sunshine and rainbows, I am glad to have him as my partner in life, parenting, and love. He's my person and I'm glad we could celebrate that together. 

(We have always taken our anniversary picture holding our gifts that we gave each other. We follow the traditional marriage gift of the year, but this year we decided a trip to Florida was better than a gift of tin ;) And we were right!)

We headed to Clearwater, Florida because it was a quick trip with a direct flight (you know, in case I needed to get back to my babies quickly). Our resort was amazing and luxurious. We spent our weekend laying by the pool and watching the dolphins play right outside. We ate fresh seafood and drank fruity drinks. We ordered room service and tried to sleep in (apparently my mom brain doesn't know how to do that anymore). We shopped and walked the beach. I had an aloe algae body wrap and massage, which was probably my favorite thing from the whole trip. We slept, we ate, we read, we talked, we adventured. It was awesome and needs to happen more than once a decade.

We had to get up at 3:30 (2:30 Illinois time) to catch an early flight. We were home around the time the kids were getting up for the day. My least favorite part of the whole trip. Look how tired (but very relaxed) we look.

I am incredibly grateful for my in-laws who watched the kids. They had a lot of fun together and my kids were well taken care of. And we returned to a clean house and happy children, what's a better end to the trip than that?!

You really can't beat a start to the new year than a trip to Florida, but a close second was visiting the children's museum ;) My kids LOVE that germ-infested place. And lucky them, they got a year-long membership for Christmas so we plan on going often. We headed to the children's museum as soon as we possibly could :)

We jumped right back into the swing of things with a co-op field trip to the library. After a storytime, we had an official tour and got to see how the circulation area works, including the book drop sorter. I was truly impressed with the whole thing! The library is one of our favorite places. Up until I had children I just had no idea how much libraries offer. We use their community room for our group at least once a month. Our family checks out 20-50 books a week, we use the computers and games, we listen to their audiobooks and cds, we love their craft room and storytime. Laura Bush once said "once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open". Or J.K. Rowling who said, "When in doubt, go to the library". And with my goal of reading 40+ books this year, the library was the perfect first co-op day!

And speaking of reading, we have started our "couch time" as part of our schooling back up since the holidays. We all love to snuggle up and read on the couch most mornings. Isla consumes audiobooks like air. And her and I have a long list of books we want to read together. Right now we are reading through the American Girl series with Kaya's story. For myself, I have already read 6 books, which is about a book every other day. We are definitely a book-loving family :) There's no better way to introduce all the facets of the world than through reading. In fact, I'm reading a book right now, The Giver of Stars, based on a true story about women in the depression era who formed a travelling library. Books can give education and joy and hope in even the darkest times. 

Another goal of ours (again) is to get 1,000 hours outside this year. This will be our fourth year of counting our hours. We have never reached 1,000, but every year we get more than the year before. In 2024 the kids got over 800 hours! We have started out strong with our hours thanks to the copious amounts of snow :)

We have had a mix of cozy days and busy days. The kids have been busy playing with their new Christmas toys, learning new crafts, reading all the books, busy in the kitchen, and starting our school back up. Ewan started his gymnastics again and Isla has taken on a new hobby of violin lessons. It feels like a good pace of family time and extracurriculars, just enough to keep us happy during the long winter days :)

2025, here we come!