Hope you are having a wonderful start to 2022, so far ours has been full of lots of fun! I shared our goals for the year at the end of January and we’ve been working towards them so I wanted to share some updates. I also thought it would be fun to share a little bit about what we’ve been up to. So enjoy this recap of the last few months!

On February 11th, Brooklyn Grace turned one year old! We had so much fun that day celebrating her life. We filled the hallway outside of our bedrooms with balloons and hung pink streamers from her door. We also added some cute balloons to our fireplace. She was a fan of all of it and had a great time crawling through the balloons to get to her pancake breakfast! After her morning nap we met up with all four of her grandparents and her Aunt Jackie for lunch at Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant. If you’ve never been to Fritz’s, it is the coolest restaurant for little kids. You order by phone at your table and your food is delivered by a little train that wraps around the restaurant. So fun, I think we all had a great time and Josh and I relived some of our childhood memories. 

After lunch we headed to the mall to get a birthday bear at Build-A-Bear Workshop. Did you know you can get a bear on your kiddo’s birthday and you only have to pay their age for the bear?! It was so fun, we added some extras but the bear only cost us $10. We sang Happy Birthday to Brooklyn in the store so when she presses the bear’s paw all of her favorite people sing to her. We spent the rest of the evening in our house, had dinner and ate the birthday cake I made for her. It was such a sweet day!

We celebrated Valentine’s Day on the 14th, Josh brought home flowers for me and we got a few little things for Brooklyn. She wore the cutest little sweatsuit all day and just looked too cute in it! She was so much bigger this Valentine’s Day compared to her first one!

On February 19th, we had Brooklyn’s first birthday party. So many of our favorite people joined us and Josh’s cousin Katy took some lovely photos. Our friends Darren and Jess came up from Pittsburg a day early and helped us with party prep. Jess saved me by helping me finish up decorations and make sugar cookies. She’s a cookie pro! It was a great first “Bee” day!

February was the busiest month ever because the next week we were on our way to Colorado for a ski trip. I don’t ski so I volunteered to watch the babies while Josh, Darren and Jess skied the day away. I knew watching the babies wouldn’t necessarily be fun but it ended up not being the best trip ever for me at all. Brooklyn was teething the whole week and at the end of the trip, when we planned a non-skiing day so that we could all have some fun, I ended up with the stomach flu. It was not a great trip for me personally but Josh and our friends had fun and I’m glad I was able to be there to watch the babies. My cousin let us stay in her house while she was out of town and it was a beautiful place to stay. I had great views while snuggling sweet babies!

After such a busy February, March was a much slower month which we desperately needed. In March I was really able to get settled in our new routine and get some processes in place to make our lives easier. Brooklyn got invited to her first Chuck E. Cheese party. She didn’t mind Chuck E. at all but wasn’t sure about the arcade games. Josh and I went to a Phil Wickham concert using tickets we got as Christmas gifts from Josh’s parents. Josh sold his truck and upgraded to a new one, he drove all the way to St. Louis with his mom to purchase it. Miss Brooklyn also started walking in March at 13 months old!! 

We also took lots of walks on the nice days we had in March and even took a trip to Eudora to visit some friends I grew up with. Brooklyn loved their dog, Louis. We took Brooklyn to the park and had Josh’s cousins over for dinner and games. March was a really sweet and slow month. And I haven’t even mentioned how good basketball was during March – our favorite team continued playing into April!! 

We started April off watching KU win the National Championship with my mom and dad! It was really sweet to watch the game with them and the fact that it was a comeback game made it so much better. Brooklyn unfortunately started the month off with a little cold so she wasn’t much fun during the game but my mom got a lot of snuggles in. 

We moved our camper into our backyard this month and Josh did his first demo project on our house! He literally cut off a corner of the deck in order to make more room for the camper, I was a little skeptical but in perfect Josh fashion it turned out great!

In April we celebrated a few important holidays for our family. The first was Passover. We aren’t Jewish, but we do celebrate this biblical holiday and hope that as Brooklyn grows it will help her understand better the sacrifice that Christ made for her on the cross. Jesus is our Passover lamb and it is by His blood that we are saved. The first Passover was a picture of Jesus. Josh planned a beautiful illustration that I hope we can use for years to come. 

We also celebrated Easter. We always start the day off with Resurrection Rolls which is a fun and yummy way to celebrate the resurrection. We gave Brooklyn her Easter basket before church and then rounded out Easter morning with a great worship service. After church we headed to Josh’s parents for Easter lunch and spent some time with family. It was a great day to celebrate the victory we have in Jesus. 

On April 20th I turned 27 and Josh took me on a date to The Red Door Grill, it’s like an upscale Applebee’s, it was pretty good and then afterwards we got ice cream! That weekend my parents came over with cookies and gifts for Easter and my birthday. They went to church with us and then after all of us went with Josh’s parents to a kite festival. It was a really nice day to relax outside!

Then to end April, all three of us ended up getting sick with colds. But we’re all feeling better now and Brooklyn and I were able to go to another birthday party last weekend!

May has also been packed. The first weekend of the month we went on a camping trip with some new friends from church! It was a very relaxing weekend and celebrating Mother’s Day was a plus. It was a great weekend with my little fam and some new friends.

The next weekend we celebrated my sister in law’s graduation and had lots of good family time with Josh’s side of the family. I also managed to squeeze in a belated Mother’s Day brunch with my mom, we had a very yummy breakfast on the Plaza with Brooklyn. Then we went to a farmers market and Trader Joe’s with Mom, it was a great day with her. 

On Sunday we spent some time with my mom and dad as an early celebration for my dad’s birthday. It was fun to get together with both of them and try out a new Mexican restaurant. This week we’re also preparing for our annual trip to Roaring River State Park over Memorial Day and of course I’ve managed to somehow catch another cold despite always being home. I’ve been sick more times since we moved to KC than probably the entire time I lived in Pittsburg. Hoping I feel better so I can enjoy our camping trip.

I finished editing this post after our trip and we had a great time and I started to feel much better the day we left!

These first few months of 2022 have been packed with lots of fun but I’m thankful we had some periods of rest to work on our goals too! Below are some updates to our 2022 goals, let us know how your goals are going!

Spiritual 

• Become members at our church – in progress! We took our church’s membership class in April so we’re just waiting for a letter in the mail to let us know it’s official!
• Find a small group – hoping to do this after we get our membership letter.
• Pick a Homeroom topic to study each month – We’ve been doing good with Homeroom this year. We’ve been trying to work on our topic each Sunday in the evening.
• Read God’s Word daily – I’ve been doing a lot better recently at reading in my Bible to start the day. Right now I’m studying Daniel. 
• Keep a gratitude log – I never remember to do this but I need to get in the habit. 
• Serve in youth ministry – I’m not sure if I’ll end up sticking with this goal, I’d like to serve in this area at church but it may not be the best season for me to do so. Josh and I are hoping to serve in the same area or on the same day so that we don’t miss out too much on time with Brooklyn as a family.

Relational 

• Host lunch monthly after church – we did this at the beginning of April!
• Invite Pitt friends to KC to visit – we’ve had a couple friends from Pitt visit which has been so fun!
• Get to know our neighbors – we’ve met a few neighbors and baked brownies for one. I have another brownie mix in our pantry ready for another that I’ll bake next time we have a free weekend.
• Continue our weekly family meeting – we’ve been doing well with this, last week was the first time in a while that we didn’t have time and I felt a little off all week. It’s just such an important time for Josh and I to get on the same page and when we don’t have it things just get a little wonky.
• Go on a monthly date night – We’ve had a couple dates!
• Plan Brooklyn’s First Birthday!! – Brooklyn’s birthday was a success!
• Reconnect with old friends in KC – We spent some time in March with my friends Micah and TJ which was a blast, can’t wait till their baby joins the crew in August!!
• Take two Mom & Dad only trips – we have our first trip without B planned for June – we’re going to Nashville!

Physical 

• Invite a new friend over each month (once we make some lol) – We had Josh’s cousin Katelynn and her family over in March and we went camping with some new friends from church!
• Develop a list of 20 meals to make meal planning easier – We have 18/20 meals planned, once we have our 20 meals I’ll be sure to share them!
• Go on a weekly family walk – We have not been good at this, we need to get back in the habit now that the weather is nice.
• Get in shape – Have not been focused on this either, I’ve worked out a couple times but not as much as I’d like!
• Make our house a home – This hasn’t been a huge focus lately but we did buy a couch which was a goal for the first quarter of the year!

Intellectual 

• Check in on our goals once a month – Josh and I have added that to our Sunday night chat on the last Sunday of the month.
• Open Etsy Shop!!! – DONE and I’ve had 11 sales thanks to Mother’s Day!
• Read 5 books – I have finished this as well, I’ll share these in another post!

Financial 

• Make a profit with 27th & Monroe – I had a lot of sales in April which was exciting but hoping to have an overall profit for the first year at the end of October.
• Max out our Roth IRA – working towards this
• Plan a trip to Glacier National Park – have not picked dates or planned this yet
• Meet our Mortgage goals (we’re trying to pay our new house off ASAP) – we’ve paid off about 10% of our mortgage so far which is great!
• Review Budget together monthly – We need to be better about this, we’ve definitely been more thorough in our reviews this year but haven’t been consistent about doing it monthly
• Honor our budget – I think we’re doing a good job but could tighten up things like eating out and our personal spending moneys