2018: A Year In Review

Each year, when our family sends out our Christmas card, I like to add a “Year in Review” on the back. Throughout our marriage, Dillon and I have lived a handful of places and have close friends and family in both Canada and Pennsylvania, making it important to me to do my best to keep our tribe in the loop. But the back of a Christmas card doesn’t provide nearly enough space to share, so I thought I would do a quick blog post on the subject.

For me, 2018 was a year of discovery. I shared in a previous post that I believe that our word for the year was “flourish” (read more here) and we learned a lot, as most new parents, first-time-home-flippers do. And at some point throughout the year, I started to dream more intentionally about my life. Once I realized there was a precious pair of little eyes watching me, I became much more passionate, driven, and motivated in a new way.

This year, I fell in love with Motherhood.

This year, I learned how to comfort my baby, discern her cries, and make her laugh.

This year, I learned how to use my camera.

This year, I took photos of other families and got to share their stories.

This year, I became passionate about the place where my family is growing.

This year, I feel deeper in love with my husband as he’s encouraged my dreams, dreamt up his own, and continuously worked hard to make our house a space we are proud of.

This year, I worked to design a logo and brand for a business that hasn’t been launched.

This year, I renamed this website 543762 times…(and we’ve landed with Kinfolk Company!)

This year, I messed up a lot of meals.

This year, I had a billion conversations with my husband to narrow down the type of life we want for our family, and began taking steps to make it happen.

This, my friends, was such a good year.

To be honest, there were (and still are) so many moments where I look at my life, our business, and our dreams and feel like we’re making little progress. But as I wrote this post, I was reminded that 365 days ago I hadn’t even picked up a camera, Dillon had never created anything for a client, and we barely knew Nora. But we kept moving forward with the hope that the desires that were placed would flourish as we committed to doing our best and leaving the rest up to God.

Thank you for following along our journey so far. We’ve got some fun goals for 2019 and can’t wait to see where this year takes us!