2024 Year in Review: Part One!

I almost started this post out with saying Wow, what a year it’s been! But I’m pretty sure that’s how I started off last year’s yearly review LOL. Both years have been WILD and I really would love for 2025 to not be so wild :).

When I think about 2024, I think about how much God has blessed me and how much He sustains me.

Let’s recap the first half of 2024!

January

I started off the year 7 months pregnant. If you’re new here, this pregnancy was a major surprise :). I was still going full steam at this point keeping up with a very active 4 year old and an almost 1 year old who wanted to be held all the time haha

Banks turned 1 on January 24th! The week before his birthday, we had a huge ice storm (literally had an ice storm right after Banks was born and got stuck in Dallas due to the ice–also praying there isn’t another ice storm for his 2nd birthday) and I was afraid his birthday party would have to be postponed, but enough ice had melted off the roads in time for his party! We just had to push it back a day 🙂

February

Merritt’s baby shower was mid-February when I was 35 weeks pregnant and I loved opening up all of the pink gifts! While blue is my favorite color, I’m fully embracing pink everything and loving every moment of it.

Harrison turned 5 on February 27th and he got to pick out his breakfast! (He also had a tummy ache right after eating those donuts haha). I ended up taking off work on his birthday (I wasn’t planning on it, but something terrible happened to a friend the night before and it changed my perspective) so we spent the day together as a family celebrating. We went to Let’s Play to let the boys play for a while and then ate supper at Taco Mama–Harrison’s pick!

March

We had Harrison’s birthday party the first weekend in March, and he wanted a Paw Patrol party at a local gym. Sign me up because I knew I couldn’t host a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds at my home at 36.5 weeks pregnant. Also, this is the point in my pregnancy where I really had to start slowing down.

Merritt was born March 27th–almost a week after her due date–at 8:48 PM. My labor experience was the best and I am so grateful it was. I shared her birth story here and Dustin even gave his perspective after mine.

April

We were in the newborn bubble in April and adjusting to life with 3 children (2 babies, really). Lots of naps whenever we could and wherever we could!

Harrison also signed up to play baseball for the first time and it was an adventure getting a 5 year old, 1 year old, and newborn to the ballpark for games if Dustin was still at work. Let me tell you, I could not have done it all without lots of help from my mom!! I also still wasn’t supposed to be picking Banks up during this time, so I had to be really careful.

May

Lots of this… I also went back to work for the last two weeks of May so we all spent as much physical time together haha

My first Mother’s Day with 3 kids!

Harrison graduated from his little preschool program he attended part time. It was the sweetest graduation! Each child had a song they sang that they learned during the year (Harry sang a math song) and the class each voted for each kid to get a special award. Harrison’s was a leadership award 🙂

June

This sweet little girl smiled a lot this month!

Banks gave Merritt lots of hugs

I think this is when I started taking their Sunday picture on the couch together. And if you’ve seen them on my IG, you know sometimes Banks cooperates and sometimes he doesn’t haha!

This is pretty much our entire summer summed up in one picture! We were outside every single day. Later in the summer when it got too hot for Merritt to even be on the back porch, we’d come out during one of her naps. But it was really important for me to get the boys outside playing at least once a day. In June when it wasn’t super hot yet, we’d come outside twice a day to play in the water.

June was also the month that Dustin started his new job!!! He went from working 5:30a-5:30p on a swing schedule to M-F normal office hours!!!! I have literally never been happier because his new job has allowed him to be home more and he’s now off every weekend instead of working every other weekend.

July

We celebrated the 4th of July!

More Sunday pictures…see Banks likes to do his own thing sometimes haha!

We went to our library each week for the summer reading program and sometimes we went with friends!

LOTS of this :). I’m burping Merritt and Banks is on me in some way. As I write this at the end of December, it’s still like that pretty much now haha

We also celebrated TEN years of marriage!! We were supposed to be celebrating ten years with a trip to the Dominican, but since Merritt surprised us, we celebrated ten years with supper out and my mom babysitting!