one year (of blogging that is)
Y'all turns out I've been hanging around this space for a year now! Cool beans!!* And I have to tell you I've had a blast! Taking a breather was awesome and I'm so grateful to everyone who embraced me coming back. And major hugs and kisses to my new online family! I feel like I've been so incredibly blessed in this past year with meeting or growing close with so many of you who have touched not just my heart but my family's. You see when I constantly say "us" or "our" I mean it. This is not "my" blog it's our family's blog and you are all so very special to us.
A few months ago papa bear turned to me in the car and said "You know social media and blogging can be really great sometimes. It's been so nice to feel all the support that we've gotten since having Birdie. It's really comforting." And he is so right. You don't know how many of your posts I poured over while pregnant, collecting information and preparing myself. You don't know how instrumental your advice, here or on instagram or twitter, has been in helping us get over some of those "baby bumps." We read it all together and we cherish it so much. We know your families by name, we talk about your days, we pray for you when you're having a rough one and we celebrate those little and big milestones of your family.
I like to think that the internet can help us feel like we all live on the same street in the same small town and we all gather on each other's porches in the morning for a cup of coffee or in the evening for some lemonade to talk about our days. To me there's no such thing as "instagramming too much," the more you post the more I feel like I'm there with you over breakfast, running errands or giving your baby a bath. It helps to feel connected and invested.
It's no lie that we don't have a lot of friends in our neck of the woods, in fact I think I read somewhere that 18 to 30 year olds make up about 20 percent of our very, very tiny town. And parenting can really humble you, make you feel lonely and overwhelmed and I feel so grateful to be part of this community - to not feel so alone.
So thank you. Thank you a million times for cheering us on, for making us smile, for giving much needed advice or a simple "it's gonna get better." We're so glad to have you be a part of our journey and we can't wait to see what this year holds for all of us. We're just so thrilled to have you all reading along!!
*I fully admit that I appropriated this term from Josh Groban. The first time I heard it used was at his concert that I went to a few years ago and I just thought it was the funniest thing! Because you know that just about anything that man says is hilarious or darling, or both.
P.S. This photo is not from a year ago. It's from a while ago, back when I had very looooong hair (oh how I miss it...) but it was all I could find right now and I didn't feel like dusting off the hard drive so there you have it!