A Look Back at Two Thousand Nineteen

I know literally everyone says stuff like this, and it’s so cliche, but for real, how did the year fly by so fast? I wrote a round-up post last year for 2018, and I loved that post (and y’all did too!). So I definitely wanted to do it again this year…

I blogged literally every single day for a year, the triplets were born, Emerson turned two and Ryan & Gabe turned 13, we celebrated six years of marriage, my parents& sister both bought new houses… Those are the big milestones, but of course there are so many other little day-to-day moments I’m so glad I wrote down, so we can keep up with the “ordinary” things like cute stuff Emerson says, or new recipes we tried, or hundreds of other tiny moments.

I wrote 369 blog posts, my page views doubled from over 20,000 in 2018 to over 40,000 in 2019, and my “users” also doubled from 2,800 in 2018 to over 4,400 in 2019. They came from 48 U.S. States (all but Alaska & South Dakota), and 51 countries (what!?), with most of them obviously coming from Florida. And most of you are still reading on your cell phones. (I am still shocked by these numbers!)

I post every single link on my Facebook page, so you can click over from there, but you can also subscribe to my blog via email, and it will come directly into your inbox. Just scroll to the very bottom of any post, and enter your email in the box to subscribe.)

So today, on New Year’s Eve, to wrap up the year, here are some of my favorite posts of the year, and because we all know I love lists so much, I’ll also share the most-viewed posts of the year, and the most-viewed posts of all-time.

♦JANUARY

We celebrated the first day of 2019 with pancakes for breakfast, family lunch & hammock time.

Emerson loved wearing a backwards baseball cap.

We had a girls’ breakfast & shopping day and another triplet baby shower.

I turned 31 years old.

♦FEBRUARY

I hosted the ladies in my family our 3rd annual Galentine’s Day Tea Party.

We harvested a bumper crop of oranges from our backyard tree.

Celebrated a quite Valentine’s Day at home as a family.

I was very proud of myself when I made super easy homemade bread.

I shared the story of Megan & Bo’s difficult journey to parenthood the day she got admitted to the hospital.

Emerson looked like a tiny Kathleen Kelly in “You’ve Got Mail.”

♦MARCH

My beautiful triplet nieces were born!!!

And then I got to hold them for the first time and they graduated from the NICU a few days later.

Even though she hates getting messy, she had lots of fun playing in the dirt.

We had a delicious southern supper with Grandmommie.

Emerson got to meet the triplets!

♦APRIL

We picked wildflowers/weeds at church.

Had tons of fun with bubbles & books.

Visited the Tallahassee Museum with Nana.

The boys came for spring break, so we had lots of family time & a beach trip.

Then came Easter Sunday & egg hunts.

And sadly, Jeff had a partially collapsed lung, and spent a day in the ER/hospital, & the next day, my car broke down & stranded Emmie and I on the side of the road.

♦MAY

We taught Emmie how to thrift shop & ate yummy gourmet popsicles.

We celebrated Jeff’s birthday. And Mother’s Day.

I mowed the front lawn, for basically the first time in my adult life.

Our little 3-fam took another beach day. My side of the fam had a MDW bbq dinner. And then we spent time the next day with Jeff’s family.

I cooked Indian Butter Chicken at home for the first time, and it was so stinking good!

♦JUNE

Bought fresh summer produce from the farmer’s market & made an Erin Napier pasta recipe.

I had a cyst removed from my chest at the dermatologist.

We spent an entire Saturday with family. And then I spent the next two days on triplet aunt duty – day 1 & day 2.

We tried a new burger restaurant.

We celebrated Father’s Day, and I had lunch with Megan on the first day of her new job.

We treated Emmie to some melty, Friday-night ice cream.

It felt like our blow-up pool was in the secret garden. And we swam in it lots.

We enjoyed a workin’ girls’ lunch.

♦JULY

Ate delicious Cuban food at a new-ish restaurant. And then later in the month I made Cuban food at home.

Celebrated July 4th with the family.

Emerson turned 2 years old, and we celebrated a few days later with a cake & ice cream family birthday party!

My car battery died, and this baby is adorable in her new bath robe.

I got my sister interested in reading books again!

I took a day off work to take care of the triplets.

We went to two parties in one day.

♦AUGUST

The workin’ ladies in the fam had a super slow lunch.

Emerson got a 24-hour stomach bug, and then passed it to Jeff and I a couple of days later. Then Grammy had to take Emmie to her first day of school when we were still down for the count.

Emmie got new tennis shoes, and she looked like Sporty Spice.

We went out to lunch for Papa’s birthday.

I wrote my 500th blog post on this site.

I went to the eye doctor for the first time as a grown-up.

♦SEPTEMBER

Emerson learned to count to 10.

I side-swiped my car mirror.

I made my friend Bridget’s recipe for Cincinnati Chili, & it tasted like fall.

We kicked off the Singing Christmas Tree with our biggest choir ever.

Emerson had her first pedicure, done by Mommy.

My girl tricked me into thinking she was actually eating her carrots at dinner.

We had fancy cheeseburgers at Ted’s. And I went to an author event for one of my favorite books.

We celebrated Grammy’s birthday.

♦OCTOBER

Emerson became obsessed with feeding the deer at Grammy & Papa’s new house.

I was a “single mom” for a week while Jeff was out of town.

Emmie painted two masterpieces in our backyard.

She fell in love with a unicorn, went grocery shopping, read the Bible, and did a few crafts, all in one day.

I found a opossum stuck in my carport trash can, just hours after Jeff left to go out of town for another week.

We loved watching airplanes at the airport waiting for Daddy to come home.

We had to do a late-night ER visit, when Emmie was having trouble breathing.

Emerson was the cutest baby unicorn for Halloween.

♦NOVEMBER

We went on a sunset lantern walk for the time change.

I made a new fave recipe for lemon chicken orzo soup.

Emmie looked super cute in a $4 coat, and I read 100 books.

We got super excited to see the helicopters fly over our house on the way to the FSU football game.

Tater Tot got really into grasshoppersfor few days.

Thanksgiving 2019 was delicious and full of family, and she had pigtails in her hair for the first time on Black Friday, done by her cousin Andie.

♦DECEMBER

We had a chili dinner for Megan’s birthday.

I put chunky white yarn on my tree for the first time (and loved it!), then I used a new knit blanket as a tree skirt,

Emerson fell in love after having her first hot chocolate, which she later started calling “chocolate coffee.”

Another reminder in photo-form that Emerson is my mini-me.

We did the Singing Christmas Tree for three nights in a row – Night 1, Night 2, and Night 3.

She met Santa Claus not once, but twice this year, and both times went great!

We had great days on both Christmas Eve & on Christmas Day.

 

WOW. That was a lot of really great days and a lot of perfectly “normal” days, all in one year. I’m so thankful for all these memories I’ve captured over the past year!

♦Top 10 most-viewed posts of 2019, in order below:

1. A Difficult Journey (FYI – this post has 9x’s more views than an average post!)
2. The Triplets are Here!!!
3. Hospital Stay
4. A Trucker Hat & a Tutu
5. Lunch with Sister on her First Day of Work!
6. Triplet Duty, Day 2
7. Another Triplet Baby Shower
8. Moving Day
9. Holding Babies
10. Family Lunch & Swim at the New House!

♦Top 10 most-viewed posts of all-time, in order below:

1. A Difficult Journey
2. The Triplets are Here!!!
3. Hospital Stay
4. Dinner Down Under
5. Triplet Gender Reveal!!!
6. Triplet Baby Shower
7. Breastfeeding is Hard
8. A Trucker hat & a Tutu
9. Lunch with Sister on her First Day of Work!
10. Three Grocery Stores

So that really was a LOT of the past years’ blog posts included in this. I know you’re not going to re-read all of those, and that’s fine. That’s not the point. But it’s a great place for me to collect some of the best of the year, for my own future enjoyment!

THANK YOU for reading along with me on all my rambling and blabbering. Thank you for all of your sweet, fun comments on my posts. I love interacting with y’all after posting. And it’s just been so much fun writing!