Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas season and has plans for an exciting New Year’s week. We got home on Sunday afternoon from a whirlwind Christmas trip to DFW, St. Petersburg, FL, and San Antonio, and we plan on having a very quiet New Year’s week at our house. So far, so good!
I’ve done these Year in Review posts since my blog first began in 2013, and I love writing them and looking back on them. I had completely forgotten until writing this post that I skipped 2018’s year in review. I blogged very little in 2018 after the birth of my son and found myself unable to get back into any sort of routine or day-to-day life tasks until early 2019. I’m sad I didn’t get that posted – maybe I’ll do a retrospective look at 2018 at some point. But today I’m here to share a look at 2019!
2019 was such a fun year. I felt like I really learned how to be a mother and to be myself at the same time. We bought our first home. We did some traveling. I started blogging again. I started a position at work that has freed up my schedule and has allowed me to be a part-time working mom/part-time stay-at-home mom. Our baby boy had many milestones including learning to walk, turning one, starting daycare, getting a passport and traveling overseas, and starting to talk. Late in the year, we found out that we are expecting another baby boy in April 2020! Daniel, Carson, and I have just had such a blast in these early months of growing our little family.
January
For us, Januarys are usually quiet months for reflecting after the busyness of the holiday season. Not so much in 2019!
We started the year off with a New Year’s Day brunch at Kerbey Lane as a family. Here we learned that Carson unfortunately has an egg allergy.
Abuela came for a visit and watched Carson while we spent lots of time house hunting one weekend.
Within the first couple weeks of the year, we went from considering looking at homes in Dripping Springs to signing a contract on a brand new home in a brand new community! This was one of the best decisions we’ve made. We love our home.
Since our plans to buy and move away from the downtown area in April 2019 suddenly changed to February 2019, we started cramming in as many of our South/ Downtown Austin favorites as possible, including the Barton Springs Food Truck Park.
Daniel hobbled around on a cast starting at the end of January after wearing a boot for most of the holiday season during 2018.
Carson has loved picture books from his first few days of life, but he really started listening to stories in books around the beginning of 2019.
February
The second month of 2019 started with a visit from Aunt Ellen! I love having my sister visit, but Carson loved it even more!
While Ellen was here, we made it to the first part of Aunt Liz’s super bowl party. Elizabeth lives in Austin, and Ellen lives in Dallas.
Carson continued to be adorable and crazy….
This handsome man turned THIRTY in February! We celebrated by asking the nanny to stay a couple extra hours and getting dinner at one of our favorite Austin restaurants, Fixe.
For Carson’s first Valentine’s Day, he got Sophie the teether giraffe’s cousin, the elephant. He was pretty excited.
My grandfather’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day. We stopped and had dinner with my grandparents before meeting my mother-in-law to send Carson to their house for the weekend.
The next few days, we closed on our home and moved out of the apartment and into our first home! We had spent 4 years in that downtown Austin apartment building, so it was definitely bittersweet.
Bye bye, cozy apartment….
Hello, first home!!
We had a very helpful move-in crew!
During moving weekend, I escaped to a coffee shop to meet my friend Kaitlin’s adorable baby girl and catch up for a few minutes before they moved back to DC. Kaitlin and fam, we miss you so!
Carson came to join in on the unpacking fun!
March
Carson continued his swimming lessons in the spring. He has been in lessons since he was two months old!
March was a very busy work month for me, so Carson got lots of one-on-one time with his Daddy this month!
My parents took Carson to their home in San Antonio for the weekend, so that we could make some more progress unpacking the house. They had a wonderful Gramma & Grampa weekend! My cousin took some fantastic bluebonnet photos.
Uncle Ben came to visit us from Waco!
We took a family outing to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. It is so beautiful in March!
And we spent some time getting to know our new backyard and our new neighborhood as the beautiful spring weather arrived!
April
This month was mostly centered around our baby boy turning ONE and the celebration of Easter!
Abuelo and Abuela came for a visit. We ate dinner at Salt Lick (Liz and Jason joined!) and hung around our new town.
We did a family photo shoot in honor of Carson’s birthday….
Our neighborhood had an Easter event with an egg hunt and a visit from the Easter bunny!
The night before Easter, we snuck away for a Snow Patrol concert, which was one of my favorite concerts I’ve ever been to.
Carson’s first Easter was wonderful! We went to church and brunch with Liz and Jason, opened Carson’s Easter basket, and all of us took long naps!
For Carson’s actual birthday day, we had donuts for breakfast and went to the Thinkery to play. Such a fun family day!
Friends and family came to our new house for a Winnie-the-Pooh themed birthday party for our little man. You can read all about the party here.
May
Daniel was on the planning committee for the second annual Longhorn PHP conference, which was held in May.
I went out of town in Atlanta for work, and Daniel and Carson went to a Cinco de Mayo party in our neighborhood.
Daniel and Carson flew to Atlanta to join me when my training was over, and we visited my cousin’s sweet family. We had a blast going to the aquarium and exploring their new town!
I turned 30 and celebrated with Via 313 pizza (the best!) and good friends.
Daniel and I took a baby-free trip to Savannah & Hilton Head to celebrate 8 years of marriage.
June
We took a road trip to visit my grandparents (Mama Dee & Papa Dee) in East Texas.
Daniel went on his annual Appalachian Trail hike with his buddies.
We celebrated Daniel’s second Fathers’ Day with brunch at Treaty Oak and a family walk in the neighborhood.
Carson saw his (sort of) first movie! He had been to the theater as an infant when we went to a couple baby-friendly showings, but this was his first theater movie where he actively watched.
The rest of the month was thankfully spent at home, so we did fun summer things around town like going to the splash pad with friends.
July
For the 4th of July, we went to Fort Worth to visit Daniel’s parents (Abuelo & Abuela) where we had a fun July 4th meal, a visit to the Botanical Gardens, and an afternoon swim!
Carson got his passport photo taken… So adorable!
Carson had his FIRST haircut!
And Abuelo and Abuela came to town again to watch Carson while we took off on another baby-free trip to NYC! Daniel ended his time there with a conference, and I came home earlier to reunite with Baby Boy.
The next weekend, Carson and I flew to meet Daniel in Colorado for a friend’s wedding, where we stayed a couple days extra to explore the beautiful mountains!
Carson started daycare for the first time this month too.
August
This month we laid low at home and around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Carson was sick almost this entire month due to starting daycare. I took a lot of time off work to stay home with him. We even had two visits to the emergency room this month.
We did get a wonderful weekend visit from Gramma & Grampa!
And a visit from our good friends Heather & Cody!
This month, we also found out we were expecting our second baby!
September
My mom started coming to watch Carson one day a week, which was such a wonderful change for Carson and our family.
My sister Ellen and her fiancé Lane came for a weekend visit. We took a day trip out to Shiner!
We got to see our second little one for the first time!
Daniel and I went to a concert by The National.
We visited Fort Worth where we went on a train and visited the aquarium.
We went to East Texas to visit one set of my grandparents and then visited my other grandparents on the way home from this trip.
Carson was getting excited about being a big brother!
I saw the Jo Bros in San Antonio with my sisters.
October
This month was all about celebrating autumn & Halloween and preparing for and going on our big family trip to London! (You can read about that trip here, here, and here.)
We also got a nice visit from Uncle Jacob, Daniel went on a guys’ trip to Denver, and Carson visited Gramma & Grampa in San Antonio (while I got a weekend at home on my own with a quick San Antonio visit to join the family at the zoo).
November
Daniel’s twin brother Jacob got married the first weekend in November in College Station, so we had a fun weekend celebrating for Jacob and Jamie!
Carson started a new daycare which we LOVE!
We visited a pumpkin patch where Carson had his first pony ride.
We did another family photo session in our neighborhood which ended up being our Christmas card photos.
Carson had his first dentist appointment and did so well!
Daniel and I went to a Jon McLaughlin concert. Love him!
We went on a Christmas train ride with our friends Kim, Jordan, and little Loretta!
We started decorating the house for Christmas.
Our friends Shannon and Jonathan were in town one weekend, so we had a wonderful Sunday brunch with them!
We ended November with a very cozy Thanksgiving at my parents’ new home in San Antonio.
December
I’ll be sharing my December Scenes From the Month post next week which will show all of the magical Christmasy things we did to end out 2019, but here are a few photos capturing the highlights: a one night trip to Dallas for my cousin Rebecca’s wedding, a trip to East Texas for my extended family Christmas, a trip to St. Petersburg, Florida with Daniel’s family to visit his Grandma during Christmas week, and a short weekend in San Antonio to round out the Christmas travels.
Happy New Year! May your 2020 be joyous and wonderful!
{Thanks for reading! Want to know a little more about me? I’m a CPA learning how to balance a career with motherhood and regular travel while planting roots at home in the Austin, TX area. When I’m not exploring my home city with my husband Daniel and baby boy Carson or cuddling with my chubby orange cat Banana, I’m probably either out on a playdate with my son or planning, packing for, traveling to, or daydreaming about our next adventure. After all, my travel mug collection is never complete. If you have wanderlust too, be sure to follow me on Instagram (and InstaStories!), Pinterest, and Facebook, or subscribe to my blog!}