This Little Blog Of Mine

Today, this little blog of mine turns one year old!

Geesh, it's hard to believe that a year has already flown by since that very first post.

When I ventured out to create this blog, I really had only one reason for it.  I wanted to capture life.  All around me, our lives were buzzing about & while I was trying so desperately to grasp onto our beautiful moments & hold them tight forever, they were whizzing right by me, passing me faster than I had time to let them sink in & truly saturate my memory.  Jett was changing every single day. He was growing bigger & doing new & exciting things every time I looked at him & it was all happening way too fast.  I was changing, too.  My thoughts, my ideas, everything was brand new & I was seeing it all with a fresh set of eyes.  I needed a place to document all of it.

Now of course, like every good mother does, I was recording all of the milestones in Jett's baby book; documenting the first smiles & the first coo's; the first time he slept through the night, & the first time he tried rice cereal. But I found that I was yearning for more than simply jotting down basic milestones. You see, there was so much more happening in our lives than our baby rolling over & how much he weighed at his monthly check up. There were all the beautiful moments in between, where the real life was happening. There were moments I knew would one day slip through the holes in my memory & would be gone forever if I didn't do something more than scribble a few notes onto the pages of a baby book.

I needed a place that would capture it all: the great big milestones, the sweet simple moments, & the many happenings in between. I yearned for a way to put into words the feelings & emotions I had racing through me as I ventured into this journey of motherhood. I wanted a place where words & photos could intertwine together to unfold the story of our lives. And mostly, I longed for a place that I could revisit one day & be swept away to some of the best days of my life. A place where I would be able to reminisce, remember, & re-live each treasured moment time & time again. A time capsule, so to speak, where memories & moments are frozen & just get sweeter & sweeter with time.

And so, that's when 'happenings of our home' was birthed.

This little blog of mine has most definitely exceeded all of my expectations. On top of being a life journal & a scrapbook of memory, it has become an outlet of mine that I never realized I needed. It has become my own little slice of my life where I am able to spill out the thoughts I have rattling around in my head. Where my layers can be peeled back & my guards can come crashing down. Where I am able to invite you into my life, into my home, & into my heart, which I normally don't tend to do very easily. This blog has helped me to find the big thrill in the some of the smallest moments. To capture those small moments, & to swoosh them around in my mouth to really get a good taste.   It's shown me to live life out loud & to the fullest.  And not just so that I can have something blog worthy to write about & showcase to the world, but because life's just better when you savor the moments & squeeze the most out of them.

And last, but certainly not least, one of the most unexpected perks of having this blog, are the relationships I have established through it.  So many of you have messaged me & left comments telling me how you can relate to my posts, how you've laughed with me or shed tears with me, how you've stood exactly where I've stood or how I've encouraged & inspired you in some way.  You've told me when you've tried one of the recipes I've posted, & you've come to my rescue when the diaper genie was stinking up my house.  You've followed along in this funny life of mine, & you've played along with my silly blog give aways.  And at the end of the night, when I'm all finished typing up a blog post, & I shut down my computer, I walk away feeling a little more connected, a little more real, a little more "me" than I ever have before.  Not because of the things that I say & pour all over these blog pages,  but because of all the love,  support,  & strength that I have gleaned from so many of you this past year. You have prayed for me when I have needed it.  You have encouraged me when I have felt like a terrible wife & mother,  & you've let me know I'm not alone in this great big {sometimes scary} journey called life. You have made this blog of mine so much more meaningful than just a time capsule. You have added life & energy & fun that I never could have dreamt of  when I sat down to write that very first post a year ago.

This little blog of mine has been one big unexpected blessing in my life, that's for sure.

 'happenings of our home' is going to keep on keepin' on.  I plan to pull back more layers, share more of my heart, throw out more fun give aways, pass along more delicious recipes that I stumble across, & of course document every single big & small happening in my sweet little boy's life.

And this little blog of mine...

I'm gonna let it shine.