Our PB&J Adventure Book

2020, I'm ready for you!

We're well into the first month of 2020 and I figured it's about time I looked ahead to what I hope & dream for the New Year. 

Let's Do This!

Better late than never, right? I had fully intended to post this "hopes & dreams" recap at the start of the year. But per usual, life got in the way. But before the first month of the year passes us by, here's what I'm looking forward to the most in 2020:

Craft MORE

At the start of 2019 one "hope" I had was to try to be more crafty. This was partially due to necessity since being a stay at home mama meant no income. Which in turn meant no extra "fun" funds to take care of the prior custom dresses, or newest Disney collections and style I used to indulge in with a working income. I took a look at my closet and found that I had dozens of pieces of clothes that weren't ever used OR on the flip side, could be used or reworked into different projects and designs. I didn't (and still don't) know how to sew, but I did have a whole lot of imagination that kept dreaming up ideas. This leads me to my main reason for being inspired to craft last year.... I follow so many incredible crafty moms, dads and families on social media and watching them making such amazing pieces of style or crafts for their own kids was so inspiring. It made me want to try my own hand at it some DIY's or crafting. I just wished I could create the same type of magic for Ben as these talented families do for their kids. So I built up the courage, got out a lot of felt, plugged in the glue gun and just started to create. I think you can say that I definitely accomplished the "be crafty" goal last year. 

My craft babies from 2019!

So what's in store this year? I want to challenge myself even more with my crafts. I still want to continue to create the same amount of love and fun I've been doing for the past year, but do MORE. Stay tuned for what 2020 may have in store. I just hope I'm able to still create these pieces and make the same magical memories for Ben.

Explore

Explore more. There's so much fun to be had right here in our backyard in the SF Bay Area and we've made it a family goal to designate at least one weekend a month to checking out something new for us to enjoy around the Bay Area. Be on the lookout soon for my Bay Area Adventures list!

Our first Bay Area adventure of 2020 was the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco!

Cook

We bought Ben a play kitchen for Christmas and when we first asked him to "cook us something" he immediately took his food to the play microwave.... Yeah, let's just say this was the motivation needed to start to get back into cooking meals together. Pre-Ben and way back when, PB and I found joy in cooking together. It wasn't anything worth a Michelin star, but it worked for us! We'd experiment with different recipes or even challenge ourselves to do things like go meatless once a week. It was fun, but as it is with all things... LIFE gets in the way. With busy work schedules it cut down on time and energy into preparing our meals. The during our family journey, each time I was pregnant the slightest increased smell would make this mama feel nauseous, so there went the little cooking we did try to do together. After Ben was born, we found it easier to go through a meal prep delivery site called Freshly. We got to pick our own meals for delivery each week that came fresh, fully prepared and just needed a little warm up in the microwave. It worked, was decent, healthy and most of all? Easy. But after seeing how Ben instinctively went to the microwave to "cook" and now that he's older and enjoys meals with us? It's put that jumpstart back into wanting to make the effort to cook more.

Social Media TLC

Did you know that besides this blog and my Instagram I have a YouTube and Facebook page? One of the things I hope to work on in the new year is to put more effort and care into each of these channels. I know this one will be the hardest of the bunch of "hopes" for 2020 since I feel like time is always of the essence and it's hard enough keeping up on this blog a times. But I'm truly hoping to provide more steady content on my other platforms. My heart will always belong to Instagram since I'm a natural photo taker and that platform feels the most natural, but I want to treat my other pages as extensions of myself. This blog has served as a written part of my social media identity and my hopes are to make our YouTube channel our video extension, and Facebook another place for me to connect with all of you on here if you're not on the 'gram or are more of a faithful FB user. You can follow us on each here:

YouTube

Facebook

Mama Mondays

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen one of my "Mama Mondays". It's a little IG Story check in that I do each week on well, Mondays, hence Mama Monday! Most of the time it's me just chatting about our weekend, latest news or just to say hello. But this year I wanted to make my Mama Mondays more meaningful.

My first Mama Monday of the year was a heartfelt one about loss, hope and finding the light. It was a story I had repeated many times over the past few years, but the impact still remains strong judging from the messages and replies I continue to get from fellow moms, relatives and families who've I've connected with by sharing. It got me thinking about how just talking... just sharing about something can make a difference. As a stay at home mom, I find myself feeling isolated at times since it's basically just me and Ben... all day, everyday. There's no co-workers, no break times, heck no sick days. It gets lonely, but having this space, this blog, my Instagram, that little piece of time on Mondays to talk and connect with others? I know it makes me feel a whole lot better and I hope it makes another mama, friend or follower feel like they're catching up with a friend, too.

So moving forward in 2020, I'm going to use my Mama Mondays to touch on subjects that mean most to me as a mom. It'll be as simple as something that brightens my day, our mommy and me style, or more meaningful subjects like the Stay at Home mom life or self care. I know this might be a tall task since scheduling, life with a toddler and everything else in between might get in the way, but I'll surely try! I'll also try to incorporate blog posts to relate to the topics talked about on Instagram, so stay tuned!

Just have fun

Most importantly, the one thing I "hope" most for the new year? To have the same, if not more, fun, magic and happy moments that 2019 brought our little family! So stay tuned for all the fun (hopefully) to come this year! Happy 2020 everyone, as always, thank you for reading! 💜