We survived 2013! And it’s my one-year blog-o-versary! In my very first post, I talked about our vision board for 2012 and all the changes that actually took place that year, even though halfway through the year we didn’t think any of them would actually happen: new jobs, moving to Portland, buying a house, and me getting pregnant. We also, sadly, lost our beloved Caleb, and happily adopted a puppy.

I think I also said that we weren’t doing a vision board for 2013 because our goal was pretty much just to deal with everything we had gotten ourselves into!

Well, we did it. Here is a picture of me a year ago, just into the second trimester of pregnancy (with little Ari in there!), when we took Andrew to the dog park for the first time:

We created a nursery:

For this little guy!

And A. pretty much put this bathroom together himself, with some help from his dad and me:

Andrew went to puppy class:

We (A., really) grew a garden from this:

To this:

And I went to work like this (except for the bare feet!):

And grew and gave birth to this guy:

I practiced using his carrier while I was pregnant:

And then I carried him in it, still looking pregnant:

We’re still working on a vision board for this upcoming year. We may or may not finish it – we have a baby, after all! But I think if 2012’s main theme was big changes, and 2013’s main theme was settling into our new lives, 2014’s main theme is relaxing, enjoying life, and taking care of ourselves. Being happy and well. Step 1 is my move to day shifts this month! I think I have become a very grouchy person at times due to constantly (and unsuccessfully) trying to change my sleep/wake schedule, and other people’s lives are negatively affected by my inability to plan activities and know that I’ll be able to be awake and functional. We also want to eat better, exercise, the usual. We want to visit family and friends as much as possible (maybe doing some airplane travel while Ari can still fly for free on our laps, and some car trips before he can ask “are we there yet?”), but also allow ourselves more downtime at home. We look forward to bicycling with Ari, and already have a trailer for him. We want to create a rental space in our basement and complete some other home maintenance projects. Always on my goal list, but never really accomplished (along with eating well, cooking at home, and exercising) are having a clean and organized home with consistent housekeeping routines, living an environmentally friendly and cruelty free life in every way, and volunteering in some way(s) to help people and (other) animals. Also I will stop having more goals than I can realistically accomplish.

Anyway.

Here are some pictures of Ari this week: