This fall we celebrate our 5th Blogiversary! Can you believe it? FIVE YEARS OF BLOGGING from never-a-dull-moment-land!?! My biggest blogging regret is that we didn’t start sooner. I wish we had started when we started our adoption process, so that we could have chronicled those early phases of our family’s life. But alas, we were too tired to blog back then (oh, and also, there’s that other tiny detail: most people had never even heard of “blogging” back then). Anyhow… here we are. Five years in. And I want to say: thank you for reading.
I also want to ask – in keeping with tradition – will you please take a minute to tell us your favorite post from here of this past year? One of my favorites is this one: “Getting Young Kids to Eat Fruits & Veggies.” (Photo above = the bambinos’ favorite fall fruit “dip”– vanilla yogurt drizzled with honey.)
If you’ve read here over the past year, please, share with us your favorites! We’d so greatly appreciate it. You can leave it in the comments here, or you can email it.
Love and thanks going out to the blogosphere to all of you, our dear readers!
One of my favorite posts of the last year is the Twinny Back to School Shopping post. I find myself thinking of that post now and again, smiling at the boys’ enthusiasm of their outfits. the post makes me smile, but it also makes me reflect on myself as a parent and putting my own style and lifestyle choices on my children that they may not necessarily share.
Heather,
I was going to mention that very same post! I loved reading about how determined the boys were to select THE perfect outfit for the first day of school.
I also enjoyed reading about the special Christmas traditions that you share at your parents home. Especially loved how your sweet mom takes the time to prepare a beautiful traditional Swedish meal for the entire family. The photos of those Swedish butterhorns had me drooling!
I also love any recipe post!!
I love all of the picture posts from vacations. And all of the posts about your parents- the bond that all of you share with one another is so fun to read about. There is nothing like grandparents
My favorite this year, believe it or not: Our Day at the Jersey Shore! Your vacations and holidays always seem idyllic, meticulously planned, and well, just bliss. (As a sidenote I ealize you aren’t sharing every tantrum or irritating moment or sleepless night-before-we-are-leaving-frantic -last-second-list check…but the posts are usually super weighted toward best case scenario.) I LOVE that this post was just a little gritty. It felt like a behind-the-scenes tour of the J-Ms! Love it.
Tough call, I loved reading the Essence post- which seemed to sum up the philosophy of your blogging/parenting, focussing on the essence and spirit of your children as people, not parenting as a task. In that vein I also really liked the way you spoke to and about Meera’s spirit in Meera Goes to School.
But favourite would have to be the Life in the Fast Lane/Tri-Annual Crunch. I know you copped ugly stuff for that, but putting that post out there was so brave and so appreciated.
Thanks for blogging! xxNicola
ps obviously I’ll always have a soft spot for the Anguilla posts too 😉
i absolutely loved Meera’s 3rd birthday series. Belongs in a Martha Stewart Magazine. Love how pampered and celebrated she was and just the beauty of it all.
Happy 5th Blogiversary J-Ms!!!
It’s hard to pick just one, so as I said in my previous comment on the “Work Hard, Play Hard, and Chillax” that is my favourite post to date! I like nearly all your posts and each one touches me for various reasons but that one is special because to me it sums up the essence of this blog and what you both want to convey.
I also really appreciate the blog posts dedicated to each of your children individually documenting anecdotal stories or things about their character/previous experiences such as their birthday posts and the posts leading up to their birthdays and “Meera’s Missoni” and “A Totally Random Cake Event” and “One Heck of a Day”. All your travel posts are such a delight, especially “Anguilla” and “Adoption Day Weekend in Baltimore”. And I love hearing about all your old and new traditions – “First Friday” sounds like a keeper!!
Ok I could probably go on and on! Thank you once again for sticking it out with us all, for opening yourselves up again to the public. I not only enjoy reading your blog but get a lot of food for thought and really appreciate how you take the time to answer our comment questions too :).
Hope you all have a great weekend!
– Kate
P.S. Apologies if this is a duplicate comment, my comments seem to be disappearing lately!!
My favorite posts are the descriptions of how close K & O & M are, but I’ll have to browse to pick a specific one from the past year. Yay for an excuse to reread archives!
My absolute favorite was Meera’s pink birthday tea party. I cannot even count how many people would come over and I would say “just wait till you see this” and then I would bring it up and they would read the entire thing!! EVERYONE was completely enchanted!! It was the greatest!!!
I also loved reading about your snowy Halloween this year! I had mentioned to a friend that I wondered why you had not put up pics of the kids in their costumes, then it was really quite something to read all you went through at that time!
In truth I love all your blogs!
My favorite post this year was Meera’s pink tea party birthday–such a precious celebration.
Meera Goes to School was one of my recent favorites because I have gone through it with my daughter. I also love hearing about the Friends school (as a grad of a Friends school). And I’m not sure if it was this year, but the Castle playground…it was just a pic, maybe even. I had to find it and now we have been there a few times too (my daughter LOVES it)!
I loved all the food/dinner swap ones, especially because I tried and enjoyed some of the recipes. Thank you for sharing your beautiful family and stories with us!
My favorite, by far, was Meera’s pink tea party birthday! Not just because it was so adorable and cute, but because I could truly see how the entire family put so much effort and love into making your little girl so SO happy. Amazing.
Meera Goes to School was one of my favorites, and I loved, I think it was this year, the post about you speaking at an event and then stopping to buy pull-ups–The dual life. Also, I really enjoyed reading about your trip to South Carolina, your date nights with the kids, and the twins ventures into sports.
I can’t pick a favorite. I love finding new recipes and have used many of the ones you have posted in the last year. The noodle salad has been a huge hit for us and most recently, the Thai soup. I just enjoy your writing and hearing about the kids. You have done (and are doing) such a great job exposing your kids to the world!
It’s so difficult to choose. But it has to be the travels and especially The Sociology of Gendered Masculinity. I love that kind of thing.
Absolutely Meera’s Birthday Party because it just looked like so much fun! I wish I had a party like that. A close second is the boy’s going shopping for school. It brought back memories of taking David shopping!
Hmmm, tough call choosing a favorite. I love reading about the First Friday dates. I have twins and a singleton as well. Individual attention is so crucial to their happiness. My kids love their date nights and it is so fun for me to read about your date nights and the how and the why each restaurant was chosen. My other top contenders were any and every food posting, the South Carolina trip, and Meera goes to school.
My favorites are the ones where you pegged the kids so accurately with photos and those about the kittens which refute the idea that if a baby isn’t given enough loving attention (as in the orphanage) he/she will never be able to care about others. Owen is so incredibly caring of anything young and/or vulnerable.
I would have to say my favorites was Meera’s Birthday – what a dream day for a little girl. I also enjoy all of your food posts.
Loved the all the vacation, travel and holiday posts and my all time favourite is the snow day you took the kids in to work with you and you being absolutely surprised about how well they behaved and how great a day it turned out to be.
I can’t think of the specific post, but the ones about the travel packing planning and how much work it is, but how worth it is in the end. Those came to mind as I was packing and I kept telling myself it will be worth it!
Hello!
Okay, I went back through all of the posts for the last year and have a list of favorites, in no particular order:
-Purple Polish
-One Heck of a Day
-Life in the Fast Lane
-All the Anguilla pictures
-Meera’s party (of course!!)
-Our visit! (Eric says this is his favorite because he is in it. LOL!!!)
Congratulations on FIVE years of blogging! WOW!
xoxo
Maggie
Happy 5 years! I Loved the visit to mormor’s and morfar’s about how you hated “bringing in the wood” and you saw it through new eyes as the cycle continues. Always love the boy’s prayers and that beautiful, peaceful time you spent by the lake.
Sorry, I know you already put the results up, but my favorite one was the one about the Jersey Shore…
HAHA!!! Nah, I’m just kidding, E(:
Honestly it’s really hard to pick a favorite, some are a little more inspiring than others, but I can’t think of any one that would be my “favorite”.
The one I did find most inspiring though was the “News! Downpour!” post, the one where you got Kyle’s lab test results. It really served as a reminder that miracles do happen to good hearted people. And you’re right, lots of people aren’t that lucky. One parent of two of my HS classmates died from the same rare eye melanoma that my mom had. My mom’s life was saved by a brilliant Opthamologist in Philly, but my heart always goes out to my two classmates, one lost his mother and the other lost her father.
Anyway, keep the posts going, they are a true inspiration. I don’t have to be a parent to know that you two are great parents. My time will come though. God bless you all!!!