A Reflection of 2017

As I reflect on 2017, I am just overcome with joy and emotion knowing another year has come and gone. As a family we started off the year pregnant with Attikus and oh so excited to welcome another boy into our lives. At 7 months pregnant we finished up our first "flip" house in Blaine, then two weeks later closed on our home in Andover, which we completed gutted and fixed up. With hopes of moving in before baby came (yeah right!) we did move in shortly after, about a month after sweet attikus was born on June 28th.

End of February we took a "baby moon" with Jays parents and grandparents to California where we did a whole lot of nothing but relax and swim. Oliver loved the hot tub and swimming in the pool. In April, we celebrated Oliver's 2nd Birthday (Be still my soul) with family and friends at our old home in Blaine. He got lots of presents and the "easter bunny" AKA Tom showed up in a bunny costume which both O and Lou were not a fan of. Probably his favorite gift was the mater table from Clayton and Amy. Oliver loved our house in Blaine, and all the land was perfect for us to run around on, go for walks up to the park, and the beach/splash pad at the Lakes a couple miles away. Jay turned 26 in May and we got him a lawn mower for his new home! (What a great wife I am lol)

June was baby month. I thought there was absolutely no way I'd deliver at the same gestation (38and5) as Oliver, but I did and on June 28th at 1004am we welcomed Attikus Hawkins to our family. He was a whole 8 pounds, 4 oz and just the cutest squish I ever did see. Jay worked his butt off, literally worked his full time job from 6-430 every day and then went to our Andover house to get it done so we could move in. This was difficult for us all as I felt like a single parent with Jay never home, staying at the Andover house til nearly 1am every night. So taking care of Oliver and a newborn was amazing, yet challenging and I missed Jay and his help so much. Thankfully, he finished the house up end of July (well it was live-able) and I packed up the entire house with thanks to Butch for helping me move and we moved into our new "forever" home. We didn't have countertops, or stair railings, or a working kitchen for that matter.. but we made it work and soon after we got it all installed and ready for use. Those were stressful days to say the least, but looking back I couldn't be more proud of Jay for all his hard work and support he continued to show us, even when he was exhausted and tired.

My sister Zoey moved in with us and her two dogs, now only Tucker, her golden retriever. Its been so nice to have her around and help out/watch the boys while I sleep before or after a night shift. We will be sad when she has to go. Attikus celebrated his first Fourth of July up at the lake! We took the trek up to Bemidji to visit my cousin and did the Dragon Boats, which is always fun and I think it will become a tradition of ours since we've done it two years in a row now! I turned 27 (My golden Birthday) the month of September. We took the boys to the state fair with Jays parents and then went again with our good friends Carli and Kasey without the kids and spent way to much money on food and beer, but we continue to go every year because its the MN State Fair! We also took the boys to the Apple Orchard, and left with come pretty amazing monkey bread and our pockets a little less empty because we spent all our money on tickets for Oliver to do activities! #kids

Oliver and Attikus were dinosaurs for Halloween, and so stinkin cute! November we celebrated Jays twin brothers wedding in which Oliver was the ring bearer... but wanted nothing to do with that idea so grandpa Tom carried him down holding an iphone to keep him quiet! We had Thanksgiving with my family who came and staying with us, and then Jays side came and had desert which consisted of wayyyy to many yummy pies. November is the month we started WagaWOODSandgoods, and it has definitely kept us busy! We've got so many ideas and it's so fun to use as a creative outlet for us both. I'm excited to see where the new year takes us.

December snuck up way to fast! Tom and Jay took Oliver to his first Monster truck event, showed up two hours early, couldn't get into the pits and ended staying only for 10 minutes once the show started because Oliver did not want to stay any longer! Christmas Eve my parents and my cousins family stayed with us which included 14 people and 9 dogs! It was crazy but so fun to have everyone together, and Oliver and Declan were so cute to watch play together. We concluded the New Years with a hot tub party, a couple of close friends and their children and just played artic crud, ate pizza, and hung out!

Looking back I am so blessed to have such amazing people in our lives. Family that live close (not too far away) that can help us out, that we are able to spend time together and do family dinners with. Friends that live near and that are all starting to have kids of their own or already have kids, which is sooooo fun to go through this life together and parenthood together. It's been so humbling to grow closer and build on those relationships, but also create new relationships and meet new people. I'm so excited to see where 2018 takes us and plan to make it a good one! I've put together a few goals for the coming year and I really want to take it seriously. I've bugged Jay about coming up with goals for like a week now and I just think its super important to have goals set out to look forward to, achieve those goals, and build on them. 

1. My first goal is to love MORE and spend more time together. I often times find myself getting upset or down about silly/nonsense things and I just want to remember to put love first in those moments and think to myself, "In a year, will this matter?" I also want to spend more time together with not only my family of four, but our loved ones, family and friends. 
2. My number 2 goal is to be more adventurous. Live a little more care free and spontaneous. We are traveling to Cabo in a couple months and I'm so excited, but I also want to plan a girls trip, couples trip, and then a trip with just my little fam of four. (If you're reading this and wanna join on any of these trips, message me lol) But this leads me to my next goal which is finances. 
3. Obviously, trips are expensive and take time to plan and save which is why I want to get better with budgeting and our finances. Jay is super obsessed with Dave Ramsey (Financial Peace) and we plan our budget each month.. yada yada yada, but I'm still not 100% invested and I really want to make it my goal to try and improve in this area. 
4. My number 4 goal is to grow WagaWOODS. Grow in our overall business, our followers, our sales, or designs, our website. I want to make improvements in products that need them, create new products and just be creative with it. This will also include being better at collaborations, marketing, promoting. We are sooo new to this small shop thing so we don't know all the ins and outs of having a shop like this. It's going to take some time to get to where we want to be, but I'm hoping and praying that by the end of 2018 we will be better than we are as I'm writing this. 
5. My last but not least goal is to be overall more healthy. We are starting a meal plan with actual good meals on January 8th for two weeks and I'm really hoping it just opens new doors to us just making eating healthier everyday our new lifestyle. I also want to take my fitness more seriously and get my body into a shape that I am proud of. I am happy with how my body is right now, especially after having two kids, but I think that working out more and getting more toned will only improve my self confidence, and make me feel more energized each day. 

Thanks for reading along, feel free to comment your goals below! I'd love to hear them and get some inspiration!

xoxo Mari