The first two months of 2023 have been a sweet season for our family. We’re back in our rhythm after a lot of travel for the holidays, and with Levi growing up so fast, I’ve been trying to find the joy and sacred in the mundane.

For me, that looks like putting my phone down more often when I’m with my family and being more present. I know it’s cliche, but the other day, I saw this reel and it has a story as a voiceover story about a dad at his daughter’s gymnastics meet. The dad’s phone died, so he had no option but to watch the kids do gymnastics. Every few minutes, his daughter kept looking up at her dad in the stands, and the dad realized that other kids were doing the same, but all the other parents were on their phones and they missed their children’s searching gazes.

I can’t get that story out of my head. I know I can’t give my son my full attention and eye contact 24/7, but I can choose to be more present and meet his gaze more often. So, that’s something I’ve been working on lately.

I’ve also been trying to pause in the little moments of daily life and just appreciate the joy and feel the gratitude:

Like Levi’s little hand on my knee.
The way he snuggles into my shoulder when he’s tired.
The weight of him on my hip.
Making a meal together, with Levi supervising on the countertop.
Watching my husband read books with Levi.
Holding my husband’s hand.
That feeling of a perfect spring day and being outside in the sunshine with my family.
Friday pizza nights (my husband has a Greek yogurt pizza dough recipe he experiments with every Friday and we are loving this rhythm & the delicious results!).

It’s these tiny ordinary moments that I want to be fully present in, because it all goes by too fast.

Levi loves being outdoors, so even on the cold days, we bundle up and go outside with him. We walk around our neighborhood, stop at local parks, and let Levi dig in the dirt and play with rocks in our yard.

On the days that it rains or is just too cold, we’ve been taking advantage of our local library and cozying up in coffee shops while Levi explores and smiles at every stranger he comes across.

My younger siblings came to visit us one weekend so we could go dress shopping for my sister’s wedding dress, and my parents came for Levi’s birthday weekend. Living hours away from family is hard, so those small pockets of time together are also weekends where everything else goes on the back-burner and all that matters is being present with the people we love.

On February 17, we celebrated Levi turning one. I shared my thoughts on the first year of motherhood here and a list of 44 things I learned in the last year here. Since our church doesn’t have any kids close to Levi’s age and we don’t have family nearby, we didn’t do a birthday party this year. It was just the three of us, and it was perfect.

We started the day with birthday pancakes, balloons and then after Levi’s first nap, we lit a candle on his birthday cake and sang happy birthday to him. His face in these photos says it all. We took the afternoon off and went to a local kids activity center so Levi could run around with other kids and explore a new place, and he loved that.

Living far from family and not having friends in the same age group and life season in our local church is hard, I’ll be honest. But it’s also made up really close as a family. Especially in these winter months, it felt like our own little cocoon and I remind myself often that this is what I prayed for over a decade. And that reminder grounds me and makes me grateful for the season we’re in. Life is sweet for the three of us and God is good to us.