House on the Rock

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — time to cozy up by the fire (Youtube’s Fireplace with Piano Music on my TV screen while blasting the space heater) and crank out my SIXTH annual recap blog. Last year I did the heavy lifting of hunting down all of my previous recap blogs, so you can find that link here. But without further ado, 2025, we’re lookin’ at you!

January was both the slowest and fastest month of all time. The 5th (my due date) slowly turned into the 8th then 11th then 13th with still no baby in sight. I cleaned and re-cleaned, watched too much TV, drank every drop of red raspberry leaf tea, and prayed for this baby to get the heck out of me. Finally, in the most joyous (gruesome and near-death) dawn of our lives, Luke Thomas House made our worlds a whole lot brighter. The days to follow were a blur of figuring out…everything. Nursing, swaddling, healing, sleeping, wiping urine off the walls, and sleeping almost not at all 🙂

February felt like a settling in. Visitors slowed and my body healed; we took winter walks and resigned ourselves to simply staring at the baby. We gradually grew more comfortable with hand-offs, slept enough to survive, enjoyed fellowship with our Fields family, and welcomed grandparents and great-grandparents every weekend we could. We celebrated the Seymours in a gorgeous greenhouse and blew out candles on what would be Papaw’s final birthday on earth.

March brought about all sorts of sweetness as little Luke became more interactive, smiling and flashing that deep right-cheek dimple to everyone he’d meet. I took a plethora of couch naps, attended a Bible study through Philippians, and basked in the bliss of watching my husband become a father. I also figured out how to attend baby showers and birthday parties with a tiny child in tow: everything slower, but worth giving it a go. Our family also attempted a modified “75 Hard,” which brought about heavy lifting and healthy eating. For a week or so.

April was the month of coming back to life. Not only did we celebrate Christ’s resurrection with church family, we also enjoyed that first taste of that long-awaited spring weather. The grass became greener, the baby slept longer, the sun felt warmer on our backs as we walked. We brought our three-month-old to TGC, meaning I nursed a baby in a bathroom stall while John Piper pounded a podium just yards away. Life is crazy!

May was meant for movin’. We got lots of new movement in this month, including Luke’s first roll and dip in the pool. Also, recovered at last, I got back in my fast-walking game and enjoyed lifting weights at home alongside all my favorite fitness influencers. We hosted Mother’s Day on the back deck with both sides of the family, a sweet-and-sad mix of mourning my mama while housing a McDonald’s sausage biscuit thoughtfully delivered by my son(‘s father) on my own first Mother’s Day.

In June, Joe and I celebrated four years of marriage over Italian House lasagna, honored the Fathers in our family with a BBQ buffet, and engaged in high-intensity competitions for our youth group Olympics. While my hubby swaggered off to summer camp for a week with our students, I headed west for a weeklong Crawfordsville vacation complete with trail walks, steak dinners, and pool days.

July was a beach month — first on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan and then to the lowcountry oasis of South Carolina. Luke was at the perfect “beach age,” able to sit up and admire the waves but not quite crawling, thereby allowing us, mostly, to kick back and relax. We pitched a tent for some shade, partly for the baby but mostly for my husband, read good books, played card games with family, and drank deeply of days with lots of sun and no schedule. We also volunteered at VBS, hosted young adult nights, and bid farewell to our forever friends, Cole and Riley, as they moved to the mountains of Colorado.

August was party time! We rang in Nana’s 77th year with a Creekside surprise party, then celebrated 3 fun, full, and fast years of The Fields! I baked my first pie with Grammy, chased a crawling baby, and attended an Indians Game with our lovely church family. Woven throughout were Wednesday-afternoon staff meetings as I stepped into a Communications role for The Fields, visits with Aunt Pips at her firehouse abode, and workouts with Julia Snyder and some dumbbells in our garage.

In September, we ate peaches, attended playdates, and visited pumpkin patches with the Papes and Luke’s papa (official grandpa name TBD). A brutal battle with sleep training eventually granted rest to two tired parents, and string lights on our back deck meant evenings full of friends by the fire. We enjoyed nights with our neighbors and rooted hard for the Hoosiers through a dominant start to football season.

October was full with young adult bonfires, a church-wide Harvest Party, and plenty of pictures of a baby with a pumpkin. We visited family, studied Ecclesiastes with our students, and spent many weekends shocked by the success of our long-losing football teams, Colts and IU. Joe had seminary in abundance, but worked hard to close the commentaries and join us in the evenings for lots of family snuggles. We dressed up as Trolls for Halloween and took our little Prince Gristle out for some candy as we celebrated freedom from the Bergens.

November brought snow! My birthday bash began with a blustery blizzard and ended with nearly nine inches of arctic agony. We skipped the Pie Run due to freezing temps and spent a significant amount of the month trapped inside. This meant getting creative with a high-energy almost-walker, and I owe much of my remaining sanity to bath time, magnatiles, the somehow enthralling TV remote, and Sandra Boynton’s bestseller, The Bellybutton Book. We mourned the sudden and shocking death of our beloved Papaw, then celebrated his life with family and friends on Thanksgiving weekend. How thankful we are to have loved him!

And finally, December was its typical blur of cookie-decorating parties, gift exchanges, and looking at lights — but this time, with unprecedented excitement about a not-so-jolly Hoosier hero known affectionately as Coach Cig and his undefeated squad of nobodies but Heismendoza at the helm. While everyone talked of the magic that comes with having a child at Christmas, we also became acquainted with reattaching swatted-down ornaments almost every hour. Racing into stores to escape freezing temps while cradling a coatless kid. And finding figures from our Little People Nativity in the pantry, our sneakers, the sink. But all in all, it was a beautiful month to read Hidden Christmas, to sing Sovereign Grace and celebrate that God came to dwell among us. Amidst the lack of quiet and a seldom-silent night, we are so thankful for the birth of Jesus Christ.

As always, this post fails to mention the tense moments of motherhood, the whispered curses at 3 AM under the cries of a screaming baby, the sleep deprivation, the loss of dear friends, the hard conversations, and the nights when I just wanted to be held by my mom. I’ll save space in my heart (and journal) to reflect on those too. But I’m convinced that most things on the internet are a highlight reel anyway, so for now, I’ll join their song. Thank you Lord for the precious gift of another year!