baking

Ten Years of Blogging

On October 12th, 2010 I started this blog. My first post was a recap of my weekend and also embarrassing, haha. I was 18-years-old and just having fun sharing my days as a freshman in college, what I ate, what Jimmy and I did, and things that were on my mind. 

I was swimming competitively, working at Penn State’s athletic center, Jimmy was my boyfriend, and Lola was a young dog.

While in college, I got into running and did everything from 5ks to marathon training, struggled with an h.pylori infection, and Jimmy and I were engaged. I graduated from Penn State in 2014 with a degree in journalism. 

Jimmy and I got married, bought a house, I worked as a household manager and pet sat, began working for my family’s real estate brokerage, and were blessed with our daughter, Sadie!

We’ve gardened our little hearts out and served alongside our church family.

Throughout the years we’ve had quite a few pets: Lola, Ford and Scout, Malcolm, Mavis, and Niva. We did a lot of therapy dog training with Mavis, which was an experience I really enjoyed.

Animals have been such a huge part of my life and blog and I’m continually trying to convince Jimmy to allow me to have a bunch more cats and dogs 🙂

Husky and toddler laying on bed

I have shared about my faith in God, my favorite recipes, books I’ve read, my journey as a new mom, and my everyday life here in Pittsburgh.

The landscape of blogging has changed so much over the past ten years. A lot of people may say blogging is old-school and defunct in the age of Instagram and Facebook, but I don’t care. I love this space.

I have made some incredible friends from around the world over the past ten years and I owe that to this little corner of the internet. The little blogging community here is so special to me. There have been fun posts, happy posts, hard posts, and everything in-between.

Family picture of mom and dad and toddler taking a selfie

Whether you’ve been connecting with me for the past ten years or this is your first time visiting my blog, thank you for reading! I’m looking forward to the future here at Living My Full Life!

Cutest Pumpkin in The Patch

We celebrated Sadie’s second birthday with our families over the weekend and had such a lovely time! Since we had the party during the first weekend of October, I decided to go with a pumpkin theme and enjoyed decorating and baking for the special occasion. 

Pumpkin birthday party decorationsPumpkin cupcakes for pumpkin birthday party

I baked pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream as well as chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, had a bonfire, and even did a piñata! 

Jimmy had been working so hard all week to get our concrete countertops and recessed grill (no more see through grill!) all ready and installed for the party and he did it! Doesn’t it look amazing? He still has some finishing touches to do, but it was functional and we were pumped! Now we just have to figure out how to get Niva to stop walking on the counters 😉

Outdoor kitchen with concrete countertops and built-in grill

Moments I want to remember:

  • How excited Sadie was when she woke up from her nap and realized all of her favorite people were at our house, plus she was surrounded by balloons and candy. Life doesn’t get much better than that, right?
  • Singing happy birthday to Sadie. She was shy and confused at first and then smiling and happy. So cute. 
  • Watching Sadie enjoy her cupcake and open her gifts. She didn’t know what to do with all of the gifts she was spoiled with! 
  • Spending time with our families on a beautiful fall night. It was fun to see Remi, Caroline, (<– Sadie’s cousins) and Sadie play together, too.
  • Being so excited for Sadie to wake up the next morning so we could play with her new toys together!

Now, time for some photos!

Second birthday party with toddlers and number two piñataSisters with their babiesPumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin decorationFamily at birthday partyFall party decorationsToddler fall birthday partyGrandparents holding three grandbabiesLighting candles for birthday cakeTwo year old blowing out birthday candlesFall bonfirePiñata at birthday party and opening giftsToddler eating a cupcake

What a special evening to celebrate the sweet girl we have been blessed with! 

A look back…