year in review & welcoming 2026

2025, what a year.

I can honestly say it was the best one yet.

2024 was centered on learning to live with a baby and watching her grow. But 2025 was the year we really thrived.

In her first year, Ariadne learned things like sitting, eating, clapping, waving, and crawling. But the 0-1 change, despite being amazing, pales in comparison to the 1-2 year change.

At the beginning of 2025, in February, Ariadne started walking, and she was off from there. Running and jumping quickly followed in July, as did many park dates. Her favourite activity is swinging, but she also just recently learned how to climb up the slide and then go down.

She also learned many words! After first saying doggie at the end of 2024, she knew roughly 50 or so words by middle of 2025. Then suddenly, in October, she had the language explosion everyone talks about! Now she knows probably hundreds of words and surprises us every day. A highlight was her saying “baby tail” when seeing a dog with a shorter tail than Maurice.

For Christmas and her birthday, she got tons of presents. She was even excited to open them this year! Highlights include a Target shopping cart, a Bluey play kitchen, a tricycle, a baby doll with bottle, and looots of bubble wrap (she loves bubbles in all forms).

She got so much Bluey merch (including a laptop, and the cutest Gap sweater) as it is still her favourite show, though Winnie the Pooh has become a close second.

2025 saw us keep up our travels, starting the year with our NYC cruise and then our Alaskan cruise midway through. We also visited DC (twice), and Denver. In 2026, we hope to visit Puerto Rico, go on lots of New York trips via Amtrak thanks to Taylor’s new job, and go back to Denver and New Mexico.

2026 will be a year of BIG changes as we will be moving back to the DC area. Very bittersweet! I’m sad to leave the sunshine and warmth (and our house pictured here), but excited to be nearer to friends.

Here’s a 2025 recap in photo format featuring Ariadne: