With 2020 right around the corner, I wanted to share my final recap of top posts from 2019 with you guys today! On Monday I shared my most popular recipes from 2019 but today’s post breaks down the top 10 posts in a variety of categories: Motherhood/Family, Extras (aka my “catch all” category since I’ve never been one to pigeonhole myself into talking about one specific thing in this space) and Fitness.
Also, please feel free to let me know what you’d like to see more of on Peanut Butter Fingers in 2020! It’s always so helpful for me to hear directly from you guys what you’re enjoying most from the blog so I can bring more of it your way. Happy New Year and thanks so much for making PBF part of your 2019!
Motherhood/Family
Note: My Pregnancy Page with updates about my pregnancies and my Baby Updates Page with updates about the boys after they were born were my two most popular pages in this category, however for this post, I’m focusing on my most popular individual blog posts.
I shared this blog post after my first trip with Chase — a solo three-hour flight to Denver — and made sure to include detailed notes about what worked for me and what definitely did NOT work well during our travels. It continues to be one of my most popular blog posts year after year.
As I did back in 2017, I struggled a bit with how to incorporate this blog post into today’s post because including it in some kind of a roundup made me cringe. It’s too personal to be thrown into such a casual post and yet “miscarriage” was the top search term on my blog for the third year in a row. This doesn’t upset me because not a day goes by that I don’t hear from someone either via email, the comments section on my miscarriage posts or Instagram regarding a woman’s personal experience with miscarriage. I am, once again, incredibly grateful to all of you who shared your stories with me and surrounded me with support and kindness when I shared our most recent loss with you this year,
When Ryder turned four months old, the four month sleep regression hit. And it hit us HARD. This blog post details my experiencing sleep training Ryder which worked so, so well for him… and us!
I wrote this blog post to give a real-life peek into what life is like with two kids. Spoiler alert: It’s chaos. An excerpt from this post: “I don’t think I anticipated life to feel quite this chaotic and full. I figured that as a second-time mom, I’d have this whole motherhood thing down, but it still kicks my butt regularly and I’m slowly learning to let go of certain things like pretty much any downtime, a completely clean house, the ability to crank out a ton of work every day, etc.”
I wrote this blog post following my experience with placenta encapsulation after I gave birth to Chase and it seems to get traffic year after year. I stand by everything I said in this post and had a good experience encapsulating my placenta after the birth of Ryder as well.
I had a lot of fun putting this blog post together a little after Chase turned one and still use it as a reference point for anyone looking for baby toy recommendations for little ones. It highlights one toy per month for a baby’s first year according to the toys Chase loved most during each month.
Ever since I became a mother, I’ve been on the lookout for ways to make motherhood easier. Being a mom is my absolute favorite thing in the world but I’m pretty sure there’s not a mother out there who would say mommin’ is a piece of cake. If there’s something simple I can do in my day-to-day life to make caring for two boys a little easier, I am all about it! This blog post is a roundup of my go-t0 Mom Hacks that help me simplify mom life.
This is a list of 10 baby products I loved using with Ryder that I didn’t know about or didn’t use with Chase. I swear they’re always coming up with something new for babies and little ones every year!
I wanted to give a real-life peek into what Chase’s lunches look like for preschool, complete with a synopsis of what he actually ate from each lunch I packed for him.
Road trippin’ with little ones can be fun… and brutal! Haha! This blog post includes my top tips for a (relatively) smooth travel experience with a toddler in tow.
Extras
I love blogging about a wide variety of things and this category shares my most popular blog posts that cover a range of topics!
Seeing content related to books claim one of my top spots for blog posts in 2019 warms my heart! Reading gives me immense joy and I love sharing book recommendations with you guys and hearing your recommendations in return.
For a gift guide to claim a spot in my top posts is a bit of a feat since it doesn’t have much time to accumulate pageviews throughout the year but this one was apparently quite a hit last month!
After we did a little living room refresh last December, I started to get the itch to tackle another project in our home. If there’s one room in our house where we spend most of our time, it’s our kitchen. We have an open floor plan so our kitchen spills into our family room and since our family room pretty much doubles as a play room for the boys (something I thought I’d never do pre-kids — ha!), we’re in our kitchen all the time and after itching to give it a little update, we finally did over the summer. earlier t love that I can make breakfast or tackle a little dinner prep while the boys play and still feel part of the action.I
Clearly you guys share my passion for Amazon Prime because this collection of 10 of my recent Amazon finds found a spot in my of top posts from 2019.
Hooray for more book-related content proving popular in this space! This blog post was a followup to the above post and listed some of my favorite recent reads from 2019.
Over 3.5 years after publishing this post, I’m still incorporating collagen into my diet nearly every day (it’s a staple in my morning cup of coffee) and apparently you guys (or Google internet searchers) are still reading this post!
This blog post includes a list of 10 recipes from fellow bloggers that we make on repeat in our house! So many delicious staples!
This blog post was a rather random one to find its way into my top posts from 2019 but as someone who also finds surveys and Q&A-style posts interesting, I love seeing it here!
This gift guide took me a very long time to create but it was so much fun to put together because I had almost too many ideas I wanted to share with you guys and had to keep scaling my list back. I’m glad it seemed to be helpful for a bunch of you, too!
I don’t know what it is about happiness, but it’s something I love reading about, writing about and talking about! Thankfully it seems like a bunch of you feel the same way because this was one of my most popular posts of 2019.
Fitness
Note: My Workouts Page where I have all of my workouts categorized was my most popular fitness-related page but for this post, I’m focusing on individual blog posts.
This blog post is continually one of my all-time most popular blog posts thanks to Google searches and the fact that new OrangeTheory studios seem to share it fairly regularly. OrangeTheory is such a good workout and if it’s on your radar, this might a blog post that you want to check out before your first class.
My beloved Burn Boot Camp!!! If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what a BBC workout looks like, check out this post!
This is a great workout to keep on hand for days when you want to work up a sweat but don’t have much time.
As if you couldn’t tell from the above graphic, this is a total throwback post — 2013! — but it consistently gets a decent number of pageviews thanks to Pinterest.
I shared this blog post when I was regularly teaching spinning classes and rounded up some of my all-time favorite climb songs. These are the songs I most frequently used for climbs in my classes that seemed to go over well!
This throwback blog post dives into my experience with the NASM exam and continues to be popular thanks to Google searches from those looking for more information about the certification.
This is probably the workout I personally follow from my blog most often! It’s just so darn good because it checks a lot of boxes: It’s easy to follow, passes by quickly, doesn’t require any equipment and works the whole body.
I love using Pandora for my workouts and this post includes a roundup of my go-to Pandora workout stations.
If you’re looking for a bunch of workouts you can complete from home that won’t take much time, check out this roundup post for 15 of my favorites.
When it comes to working out on a treadmill, I MUCH prefer stepping onto the treadmill with a set workout in mind. It helps motivate me to try a little harder and this 25-minute workout is one of my all-time favorites.
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So many favorites made it onto this, too! I actually pinned several of these. And keep the book posts coming! 🙂
Have you ever thought about doing a summary of your reading year? Like how many books you read, fiction vs. nonfiction, which titles were your favorite, etc?
Love your blog so much! I started reading before you had your boys, but I had my son a few weeks before you had Chase and I have loved keeping up to hear about him. I love all of the baby/kid related posts. The lunches one was by far my favorite! Our preschool doesn’t do lunch, but with my son entering kindergarten next year I’m so nervous about what to
Pack for my EXTRA picky eater!
I also love reading your gift guides! One tip though is if you can get them out earlier than whatever holiday you are posting about, I’m an early shopper so I always just look back in your archives for gift ideas. I always see tour guides come out after I’ve done my shopping. I especially love the guy related ones from Ryan’s Perspective bc I have such a hard time coming up with ideas for what men want!!
Hey Julie, happy new year!
5-6 years ago you interviewed a bunch of Registered Dietitians about what they eat in a day and posted their answers. It was such a good read, especially because one or two of them had such personalities that shone through. I loved reading their answers and got some good tips/meal ideas, especially for on-the-go for those who trek to an office everyday. I still seek that post out today despite it being pretty ‘old’ (vintage ;)) I’d love more content like that!
I love your blog and have been following for years. It’s the perfect mix of recipes, workouts, book reviews and family. Thanks for sharing your life. Happy New Year! Can’t wait to see what 2020 brings!
Hi Julie,
I would love updated posts on your skincare routine, makeup routine and hair routine! I know you mentioned trying to switch to products with better ingredients which I’m working on too. I’d love to get an update on how it’s going.
this is absolutely on my list to share soon! thank you!
I’d love to know what collagen you’re using these days. I’m eager to start incorporating it into my diet so I’d like to know which brand(s) you now prefer?
Thanks and love your blog!