2023 felt like the longest year of my life but also the shortest year of my life. This was the year I really challenged myself with Lizzie’s Bakery. I also was in survival mode with a 2 and 4 year old! So here’s a year in review! Also, I haven’t written a blog post since 2018 and I LOVE to write and I might start rambling so bare with me!

January 2023 -

Highlights: Lots of custom cakes, minimal snow days, the start of hands-on cake decorating classes, sourdough bread baking and visiting our best friends in Florida / Disney World!

The big highlights were definitely our trip to visit The Constantino’s (our bff’s who lived below us at our Watertown apt) and go to Disney World and meet up with our friends Tim, Nicole and their son Oliver! This was the trip we decided that we are going to go to Florida every year to get away from the Boston winter!

February 2023 -

Highlights: First ever big Valentine’s pre-order menu for Lizzie’s Bakery, the start of Boston Marathon training, & Caleb turns 2!

I’m pretty proud of myself for launching a Valentine’s pre-menu! I’m usually the worst at planning for holidays and I actually planned and then executed! The hardest part for me is getting content out before the actual holiday because i’m always so busy the days leading up to the holiday! I made chocolate breakable hearts, dessert boxes filled with cookies, macarons and brownie cake gems, and mini heart bento cakes / cupcakes!

Caleb turned 2! He’s our energizer bunny who is always on the go. He is sooo friendly and social and loves everyone! He is seriously the cutest.

March 2023 -

Highlights: Our big Hawaii trip and Taylor Swift Concert in Vegas!

Okay I listed the two highlights above because March was probably my favorite month of the year! We’ve been planning this trip for a year and it was just our little family going! We took the Boston to Oahu non-stop Hawaiian Airlines flight and it was a 12 hour flight!! We survived (barely) and we stayed on 2 islands - Oahu and The Big Island! We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on The Big Island and I was so impressed - I never wanted to leave! We explored black sand beaches, waterfalls, and ate our way through the Island on infinite amounts of spam, eggs, rice and shaved ice! I was in pure HEAVEN. Once we got to Oahu, I was excited to visit my birthplace. I haven’t been back since I was 4 years old. I loved exploring the North Shore, it’s seriously so beautiful! We were also able to drop the kids off at a friend’s sisters house so that she could babysit the boys while Steven and I hiked to a waterfall by ourselves! I wasn’t a big fan of Waikiki because it was so touristy and crowded. Overall - an amazing trip because we had zero plans once we got there and just followed the boys lead and everyone was super content the whole time!

Back in February, my best friend Stormy asked if I wanted to go to the Taylor Swift concert in Vegas and she had a free ticket for me. HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY?! Her husband is the manager at Wynn Field Club at Allegiant Stadium and so we got to sit at a table at Wynn Field Club and I felt like we were VIP, it was an amazing experience I’ll never forget! + I was with all of my best friends from high school and I got to travel to Vegas by myself without any kids!!! First time in 5 years!

April 2023 -

Big highlight of the year: Running the Boston Marathon!!!!

This was probably the best experience of my LIFE! I wasn’t as prepared for it as much as I wanted to be but I was able to finish at 5 hours, 45 minutes in the rain! I also had several close friends fly out to Boston to support me! Shout out to Erick, Brandilyn and Mike!

I just loved running in my home city because whenever I run races, I’m always traveling to race. I basically drive on or pass the marathon course daily! & I got to see soooo many friends along the course cheering me on. One of my favorite spots was Mile 4/5 in Framingham because our best friends Jenna and Wendell live by that mile marker and we are usually with them every year to watch the race, so seeing my best friends and family waiting for me made me so happy!! The feeling of finishing the Boston Marathon is like no other. It definitely wrecked my body but It was so worth it! I also made a dinner reservation at Fogo de Chao at 6PM and I finished around 5:30PM and made it just in time for my reservation! Now that I’ve ran the Boston Marathon, I really want to try for the World Abbott Majors and run all 6 big races - so far I’ve ran NYC and Boston, the next 4 are Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo! This will be my goal before I die!

May 2023 -

Highlights: Springtime, wedding season, the start of the Seaport Summer Market, first private corporate market and my parents visiting!

My goal this year was to participate in markets! I applied for the seaport summer market and found out I got in when I was in Hawaii! Since this was my first time doing any type of market - I had to invest in a canopy tent, folding tables, displays to showcase my products and hire some more workers for Lizzie’s Bakery! The market started on Mother’s day weekend and it was a BLAST!! I had several of my best friends helping out to set up and it was so fun meeting new customers and seeing past clients who I’ve actually never met face to face because of the pandemic! I sold cupcakes, cake jars, cookies, rice krispy treats and cake tasting boxes! I definitely learned a lot - like making sooo many cake tasting boxes and barely selling 5 haha People mostly like grab and go desserts when they are at a famers market type of setting!

I did pretty well for my first ever market but it also was not the best time for markets because it rained almost every weekend! & if it rained all day, they would cancel it! & also, when it was super hot, no one wanted a cupcake - they would go for the ice cream truck or fresh mocktails (which I wouldn’t blame them)! But there was one random weekend where it was cold and that’s when I sold out! Now that I have all of the stuff to do a market, I definitely will do more in the future!

My parents visiting was also a big highlight! They were a HUGE help while we were doing the summer market! They would watch the boys, wash all of our dishes, cook us all of our meals and clean our house! We were spoiled for 2 weeks! It was also fun to show them around Boston when it wasn’t the dead of winter (both times my mom came was when I gave birth which was in Dec/Feb!) One of the weekends, the market was cancelled so I was able to take them to Newport, RI after a wedding cake delivery and we explored the mansions and ate fresh lobster!

June 2023 -

Highlights: Wedding cakes, strawberry picking, beach days, Thoreau club pool days and town fairs!

I’m a big fan of local fairs and festivals. We took advantage of every town fair we could find and also utilized our gym membership and went swimming on the daily with the boys! Connor also rode on a rollercoaster by himself for the first time at the Acton town fair! So CRAZY!

July 2023 -

Highlights: 4th of July fireworks, Johnson family reunion in Newport Beach, California, Legoland, perfect beach days and winning Best of Boston 2023!!

The Johnson family reunion is every other year so it was great to be together with Steven’s family for a whole week! We always stay at the Marriott Newport Villas and my in-laws always plan fun activities each night! The weather was perfect and we spent every day either at the beach or the pool! I live for virgin pina coladas.

Finding out I won Best of Boston Wedding Cakes 2023 was a big highlight of this year! Definitely a huge milestone in Lizzie’s Bakery and I’m so grateful for all of my clients who have trusted me to make their wedding cake!!

August 2023 -

Highlights: Spontaneous lunch dates with friends, meeting new friends (been praying for new friends to move close by), more wedding cakes, celebrating 8 year wedding anniversary with tickets to a Yellowcard concert, last minute ticket buying for a Jonas Brothers concert and high school best friends trip to Savannah, Georgia!

8 years married to my best friend has been the best years! Our marriage is not perfect at all, but we strive to be better for each other and for our kids every day. I’m grateful for a partner that supports me in every way and wants me to be happy! Every year we switch anniversary date planning and this year was my year! I surprised Steven with tickets to Yellowcard and it was so much fun!!! We have been listening to them ever since we started dating!

My trip to Savannah, Georgia was super relaxing with my best friends from high school! I rarely ever get to travel by myself so this was a real treat! We ate our way through Savannah but had to cut our trip short due to the impending hurricane and I didn’t want to get stuck there because I had cake orders to fulfill the following weekend!

September 2023 -

Highlights: Turnng 31, first day at Connor’s new school and Caleb’s new daycare, apple picking, Connor starts soccer, Steven gets a new job at Square and lots of PR for Snowport!

I was able to celebrate my 31st birthday on the cape with some of my closest friends! We booked an airbnb and had some beach time, chatted with our friends while the kids napped, and ate dinner at the yummiest seafood restaurant near the water!

Connor also started at his new preschool which he loves! His teacher is sooo loving and kind to him. I love that she sees his potential and has the most patient with him! Caleb started at an in-home montessori daycare that is literally a block away from our house and she makes him breakfast, lunch and snacks! He gets a lot of one on one time with his teacher because he is the oldest and there are only 2 other kids who are babies haha

Somehow I got chosen to get a lot of PR for being a first time vendor at Snowport! Not complaining at all because it was a lot of fun doing interviews for NBC 10 Boston and Constant Contact! It was starting to get more real that I was actually going to be participating in Snowport by doing all of these interviews / photoshoots!

October 2023 -

Highlights: family trip to Stowe Vermont with my SIL Kim, her husband steven and their daughter Stevie Kate! Lots of fall leaf peeping, glaming trip at Auto Camp with Boston Magazine + Kim Crawford Wines, being a pumpkin and vampire for halloween with the boys!

Going to Vermont with our family was so much fun despite the rain! We had fun playing games, leaf-peeping, eating allll of the maple themed desserts and lots of cousin bonding time! The only negative was that our Airbnb was infested with flies! It was sooo gross, but Steven got rid of all of them and saved the weekend because I could not stand it!

I went on my first influencer trip to Auto Camp in Cape Cod and we had our own little cute airstream to stay in! I brought my friend Jenna and it was her first time ever away from her daughter overnight and it was well deserved! I loved seeing industry friends and reconnecting with my Boston magazine friends! I also met a lot of new people that I’ll hopefully reconnect with in 2024!

The boys are obsessed with Halloween! Once their costums got mailed in, they would not want to take them off! Connor wanted to be a vampire and Caleb wanted to be a pumpkin. To this day, he goes up to random people and says “oooooo I’m a scary pumpkin! What are you for Halloween?” hahaha people are either so confused or they just play along with it. We did only 2 Halloween activtities this month because the past years we would go hard on all of the Halloween festivities but by the time actual Halloween rolled around the kids would be exhausted or just tired from it all! But this time, we went trick or treating in Beacon Hill and the boys did not complain once and they weren’t bored!

November 2023 -

Highlights: Snowport booth build out, opening day at Snowport and Thanksgiving day (our only day off !)

I’m going to go in more detail on a future blog post about Snowport, so I won’t reiterate things! But all I’ll say about booth build out is that I’m glad I hired Clean Slate to do it! They are home organizers and really took the vision we were going for and brought it to life!

December 2023 -

Highlights: Snowport! Connor turned 5 and the boys got to meet Santa!

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you! There will be a new blog post about Snowport soon! 2023 was a really amazing year with a lot of opportunities that came my way! This year was not perfect at all, there were still a lot of challenges, and I’m glad I have Steven to support me in all that I do! I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings!! Love you all!