Thursday, January 7, 2016

2016 Goals and Life Lately

Now that the first week of 2016 is coming to a close, I thought I'd do a quick post about what we've been up to lately. The chaos and busyness of the holidays has finally died down, and we're working at getting back into a good routine. 

Back before I had children, I used to make a list of goals for the year . . . goals that included reading, crafting, cleaning, serving, etc. I don't have any major goals like that for this year. My hobbies are certainly taking a back burner to being a Momma right now, and there are some {many} days where there is barely time for basic cleaning, let alone major purging or organizing. My days are busy and my priorities do not include accomplishing a list of goals that I've set for myself. And, I'm perfectly good with that. My babies won't be babies forever, so I try to thrive in the season we're in right now and not stress myself out over not having read any "great" novels lately. 

My focus this year is on being the wife my husband needs, pouring into my children, and letting my light shine for Jesus. Simple enough, right? *grin*


Anyhow, I do have a few pics to share. On New Year's Eve, we headed to a small gathering at my sister's house for a few hours. Of course, I wanted a few family pics of us on NYE, and the selfie stick I got for Christmas has proven to be very handy at taking family photos! Yay!

Are we excited for 2016?!? Oh, yeah!

I'm pretty sure The Hubs is enjoying the selfie stick just as much as I am, haha!

I don't ever intend to use it for taking selfies of just me. See how great it is for group shots, though?


After eating waaaaay too much good food and playing a few rounds of Phase 10, we decided we had better get the kiddos home before it got too much later. Sweet Brecklyn just couldn't make it home without falling asleep. 

I loved how New Year's Day fell this year. Since it was on a Friday, we got to start the year off with a weekend and some family time. 

All of the kiddos got new jammies that my sister made them for Christmas, and they are just adorable. Oh, and do you see Brooke in this photo? She's WALKING now. HOW are they old enough to be walking?!? *tear*

We really enjoyed our last few days with Brianna home before she started back to school. She and Bren love to dress up, so their tool belt and apron they received for Christmas have been a big hit. Brenson asked me yesterday how many days were left until we get to "keep Sister forever". Haha . . . he's missing her since she's gone back to school!

The children also received this little table and chairs as a group Christmas gift. We've also gotten lots of enjoyment out of it so far!

Parents of four . . . exhausted at the end of the day but so blessed to have the family we always dreamed of.

So, Brianna started back to school this past Tuesday, and we've been working at getting back into our routine. She had said a few times that she didn't want to go back, but when the time came she was very excited. Today, she said, "I can't believe I'm almost in first grade!" to which I replied, "Let's not rush time!" Time goes quickly enough on its own!

This post is really all over the place, but I have a few more photos I want to share before I close. Our friends, Ross and Tia, got the big kids these fun little excavating kits for Christmas. Brenson was in the shape of a treasure chest, and it came with little tools to help you chip away the plaster to find a hidden treasure (which was supposed to be a rock of some sort). A few days before Christmas, I let Bren work on his.

He's serious about his work!

He kept working and working on it, and even said a few times that maybe his didn't have anything in it. I told him to keep working and be patient and he would find the treasure. He worked on that thing for a solid hour, only to find that there was no treasure. We crushed that thing to powder and found NOTHING. He was super disappointed (as you can see by the look on his face), and I felt really bad for him. It was a good lesson for him that sometimes things don't work out like we plan, but I was still sad for him.

And, the project was a HUGE mess. He was pretty entertained by the mess he had made, but I was less than impressed.


I told Tia what happened, and she - being the generous friend that she is - gave him another one. He was kind of reluctant to try the new one, but I convinced him to give it a shot (hoping that it would actually have a treasure). Imagine the boy's excitement when he found the treasure almost immediately :-).

Once again, he worked really hard and dug out this Tiger's Eye rock. He's not let it out of his sight for three days now!

 Happy 2016! I pray your year is off to a great start, as well!



1 comment:

Robbie said...

Oh Brenson! I feel your pain on that excavating thing! I had to help my cousin with one of those once. You hit the chisel with a hammer and a pebble smaller than a pea would come off. I went and got an adult hammer. Not much better. I started using all of my energy to hit that thing with the hammer. Rocks were flying all over the place. We took it outside and threw it all over the patio. Finally, we found a dinosaur-I KID YOU NOT- smaller than my thumb. My cousin was about 8 at the time, and he was less than impressed and it took us about an hour to sweep up the rocks. Way to go Brenson, you are better than we were at sticking with it!