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!

51 Days!

We had a GREAT birthday weekend full of fun, family, and friends. I'll post those details soon.

In the meantime, I just want to point out that I've been carbonated beverage FREE for 51 days now! Whoo-hoo!

2010 & 2011 Goals

So, yeah, it's only *ahem* January 20th, and I'm just now blogging my goals for 2011. Oh well. I have been working on them already, so that's what counts, right? *grin*

I actually want to begin by recording how I came out on my 2010 goals. I will say, I didn't meet all of them, but I'm not beating myself up about it. I did have a baby, after all. That required a lot of time and adjustment.

2010 Goals:

1. Keep up with the new Bible study program that Chris and I started. CHECK! Although we are a few weeks behind currently, we are catching up and we haven't given up on the program.

2. Memorize 12 verses from the Bible. CHECK! This has been wonderful.

3. Finish Little Aviator. FAIL. I did make progress on this, but I didn't finish it.

Here is what it looked like on January 1, 2010:

Here is what it looks like now:

4. Continue to drink 80 to 100 ounces of water per day. FAIL. I did great with this at the beginning of the year (when I was nursing, especially), but towards the end of the year I didn't do so well.

5. Lose pregnancy weight after baby is born. CHECK! I successfully lost all the weight and more, but have since gained some of it back. ARGH.

6. Scrap one layout per week of my own photos. FAIL. I scrapped a total of 74 pages (37 layouts), so I fell about 15 layouts short.

7. Read 10 novels from my list. FAIL. I read a total of 8 novels in 2010.

8. Floss. Okay, yeah. FAIL. Sigh.

9. Cook at home more. CHECK! When I was working and pregnant, Chris and got in the horrible habit of eating out... a lot. However, having a newborn and trying to lose weight kind of forced us to eat at home more. Now, we only eat out about once a week, which is better for everyone.

10. Put together a larger team for the Alzheimer's Walk and raise more money for the cause. CHECK! I was blown away this year by my awesome team of 12 and the $1500 we raised for the Alzheimer's Association. THANK YOU, again, to everyone who helped us.

11. Send someone a card every week. CHECK! I actually sent an average of 2 cards a week this year. It's something I love doing.


Okay, so now for my goals for 2011:

1. Catch up and stay caught up with the Bible study program Chris and I are doing.

2. Memorize 12 Bible verses.

3. Finish Little Aviator.

4. Drink ZERO carbonated beverages this year. This is going to be very hard, but I want and need to do it. Pop is so bad for you... I just don't want it in my body anymore.

5. Scrap 100 pages of my own photos. The past couple of years, my goal has been by layouts, but I don't always scrap a layout (sometimes it's a single page), so I'm changing it to a page goal this year.

6. Read 10 novels from my top 100 novels list. I bought an Amazon Kindle with my Christmas money, so I'm excited to try it out!

7. Redo our guest bathroom. I have painted every room in the house but this one. This is what it looks like right now:

Here is the wall, ceiling, top of the door, and door of the linen closet. Blah, blah, blah. I need some color! This is actually what our entire house looked like before we painted/put trim up/etc in every other room.

8. Have a nightly family devotional with Brianna.

9. Lead a team in the Alzheimer's Memory Walk.

10. Clean out the closet in our guest bedroom. This closet became a catch-all when we were making room for Brianna, so it really needs some attention. I hope that we'll be cleaning it out to make room for another baby, but it needs to be done either way.

11. Send someone a card each week.

12. Pay off a certain bill that we've been working on for a couple of years. We should be able to be done with it this year, and that makes me very happy!

2009 Wrap-up

Here's how I came out on my 2009 goals:

1. Read the Bible through. CHECK! So glad that I did this!

2. Drink less pop. CHECK! I'm drinking WAY less pop than I have in the past (partially because I'm preggo).

3. Read 10 novels from my top 100 fiction novels list. CHECK! I actually read 11 and a half (I'm working my way through my second Joyce novel... and it's actually been a much better experience this time around).

4. Scrap one layout per week of my own photos. FAIL. I only completed about 20 layouts this year, although I did make a ton of cards and two gift albums.

5. Make major progress on my Little Aviator cross-stitch. CHECK! See photos below.

January 1, 2009

January 1, 2010

6. Walk for exercise more. CHECK and FAIL. I did great with this at the beginning of the year, but not so great at the end of the year.

7. Drink more water. CHECK! Thanks to pregnancy, I have seriously increased my water consumption (about 80 to 100 ounces per day).

8. Memorize scripture. CHECK! I memorized a total of 9 verses... not as well as I'd like, but a good start.

9. Floss. FAIL. Enough said.

10. Trust God more. Still working on this one, it's a lifelong pursuit.

2010 Goals:

1. Keep up with the new daily Bible study program that Chris and I are starting.

2. Memorize at least 12 verses from the Bible. That's only one a month... shouldn't be too hard.

3. Finish Little Aviator.

4. Continue to drink 80 to 100 ounces of water per day.

5. Lose pregnancy weight after baby is born.

6. Scrap one layout per week of my own photos (when you fail, try again!)

7. Read 10 novels from my top 100 novels list.

8. Floss.

9. Cook at home more.

10. Put together an even stronger team for the Alzheimer's Walk and raise more money for the cause!

11. Send someone a card every single week.

My goals are very similar to last year, but it's always nice to have something to work toward.

2009 Goals

I have gone back and forth on whether or not I wanted to post my personal goals for 2009. I think this comes mostly from a place of fear. I mean, if the goals are only in my head, then I'm the only one that knows I've let myself down by not reaching them, right?

However, I decided that I would just go with it and put my goals out here in cyberspace. After all, I sometimes post things that are much more personal than this, so why not? And maybe, just maybe, this will serve as a motivating factor for me. I've set a lot of time-consuming goals, so we'll see how it goes!


2009 Goals:

1) Read the Bible all the way through. I've done this several times before, but this year I'm doing it in chronological order to shake it up a bit. So far it has been very interesting!

2) Drink less (maybe zero?) pop. I haven't had any since New Year's Eve, but I don't know how long I'm going to make myself suffer. My sister never drinks pop and I want to be like that.

3) Read at least 10 novels from the list of 100 must-read novels of all time that I printed from the internet. I've already started one. I used to read for fun all the time, then I went to college and only read textbooks and journal articles for class. I'm excited to start to read for fun again!

4) Scrap at least one layout per week of my own photos. I set this goal in 2008 and missed it by 4 layouts. BUT, I also made 4 gift albums for other people, so that consumed a lot of my scrapping time.

5) Continue to work on the "Little Aviator" cross-stitch that I started last year. Make major progress on it.

6) Walk for exercise more. I've been going during lunch and it has felt great!

7) Drink more water. Blech. Water bores my mouth.

8) Memorize more scripture. When I was younger, we would memorize scripture all the time, but I haven't done that in a while. There are a lot of scriptures that I would like to commit to memory. I need to make a list (you know me...) so I'll have something to work from.

9) Floss. My dentist always tells me I need to do this more (actually, I just need to do it considering I don't at all right now). I heard once that you should only floss the teeth you want to keep. I want to make this part of my routine.

10) Trust God more. Hard, but necessary.

There are others, but they are things (like number 10) that can't really be measured or tracked. I only put the things I can track on here.

Looks like I'll be working hard in 2009! Exciting...