Kid Goals

As we sat down for a family meal this weekend, Michael and I were continuing our conversation about the new year and all of the things we have going on.  I asked Olivia what her goals were for the new year.  That girl didn't miss a beat.  

Her first true self portrait

Her goals are:

1. To learn how to read.  (She's been ready for a little while now.  It's me that has been slacking.)

2. Learn how to tell time. (She got a practice clock and watch for Christmas!)

3. Learn how to cut out a heart

4. learn to keep my hair out of my food while eating

5. help mommy bake a cake

6. learn how to draw a snowman

7. learn how to blow my nose (to which mommy and Boppa said, "Amen!")

8. help mommy do the laundry

9. help mommy hang more pictures (??)

10. get dressed by myself (she still struggles with shirts)

11. learn to open and close water bottles by myself

Honestly, there might have been more.  She just started rattling them off.  I had no idea she would have so many.  I should have written them down as she was saying them.

She's taking them seriously too!  That night as she put on her pajama top mostly by herself she started exclaiming, "I did a goal! I did one of my goals!"  And then on her way to preschool yesterday she said, "I think they are going to help teach me how to cut a heart. Then I will have reached that goal, too."  Apparently she's 4 going on 34. :)

And as God and my family are my witness, I asked Logan what his goals were for this year.  He lifted up his arms in the muscle position and did his muscle growl. Hilarious!  So apparently his goals are the same as his father.  Muscles with more muscles.  They are basically the same person, so it fits. ;)  My goal for him is less tears.  In Jesus name, Amen!!!  Ha ha!

We have amazing kids!  Seriously.  Love them and their goals!

Life Lately

I shared a lot of our December with the Advent activities, but here are a few others...

Grandma hooked us up with a Pottery Barn Advent calendar

Snuggle buddies

Keeping it real.

Olivia spends a LOT of her free time coloring

She especially loves the smelly markers Santa brought.  She's not done with this one yet.  She's been working on it off and on.  She colors better than most first graders I taught.  Truthfully.

Logan was looking cute walking in from the car, so I started taking his picture.

Olivia ran over and started putting on a show.

Goof!  Olivia got this plastic crown from preschool and he put it on and started running around.

 A repeat from Facebook, but they helped me make a yummy birthday breakfast for Michael.

 This kid.

He can totally set up his own train track.  I love seeing how his little engineering mind works.

 She put my glasses on and said, "I look like a librarian". :)

 Cutie!

 Our Magnadoodle has seen better days, but this is Olivia's drawing of Logan's birthday.  I particularly like the banner at the top!

 Olivia chose this outfit and then came out dancing, "I'm an artist! I'm an artist!"  Then she invited us to the "Grand Opening" of her restaurant. :)

An artist she is!  She was using her How to Draw book and going to town drawing everything she could.  We seriously need to get her into some kind of art class or drawing lessons.

A little blurry, but totally a Logan face.

and the reason why my word for 2016 is "Hope"...  ;)

Goals, Goals, Goals!

Lists are one of my favorite things.  By simply writing something down, I am way more apt to accomplish it.  And if I blog about something, I'm 99.9% sure to do the task.  I hate failure, and even though only about 12 people read this and they don't care if I follow through or not, I care.  So something I'm going to be doing this year is sharing my list of monthly goals.  There are a few bloggers I read who do this, and it seems to work well for them.  I was actually going to start it back in May (shortly after we moved here), but then my computer died and I stopped blogging as much.  But here it is...

Use my planner- I bought a planner a few months ago.  I use to use planners all of the time in high school, college, and even in my teaching and nanny days.  But when I started staying home they seemed unnecessary.  Our schedule is busier now, and I forget things way more than I ever use to.  So I got a fancy planner and then was too intimidated to use it.  So I'm going to use it!

Go to the library more- We have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of children's books, so we don't really need to go to the library.  So we don't go often.  But I want to get more into a routine of going, because I think story times and music times and just general socialization is good.  Plus, there are titles and authors that we don't have that would be fun to read now and then.

Limit the kids TV watching- We aren't the kind of family that has the TV on all day long. It's generally on in the morning while the kids eat breakfast (so that I can get ready in peace), and then I turn it on at 4 in the afternoon and they watch until Michael gets home at 4:45 (so that I can cook dinner). That would be alright, but I'm sad to say that on the days we stay home... the TV stays on too long in the morning.  One or two shows is more than enough, but I often let it stay on until mid morning.  I'm selective with the shows they watch, so it's not that they are watching things they shouldn't. They are just watching too much.  So we are going to go back to the one to two shows in the morning and the 45 minutes in the afternoon that allows me to get dinner on the table.

Read 2 books-I really enjoy reading.  I have a list of authors and titles on my phone that I want to read.  I have a pile of books that I have collected over time, but never got to.  I have intentions to read, but then it gets pushed to the back burner.  I have read more in 2015 than I probably did in all of the 4 years before that put together.  So I'm making progress.  But I really want to be intentional about it.  So I'm putting it on my goal list.  Hopefully I'll read more than 2 this month, but 2 is the goal to start with.

Konmari method all clothes- I am almost done reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I had heard so many good things about it.  I also heard that she was a little "strange" in some of her thinking.  That's my assessment so far.  But she suggests starting with clothes and I think that some of what she has to offer is really good.  I have been slowly weeding things out over the past 9 months, but this month I am going to be very intentional with going through ALL of the clothes in the house and truly not hanging on to things "just because".

I read a blog that talked about changing our habits.  We all have a list of things we want to work on or change, but it can seem overwhelming to take them all on.  She suggested choosing one habit a month to work on, and then by the end of the year you will have dramatically changed 12 areas of your life.  I'm not sure I have 12 habits that I want to change, but I'm going to try it here and there.  I've wanted to do a gratitude journal for years now.  I start them, but never keep up with it.  I figured started the year out right by recognizing things to be grateful for is a good place to start.  So that is the habit I am going to try to form this month.

Here we go...

Happy New Years!

Resolutions aren't my thing.  They never have been.  Mostly because I find that the majority of them are abandoned by mid January.  Instead, I have chosen a word of the year for a few years now.  Some of my words have been journey, intention, to be....

Last year I didn't choose a word.  I was just not feeling it.  My year started in a funk (maybe even a little postpartum happening).  Most of my year followed suit.  2015 has had it's highs and lows, but I'd definitely say it was a rough one.

Don't get me wrong.  We are very happy to be back in Texas. That's not it at all. There have just been so many adjustments to go along with that, financial stress, priority shifts, and more.  At points throughout the year I actually joked that I just might be going through a mid life crisis.  I could feel things shifting and an unsettling happening, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I've been reflecting on the upcoming new year for the past week now, and as I do I realize that it wasn't really a mid life crisis but more of God putting me through a refiners fire, if you will.  He was breaking me to teach me.  To prepare my heart for what is to come.  To change me and soften me.

There were words swirling in my head at the beginning of the month, and I thought I had one that I was going to use.  I went to our women's Christmas party at church.  Our pastor's wife got up to give a little devotional.  It was all about hope.  She said God had very specifically given her the word.  As soon as she gave the definition, I knew it was my word.  It's as if God placed it in my hand himself.

I'm going to live expectantly in 2016! Soon after I chose my word, messages of "hope" started popping up everywhere.  I saw an acronym that said hope is Having Only Positive Expectations.  This is the first time in a while that I am entering a new year excited about what is to come.  I know God has big plans for me (us), and I am looking forward to what those are!

A verse that has spoken to me...

I asked Michael to choose a word.  He chose "muscles" with his goals being "more muscles".  Ha ha.  Of course, he was just kidding.  His real word is "Selfless".  I also challenged my friend Alycia to choose a word.  She liked the idea so much that she then challenged her mom and brother.

What about you?  Do you make resolutions?  Do you choose a word?  Are you looking forward to 2016?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!