A New Year

For the first time we had not just one but three kids stay up until midnight!  We enjoyed our night hanging out playing games with Peter's family and then we snuck over to my Uncle's house a couple of minutes away to say hi to my parents and relatives.  We left the younger ones asleep and the older kids watching a movie.

We got back a couple of minutes after midnight and everyone was out in the yard making noise.  When we walked up they re-did their countdown and Dallin jumped off the trampoline into my arms and gave me the biggest hug.  It was so stinkin cute.

With a new year ahead I have been reflecting on the last year and getting excited about whats ahead.  The last year has been quite a roller coaster, but overall full of joy. Even if I haven't reached all my goals in life yet, I did make some considerable improvements in my life, which is the most important thing.

This next year I hope to continue my early morning exercising for sure.  I plan to keep working on my 100 goals that I have made for myself.  I have been working on several of them.  Some have been successful and some I have to start over.  We have been without fast food for 2 months now (well, maybe a couple of minor slip ups, but that's life).  It has required more planning ahead so that we don't have a hungry family when we are out, but the benefits are great.  I especially like how it has plugged a leaky hole in the money bucket for sure.  We didn't eat it all the time, but enough that I wanted to quit the habit.  I missed it a bit at first, but now the thought of it kinda grosses me out.  My only exception is Taco Bell.  I really like that gross stuff. Overall, it is no big deal though.

It was weird not to sit down and create a new years resolution.  It is already all there, just need to chip away at it.  I want to just do them all at once, but it doesn't work that way.  So I am going to attack a big one in the month of January. Goal #3: Have every space in the house, attic and garage organized for at least a day.  I am pretty much going to be noncommittal about everything until it is all done. Saturday we took down all of our Christmas decorations so I started off by organizing all of that stuff.  Then I was on a roll so I did the TV room downstairs and attacked the kids art/school room with a label maker.  It felt so nice to get that done, I can't wait to get more done. 

I am dreading the office and ESPECIALLY the garage.  Yikes.  I have many tubs of outgrown kids clothing to sort and label.  A few months ago, I had just had it with toys all over the house and took literally 90% of them out to the garage in unsorted laundry baskets.  5 different ages and different genders makes for an overabundance.  Most of the toys were not being played with anyway and I just cracked one day. The kids have begged me to bring them back, but I resisted and then it seemed like Christmas would bring a lot of replacements anyway so I held out other than a few here things here and there.   So out in the garage, other than the laundry area, you can't even walk through it.  I am most excited about my kitchen though.  Every cupboard needs an overhaul. I really do like organizing, it is cleaning that I could do without (hey, I can dream).  With all the daily maintenance around here I just don't seem to get deep enough to organize very often. So this goal makes it top priority, yay! I have got my label maker and I not afraid to use it!

Today we switched from 9am church to 1pm.  That is drastic.  I usually don't like late church, but that was before we were getting 7 of us out the door.  Usually by the time we have all the kids dressed and fed and diaper bags packed, I end up throwing on an outfit and some lip stick and running out the door.  That is kinda sad because it is usually the one day of the week that I really want to look nice.  So now I can have time to get ready too! I even had time to comb all the boys hair today AND we were plenty early. 

I spent a lot of time taking kids out as usual.  Today was one of those days that I didn't mind though.  I have to remind myself that it is not about my right now, it is about them.  Being patient comes easy when I do that.  I just take them out and help them learn how to sit still or walk with them. If I get upset because they are not meeting my expectations it is much worse.  I love these guys and I am pretty sure that everyone learns how to sit through a meeting eventually.  Just one week at a time ought to do it...some day.