In case you missed it, I actually made some New Year’s Resolutions this year –and because I don’t want to just make them and forget until December rolls around (that and the fact that I’m not almost 38 weeks pregnant and trying to focus on everything except how ready I am to have this baby!!), I’m going to give you all an update of how I’m doing…..with any luck, I’ll try to do this quarterly, mostly just to keep myself on track! Here is the short version of the goals -
1. Read 6 books this year. I just finished #5…..I started with the Help, then read Made to Crave (by Lysa TerKeurst), Unplanned (by Abby Johnson), Revolutionary Parenting (by George Barna), and Real Marriage (by Mark and Grace Driscoll. My least favorite has probably been Revolutionary Parenting –overall it’s a good book and it had some GREAT ideas that I hope to implement in my own parenting, but it was a little too statistic/fact heavy for me and sometimes just downright discouraging.
Our small group is going through Real Marriage, and even though we baled on small group for the time being, I decided to read the book while they were reading it. Made to Crave has made the list of books to read again in the very near future—it’s on the post-pregnancy list…..working on changing my thinking patterns not just my eating habits to get rid of the baby weight! Unplanned was really good too – I hadn’t really planned to read it, but Abby Johnson is speaking at a banquet that we’re going to next week and I wanted to read the book before I heard her speak….and now I’m SUPER excited to hear her!
Next on the list – a couple of Francine Rivers books….I LOVE her books and I decided with baby’s arrival quickly approaching some good novels (i.e. no thinking required) would be good! I think it’s safe to say this goal will be met this year!
2. Be more strategic with my kiddos. This has actually been really fun but definitely isn’t something you do once and check off the list…it’s an ongoing job (and an ongoing STRUGGLE….why is it so easy to be lazy when it comes to the time I spend with my kiddos??). Seriously, if you have suggestions/ideas for being intentional with your kids – leave me a message, I’d love to hear!!!
Here and here are two great links to a resource that I found to help me with this – the first is a chart I filled out for each kiddo and the second is a chart with some ideas to help you fill out the first one! I found this in a magazine called Thriving Family (GREAT magazine by the way…if you have kids you should get on Focus on the Family’s website and subscribe!!) – and found it super helpful to sit down and put together some sort of a plan for the next year. Makenzie actually helped with hers and set some of her own goals –2 of which she has already accomplished, learning to zip her coat and learning to tie her shoes; and just this week she asked to add 2 new goals, go across the monkey bars by herself and ride her bike without training wheels. We also set a goal with Makenzie to work on memorizing Bible verses and it’s been really fun to see her soak this up like a little sponge! We’ve been going through a family devotion book called Step Into the Bible (by Ruth Graham….another REALLY GREAT resource if you’re interested)….the kids and I like to read a story each morning and there’s a bible verse with each story (the bible verse is the same for about a week at a time which makes it easier to get it memorized). She does an amazing job of remembering all the verses we’ve memorized in past weeks too –I’ll have to post a video of her reciting everything, it’s pretty incredible!
Micah man has also memorized a bible verse…well kind of (in his own 2 year old way)…which requires a lot of prompting and repeating after mom! We’ve focused with him on Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” This is one Makenzie also memorized and it proved to be a good starting place for talking about the fact that God also made them….Micah loves to have you ask him, “Who made you?” And he responds with a big smile, “God”….and then the follow up question, “And that means you’re….” “Good” he yells with another big smile! I’ll post more another day about the goals we set and how we’re doing….that deserves a post of it’s own.
I also made a couple of changes in the way I do things – for starters, no more computer in the morning….no email checking until I get to work so that I focus my time and attention on the kids, grocery shopping on Sunday or Monday night instead of Tuesdays with kids, and saving laundry folding until naptime instead of trying to do it while entertaining kids (because that usually means screaming kids and mom).
Being more strategic has also meant planning more activities to do together instead of just “winging it” each day…..practically speaking, this has meant a whole lot of crafting, coloring, painting because those are the things Makenzie LOVES to do and Micah is happy to join in…..unfortunately, these are things that kind of make me cringe because I really hate messes and any sort of art with a 2 and 4 year old generally means a mess! 
3. Make at least one positive change. This is something I’m still wrestling with and trying to figure out just what “change” is going to look like…..but in the mean time, one little change is that I’m no longer taking juvenile court appointments out of one of the counties I used to work in. They only have court on Fridays….which means every time I have a hearing, it takes away from time I would otherwise have at home. I didn’t bail out of the cases I’m currently appointed too, but I’m not taking any new ones – so I hope that in the near future I’ll be completely done with Friday court. For now, I’m working to consolidate hearings so that I can review multiple cases on one Friday and not have to appear several times a month. It seems to be working – I had one Friday court hearing this month and now I have NOTHING until June 1st—and I have 3 cases set for that day!
4. Get organized at home. We’ve made good progress on this – the house is all flipped, all the bedrooms are organized and decorated, and the nursery is all set up. I still have high hopes of doing a little more closet cleaning (mostly cleaning out & hauling to good will) and toy purging and I have a couple “big” projects to finish this year- replacing the front door and living room lights and painting the trim on the house….not that those are really part of getting "organized” but they’re on my home to do list.
Not bad progress if I do say so myself! I’m pretty sure the next few months will be spent in survival mode as we figure out how to manage three children….so don’t expect quite so much in the next update!
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