Hello 2012!!!

We spent New Year's Eve hanging out together. This is our normal tradition. I don't think we've strayed from it since the year Isaac was born. We were invited to a few different places this year that we seriously considered breaking our normal traditions for. I really really wanted to hang out with my in law's. The cost of gas and the distance between our houses prevented that though. It just wouldn't have been a smart choice to travel so far so late. We were also invited over to a friend's home. Unfortunately, before we were even able to accept the invite the party was cancelled. Or we were uninvited might be a more accurate way of putting it.

I'll admit that at first I was seriously disappointed!! But by the end of the evening I was so happy that we stuck with our normal family party. I wouldn't want to ring in the New Year with anyone but my little clan anyways. We watched a Twilight Zone marathon, not my choice at all but it was fun watching Asher get so into it. Apparently he LOVES Twilight Zone! A lot! We played lots of fun board games--Isaac is super fun to play Clue with because we use the exact same strategy :). I can't trick that boy anymore!! And what party would be complete without FOOD!! We had appetizer's, which again falls right in line with our normal traditions. We were all stuffed by the end of the night. Yummy little meatballs, queso, spinach artichoke dip and stuffed mushrooms made all of our bellies happy! I didn't even cook 2 or 3 other recipes that I had planned on making because we had more than enough to keep us happily munching away through midnight!!

All of that is good and all but my favorite traditions center more around discussions than play and food. As a family we always share a best of and worst of (insert previous year here). We go around and share what we want to do differently in the coming year. Individually and as a family. We talk about ways that we can make those goals happen. And then we talk about what accomplishments from the previous year that we were most proud of ourselves for. Andy and I always take time to tell the kids why we are proud of them too: and we share WHY we are proud of them. We give them specific instances that we noticed them doing their best at.  The kids are really open during this talk every year and it never fails that I learn something new about the people that they are becoming. We always always always start the year off with Bible devotions and family prayer. This is really something that we do everyday but we make sure to do it shortly after midnight on New Years. We feel like it gets our family off to a fresh start!! The prayers are specific and in depth.

I don't usually do resolutions. As soon as I add the word resolution I am sure to fail. So I adopt goals instead:) Here are a few of the goals that I shared with my family last night:

I want to:
Start and actually finish a personal devotional.

Have a set time each day to spend with Jesus.

Read 52 books this year.

Blog 5 times a week.

Take a picture every single day.

Learn to use my camera. I have a ton of resources bookmarked but haven't read them yet.

Work out and eat healthy (sigh...I say this every year)

Do several Pinterest projects each week. I keep pinning but not doing:)

Have people over more often.

Do a better job sending out cards and such. Many times a person will pop up in my mind and I'll think I should call them or send them a card. It's probably God's prompting. I always pray for them but never follow through with the card or even a phone call.

Send baked goods into work with Andy one day a week. Haven't decided if I should send them on Monday or Friday. I just know that I want to send him with something each week. His people are really there for him and I want to give back in some way:)

Be more organized with our meal plans. And our evenings. Our evenings now are chaos. I need a better system.

There's more. Lots more. I have lofty goals this year:) But that's all I'm gonna share for now.

Our family's goal is to finally find a church where we belong. Get our finances and budget in order. Gather up a stock pile. Make more connections with other Christian families and of course to spend more meaningful time together!!

Did you make goals this year?