2015 Goals

On Sunday the talks in Sacrament Meeting were all about Goal Setting. Monday for my personal scripture study I read a few things about goal-setting from LDS.org and from other non-religious sources. For Family Home Evening that night Chris and I talked about what we wanted our individual goals and family goals to be for 2015. We both wanted more time to think and pray about what our goals should be, but it was a great conversation and the perfect opportunity to discuss what we want 2015 to look like!

I have several goals for 2015 and tried to pick some from different categories.

Spiritual:
-Study Preach my Gospel as my personal scripture study
-Attend the temple one time per month (either with Chris or on my own)
-Index 10,000 names

Physical:
-Exercise at least 3 times a week
-Try several different group classes at the YMCA (more on this later)
-Eat clean
-Give up soda
-Lower my cholesterol without needing medication (more later)

Educational:
-take one class from BYU (Children's Literature)

Personal:
-Read 24 books from my "to-be read" list (make sure Book Club books are added to that list)
-Always have my toe nails painted (silly, but I LOVE this)

Family Goals:
-make 72 hour kits
-start making emergency prep purchases (we've been setting money aside each month for like 1 1/2 years now...)
-more regular date nights (we decided we're going to start hiring one of the YW from our ward instead of always trying to swap with someone else).
-clear clutter out of our house
-get Emma off bottles (whoops! that should've happened MONTHS ago)
-get Emma off pacifiers

Emma is 19 months old and I still weigh just about what I weighed when I went in to the hospital in labor. I don't really care what the number on the scale is by the end of the year, I care more about how much fat I'm able to burn and how my clothes fit. I have few pants/skirts/dresses that fit. I don't want to buy more clothes in the current size I am. My cholesterol also shot up this year. When I had my physical in November my dr was shocked by how high my cholesterol was. She told me to eat better and exercise more.

This past month Chris and I have really been researching gym options because I've found it is just hard to exercise at home with Emma. I was looking at first for something just cheap- like Planet Fitness for $10 a month, but they don't have childcare so I would have to either go super early or go after Emma went to bed. I wasn't crazy about that idea. By 7:00pm I'm exhausted after chasing Emma all day. Then I looked into another option that was $20 and that included childcare, but it was hard to tell from the internet whether this place was super legit or not. They also had limited group classes.

I knew I really wanted to join the YMCA. They have a pretty great class selection plus cardio and weight machines. A bunch of girls from my ward go there so I would be able to see them and Emma could have friends she knows in the childcare area. It sounded amazing, but the price was a little much. Yesterday Chris spent most of the day looking over our budget seeing where we could make some cuts, and spent a ton of time on the phone with the company that does our auto insurance. We were able to make some changes across the budget that will end up covering a decent chunk of my gym membership, and the rest will just come from the money we normally put into our "house downpayment" fund.

By getting a gym membership at the Y my hope is that I will be able to go in the morning while Emma is awake, which will free up nap time for me to be able to do cleaning or meal prep or scripture study or all of the above. That will allow me to hopefully use my evenings a little differently- like to work on school and spend more quality time with Chris. I'm also hoping that it will help give me more energy, reduce my migraines and relieve some of the stress that I have.

Chris's big goal for the year is to get his health back under control through exercise and diet. He has learned that when he exercises regularly that he doesn't feel the effects of his chronic illness very much. So in 2015 our family is really focusing on health!

Last year I didn't post my goals somewhere I would regularly see them, so this year I'm typing up my goals, printing them out and putting them up on the wall in my room or on the fridge so that I can regularly see them!

Alphabet

I finally finished Emma's alphabet magnets! She is obsessed with her "EFG"s, so I hope she loves these! They were a lot more time consuming than I expected, and now I understand why some people charge $50 for a set online!

Maybe someday I'll do the lower case letters. Hahahaha

Toothbrush!

Emma is OBSESSED with her toothbrush. If she sees me or Chris brushing our teeth she asks for her toothbrush. If she goes into her bathroom she asks for her toothbrush. Sometimes when we leave the house she asks for her toothbrush. This particular day we were heading to Office Max to pick up a Christmas present that I dropped off to get bound and before we left she saw her toothbrush and asked for it. I told her that we were leaving the house and we weren't going to take her toothbrush with her. She started throwing a major fit. I needed to go run errands and that was the only time that day I could make it work, so I caved. I grabbed her toothbrush and she was incredibly happy the whole time. She held it in the car. She brushed her teeth while she and Jeremiah (oh yeah, this was over Thanksgiving week when Jeremiah was visiting) looked around Office Max. I came to find them after picking up my book and she was sitting in this office chair brushing away. 

one sick girl!

Emma had a super nasty cold for about 1 1/2 weeks! Her little nose was so sad, but her cough was the worst! One morning she coughed so hard she threw up, it was so sad to see her sick so much. She loved the humidifier we had running in her room. These first two pictures show just how sad she looked. She was pretty miserable!

These pictures are from the day that she threw up. I went in her room to get her when she woke up that morning and as soon as I opened her door I could smell it. She had thrown up in her crib between when she woke up and when I came in for her. We immediately went to the bathroom to give her a bath and Chris helped get her bedding and doggy into the washing machine. That day she was especially cuddly which was a nice change --normally she doesn't like sitting and cuddling with me.

She took a 3 hour nap that day and when she woke up from her nap she just wanted to lay down on me and watch a show. Can't tell you how many episodes of Daniel Tiger we watched that morning. 

Thankfully, she's all better now!! We missed two weeks of story time and one week of church. It was a super long time for a kiddo to be sick, and she's much happier now! Now we just have to get her back onto a good sleep schedule again!

Christmas!

Today I put up our 2 ft tall Christmas tree. Chris's parents sent it to him when he was on his mission, and sent it to us after we got married. Our first apartment didn't really even have space for a 2 ft tall tree but we made it work. Now we don't have the space to store a bigger tree and can't do real trees because of allergies... so we continue to use our 2 ft tall tree. 

When Emma first saw it plugged in she was really interested. Here is her first glance!

I can only imagine the look on her face when she sees presents under it later, and then again on Christmas day when she gets to open them!

We've been reading a book called What is Christmas often and it talks about lots of things that happen around Christmas, but emphasizes that Christ is the real reason we celebrate Christmas. Santa Claus and Christmas trees and presents are fun, but without Christ we wouldn't have a reason to celebrate. It's a fun book and she insists on reading it every night before bed.

Firefighters at story time

Several weeks ago (October, I think?) the Firefighters came to story time! The Fire Chief read a story about fire trucks to the kids, the kids sang a halloween song to the firefighters, then we all went outside together! 

The firefighters taught us how to stop, drop and roll if there was a fire, and taught the kids that if there is smoke in a room the safest way out is crawling. Outside they had set up a smoke tent so the kids could see what it may be like in a smokey room. Because story time is mostly kids ages 4 and under they didn't put very much smoke in the tent. Once you crawled through to the other side of the tent you got a firefighter hat and some stickers. After the older kids all went through, Emma and I crawled through together. Well, she crawled for a second and then cried, so I crawled and carried her. I was determined to get the hat and sticker. She wore the hat around for days and was excited by the sticker for a few minutes.

After the smoke tent they showed us their trucks! The older kids got to climb in the truck, but Emma was too scared to let go of me so we didn't get to see inside the truck. 

We loved having the firefighters come to story time! 

On Saturdays, we wear blue

My phone tells me that this picture was taken on October 18th, which was a day that there was a BYU football game, but the game didn't start until 9:15 pm our time, so this photo definitely was not taken during that game! We must've been watching something else that morning! I just love this picture of Chris and Emma together on the couch with BYU shirts on. We love our Cougars, even though it was a bit of a rough season. 

Halloween 2014

Emma got to dress up in a BYU-Idaho cheerleader dress for Halloween. Basically, she got it as a gift this summer and I was too lazy to get a real costume for her-which she only wore to storytime at the library anyway

2014 Goals visited again

Back in January I made a list of my goals for 2014. I just remembered about that list a few days ago as I was reading through old blog posts. It's interesting to see how I totally rocked some of these goals, and failed miserably at others! I'm starting to think now about what I want to accomplish in 2015 and trying to pick a word to be "my word" for 2015. I think for 2015 I need to print out my goals and put them up on my nightstand or on the wall next to my bed so that I can see my list more frequently.

In 2014 I want to:

1. Read The Book of Mormon 

2. Make 12 pages for Emma's Quiet Book

3. Have 15 File Folder Games completed

4. Read 12 books for fun

5. Take Emma to Story Time (either at the library or at Barnes & Noble) somewhat regularly
6. Lose the rest of my pregnancy weight

7. Read to Emma every day

8. Do 5 sewing projects (did I mention yet that I got a sewing machine on Black Friday?) 

9. Be a better Visiting Teacher and actually visit my sisters instead of phone calls/letters

10. Participate in the challenge our RS Pres gave us recently to work on Personal Progress (I'm planning on looking through the PP book/website tomorrow after church to figure out which goals I want to work on, I know that reading The Book of Mormon counts for the Virtue project) but do it at the pace that fits my current stage in life better

Well... 

1. I did read The Book of Mormon! I read it once on my own, but Chris and I also read it together this year. So technically, I did this one twice!

2. Emma's quiet book hasn't been touched too much. I do have a few more pages done now than I did earlier this year. A few months ago I decided I wanted to have it done for Emma for Christmas. That isn't happening because I picked two other homemade gifts for her and this one got set aside. This is a goal for 2015 now.

3. I think I have something like 17 or 18 File Folder Games made. They're at the top of my closet most of the time, but they do get used! I'm part of a babysitting co-op and some of the other kids that are part of it are a little older and love the file folder games! I'm glad I have them done even though Emma doesn't get to use them yet. Although... she may be ready for some of them!

4. Oh man. I've read a ton of books this year. My goodreads account says I've read 56 books this year, and I know there are a few I've read that aren't on there. Back in August a lady I visit teach gave me a list of 100 childrens books that everyone should read. It contained several series (with a series only counting as one book). I've since read the first 19 Boxcar Children books! I also have discovered a love for audiobooks since that means I can do dishes/laundry/clean my house AND read a book at the same time!

5. We are the regulars at our storytime! We missed a few weeks recently because Emma was sick/we had family in town for Thanksgiving, but it was great to be back there today! We love our little library for Story Time! Miss Sandy is the best storytime lady!

6. Yeah... didn't happen. Or anywhere close to it. That's one of my big 2015 goals. To be healthier.

7. We read lots of books each day. In the car I even recite books to her to keep her from screaming. We love books!

8. Sewing projects! I've done bean bags, hooded towels, hemmed some pants, i-spy bags, the alphabet magnets I'm making for Christmas (although that project is not done!), and done some work on her quiet book that required sewing. I feel like I've done some more projects too, but I don't remember. I think I can say I've done 5 though!

9. I've done a lot better at visiting my ladies! One didn't want visits so we just mailed her stuff or dropped it at her front door, but otherwise I've been mostly good. It will be easier now I think since they changed my route again and I've only got two sisters (for now at least) and they both are awesome about having us visit them! One of them even takes an afternoon off of work each month to come visit with us. She misses her grandkids and loves to play with our kiddos!

10. I kinda forgot about this whole personal progress challenge. The RS president challenged us a year ago, and I know I was better about it at the beginning of the year. Reading The Book of Mormon was part of the challenge though, so I can definitely say I did that part.

Wow, not too bad considering I didn't see this list of goals very often. 

Keep an eye out for my 2015 goals in a few weeks. I'm trying to really figure out what I want to do and think this through a lot more than last years!

Happy!

Here are a few recent pictures of things that make me happy!

I hate when my email inbox has any emails in it. I really try to keep it down to zero or as close to zero as possible. When I get an email from a company/website that I don't really want anymore I make sure to go unsubscribe to keep stuff from coming into my inbox at all! Since this picture was taken I actually have received an email that is still in there --it is an Amazon gift card that I don't want to redeem until I'm done buying Christmas gifts. I don't want that email to get lost!

For Thanksgiving we had Chris' little brother in town to visit. Emma was excited to have somebody in the back seat with her. He took this picture of her being super silly. I think it's a cute cheesy face!

During Jeremiah's visit Emma really wanted to sit at the table not in her high chair. She ended up sitting in the empty seat we had at the table, but then was too short and couldn't be strapped in. On Thanksgiving day (I think?) I ordered a booster seat off Amazon and she was SO excited when it got delivered on Saturday. As soon as it got here (around 10:00am) I pulled it out of the box and started adjusting the buckles. She stood right next to me so excited the whole time. As soon as I was done she wanted to sit in it, so here she is, still in her pjs, trying out her booster seat for the first time. She was SO happy. She still is LOVING her new seat. Since I took this picture i took the time to deep clean her old high chair, took pictures of it so I could post it on Craigslist/some Facebook buy/sell/trade groups, and then put it away in a closet so it isn't in the way. It is so nice to have that space back! Wish we had gotten her the booster seat a long time ago (or maybe even instead of her other high chair. The booster seat came with a tray.)!!!