HAPPY NEW YEAR

Does anyone else make new years resolutions/goals?  Well, I do and I'm not afraid to admit it.  I love to make goals and see how much I can accomplish!  Most of all I love to draw a line through the ones that I have accomplished and look back on the ones that I can improve on.  So, last year I had quite a few new years goals and I am proud to say that I accomplished a good bit of them.  I'll share them with you and share with you whether or not I accomplished them or not. Then, I will share this years goals with you.

2015 New years resolutions:

1. Start going to the gym weekly - Since I was breast feeding for 9-10 months of this year this goal went down the drain pretty much.  I am not a huge water drinker so every time I would start working out my milk supply would drop and it just got frustrating so I pretty much knew this wasn't going to happen.  I at least wanted to put it on the list for good measure.  I did manage to get in the gym a good bit, but it definitely wasn't as much as I would have liked.

2. Be positive daily - I am not always wrapped in bubbles and painted with smiles. HA!  This is something I have been struggling with every since I had Carter.  I have not handled the stress of the extra kid very well.  It is something that I continue to work on daily and I am getting better.  I just wanted to find something positive to bring to the table everyday. I think I have done it,but it hasn't been in the way I had imagined when I made this goal.

Side note:  Have children is hard work.  Having children and living 2 hours away from family is even harder.  I can't just run my kids to my moms for an hour of cleaning, etc...  I'm not complaining, because we all know my plans was to have kids, etc,but I never expected it to be so hard!  Just say'n.  I love them so much and the good things definitely outweigh the bad, but I want to be real with you all and tell you that it's not easy and I am for the most part everyday a little overwhelmed.  I wouldn't change it, but it's just the way it is and I am learning to work with it.  They are small and require lots of love and energy so yes, some days I need a little positive things to look at...  Ok, I am done rambling about that.

3. Find a church to attend in Madison area - YES  WE DID! The way we found this church is something that I could have never orchestrated on my own in a million years and I know without a doubt this is where we are supposed to be at this point in our lives.  I love you Candace and I am so thankful you decided to talk to me at the beach!

4. Breastfeed until the summer at least - YES I DID and more!  This was a huge accomplishment for me.  I was so proud that I made it breastfeeding that long.  If I am honest with myself I was completely ready to stop by the end of summer for sure, but Carter was just not having it.  It took me forever to get him on a bottle and I think my breaking point was when we went camping and I had to nurse him all night pretty much every night so he wouldn't cry all night long and wake all the other campers up.  It was so frustrating and exhausting.  Even now I look back and think yes I did that, but if I ever have another child I am going to have a hard time doing it again.  Props to you all who have breastfeed multiple babies because breastfeeding the one for that long was exhausting.  (of course, if I ever have another child I will for multiple reason, but I may not enjoy it.  OR will I? Only time will tell and of course there has to be another child and who knows if that will happen)

5. Work on not being so negative - I think I accomplished this for the most part.  I always try to see the good in every situation.  I do know that I tend to overreact when something is happening, but I usually will go back and calm myself down and try to see the situation differently.

6. Spend more quality time with family - I think this was about 1/2 and 1/2.  I hate to say that because my family is pretty much the most important thing in my life and I should schedule time to spend with them above the rest.  I think we did well with spending quality time, etc with out extended family and family outside of our home.  We tend to travel to hb quite a bit to see our family.  I love doing that because growing up so close to everyone it gets really lonely not being able to see them as much.  However, because we do a lot of traveling and because of my school schedule I feel like our little bitty family (d, me and the boys) don't get as much quality time because of the constant going.

7.  Become a better sewer(is that even a word)  - Fail.  I can sew.  Don't get me wrong, but I want to be able to read patterns and make little rompers and john johns for carter.  I did make my sister 2 car seat covers for the boys and I think they turned out pretty good.

8.  Make new friends - YES!  Being so far from home and being the extravert that I am I tend to thrive off of friendships.  I love chatting and hanging out with my friends!  I love everything about it so I am always looking to form new friendships!  When Dustin and I first were married and I moved here I was so alone.  Yea, I was working and I had my work friends, but I didn't have those close personal friendships that I crave.  It has been so nice to meet many mom friends and even friends through church, etc.  If only we lived in the same neighborhood.  Huntsville is so big!  IT takes me 40 min to get to my BFF's house.  Not complaining because I'll gladly go anyday.  :)

9.  learn to let things go - I did about 50/50 on this.  This is my big problem area.  Maybe I'm not the only one who does it?  Surely!  Anyways, when I get irritated over something or something happens or whatever it may be.  I tend to fume about it for quite a bit.  IT doesn't even have to be something that is irritating or frustrating.  It can be a simple conversation. I tend to think about it over and over again and analyze it until I have worked myself in a frenzy thinking I said the wrong thing, etc.  If you do this, you know what I mean.

10.  Pass the math exam to skip the lower math - Well, I didn't take the math exam and I am glad that I didn't.  I spoke with an advisor at Athens who informed me they had a math I could take that would count for my finite math course and it only had a prerequisite of 1 college level math course(which I had).  So, yay!  I was so excited when she told me this, y'all.  you have no idea how stressed I have been over this math test! I haven't taken a math course since 2008!

11.  Start going on a date night with Dustin once a month - DIDN'T HAPPEN!  This is one that I am sad about.  I have got to find a babysitter for up here.  I did get to sneak in a few dates here and there, but we need a few more for sure.

12.  Clean up every night before bed - I started out good on this and then I just failed miserably.

13. Get out of the house more with the boys - YES

14. Spend quality time with each boy - NO and YES - By quality time I really meant to go with just me and one of the boys and do something that they wanted to do.  I did this one time with Dex.  Since I was breastfeeding I couldn't be gone very long 3-4 hr. tops.  and then when I was done breastfeeding it was close to the end of the year and that's when everything speeds up so I failed at this.  Sadly.  I of course got that quality time with Carter since he was attached to me for almost 10 months.

2016 goals:  For this year I wanted to keep it a little more simple.  I want to focus on my faith, family, health, home and school. Okay, maybe it's not that simple, but I feel like it is.

1. Grow in my relationship with God.

2.  Date night once a month with my husband and  boys ( each of them seperately) - this sounds like a lot of date nights, but really for the boys a date night might consist of us going to the park and playing together.  Just that quality bonding time is what I am looking for.

3. Quality family time - As much as I love going home I also have got to learn that we need that time also for our little family to grow and flurish at home.  So, we will be going home probably a lot, but I also don't want it to interfere with our time up here just being with US.  So much of our week is spent with working, taking care of kids, school work that on the weekends I would really like to just be with my family.

4. Become strong with fitness - I am starting a connect group at church.  It will be a fitness group, but the theme is MIND BODY AND SOUL.  I really hope someone signs up for it and I am really excited to give this a go.  Something that I has been stirring inside of me is to 1 become fit and just have more energy overall and 2 to transform my body mentally as well.  In this group I hope that we ladies can bond and just get whatever it is out there, share some scripture or anything uplifting and then work out and become strong physically.  I could go into depth more about this and my views on it, but for now it's pending and I hope someone signs up so we can go on this adventure together and I can make this vision a reality.  I may do a blog post on it later.  We will see.

5. Cleaning schedule - I need to get into a routine with this so bad!  I'll leave it at that.

6. Make all a's in my classes - This is a personal preference goal.  When I make A's I feel like I have done an excellent job and I feel like I am learning something.  So far I have been able to make all A's and I hope to continue to do that, but man is it hard finding the time to study with 2 kids! The struggle to spend time with my family vs. study really gets me here lately.

7.  Pay off my car and start saving for a new car - My car will be paid off here soon and our plan has always been to just put the money into savings afterwards to save up for if we ever have to buy another car we can pay cash for it.  We will see.  I do know that my car(which I LOVE) is running out of room to carry all of our stuff in when we go on the various trips throughout the year.  This past fall we had to buy a luggage bag for the roof.  It worked well, but I have been itching for extra room to carry more people since I do carry mom up to huntsville with me occasionally, etc.  We will see.  Dustin has informed me that it is not a good idea for us to get a 3rd row right now and I have went and test drove a 3rd row just to inform myself that yea, this isn't happening right now. haha. Dustin just doesn't know that my determination is always strong (or maybe he does and that is why he went with the right wording of he doesn't think it's a good idea instead of just a flat out no.. he appealed to the realistic side of me).  If I have to save up to buy one I'm going to do it.  Now, by the time I get that saved up I may not need or want a 3rd row or Dustin may want a different vehicle, etc.  BUT just know that for right now I want a 3rd row. :/  haha.

8.  Make Carter a blanket - I made Dexter a blanket and I want to make Carter one too. I don't even have a theme for his poor little room right now so I haven't decided what fabric I want.  I think I found some at JoAnn's a while back that I loved and was the same material as Dexter's.  However, that was back in October and I don't know if they would even still have it.  I need to go see soon.

9.  Learn a new talent - I want to learn something new this year that I can physically do. I got my flute out the other day and played.  First time I have played in a few years.  It felt amazing.  I would love to play again, but I just don't have the time to join the local band group that I played with for a few times before Dex was born.  So, if I can learn something that I can do while at home with the kids that would be great.

That is it for now.  I will occasionally go over my list and add new things, but these are the ones I have come up with for now.  I do want to start adding in Monthly goals for house works, home life, etc... but these are the overall 2016 goals.  I am sure this post is very badly grammatically written, but it is 1 a.m and I just don't feel like going back over it for errors.  If you see one or think oh, her writing is very flawed, please keep the opinions to yourself.  I don't write for you to point out my run on sentences, wrong commas, etc.  I write to share what's on my mind and I hope you enjoy. Most of all I hope you too can make some new years resolutions or goals. Even if you don't keep them just make a few and aim to keep them.  It's always worth the shot.  Who knows you may even surprise yourself and keep them all.

Enjoy!