A New Year

It is a New Year. Time for some changes around here! I have abandoned my blog in the past months, and my absence has coincided with my return to the work place in September. Not that any excuses would be good excuses, but time has just not been friendly to me lately. However, my dear husband has pointed out that blogging about our family should be a priority, particularly because he truly enjoys getting my posts! In all seriousness, one of my so called resolutions is to get back into this blog. It is a great way to share our family's news and pictures with our loved ones who are out of state and not close enough to see our little ones growing and changing. I expect all of you readers to hold me accountable!
This picture above was supposed to end up on our Christmas card, and we took it on Thanksgiving day. To most people, it is just a picture of a family ready for Christmas. But to me, it is an illustration of how life works. We had agreed as a family to get dressed up and take a picture that would end up on our card, which seems like a great idea. But when you have a three year old who does NOT want to dress up or stand still for the curling iron and a seventeen month old who is not happy to stand still for ANYTHING, getting it all together for a dressy picture can seem like a monumental task. Needless to say, we poked and prodded and primped and prepped everyone, only to have the picture turn out a little too fuzzy to be used for the card anyway. Sigh. Isn't that how life works? You can prepare and prep and be "ready" but somehow all of your preparations just fall short and life just happens in an unexpected way. But it always works out one way or another!
The beginning of a new year to me always has the feeling of a "clean slate." The kind of feeling I used to get at the start of a new semester. Clean binders, fresh paper, new pens and pencils, stiff textbooks (that I was definitely reading ALL of the way through this time, I swear!). I always felt like this was the time to improve, to get the straight A's, to start off strong and confident! Of course a few weeks into the semester I was using messy binders, had lost some pens, and the textbooks were still stiff. But my intentions were good! Well, this new year we are trying to accomplish some things that are better than "intentions." Here is a list of our resolutions (so to speak! we don't like to be too formal of course!):

-Eat healthy, wholesome, non-processed foods as much as possible (we have been working on this for a long time, and finally we are getting somewhere!)

-Eliminate "bad" sugars from our diets (we have been teaching Gracie about "good" and "bad" sugar and she is on a rampage to label all "bad" sugars; pretty cute most of the time, but it makes it hard for Daddy to sneak some candy!)

-Add daily exercise and activity to our routines (I have signed up for a half-marathon (yikes!) and have been training for a few weeks now...more to come on that as I am working towards that goal; Gracie has a new bike from Santa and is learning to ride! Keton just gives me dirty looks when I mention exercise, but we are getting there:) )

-Incorporate time with God each and everyday, including bible studies for the girls! (Could anything be more important than that?)

These are just a few things we are working on for this year, and I think it helps that we are able to work on these each day and we can make progress on a daily basis. That way nothing seems too far off, or too difficult. I am learning that it takes small steps and consistent effort to make progress. No overnight successes here! But little successes each day.

This New Years Eve we celebrated by staying home with our girls and squeezing in some quiet time for each other after they were tucked in for the night. We even stayed up until midnight, which is an accomplishment in itself for us! What better way to ring in the New Year than to spend it with the ones you love, and share a new year's kiss with your sweetheart? All while in your comfy pjs....
The start of this year could not have gone better for us, and we are looking forward to what it has to bring!
Happy New Year to you all, and may God bless you each and every day...