Welcome 2019

I love New Years! It so great to have something to look forward to right when all the Christmas hullabaloo abruptly stops on December 26th. I love our tradition of staying home together, playing games and eating chocolate covered strawberries. But before I go into that, here is my attempt at some remote control family photos while we were still in our Sunday Best. Edwin was not thrilled to be sitting with his family, he mostly wanted to parade around the room knocking the lights over. Anyway, moving on...

So after about 20 seconds of that, Edwin was set free and the boys spent a minute posing themselves and taking their own photo.

So it appears that Miles has really short legs here....

Alright, moving on again...New Year's Eve was spent grocery shopping doing work on the property and then going to a friend's birthday party. We lingered at the party for awhile then came home to enjoy our cheese fondue dinner. It was a hit with everyone! That's rare for dinner at our house! Also, this was a super fun meal to prepare because everyone had a role in its preparation and it came together beautifully!

During dinner we discussed some of our favorite memories from 2018. here are a couple each person chose: 

Charlie- Going to Build a bear and making gingerbread cookies, 

Miles- Getting chickens, gingerbread cookies, and hitting a raccoon with a log. 

Max- Yurt camping, and Utah trip. 

Rebecca- Getting chickens, Utah trip, yurt camping. 

After dinner we played Speak Out,  Spot it, and Memory with the boys. Then it was time to put Edwin down to sleep around 9ish. But they got a matchy matchy photo first.

 

We finished a couple games, then pulled out the Strawberries and chocolate

Right around 10pm we showed our boys a video of the New York City Ball drop, said Happy New Year and put them to bed so Max and I could have our home planning date.

We like to sit together and talk about what we accomplished over the last year, what we were hoping to accomplish, and what we'd like to accomplish in the coming year. It's calm and oddly romantic even though we plan together quite frequently!

Some of our previous goals and accomplishments from 2018 include

• Building a chicken coop and getting chickens
• Sold a house and another on the market
• Utah trip
• Miles 2-wheelin'
• Yurt Beach trip
• Installed new doors throughout the house
• Successful Garden
• Questival
• Planted fruit trees
• Successful deer hunt
• Quality time with each parent/child
• Improved temple attendance
• Simplified some obligations
• Major toy organization
• Swimming/Soccer/Gymnastics classes for the boys
• Improved Family Scripture study
• Improved Personal Scripture Study
• Caught up on blog (at least within a month ;)
• Beach trips, new cheese factory 
• family reunion camping
• ATVs at the ranch
• bottle feeding a calf
• got a trampoline
• Charlie lost his first tooth
• Fostered a pig

And here are some Goals for 2019

• Weekly planning/inventory
• Healthy weight and eating habits
•  25th fully rented
• Experiment with Charlie's attention issues
• Organize-Mail, garage, sheds, pantry (already done, woot!), kitchen cupboards and drawers, utility room cupboards
• Make a plentiful garden
• sell a couple batches of eggs
• Finish bathroom remodel
• Finish Deck repairs/painting
• Finish side yard landscaping
• One on one dates with our kids
• Swim/soccer/tumbling classes for boys
• 10 year anniversary trip!
• Quarterly temple attendance together
• a spontaneous camping trip
• Max to Nashville
• Rebecca to Utah
• review goals at least quarterly and make plan 
 

And we look forward to always making progress, that really is our ultimate goal, to just do a little better each year.