Into the New Year and Decade

Happy New Year! ( A couple months ago!) I love New Years, On New Years Eve, Max had to work in the morning but came home just after lunch. I put the boys to work chopping up the Christmas tree and putting it in the yard debris bin. I honestly can't remember what we did when Max got home but when it was dinner time, we all worked together to make fondue. The last couple of years have been fun because each person has a job to help prepare. Charlie cut the apples, Miles cut the bread, Edwin may have set the table, I don't remember, and Max assisted the boys in their jobs. I'be also been getting better at my cheese fondue skills and it was a tasty dinner enjoyed by all....and let's be real, there are only a few dinners at our house that are enjoyed by all....)

we reviewed our favorite parts of the year and I can't remember what everyone said, because this was a long time ago. I know my personal favorite was Costa Rica and our beach trips and Lasik, Sometimes we go through our blog and review some of the things we did. I'm pretty sure my boys love our Fishermans' bend camping trip with cousins.

We then played our new game for awhile

Check out his eyebrow skills. 

we let the kids watch a movie for awhile while Max and I cleaned up the kitchen together and prepared the chocolate covered Strawberries. Then a dance party happened...including a disco ball!

And I had a video of the dance party and for some reason it isn't working and I don't see a need to prolong this post anymore so, I'm not going to worry about it.
Some good hard dancing led to chocolate covered strawberries

We showed our kids the ball drop in New York City shortly after 9pm, a perk of living on the west coast! The main thing my boys got from the ball drop is that some people kiss for a long time...haha. so I guess we don't do much PDA in front of our kids.

We then put our kids to bed by 10pm and Max and I finally got our home new years date. We love our New Years home date where we review our last year, definitely not original but we love it and feel grateful for the learning and growing experiences we have each year. Last year when we reviewed our year, we felt like we were at a road block, Max was not happy with his job in construction, our house flipping didn't go as well as hoped and we felt like there was so much unknown in our future and Max was looking for a new start with his career. This year, Max has been in a new job that he loves with new long term career goals that he is excited about. His employers and coworkers respect him and his skills, he is so much happier. Our boys have been growing and turning into little independent people. We're learning more about parenting and still strive to be better. Overall, we feel like we are in a better place than we were a year ago and that is all you can hope for, constant progress! Anyway, here are some accomplishments from 2019

• Max's beard won an award...(This is seriously the first thing he mentioned for his 2019 accomplishments)
• Career path chosen,
• one-on-one dates with kids
• Rafting and camping trips
• No debt
• Sold last flipped house
• Garage organization
• Woodworking projects
• Costa Rica Trip!!!
• Rebecca trip to Utah
• Max job at OHSU
• Selling eggs
• Charlie reading novels
• Consistent date nights
• Lasik for Rebecca
• Max got braces

I know there was more but that's what got on our list.

For some of our 2020 goals we wrote...Since it's been months, I'll check of the ones we've already accomplished.

• Max's sleep study✅
• Trip to Nashville
• Thorough budget
• Buy newer car ✅ (and still NO debt!✅)
• Apply to PA school
• Have boys run Egg business
• Boys do gymnastics ✅
• Boys do swimming
• Potty Train Edwin✅
• Quarterly temple dates
• Monthly Date nights ✅ So far so good
• All of 25th rented out
• Have a cute and tidy master bedroom
• Organization boxes for Kids' school stuff✅
• Kids run Chicken/egg business, learn financial skills

He have more on our personal lists as well but that's all I feel like sharing on the blog. 

We stayed up pretty late eating our strawberries and chatting and making plans.

They next morning kids came into our room too early and I found a million pictures on my phone like this...

Max had the day off so we decided to start on our list of goals. Beginning with car shopping. The car I had been using was an older car that Max got for super cheap at an auction 2 years ago. It had been such a good car that we made it last 2 years as opposed to the one year we had hoped. While using this old cheap car, we had been saving up and now that our boys are getting bigger and it's a struggle to have them all sit in the one row, we decided to finally look at mini vans. we actually had been looking for awhile before New Years but since Max had the day off he went and shopped around, and but the end of the day we were driving home in our new van, paid in full!

So much space!

Anyway, I know I missed a lot of details but we are very goal oriented people and it is so encouraging to see progress and growth in each year even if we can't see it in the day-to-day. Hooray for 2020 and a brand new decade full of new opportunities and growth!