2021 Goals

So last year was a bit of a wash. It kind of effected my goal making motivation, however I won't give up on at least setting goals I have for the year so here we go:

• Read more: I have so many books I need to read and I feel like I can accomplish reading most of them this year!
• Work on my posture: I work from a bed now and I'm ALWAYS hunched over and I feel it every night. I need to straighten out more and be a better example for my kiddos.
• Get pregnant! This one is silly to make a goal, but it's most likely our final baby and I REALLY want to aim to be pregnant by April (obviously hard to control, but fingers crossed)
• Learn more about Football: I didn't do this at all last year and it feels like a pretty easy one
• Take vacations again! We didn't get to last year so I want to get out and travel again this year...I hope hope hope it's possible!
• Do more "Zero Waste": this is a big one! We need to do better for the planet and I have quite a few things I know I can easily do to feel better about this one!

So those are my goals. It's not a whole lot, but hopefully I can get them done this year!

Ringing in a New (Hopefully Better) Year!

This New Year's Eve/Day was one of the best ones we've had! I always love doing game nights and just letting people around us know in case they want to come. Normally it's just Andy and Rachel, but this year Tori, Edward, and Lilly came over as well. We made sure to get a lot of pizza, some sparkling cider, and root beers and lots of games. I also cleaned out all bedrooms and told Larry we may be couchin' in so that the couples could stay over if they felt like it. Andy and Rachel decided they'd go home after the ball drop, but Tori and Edward stayed over. 

Happy New Years Baby!

We had so much fun playing all the games (my favorite is always Scattergories). We had the ball drop playing in the background, which is always fun for me. I like peeking at the performances every once in a while, and then watching the countdown as we get closer to midnight. This year it felt like Midnight hit so quickly, we were having so much fun, time literally flew away from us haha.

After the ball drop and new year's kisses, we finished our game we were playing, and then said goodbye to Andy and Rachel. Since the rest of us had little kids, we decided it would be good to head to bed for the rest of us too. 

Today I've had fun just recovering from the late night (which really hasn't been too bad), but I also got to do my first puzzle of the year. I'm hoping to find more time for puzzles, so it was nice to start AND finish my first one already this year!

So, while the day has been low key, the night was a great party for us. I love game nights and I love finding couples that also love game nights. While last year wasn't TERRIBLE, I'm still hoping this next year will be better for us!

2020 In Review

January

This month we rang in the new year with a movie and games. Always a fun time! We took the girls to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden. It was a nice way to spend a cold afternoon. I figured out what to do with duplicate gifts from Wal Mart that makes it fun for the kids! And we found out that our 3rd baby is going to be another little girl!

February

While February is never a busy month for us, I had fun celebrating Valentine's Day and Leap Day. Both days were filled with fun memories!

March

March is also a pretty slow month, historically, for us. The biggest, noteworthy moment this year was finally learning how to make an omelet. I've done it a few more times throughout the year and I'm really getting into my groove with it. The hardest part is what to do with the extra veggies and meats. 

April

April was our first full month being in quarantine. It wasn't easy at first, but we figured out how to keep sane after a bit. We had a lot of fun celebrating Easter (the girls got to color eggs for the first time, on their own). And I also found alternatives to a balloon release to "celebrate" Earth Day. 

May

In May, we celebrated Cara's 3rd birthday (I can't believe my first baby is getting SO big!). Also, my nesting and purging bug hit for this new baby. Just getting things ready for our last month as just a family of 4 was happening a lot this month.

June

We enjoyed the beginning of our summer (the warm weather made being stuck inside MUCH easier...we could finally play in our yard!!). We spent the first week just getting everything ready for our newest baby (including a new car!!). We welcomed our little Lucy, such a happy day (and very quick and painful labor experience!!). Also, I didn't blog about it, Larry got his PRK done this month (just in time for his birthday). I know it was a difficult time for us to have him down and out, but we're all glad he got it done.

July

We celebrated the 4th of July. It wasn't as exciting as I had hoped with a very clingy newborn, but we still had fun. And I got a shot of my 3 kids in the same milk belly shirt. I love how similar they all look and how cute they are as little babies! 

August

August I got to try out physical therapy to help my DR with my abs. Even though I wasn't able to stay with it, I learned a lot! We also had to stop nursing and switch to bottles with Lucy. While nursing was way more convenient, it was nice to have her learn to nap without nursing and to have a bit more free time.

September

September brought my return to work, which wasn't as hard since I am still working from home. That's been an interesting transition. I also created a fun bucket list to do for the fall. I'm happy to say we did quite a bit of them too!

October

Lucy got bigger and cuter this month. My mom came out for a Fall visit. We did a lot of fun things and were REALLY sad to see her go. And we had a lot of fun celebrating Halloween (the girls' first time trick-or-treating and I wasn't going to let any stupid virus mess that up!)

November

We celebrated Gwen turning a whole 2 years old this month and took her (and Cara) out for the first time bowling. She's just growing and growing and getting smarter every single day. She's so funny and cute! I just love her so much. We also celebrated Thanksgiving with Marie and a fun matchy moment with my mom!

December 

This month I got to take Cara to her first movie (Croods 2) and she did SO great and we had so much fun. I look so forward to more of these in the future!! We also went to see Santa with the girls (see pic on this post). I really enjoyed turning 33 this year! We celebrated the most fun Christmas with the kids!! (even if I was a bit reluctant about it). And we did a goal recap (which I did okay on...could've done better though)

Even though being in quarantine for most of the year and having to deal with virus restrictions was hard (and I definitely didn't get to have the fun summer/maternity leave I expected) I gotta say this year wasn't nearly as hard for us as it was for others. I am very excited to see how next year goes! 

2020 Goals - How did I do?

My check-in for my 2020 goals:

• Perfect doing a French braid. I wish I had a better update on this one. I originally wanted to accomplish this one before Lucy was born so that I could do that to my hair when I went in to have her. I practiced a lot, but just couldn't figure out how to do it well enough to leave the house feeling like I looked good. I'm sure I could practice this more and get there, but it'll take quite a bit of work.
  
  
• Learn how to make an omelet. Check! This one I actually figured out the first time I did it. I'm not successful EVERY time, but I understand it and I'm very happy with how I do it.
  
  
• Start and keep to a skin care routine. So my skin isn't as great as my babies (obviously...hello 30 years of sun damage is probably not completely reversible). However, I have done GREAT with doing masks a few times a week and washing my face basically every night. I also make sure to lotion up my feet each night to keep them soft and smooth. I'm pretty proud of my work on this one. This one is already part of my routine so the goal kept with me.
  
  
• Read more. Hahaha I did read more, but definitely DEFINITELY didn't get all my magazines read...I honestly don't know why I keep getting them. But I did get SOME read and one or two of my books. I think this will be a "to be continued" goal for me.
  
  
• Learn more about football. Yeah...I didn't really do this like I had hoped. I learned more through watching and asking Larry about it, but I still don't understand more of it than I used to. This one might be on next year's goals.
  
  
• Work more on the house. So I started this one and got a lot of organizers for the pantry and got the kitchen cleaned out...and then I ran out of extra money and realized this one will be a slower goal to accomplish. I hate that, but I'm glad with what I got done in the pantry.
  .
  
• Stick to weekly plan. This is 50/50. I did great on weekly planning during the week, but weekends are still a little up in the air.
  

I obviously didn't stay on top of the blog (I typed posts up, but actually posting them always takes me so long. So sorry about that. I didn't do the greatest with complimenting strangers, but that was mostly due to not seeing strangers as much this year. We didn't do any sort of vacation and our one we were planning for February probably isn't going to happen. I had a lot of ambitions for this year and then everything happened and threw everyone off of what they were expecting. While there is a bit of a sadness with that, at least most of my goals could be accomplished at home without needing to be out and about, so that's at least good haha.

I feel like I might need a do over for the year though...anyone else?

Christmas 2020

Christmas was a great one, again, this year. We had a lot of fun for the whole month. We did the reindeer handprint craft I got at the Vintage Market Days back in October:

We got our picture with Santa (one of my favorites as it really represents this year very well):

I had fun wrapping at night while watching my favorite Christmas movies:

This is more winter, than Christmas, but I've enjoyed a LOT of the hot cocoa in cute mugs we were gifted in years past (because if there's one thing I miss from being in office, it's the free hot chocolate):

The girls got to do winter/Christmas crafts (including one with their Grandma Taylor):

We got some "ugly" sweaters for a fun Christmas Eve picture:

Then we had Christmas day gift opening:

This took ALL day long to do. I thought for sure it was going to end up an all-weekend activity. I think we got the girls way too much and have plans to scale back next year. I think it was just too much for them and became overwhelming. I personally prefer not to have TONS of gifts so that the girls really learn the meaning of Christmas rather than just waiting for the presents. 

Either way, we had a most magical and awesome Christmas. The girls are happy, mom is mostly happy, and dad is wanting to clean up haha. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and now to get ready for New Year's Eve!