2013 and Goal Setting

January is always a time for goal making and resolution setting. Dave and I are not really into the whole 'resolution' thing because it seems that we always set a 'resolution', but never stick to it. This year we decided to set easy to achieve goals that we know we can reach- together.  We have a lot of goals that we want to achieve this year, but the four that we are working on or have already accomplished this year are as follows:

Goal #1 Finances: One of the biggest, hardest, most life changing goals that we have set it to get completely out of debt. We have not always been very disciplined with where we spend our money and we have had quite a few tight months because of dumb spending spree's, but through trial and error we have found what works for us-- FINALLY.  We don't carry credit card debt (or credit cards at all- cut those darn things up peeps!), but we do have two loans that we are paying towards. 

It is amazing how much money we as a society 'borrow' from lenders. This is the debt that Dave and I want eliminated from our lives- forever. It isn't a lot to some people, but to us it is. That is precious money that Dave works hard for each month that goes directly toward something we don't own, yet.  We would love to have this money going toward our ultimate goal- a house. 

"How are you doing this?" You may ask. Well, we set a budget. It is as easy as that. We never had one before. When I say never, I mean NEVER.  We spent money because after all of our bills were paid we had funds left over tempting us (and boy did they tempt us).  It is amazing what having a budget does to your finances. THERE IS SO MUCH MONEY LEFT OVER TO PAY OFF DEBT!  Another thing that has helped is we started using cash to pay for groceries, gas and other needs. When the money is gone- it is gone until we get paid again. This makes our wants not seem so urgent. We plan our meals twice a month (two weeks of meal plans at a time) and only go shopping twice a month for groceries. We are very selective with what we buy from Costco, (because that wonderful store zapps funds really quickly!) we watch the ads and use coupons.  It is amazing how far you can stretch a dollar when you are paying with cash!

Goal #2 De-Binkifying Sweet P: This may seem like a silly goal to some people, but if you really understood how reliant our little girl was on this stupid piece of plastic for bed time and nap time- you would understand.
Amazingly, this was the easiest goal to accomplish and we did it the first week of January. YAY! One goal down.

Goal #3 Transitioning Sweet P to a big girl bed: So far this has been the hardest goal, but we are consistent and we know that in time this trial will pass and our little angel will once again sleep through the night and hopefully (for my sake) take a nap every once in a while or willingly play quietly in her room for an hour.  We are only on night four, but we are already seeing some improvement--- like, Miss P only screamed and cried and kicked her door for 20 minutes tonight before she fell asleep.  BIG improvement. BIG.  Here's to hoping she doesn't wake up between the hours of 1:30 and 3:00 tonight. That is not a habit I want to have continued...

I really dislike bedding that can't grow with children. I wanted something girlish for P that wasn't babyish and wasn't covered in Dora, peace signs or Strawberry Shortcake.  She and I went to Walmart and found this cute bedspread (I was going to make her a quilt, but ran out of time), which happened to match her green 'lele' (blanket) perfectly.  She was most excited about the soft purple pillow. She confessed her love to it all through the store, "I lob you too!"  We topped it all off with blue/teal sheets. I love it. I secretly wish that this was my bedspread... if only Dave would go for it.

Goal #4 Family Home Evening: I am sure any parent can tell you how difficult it is to have regular family home evenings with a toddler.  It can be a nightmare.  It is difficult to know what to teach and how to teach it as well, at least it is for me.  I have a very hard time simplifying gospel topics. I don't know why. I have always been a very information oriented person and I love every detail I can get on different topics, but to explain all the information in my head to a two year old is difficult. I freeze, shutdown and simply quite thinking clearly.

Dave and I tried using the Family Home Evening manual, but we didn't feel that each of the lessons fit what we needed to be teaching each week.  We came up with a plan that we started this month and hopefully it works.

Here it is:  We flipped through the Gospel Principles manual and found topics that would be easy to teach a child.  We chose eleven topics (since we started the first of February) and each month will be a different topic.  February we are focusing on Heavenly Father.  Each Monday night we learn/teach something different about Heavenly Father.  Some of the ideas we came up with and plan on teaching this month are; we are made in his image, Heavenly Father is loving and He wants us to return to him.

Last night we focused on how we are made in his image. 
The lesson went something like this and lasted about two minutes:
I talked about the First Vision with Joseph Smith.  I tried explaining that we know from this that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have a body of flesh and blood, just like us.  P preferred to dance during this so Dave helped out and had her focus on her reflection in the mirror. He pointed out that she shares the same shaped nose as he does.  He explained that she was made in his image and that because she is almost a spitting image of me when I was her age she was made in my image as well.  He explained that because we have bodies we are also made in Heavenly Fathers image.

I don't know that she really learned anything from it because she was so exhausted (big girl bed transition), which equals crazy P and her dance parties in front of her bedroom mirror.... but at least we had FHE.  She paid attention and did the actions when we sang Book of Mormon Stories, so that is a start.