Family/Personal Goals

2014 Family/Personal Goals:

Family-   -Read scriptures every night

              -Family prayer in the morning

              -Kid dates

              -Read books at bedtime

Dad-

Mom- Read Book of Mormon, personal prayer, write letters, beat 1:49

Tallie- Make bed in the morning, 5K, personal prayer, sew clothes, personal scripture study, Memorize Articles of Faith

Chloe- Make bed in the morning, 5K, personal Prayer, go to primary

Lexi-Ride a bike with no training wheels, learn sight words

Kasen-

We finally got together for Family Home Evening and set our goals for the year. I think the ones we set for the family are great and very doable. Sometimes we are great at reading our scriptures and other times not. I'm hoping this year we stay strong! We had started to say family prayers in the morning a while back but for some reason it is so hard to remember in the chaos of the morning. We plan to set an alarm on Tjs phone before he leaves for work to remind us. I really feel that morning prayer is super important. My family always did it growing up and it helped me throughout my day. Like I started the day with a shield on. Kid dates can be hard but so rewarding and we all love it so we hope to do more this year. Lately I feel like the TV has become the before bedtime tool to calm down for the night but books are a better choice and it used to be that way for a long time...but sometimes its so easy to just turn on the TV. TJ has yet to write his goals down. Tallie and Chloe's goals are similar but its what they each really want to work on. Lexi has already got some words down and Tallie is constantly trying to teach her more and more. As for myself, I want to read the Book of Mormon and I'm hoping to do it twice. I want to be better at my own personal prayers at night and really take the time to talk to my Heavenly Father. I want so bad to beat my best half time of 1:49. I have been wanting for a while now, is to let people in my life who I am so blessed to know know just how much I love them. There are so many great people that I have come to know, either from being neighbors, family,or their hair stylist, working with them in callings in church, people from high school, college or hair school. There are so many people that I love and I want them to know. So I thought I would write a couple letters a month. Because who doesn't want to know they are awesome and that someone loves them? Comparing to last years goals I accomplished some but not all. I did read the BOM and for a short time I did only check FB once a day. I didn't beat my goal time but I did run a marathon in great time so I'm counting that. I did not bear my testimony in church but that WILL happen this year. I learned a lot this past year and I learned a lot about my self. For one I turned 30 last year and I LOVE IT! I guess I have always viewed my self really young who looked even younger and I just felt like people didn't take me seriously or that I wasn't a good mom. I felt like a kid having kids and I never really felt like a grownup. Once I hit 30 it all changed. I feel like what I should have been feeling like all along. Probley makes no sense but I just love where I am in life. I have learned that I LOVE TO RUN and move and be active and feel alive. It's not just exercise but a mood. Its not that I just need to get my exercise in for the day, any time of the day but I need it done in the morning. Early morning. When everyone else sleeps and I have time to myself before the world awakes. I need to wake up on my own terms and not because my children are dragging me out of bed. I need to be done with ME when my kids wake up so I can focus on THEM. And not just focus on them but to focus the better part of me on them which is what running does. I love my own mom for teaching me the importance of exercise and treating our bodies with care and taking time for ourselves. I watched her from the time I can remember, go running and walking in the morning, lifting weights in the living room, being on the Nordiflex (remember that?!). She always said take an hour for yourself. Exercise, eat right, get dressed and ready for the day, no matter if you plan on not leaving the house, and then spend the rest of the day serving others. I love my mom for those lessons she taught me. I also learned this year that I need to do whats best for my family. I spent most of the year being somewhat bitter towards my family and health and oils and nutrition and everything that goes with it, even the stuff I believed. I kind of just threw it all out the window and went the other direction. I didn't want to have anything to do with what has made my family fall apart, weaken or strain relationships. I was watching and I felt what it was doing to us all and I didn't want it and I definitely didn't want that for my own family. So I took the things I had learned and stopped it all. I have watched my family become obsessed, angry, bitter, negative, even Superior because of the knowledge they had. I couldn't stand it. There was no balance or tact or loving but be littering and frowning upon. But over thanksgiving something changed. My sister Tandy asked me if I was organic or not? I guess I was confusing her as to what I was when she saw me feeding Kasen an organic squeezable fruit thingy. Apparently she thought I was living on preservatives and toxins. With TJ listening in the background I said to her. I'm in the middle. I have many things in my home that are natural and free of dyes and organic. There are also many things that are not. I do not plan to go one way all or nothing. I started to think about how I was 2 years ago. I was cooking more from scratch with raw, fresh ingredients, I was using natural products and doing my liver cleanse and putting oils on my kids feet nightly. I was shopping at Sprouts every other week ( which ironically I spent LESS money there than Walmart). I was staying away from dyes and making snacks and Popsicles and a lot more. I kinda fell off the wagon this past year. It made me realize that I like to be healthy and teaching and feeding my kids that way.  I like doing the natural remedies and making things at home. And I had a good balance. I wasn't nazi and we still went out to eat and ate candy and bought junk food. I wasn't angry at the world or the government for everything in life. But I let that all go because I was scared of going overboard and tearing my own family apart.  But in doing so I let go of some things that I really believe in and that I want in my life and my families life. I learned that I need to do what is best for my family and what I want to do. I can't go in the other direction because someone else has gone too far. I love my grandma Betty Jo because she was natural too. I can remember the homemade remedies she would use on me when I got sick. I loved that about her. I love Jolene Benson who is the same. Who has 9 kids all birthed at home. I was lucky to work with her in the Relief Society Pres for about 3 years. She looks just like my mom and reminds me of her so much and she did things for her family that she felt were right, not because the were a fad or trend, not because they were floating around Pinterest for everyone to see. She did many things that she just felt were right and good because she had the inspiration of just being a mother. I came to love her and I look up to her and would love to be a mother like her. So in short (before this becomes the longest post EVER), I want to be a good mom and if I want my kids to remember me as their mom who was semi-natural/organic then I need to BE it. I need to not focus on others and who I don't want to be, but I need to look at my own family and do what works for us. So yes this year I will be incorporating some of the things I used to do.