Happy New Year!!

We had a great New Year's Eve.  Hopefully I will get around to doing a 2011 year in review post because I just love those posts!  But today I thought I would share our New Year's Eve and my New Year's resolutions. 

Let me just start by saying that New Year's Eve started with Matt letting me sleep in, him cooking breakfast, AND cleaning the kitchen afterward.  Ladies and Gents--he is amazing!  

For our New Year's Eve dinner we drove through and got Chinese for Matt and I and then cheese pizza for Lilly and Reid.  While the kids were napping I ran to Bliss Cupcake and got our favorite cupcakes from there.  We figured last day of the year...let's go all out!  (;  We came home and ate and everything was yummy!

Matt and I love to watch movies over the New Year's holiday...it is kind of becoming our tradition.  And we love it.  We wanted to take the kids to see a movie last night but there just really isn't anything out right now.  So, instead, we made a big pallet on the floor with lots of blankets and pillows and we watched Beauty and the Beast.  Out of our crew I was the only one that had watched this movie before!  Gasp!!  It is one of my favorites!!  Anyway, to our shock and delight, the kids watched the entire movie laying on the pallet.  I am still just giddy thinking about it!  The last 15 minutes Reid got up and jumped around on the pallet for a few minutes and then settled back down.  Still, it was pretty much awesome!  After we put the kids to bed Matt and I watched a couple more movies and we didn't end up going to sleep until 2 a.m.  I don't know how we did it or what we were thinking.  Ha!

Ah, now for the New Year's Resolutions!  Had I had time this week to write Testimony Tuesday I would have written about this.  Last year I made a couple of NYR (New Year's Resolutions) that as we got into the year I could tell were really things that God had laid on my heart and not things that I had really thought of on my own.  Since I found that the ones he laid on my heart were the ones that I stuck with and the ones that really changed me for the better, I decided this year I would ask him BEFORE the New Year what areas he would like me to grown in.  After asking him and praying about it I will share the ones that he revealed to me.  I will warn you...apparently, I have multiple areas to grow in.  (: 

1.  Be a better listener.  Yes, friends, I am aware that I talk way more than I listen.  I will go ahead and confess that I am an interrupter.  Please know that I am NEVER meaning to be rude...although I know sometimes it may come across that way or like I don't really care about what the other person is talking about.  Really, that is not true.  The reality is that if I don't say it when I think it, I will NOT remember it!  And, another reality is that I will be chanting it in my mind so that I won't forget it and therefore will not really be listening and so I will not even realize that I am interrupting.  Hang in there with me friends because I am working on it!!  So if I am quiet...know there is nothing wrong...I am just really going to be trying to develop my listening skills which may mean that I have to talk less. 

2.  Budget and Stick to It.  And the husband said Amen!  Ha!  Okay so this is one of the things that Lord has been consistently telling me is a "growth area"...and I have been consistently putting off.  You see, Matt and I are not "bad" with our money.  But the Lord has shown me that we are not being the BEST stewards of our money that we could be.  During the discipleship study there was a guest speaker from a financial planning company and he went over some budgeting sheets and information with us. Some of the "new things" he covered were to make goals for what you want to do (date night twice a month, a new piece of furniture, paying off debt, more charity, etc.) and then work them into your budget like they are a regular bill.  He also said when making your budget-in addition to your regular bills add your "once a year bill" (i.e. property tax)or every few month bills (i.e. oil change) and break them down into your monthly budget as well.  Then as our preacher talked one day he talked about how Rockefeller always tithed 10%, saved 10%, and lived off of 80% of his income.  So we combined all of that information, created our own goals, and made our entire budget for 2012.  Whew.  Now please pray with us that I can be focused!

3.  Be an Encourager.  I would LOVE to send every person in my address book random cards in the mail to encourage them.  Let me just go ahead and confess that this was one of my goals last year and I did it exactly ZERO times.  Fail!  So this year...I am going to try so hard to fit this in!!!  I send texts and some stuff like that but I would really like to make intentional encouraging a much bigger part of my life this year! 

And here are the spiritual growth goals.
1.  Move quiet time to first thing in the morning.  Oiy!  That one hurts to type.  I am not a morning person, friends.  I always do quiet time during the kids' nap time.  But lately we have been talking in church about giving God the FIRST of everything.  Including our day.  Also, if the kids nap at KDO they don't nap at home which means on those days it is a bit of a challenge to do my quiet time.  So with both of those in mind I am going to move my quiet time to the morning.  This will be a huge challenge for me because this will mean I have to get up even earlier than I already do so that I can do my quiet time AND be showered and ready for the day when they get up.  But I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13), right?  Right! 
2.  Fast regularly.    I would like to regularly fast this year so that I can intentionally sacrifice something for the purpose of seeking Him more. 
3.  Read the bible this year.  I am ALMOST done reading the bible through for the first time in my entire life.  I LOVE it. It has literally changed my life, how I live, and who I am as a person.  Our church is going to try and read the bible in one year together this year so I am going to try and do that with them too. 

And then, of course, like every other person making New Year's Resolutions I want to lose some weight and be more organized.  Organizationally speaking I have made great strides since last year and would like to keep on the same path.  I want to use a planner ALL YEAR long this year and keep up with it.  I am notorious for starting strong and then abandoning ship in, like, February.  I have already cleaned out and reorganized the kids' toys and playroom.  My next big project is to organize all of the "paper" in this house including a system that covers all of the new stuff the kids bring home or the mailman delivers.  I hope at the end of 2012 I can look back at this list and see that I have made improvements and grown in each of the above goals/resolutions! I hope you all had a Happy New Year and I would love to know what some of your resolutions are!

Oh, and PS, if you don't spend daily time with God in prayer and in His word, I encourage you to make that New Year's Resolution.  I promise if you are faithful to it--it will NOT be one you regret!  (: