2016 Goals

About 6 months ago, we started watching Music and the Spoken Word on Sundays. It quickly became something we all looked forward to. Blake and Evelyn call it the "waterfall show" because often they have video clips of nature and waterfalls during the songs. I do love the music, but I love the inspirational messages. 

The message from December really hit home for both Brandon and I and inspired our 2016 goals. Here's the message: 

“It is not enough to be (busy),” wrote Henry David Thoreau. “So are the ants.” He then poses the question, “What are you (busy) about?”

We live in a world that frequently confuses busyness with importance. Thoreau’s words are a good reminder that just because something “takes some doing,” that doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.

The start of a new year is a good time to reflect for a moment on what we’re doing. Some of us may find that we are caught in the thick of thin things, spending our time chasing goals that aren’t really all that important in the long run. Others of us might be engaged in so many worthwhile causes that we are unable to truly give our best to any of them.

Time is such a precious commodity, and it can be tempting to approach all of our daily allotment of 24 hours at full speed, trying to squeeze out every ounce of productivity. But sometimes the best use of our day is to slow down, listen to a loved one who needs us, and enjoy some of life’s lighter moments.

For one hard worker, vacations and holidays seemed such a waste of valuable, productive time. He rarely took time off, constantly climbing the corporate ladder without really pondering what he would find at the top of that ladder. He prided himself on his busyness; he was always productive, always going and doing, and people around him soon got the impression that he was too busy for them. And then the time came, as it does for everyone, when his time ran out. All he could think of were his regrets and missed opportunities. It’s not that his life was bad or all his efforts wrong; it’s just that he could have balanced his priorities better and focused more intentionally on things of lasting value. Perhaps we all could.

Life is a balancing act, and priorities change throughout life. But regardless of our stage of life, it’s never too early or too late to ask ourselves, "What are we busy about?"

...

We like being busy. We love learning new things and working on projects. But we don't just want to be busy like ants!

So in 2016, we've been focusing on SIMPLICITY & SPIRITUALITY. We are trying to be more deliberate in what we choose to be busy about. We are going to simplify in all areas of our life: the stuff we keep around, how we organize and run our household, how we spend our time. And by simplifying, we hope we will make more room for spirituality and things that matter most. 

I know we won't be perfect overnight. In fact, we are just a month in and we've already found ourselves slipping into old habits. Simplifying and being more spiritual will take time and we will mess up. Habits are hard to change. But I know Heavenly Father will help us as we continue to TRY. 

14 Parks in 2014

We did it! We accomplished our goal of visiting 14 Parks as a family in 2014. We made it to even a few extras! It was a fun excuse to get outside and explore our neighborhood and also the places we were visiting. My favorite part is seeing how much Blake and Evelyn changed throughout the year.

an impromptu pie party

We never got around to making an apple pie for the 4th of July, so Labor Day it was! We made a mess. We made memories. But we made an apple pie nonetheless. And it was yummy. We used this Apple Crumb recipe and I'll tell you what. We've found a winner of a crust. I'll never go back.

Our neighbors were outside that evening and claimed they could smell it all the way from their house. So we couldn't not invite them over! It was a great way to end our Labor Day.

To see a video of what Blake did with the extra pie crust, head over to So Festive!

the midnight 10k

Last night we did a Midnight 10k for our date. Really romantic, huh?

I made a goal a while ago to run a 10k in under an hour. It seems like if I don't set a goal for a race, then I have a much harder time making exercise a priority. I printed off a schedule and hung it up in the kitchen so I would be reminded to take time to take care of me. I did pretty good with the training, although towards the end I got really busy.

We had really low expectations and told ourselves that we should just have fun, even if that meant stop and walk.

Before - look at that moon! Beautiful!

The race went so well! I felt so strong and because of my pump up music, I felt like I was having a party. I was loving life. This was the first race in a while that I felt like that. Brandon stayed right along with me, despite 0 training on his part. Stinker. And then he went on ahead for the last .8 mile. 

When I crossed the finish line, the clock said 1:25:30. Man, I was bummed. I knew I could not have gone any faster,  but felt like I had run much faster than that. 

After we got some water, we went over to pick up our time cards and we were SHOCKED! The time across the finish was wrong. We had both come in under an hour. Our times were 55:16.2 for B and 55:56.5 for me. I cannot tell you happy I felt that I accomplished my goal. 

And then it just got better. We were 2nd in our age group. Granted, it was not a HUGE race, but there were at least 150 runners in the 10k, so we were pretty happy! I'm definitely doing another night again. 

After

^2nd in my age group, 12th overall for Womens

^Here's Brandon getting his medal. I got one too, but the other winners had left so I was the only one on the podium. 

^ We relished in the moment because it will probably be the only time we both place 2nd in race. 

prepared, not scared

Our stake has been emphasizing preparedness this year. I've had multiple quiet promptings the last few months to get prepared. I've been slowing stocking up on water and extra food storage, but haven't done much more than that.

With the recent earthquake that happened near us in Centerville, it was another prompting to get into gear. The day after, I went to the store and got all the stuff we needed for 72-hour food kits. I adjusted the menu to make it a bit more healthy and things that we would eat. (As in no spam!)

I would still like to find better containers to fit it all in and I need to keep working on the rest of our 72-hour kits, but at least it's a start. I'm feeling much better. And much more prepared.

Here's the menu:
(I may add in some oatmeal packets and switch out other things, but I went for sale items. I figure we'll be rotating these every 6 months or so I can watch for good deals)

Day 1:
Breakfast: Hot chocolate + Raisins + Protein Bar
Lunch: Applesauce + Ramen + Capri Sun
Dinner: PB crackers + V8 juice + fruit roll-up
Snack: raisins + protein bar

Day 2:
Breakfast: Hot chocolate + protein bar
Lunch: Ramen + raisins + fruit roll up
Dinner: Chili + Capri Sun
Snack: applesauce + V8

Day 3:
Breakfast: Hot chocolate + protein bar
Lunch: Ramen + fruit roll up
Dinner: Canned turkey + capri sun + raisins
Snack: applesauce, raisin + cookie and nutella packets

GOAL:: 9

My goal last week was simple: Put God first. One of my favorite quotes paraphrased is : "When we put God first, all other things will fall into their proper place or fall our of lives completely."  I want to continue on with this, but I did notice that lots of trivial things that I would have stressed to get done fell by the way side and it was just okay. I loved the feeling of just focusing on what was really important.

GOAL:: 8

Foreword: I'm an Excel girl at heart. We budget in Excel. I keep track of health and medical records in Excel. Basically any sort of list, I keep in Excel.

Now on to goal 8. I've had a long-standing problem(we are talking years) of trying to figure out a good way to meal plan, make grocery lists, etc etc etc. Nothing has worked, at least long term. Now with a very active little boy and less time on my hands, I knew I needed to figure out a good system to get me organized. Because I hate stressing every night about what to make for dinner and then finding out we have no ingredients to make that. I knew there had to be a simpler way to doing this.

I used to coupon shop and then create meals off of those ingredients. But since we've been trying to eat a lot healthier (including more produce and whole foods), there just aren't many coupons out there for those sort of things.

I have tried the plan-meals-for-a-week thing, but more often than not, I'm not ever in the mood for the meals I've planned on my schedule. Plus, it isn't as cost effective to do it that way.

I'm not sure where I heard of this idea, but it spoke to me. Cheesy as it sounds, it's true. It spoke to me because it uses Excel (my favorite!) to do the very thing that has been a daunting task for me ever since we got married.

It's been in the works for a long time, but goal 8 was to get it finalized and print it off so I could actually use it.

This is what I did:
-I created a separate sheet in Excel for each type of meal. For example, I have a sheet for breakfast, pasta, soups, salads, sandwiches, rice, mexican, and misc.
-In the first column going down, I listed all of our favorite meals that fit within that category.
-In the columns going across the page, I listed every single ingredient that each recipe calls for.
-Then I put an X where the ingredient intersects with the meal.
So this is what our soup sheet looks like:

-I went one step further and categorized all the ingredients into sections at the store, so it's quicker to add them our shopping cart.
-And I added an X if it's a crockpot meal.
-I printed each sheet off and put it in a page protector and then in a little folder. It's small enough to take with me to the store or to pull out when I meal plan.

Why I love this:
-As I'm looking through ads, if there is a certain main ingredient on sale, I can look through the meal sheets and plan to have those meals that call for that ingredient over the next few weeks. Like there are a few meals we like that call for cream cheese. So, if cream cheese is on sale, we will have the meals that call for cream cheese.
-I can stock up on ingredients that I know we use in a lot of our meals such as canned tomatoes, black beans, grains, or certain types of produce when they are on sale.
-I can pick a few meals from each sheet based on what ingredients are on sale. I won't plan specific nights to have them, but just know that I have ingredients for those meals when we feel like it.
-It will make grocery shopping much more efficient. I will know exactly what to buy and then have ingredients to actually make meals out of it.
-If I'm at the store and there is a crazy good deal on something, I'll pick it up and then can use the sheets to find out which meal that could be used for because I can search by ingredient.
-If we have a bunch of leftover ingredients in the fridge, I can just look up which meals that ingredient can be used for.
-These lists contain all of our tried and true favorite meals, but there is always room to add more or we can still try new meals here and there.

Sure it was a lot of work doing this, but I'm hoping it will save me stress and time in the long run.

Am I crazy? I don't know. We'll see if this actually works, but in theory, it sounds like it will. All I know is that my goal was to get the sheets done and now I just have to put it into practice. I'll keep you posted!

GOAL:: 6 +7

Yay! I finished a big project that has been hanging over my head: Blake's baby book. I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I kept going back and forth between a digital picture book (they are so nice and have so many options for picture layouts, etc) and actually printing out pictures. The real pictures won out at least this time around. I kept stressing that whatever I do for Blake I'll have to do for the rest of my children, but then I realized that times change and I can do whatever is best at that moment.

My reasoning for the real photos was because I already print this blog every year and we keep a separate journal just for Blake, so I liked the idea of having a real photo book to look through. I was also able to include his ultrasound photos and hospital bracelets in this book, that I couldn't have put into a digital one. I split up his pictures by month and included a month card with handwritten notes of highlights from that month.

I'm so happy with how it turned out. And there is still space in the back that I can add more photos as I print them. This was my gift to him for his 1st birthday. I hope he appreciates it someday.

GOAL:: 5

I knew this week was going to be super busy trying to get ready for our trip to Arizona, so I let myself off the hook this week. The only goal I had was to get ready to vacation! And I've learned that it is takes a lot more time and effort with a baby, but not enough to stop us.

GOAL::4

I cried the day I put the baby clothes away. Maybe not really, but perhaps the sentimental side of me was what was preventing me from doing it. I mean, the pile has been collecting on the floor for months now. So I knew what goal 4 had to be. Bite the bullet and just do it.

Thanks to Andrea sharing a recipe to get all those yellow baby stains out, the baby clothes are not only put away, but are stain-free now too.  I can thank Blake, too. He kept me motivated by providing the entertainment like trying to open the ribbon container and pulling out all my folded clothes. It was a team effort.

GOAL:: 3

In additional to going to bed by 11, Goal 3 was going to the gym at least 2x this week. I don't think it's coincidence that right after I made my goal for the week I was flipping through this month's ensign and there was an article titled Excercise: The Mom Prescription. I couldn't agree with it more. In an ironic sort of way, exercise actually gives us more energy. I haven't made it a priority the last few months and I could tell that I was more exhausted than I usually am.

I was hoping to go more, but I went 2 times. And that's okay because something is better than nothing. I could tell a difference that it made along with going to bed at 11 most nights. And I know if I stick with it, it will be a habit that is hard to break.

GOAL:: 2

Early to bed, early to rise. The first part of that phrase was my goal #2. I wish I could report that I nailed it, but that would be a lie. The majority of the nights this week found me up working on things late. And it wasn't even like I had to stay up.  Add in Blake waking up at 4 am on the dot, and well, let's just say it took it's toll on me and left me dragging.

I'm going to extend this goal for another week, in addition to adding another one. To a better week of going to bed earlier so I have more energy for this busy little boy!

GOAL:: 1

For resolutions this year, I resolved to try something new when it came to goal-setting. I often get overwhelmed with a whole list of goals for the year. It's like I'm really good for the first few weeks and then my resolutions fade just as a pan of Christmas fudge gets slivered away until its all gone.

So I'm trying something new. I'm picking one thing I want to work/focus on each week. I write it up on the bathroom mirror to remind me of what I want to accomplish that week. I have no set criteria for what goals I have, just whatever I feel like I could work on.

I'm hoping that by documenting them here, it will keep me accountable. And it will be fun to look back and see what new things I've tried/mastered/or improved upon.

Last Saturday, I set the first one since it was the first full week.

No. 1:: No sweets . It felt good going a week without sugar after all the goodies and junk food we ate over the holiday.

we ran a race in rexburg

Blake had his first road trip over the weekend to Rexburg, Idaho! That's a pretty exciting first road trip, I'd say. The main reason for going was to run the Teton Dam 10k with Kristin and Blaine. We had intentions of running with the little boys, but the wind was so strong, we left them home. So, Blake had first babysitter.  Other highlights included: staying up late chatting and playing games, thrift shopping, and taking a trip to G's Dairy.

 

the start of love week

I have been inspired from this blog and this one who do love week each year before Valentine's Day and I think it is such a great idea. I figured I would try it out this year so we can share some of the things we have loved lately. Plus this may be the only festive thing we do this year if the baby decides to come before V-day.

First up: We love turkey sandwiches!

We've been working hard to finish our baby bucket list and cooking a turkey was on it.

We finally we did it (and by we I mean Brandon) and have been loving all the turkey sandwiches from it!

a 2011 goal complete.

One of my goals last year was to "cook more". I know, it's such a vague goal. 

But to document my progress, I recorded some of the best new recipes onto a blog.

You can tell when I wasn't feeling well from the pregnancy or that work was super busy 

by the lack of posts in some of the months.

Poor Brandon had to eat a lot of cereal and pancakes during those times.

But once I felt good again, I loved to experiment with  new recipes 

and try to cook up new culinary masterpieces. 

I really do love cooking and I hope to do even more this year!

If you want some of the recipes, visit the blog sundaybestrecipes.blogspot.com

 And thanks to some of you who shared recipes with me!

Coach Sunday

Brandon has always wanted to coach soccer. His best friend Tadd asked him to coach with him and there was no turning that down! They coach 12-year old boys. It's fun to see him in action--even if their team doesn't win every game.

#4

Last year on my 25th birthday, I made a list of 25 ambitions I want to accomplish before my life is over. (I'm pretty sure my list will continue to evolve and grow over time, but it is fun to dream and hopefully make a reality all the things I want out of life.)

On Saturday, I completed #4-Finish a triathlon. I competed in the Women of Steel Triathlon. It was a 300m swim, 12.4 mile bike ride, and 3 mile run. Just for women.

All I can say is how much fun I had! I don't think this will be the last one I do. Brandon was a great cheerleader and photographer! I couldn't have done this without his support throughout the training and race. And if you care to see pictures, here they are.

waiting to start

the swim went much better than I planned. i ended up passing 4 people!

it felt great to get that swim cap off!

grabbing my bike

and here we go!

do I look a little serious or what?

 

coming down the home stretch with a finish time of 1 hour, 23 minutes!

yay! I did it.

it felt very official with the body marking...

a huge inspiration behind this race...my friend Marcelle

the world's best husband!

And now, I can officially say I have competed in every type of race--marathon, half marathon, Ragnar, 10k, 5k, and triathlon. That makes me happy. I am so grateful I have been healthy enough to do all of them. And I'm grateful for the person I've become from making myself do hard things. It feels good.