New Year!

Happy New Year!! 2012 wow!

Since it's been a while since my last update...here are some exciting things from December.

First bit of excitement was Kitties. We finally got kitties!!! After a lot of begging and a hefty deposit I convinced the landlord to let us have kitties. Lilly has not put them down since we got them.

The next exciting thing was SANTA. He came and was very good to us. Kids had a blast and made out like bandits....I guess they were very good in 2011.

Looking ahead to the coming year I'm so excited for all that lay ahead. I think this year holds really great things for our family and our future. Here some of my goals for 2012...I'm ambitious what can I say.

1. Stick to our budget- This is a biggie! I usually have a budget, but somehow something comes up and I go over. This year I'm vowing to stick to my budget! We have some big financial goals in 2012 so this is a MUST. A couple ways I plan to do this is...write out my budget monthly, plan for birthdays/gifts/travel well in advance, eat at home 6 nights a week, Target trips once a Quarter...this one will be hard. Reaching our financial goals will not only feel GREAT, but we want to instill sound money principals to our kids.

2. Be more patient- I have a full time job, a husband and two young kids...patience is hard to find sometimes. Yet from my experience the calmer I am the calmer the kids are. 6 days in I'm doing good :) Let's talk again in February, HA

3. Spend more time with my hubby- I like him, but as a working family....time is limited. But this year I want to spend some quality time each week with my husband. Not as a mommy/daddy, but as husband/wife. Dinner, Movie...something that gets us out being adults.

4. Spend more time with myself- I like me too. And I think I'm a better mommy/wife when I feel balanced and centered. So my goal is to do Yoga 1x a week and find time to visit with friends at least 1x a month-so call me!

5. Simplify- Simple eating/simple living. I think this will help a lot with #4. I go crazy when there is too much stuff everywhere. And we have a lot of stuff. simplifying is important. Also eating clean, healthy food is a very big goal of mine this year. cutting out processed food is only going to help me feel better and help teach my kids about treating their bodies right. Living simply is a little harder, but less trips to Target will help.

As the kids get bigger and their activities get more and more setting goals is important. Self discipline is not really my thing, but writing it down helps as does putting it out in the world for all one of you to see.

Here's to a GREAT 2012!

One good thing....30 day challenge

Every now and again I get in a funk. I'm all moody and icky. I hate getting like that. Last year I was in a pretty long funk, just really couldn't find focus, felt overwhelmed all the time. As Jeff and I were talking about how to help me find balance and center....I came up with an idea (sometimes I have a good one)....I would buy a journal dedicated to good things. I've always wanted to be a journal everyday kind of person, but never really do unless I'm in a really dark place or just can't figure out my emotions on my own. This works for when I need an outlet, but what about everyday things....what about the awesome things that are all around me. So I decided to get a journal and everyday write one good thing that happened. Most days it was easy, some days it was...."I took a shower" but overall I felt this really helped me. It put my day into perspective and helped me end my day on a good note. It also really helped me during the day....I was constantly looking for what I would journal about and found many many things thru out the day.

Now I'm not in a particularly emotional place, I feel very satisfied and joyful....but as the holidays come and my job starts to pick up in responsibility I feel like I need to challenge myself. So for the next 30 days I will be writing everyday. I will write about the good things that happened (and hopefully not have to go over to my "darker" journal.)

I'll keep you posted :)

Cooking

Someday I hope to have more tabs...and have a full cooking one. Until then this will have to do. I LOVE cooking with my girl. She is a very patient helper and loves to cook. She likes to look thru cookbooks and pick new things to eat. This has helped with her picky pallet. The great part about all this is that she will only get better with age, she will get easier to work with and be able to do most by herself. Soon I wont have to do anything but sit on the couch and eat.

This weekend we made Beignets...Which are basically doughnuts. Our viewing of "Princess and the Frog" brought on the looking thru of the cookbook she got a couple years ago. Iit was super fun to watch her with the sticky dough, I love the textileness (yes I made that word up) of food. I'm just getting back into blogging so I didn't photograph as much as I should have, but enjoy the two I have. Both kids had fun putting the powdered sugar on and then licking their sugar fingers-and who am I kidding...I did too.

One before shot


YUMMMM